BOOK I.

I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait.

I turned round, and asked him where his master was.

There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.

Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.

Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and your companion are already on your way to the city.

You are not far wrong, I said.

But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?

Of course.

And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are.

May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go?

But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.

Certainly not, replied Glaucon.

Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.

Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?

With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?

Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.

Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must.

Very good, I replied.

Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:--

You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us.

I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult. And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'—Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it?

I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is—I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,—are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on—Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.' And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself.

May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you?

Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received.

That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.

That is true, he said.

Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?—What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth?

One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age:

'Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;—hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.'

How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest.

Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it?—to speak the truth and to pay your debts—no more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition.

You are quite right, he replied.

But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice.

Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing.

I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company.

Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said.

To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices.

Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice?

He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right.

I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.

True.

Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return?

Certainly not.

When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case?

Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil.

You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,—that is what you would imagine him to say?

Yes.

And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?

To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him—that is to say, evil.

Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt.

That must have been his meaning, he said.

By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us?

He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies.

And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?

Seasoning to food.

And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?

If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies.

That is his meaning then?

I think so.

And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness?

The physician.

Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea?

The pilot.

And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend?

In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other.

But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician?

No.

And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot?

No.

Then in time of peace justice will be of no use?

I am very far from thinking so.

You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war?

Yes.

Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn?

Yes.

Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,—that is what you mean?

Yes.

And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace?

In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use.

And by contracts you mean partnerships?

Exactly.

But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts?

The skilful player.

And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder?

Quite the reverse.

Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man?

In a money partnership.

Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?

Certainly.

And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better?

True.

Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred?

When you want a deposit to be kept safely.

You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie?

Precisely.

That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless?

That is the inference.

And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state; but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser?

Clearly.

And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician?

Certainly.

And so of all other things;—justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful?

That is the inference.

Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow?

Certainly.

And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one?

True.

And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy?

Certainly.

Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?

That, I suppose, is to be inferred.

Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.

That is implied in the argument.

Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that

'He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.'

And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however 'for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,'—that was what you were saying?

No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words.

Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming?

Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.

Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?

That is true.

Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True.

And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good?

Clearly.

But the good are just and would not do an injustice?

True.

Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong?

Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral.

Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust?

I like that better.

But see the consequence:—Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides.

Very true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words 'friend' and 'enemy.'

What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked.

We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good.

And how is the error to be corrected?

We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.

You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?

Yes.

And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?

Yes, that appears to me to be the truth.

But ought the just to injure any one at all?

Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies.

When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated?

The latter.

Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?

Yes, of horses.

And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?

Of course.

And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man?

Certainly.

And that human virtue is justice?

To be sure.

Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust?

That is the result.

But can the musician by his art make men unmusical?

Certainly not.

Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen?

Impossible.

And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad?

Assuredly not.

Any more than heat can produce cold?

It cannot.

Or drought moisture?

Clearly not.

Nor can the good harm any one?

Impossible.

And the just is the good?

Certainly.

Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust?

I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates.

Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,—to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just.

I agree with you, said Polemarchus.

Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer?

I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said.

Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be?

Whose?

I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.'

Most true, he said.

Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered?

Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him.

He roared out to the whole company: What folly, Socrates, has taken possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer, and you should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy.

I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was therefore able to reply to him.

Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would not imagine that we were 'knocking under to one another,' and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us.

How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh;—that's your ironical style! Did I not foresee—have I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering?

You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,'—then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one?—is that your meaning?'—How would you answer him?

Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said.

Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not?

I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers?

I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them.

But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you?

Done to me!—as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise—that is what I deserve to have done to me.

What, and no payment! a pleasant notion!

I will pay when I have the money, I replied.

But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates.

Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does—refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else.

Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the speaker should be some one like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the company and of myself?

Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you.

That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have; and how ready I am to praise any one who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer well.

Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you won't.

Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just for us?

That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish that you would be a little clearer.

Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies?

Yes, I know.

And the government is the ruling power in each state?

Certainly.

And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.

Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to discover. But let me remark, that in defining justice you have yourself used the word 'interest' which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition the words 'of the stronger' are added.

A small addition, you must allow, he said.

Great or small, never mind about that: we must first enquire whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say 'of the stronger'; about this addition I am not so sure, and must therefore consider further.

Proceed.

I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers?

I do.

But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err?

To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err.

Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not?

True.

When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that?

Yes.

And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects,—and that is what you call justice?

Doubtless.

Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse?

What is that you are saying? he asked.

I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted?

Yes.

Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger?

Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus.

Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness.

But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice.

Yes, Polemarchus,—Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just.

Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger.

But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the stronger thought to be his interest,—this was what the weaker had to do; and this was affirmed by him to be justice.

Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus.

Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not?

Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken?

Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken.

You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is unerring, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for his own interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger.

Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an informer?

Certainly, he replied.

And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument?

Nay, he replied, 'suppose' is not the word—I know it; but you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail.

I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute—is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term?

In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never.

And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat, Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion.

Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed.

Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now speaking of the true physician.

A healer of the sick, he replied.

And the pilot—that is to say, the true pilot—is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor?

A captain of sailors.

The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors.

Very true, he said.

Now, I said, every art has an interest?

Certainly.

For which the art has to consider and provide?

Yes, that is the aim of art.

And the interest of any art is the perfection of it—this and nothing else?

What do you mean?

I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has wants, I should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers; and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right?

Quite right, he replied.

But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing—has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?—having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true—that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right.

Yes, clearly.

Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body?

True, he said.

Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art?

True, he said.

But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects?

To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance.

Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?

He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced.

Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker; that has been admitted?

Yes.

And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor?

That has been admitted.

And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest?

He gave a reluctant 'Yes.'

Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does.

When we had got to this point in the argument, and every one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said: Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse?

Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering?

Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.

What makes you say that? I replied.

Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable—that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace—they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest.

Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks! And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your eyes—to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage?

And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry?

You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus—whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice.

And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls?

Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banquetter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority.

Think! Nay, I am sure of it.

Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment, unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little progress.

Yes, that is the difference, he replied.

And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one—medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on?

Yes, he said.

And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you, that navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language?

Certainly not.

Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine?

I should not.

Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing?

Certainly not.

And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially confined to the art?

Yes.

Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use?

True, he replied.

And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him?

He gave a reluctant assent to this.

Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well?

I suppose not.

But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing?

Certainly, he confers a benefit.

Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger—to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing.

What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment.

You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace?

Very true.

And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help—not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of life, Glaucon, do you prefer?

I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he answered.

Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing?

Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me.

Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is saying what is not true?

Most certainly, he replied.

If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our enquiry as we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons.

Very good, he said.

And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said.

That which you propose.

Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice?

Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons.

And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice?

Certainly.

I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice?

What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not.

What else then would you say?

The opposite, he replied.

And would you call justice vice?

No, I would rather say sublime simplicity.

Then would you call injustice malignity?

No; I would rather say discretion.

And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?

Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing states and nations; but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cutpurses. Even this profession if undetected has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking.

I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite.

Certainly I do so class them.

Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that you will call injustice honourable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue.

You have guessed most infallibly, he replied.

Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at our expense.

I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?—to refute the argument is your business.

Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just?

Far otherwise; if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature which he is.

And would he try to go beyond just action?

He would not.

And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust?

He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would not be able.

Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust?

Yes, he would.

And what of the unjust—does he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just?

Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men.

And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the unjust man or action, in order that he may have more than all?

True.

We may put the matter thus, I said—the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike?

Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement.

And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither?

Good again, he said.

And is not the unjust like the wise and good and the just unlike them?

Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a certain nature; he who is not, not.

Each of them, I said, is such as his like is?

Certainly, he replied.

Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician?

Yes.

And which is wise and which is foolish?

Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish.

And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish?

Yes.

And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician?

Yes.

And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings?

I do not think that he would.

But he would claim to exceed the non-musician?

Of course.

And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of medicine?

He would not.

But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician?

Yes.

And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his like in the same case?

That, I suppose, can hardly be denied.

And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either the knowing or the ignorant?

I dare say.

And the knowing is wise?

Yes.

And the wise is good?

True.

Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but more than his unlike and opposite?

I suppose so.

Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both?

Yes.

But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words?

They were.

And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like but his unlike?

Yes.

Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant?

That is the inference.

And each of them is such as his like is?

That was admitted.

Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant.

Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point:

Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not also saying that injustice had strength; do you remember?

Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod 'Yes' and 'No.'

Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion.

Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else would you have?

Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer.

Proceed.

Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by any one. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: You would not deny that a state may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection?

True, he replied; and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so.

I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior state can exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice.

If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice; but if I am right, then without justice.

I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent.

That is out of civility to you, he replied.

You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil-doers could act at all if they injured one another?

No indeed, he said, they could not.

But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better?

Yes.

And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus?

I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you.

How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action?

Certainly.

And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to the just?

They will.

And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural power?

Let us assume that she retains her power.

Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction; and does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case?

Yes, certainly.

And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus?

Yes.

And O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just?

Granted that they are.

But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend?

Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company.

Well then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action; nay more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half-villains in their enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life.

Proceed.

I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has some end?

I should.

And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?

I do not understand, he said.

Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye?

Certainly not.

Or hear, except with the ear?

No.

These then may be truly said to be the ends of these organs?

They may.

But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in many other ways?

Of course.

And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose?

True.

May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook?

We may.

Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?

I understand your meaning, he said, and assent.

And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask again whether the eye has an end?

It has.

And has not the eye an excellence?

Yes.

And the ear has an end and an excellence also?

True.

And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and a special excellence?

That is so.

Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own proper excellence and have a defect instead?

How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see?

You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight; but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only enquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own defect?

Certainly, he replied.

I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end?

True.

And the same observation will apply to all other things?

I agree.

Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other?

To no other.

And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul?

Assuredly, he said.

And has not the soul an excellence also?

Yes.

And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that excellence?

She cannot.

Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent, and the good soul a good ruler?

Yes, necessarily.

And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul?

That has been admitted.

Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill?

That is what your argument proves.

And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse of happy?

Certainly.

Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?

So be it.

But happiness and not misery is profitable.

Of course.

Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice.

Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea.

For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle towards me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy.

BOOK II.

With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?

I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could.

Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:—How would you arrange goods—are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them?

I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied.

Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?

Certainly, I said.

And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making—these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them?

There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask?

Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice?

In the highest class, I replied,—among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results.

Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided.

I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.

I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just—if what they say is true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal?

Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse.

I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice.

They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.

Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result—when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; whereas soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this.

Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.

Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues.

I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.—Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound—will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances—he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only:--

'His mind has a soil deep and fertile, Out of which spring his prudent counsels.'

In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice; and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just.

I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged?

Why, what else is there? I answered.

The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied.

Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'—if he fails in any part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice.

Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another
side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice
and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I
believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their
sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake
of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the hope of
obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages,
and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing
to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of
appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they
throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of
benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this
accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of
whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just—

   'To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle;
   And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces,'

and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one whose fame is--

'As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice; to whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish.'

Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son vouchsafe to the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain; they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve; also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other.

Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod;--

'Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil,'

and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men; for he also says:--

'The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed.'

And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses—that is what they say—according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.

He proceeded: And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear Socrates,—those of them, I mean, who are quickwitted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they should walk if they would make the best of life? Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar--

'Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?'

For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things—why in either case should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by 'sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.' Let us be consistent then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. 'But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.' Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare; and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony.

On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth—but no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be.

The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justice—beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time—no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations; for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes—like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good—I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.

I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara:--

'Sons of Ariston,' he sang, 'divine offspring of an illustrious hero.'

The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced—this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can.

Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger—if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser—this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune.

Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry?

I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State.

True, he replied.

And is not a State larger than an individual?

It is.

Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them.

That, he said, is an excellent proposal.

And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also.

I dare say.

When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered.

Yes, far more easily.

But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore.

I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed.

A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined?

There can be no other.

Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State.

True, he said.

And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good.

Very true.

Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.

Of course, he replied.

Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence.

Certainly.

The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like.

True.

And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver—shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants?

Quite right.

The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.

Clearly.

And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?—the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants?

Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything.

Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations.

Very true.

And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one?

When he has only one.

Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time?

No doubt.

For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object.

He must.

And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.

Undoubtedly.

Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools—and he too needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker.

True.

Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow?

True.

Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides,—still our State will not be very large.

That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these.

Then, again, there is the situation of the city—to find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible.

Impossible.

Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city?

There must.

But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed.

That is certain.

And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied.

Very true.

Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required?

They will.

Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants?

Yes.

Then we shall want merchants?

We shall.

And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers?

Yes, in considerable numbers.

Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.

Clearly they will buy and sell.

Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of exchange.

Certainly.

Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him,—is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place?

Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy.

This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants?

Yes, he said.

And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour.

True.

Then hirelings will help to make up our population?

Yes.

And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?

I think so.

Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up?

Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else.

I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the enquiry.

Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war.

But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.

True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.

Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?

But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.

Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.

Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.

True, he said.

Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music—poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them.

Certainly.

And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before?

Much greater.

And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?

Quite true.

Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?

That, Socrates, will be inevitable.

And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?

Most certainly, he replied.

Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.

Undoubtedly.

And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above.

Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?

No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success.

Very true, he said.

But is not war an art?

Certainly.

And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?

Quite true.

And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder—in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops?

Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him?

No doubt, he replied.

Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?

Certainly.

Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city?

It will.

And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best.

We must.

Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching?

What do you mean?

I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him.

All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.

Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?

Certainly.

And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?

I have.

Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian.

True.

And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit?

Yes.

But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else?

A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied.

Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them.

True, he said.

What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?

True.

He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible.

I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.

Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.—My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us.

What do you mean? he said.

I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities.

And where do you find them?

Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers.

Yes, I know.

Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities?

Certainly not.

Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher?

I do not apprehend your meaning.

The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal.

What trait?

Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious?

The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark.

And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming;—your dog is a true philosopher.

Why?

Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?

Most assuredly.

And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?

They are the same, he replied.

And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge?

That we may safely affirm.

Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength?

Undoubtedly.

Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an enquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is our final end—How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length.

Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us.

Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long.

Certainly not.

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.

By all means.

And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort?—and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul.

True.

Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards?

By all means.

And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not?

I do.

And literature may be either true or false?

Yes.

And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false?

I do not understand your meaning, he said.

You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics.

Very true.

That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics.

Quite right, he said.

You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.

Quite true.

And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

We cannot.

Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded.

Of what tales are you speaking? he said.

You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.

Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.

Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind.

But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them?

A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.

But when is this fault committed?

Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,—as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.

Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are the stories which you mean?

First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,—I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed.

Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.

Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods.

I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated.

Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer—these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.

There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking—how shall we answer him?

I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business.

Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean?

Something of this kind, I replied:—God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given.

Right.

And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such?

Certainly.

And no good thing is hurtful?

No, indeed.

And that which is not hurtful hurts not?

Certainly not.

And that which hurts not does no evil?

No.

And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil?

Impossible.

And the good is advantageous?

Yes.

And therefore the cause of well-being?

Yes.

It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only?

Assuredly.

Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.

That appears to me to be most true, he said.

Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks

'Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots,'

and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two

'Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;'

but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,

'Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth.'

And again--

'Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us.'

And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that

'God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.'

And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe—the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur—or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery—the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.

I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.

Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,—that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.

That will do, he said.

And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another—sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?

I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.

Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing?

Most certainly.

And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes.

Of course.

And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence?

True.

And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things—furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances.

Very true.

Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without?

True.

But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?

Of course they are.

Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?

He cannot.

But may he not change and transform himself?

Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.

And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?

If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.

Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?

Impossible.

Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form.

That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.

Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that

'The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms;'

and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms

'For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;'

—let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths—telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;' but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.

Heaven forbid, he said.

But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms?

Perhaps, he replied.

Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?

I cannot say, he replied.

Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be allowed, is hated of gods and men?

What do you mean? he said.

I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.

Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.

The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;—that, I say, is what they utterly detest.

There is nothing more hateful to them.

And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right?

Perfectly right.

The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men?

Yes.

Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in dealing with enemies—that would be an instance; or again, when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking—because we do not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can, and so turn it to account.

Very true, he said.

But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention?

That would be ridiculous, he said.

Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God?

I should say not.

Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies?

That is inconceivable.

But he may have friends who are senseless or mad?

But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God.

Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie?

None whatever.

Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood?

Yes.

Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.

Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own.

You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way.

I grant that.

Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials

'Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this—he it is who has slain my son.'

These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them.

I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.

BOOK III.

Such then, I said, are our principles of theology—some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another.

Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said.

But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?

Certainly not, he said.

And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible?

Impossible.

Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors.

That will be our duty, he said.

Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses,

'I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought.'

We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared,

'Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals.'

And again:--

'O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all!'

Again of Tiresias:--

'(To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,) that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades.'

Again:--

'The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth.'

Again:--

'And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth.'

And,--

'As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved.'

And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death.

Undoubtedly.

Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below—Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them.

There is a real danger, he said.

Then we must have no more of them.

True.

Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.

Clearly.

And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men?

They will go with the rest.

But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade.

Yes; that is our principle.

And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible?

He will not.

Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.

True, he said.

And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible.

Assuredly.

And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him.

Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.

Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like.

That will be very right.

Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,

'Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.'

Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying,

'Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow.'

But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say--

'O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.'

Or again:--

Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius.'

For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions.

Yes, he said, that is most true.

Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a better.

It ought not to be.

Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction.

So I believe.

Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed.

Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied.

Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how

'Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion.'

On your views, we must not admit them.

On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit them is certain.

Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them.

Clearly not, he said.

Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors.

Most true, he said.

If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,

'Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter,'

he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State.

Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out.

In the next place our youth must be temperate?

Certainly.

Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures?

True.

Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer,

'Friend, sit still and obey my word,'

and the verses which follow,

'The Greeks marched breathing prowess, ...in silent awe of their leaders,'

and other sentiments of the same kind.

We shall.

What of this line,

'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag,'

and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken?

They are ill spoken.

They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young men—you would agree with me there?

Yes.

And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than

'When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups,'

is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words? Or the verse

'The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?'

What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one another

'Without the knowledge of their parents;'

or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite?

Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing.

But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses,

'He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!'

Certainly, he said.

In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money.

Certainly not.

Neither must we sing to them of

'Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.'

Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so.

Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved.

Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says,

'Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power;'

or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair, which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre; of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men.

You are quite right, he replied.

And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not the sons of gods;—both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than men—sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods.

Assuredly not.

And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by--

'The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,'

and who have

'the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins.'

And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of morals among the young.

By all means, he replied.

But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down.

Very true.

And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject.

Clearly so.

But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend.

Why not?

Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain—these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite.

To be sure we shall, he replied.

But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending.

I grant the truth of your inference.

That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not.

Most true, he said.

Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated.

I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus.

Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come?

Certainly, he replied.

And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two?

That again, he said, I do not quite understand.

I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that Chryses prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines,

'And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people,'

the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey.

Yes.

And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages?

Quite true.

But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak?

Certainly.

And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes?

Of course.

Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation?

Very true.

Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, 'I don't understand,' I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, 'The priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings;' and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre), 'The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the God should be of no avail to him—the daughter of Chryses should not be released, he said—she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,'—and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative.

I understand, he said.

Or you may suppose the opposite case—that the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left.

That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy.

You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative—instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only speaker—of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me?

Yes, he said; I see now what you meant.

I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the style.

Yes, I remember.

In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,—whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited?

You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State?

Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go.

And go we will, he said.

Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any?

Certainly.

And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one?

He cannot.

Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy—did you not just now call them imitations?

Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both.

Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?

True.

Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations.

They are so.

And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies.

Quite true, he replied.

If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession—the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind?

Yes, certainly, he said.

Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labour.

Very right, he said.

Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves?

They must not.

And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated.

Very true, he replied.

Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like?

How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these?

Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing?

Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behaviour of madmen.

You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character and education.

And which are these two sorts? he asked.

Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,—I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it.

So I should expect, he replied.

Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree?

Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily take.

But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration.

That, he said, will be his mode of speaking.

These, then, are the two kinds of style?

Yes.

And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm?

That is quite true, he said.

Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes.

That is also perfectly true, he replied.

And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in both together.

They include all, he said.

And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?

I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.

Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general.

I do not deny it.

But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only?

Yes; quite unsuitable.

And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?

True, he said.

And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers.

We certainly will, he said, if we have the power.

Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished; for the matter and manner have both been discussed.

I think so too, he said.

Next in order will follow melody and song.

That is obvious.

Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves.

I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word 'every one' hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though I may guess.

At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts—the words, the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose?

Yes, he said; so much as that you may.

And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words which are and which are not set to music; both will conform to the same laws, and these have been already determined by us?

Yes.

And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words?

Certainly.

We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow?

True.

And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me.

The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like.

These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.

Certainly.

In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians.

Utterly unbecoming.

And which are the soft or drinking harmonies?

The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed 'relaxed.'

Well, and are these of any military use?

Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left.

I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.

And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking.

Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale?

I suppose not.

Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed curiously-harmonised instruments?

Certainly not.

But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?

Clearly not.

There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country.

That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.

The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his instruments is not at all strange, I said.

Not at all, he replied.

And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious.

And we have done wisely, he replied.

Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your duty—you must teach me them, as you have already taught me the harmonies.

But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes (i.e. the four notes of the tetrachord.) out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable to say.

Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know? (Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of 3/2; in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/1; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/2 or 2/1.)

Rather so, I should say.

But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm.

None at all.

And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style; for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them.

Just so, he said, they should follow the words.

And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul?

Yes.

And everything else on the style?

Yes.

Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly?

Very true, he replied.

And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim?

They must.

And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,—weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,—in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness.

That is quite true, he said.

But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.

There can be no nobler training than that, he replied.

And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.

Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention.

Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations; not slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognise them wherever they are found:

True--

Or, as we recognise the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both:

Exactly--

Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study.

Most assuredly.

And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it?

The fairest indeed.

And the fairest is also the loveliest?

That may be assumed.

And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul?

That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same.

I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance?

How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain.

Or any affinity to virtue in general?

None whatever.

Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance?

Yes, the greatest.

And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love?

No, nor a madder.

Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order—temperate and harmonious?

Quite true, he said.

Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true love?

Certainly not.

Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort?

No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them.

Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's consent; and this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste.

I quite agree, he said.

Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty?

I agree, he said.

After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained.

Certainly.

Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is,—and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is,—not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say?

Yes, I agree.

Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing over the more particular care of the body; and in order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general outlines of the subject.

Very good.

That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is.

Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed.

But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training for the great contest of all—are they not?

Yes, he said.

And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them?

Why not?

I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen?

Yes, I do.

Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health.

That is my view.

The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing.

How so?

Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic.

What do you mean?

My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans.

True.

And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular; all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind.

Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them.

Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of Sicilian cookery?

I think not.

Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend?

Certainly not.

Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionary?

Certainly not.

All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms.

Exactly.

There complexity engendered licence, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body.

Most true, he said.

But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them.

Of course.

And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him?

Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful.

Would you say 'most,' I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?—in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful?

Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful.

Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace?

Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases.

Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case.

Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition.

Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world.

How was that? he said.

By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age.

A rare reward of his skill!

Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort.

How do you mean? he said.

I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,—these are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble.

Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only.

Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation?

Quite true, he said.

But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live.

He is generally supposed to have nothing to do.

Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue?

Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.

Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides?

Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to the practice of virtue.

Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most important of all, irreconcileable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection—there is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body.

Yes, likely enough.

And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment; such as these he cured by purges and operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion: he did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting weaker sons;—if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no use either to himself, or to the State.

Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman.

Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, they

'Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies,'

but they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus; the remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was healthy and regular in his habits; and even though he did happen to drink a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them.

They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius.

Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both;—if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or, if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god.

All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question to you: Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions good and bad? and are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures?

Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good?

Will you tell me?

I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question you join two things which are not the same.

How so? he asked.

Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly; but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing.

That is very true, he said.

But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls.

Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived.

Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.

Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge.

Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke,—he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness, when he is amongst his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he cannot recognise an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish.

Most true, he said.

Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom—in my opinion.

And in mine also.

This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will sanction in your state. They will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves.

That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State.

And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law.

Clearly.

And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case.

That I quite believe.

The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength; he will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develope his muscles.

Very right, he said.

Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the body.

What then is the real object of them?

I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul.

How can that be? he asked.

Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music?

In what way shown? he said.

The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness and effeminacy, I replied.

Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him.

Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal.

That I quite think.

On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate.

True.

And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities?

Assuredly.

And both should be in harmony?

Beyond question.

And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous?

Yes.

And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish?

Very true.

And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior.

Very true.

If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable;—on the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impracticable.

Exactly.

And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was.

Certainly.

And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his senses not being purged of their mists?

True, he said.

And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,—he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace.

That is quite true, he said.

And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized.

That appears to be the intention.

And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings.

You are quite right, Socrates.

And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the government is to last.

Yes, he will be absolutely necessary.

Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no difficulty in discovering them.

I dare say that there will be no difficulty.

Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects?

Certainly.

There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger.

Clearly.

And that the best of these must rule.

That is also clear.

Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry?

Yes.

And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians?

Yes.

And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State?

True.

And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves?

To be sure.

And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own?

Very true, he replied.

Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests.

Those are the right men.

And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State.

How cast off? he said.

I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his will; with his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth.

I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn.

Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth?

Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will.

And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment?

Still, he replied, I do not understand you.

I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me?

Yes.

Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion.

I understand, he said, and you are quite right.

And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear?

Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way?

Yes.

And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities.

Very right, he replied.

And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments—that is the third sort of test—and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness.

And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said.

And perhaps the word 'guardian' in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers.

I agree with you, he said.

How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke—just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city?

What sort of lie? he said.

Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician tale (Laws) of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did.

How your words seem to hesitate on your lips!

You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard.

Speak, he said, and fear not.

Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.

You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell.

True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it?

Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them.

I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour, while we arm our earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper Gods and prepare their dwellings.

Just so, he said.

And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer.

I suppose that you mean houses, he replied.

Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers.

What is the difference? he said.

That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd?

Truly monstrous, he said.

And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies?

Yes, great care should be taken.

And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard?

But they are well-educated already, he replied.

I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection.

Very true, he replied.

And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that.

He must.

Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and all other matters?

Yes, said Glaucon.

BOOK IV.

Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard?

Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added.

But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge.

You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer?

Yes.

If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body—the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black—to him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy—and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them.

I think that you are quite right.

I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me.

What may that be?

There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts.

What are they?

Wealth, I said, and poverty.

How do they act?

The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art?

Certainly not.

He will grow more and more indolent and careless?

Very true.

And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter?

Yes; he greatly deteriorates.

But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well.

Certainly not.

Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate?

That is evident.

Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved.

What evils?

Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war.

There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them.

How so? he asked.

In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men.

That is true, he said.

And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers?

Hardly, if they came upon him at once.

What, now, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage?

Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that.

And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practise of boxing than they have in military qualities.

Likely enough.

Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number?

I agree with you, for I think you right.

And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities, telling them what is the truth: Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have, but you may; do you therefore come and help us in war, and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side, against fat and tender sheep?

That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one.

But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own!

Why so?

You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater.

That is most true, he said.

And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to include, and beyond which they will not go?

What limit would you propose?

I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I think, is the proper limit.

Very good, he said.

Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians: Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and self-sufficing.

And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them.

And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still,—I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when naturally superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be one and not many; and so the whole city would be one and not many.

Yes, he said; that is not so difficult.

The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be taken, as the saying is, of the one great thing,—a thing, however, which I would rather call, not great, but sufficient for our purpose.

What may that be? he asked.

Education, I said, and nurture: If our citizens are well educated, and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as other matters which I omit; such, for example, as marriage, the possession of women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says.

That will be the best way of settling them.

Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals.

Very possibly, he said.

Then to sum up: This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed,—that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one says that mankind most regard

'The newest song which the singers have,'

they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him;—he says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.

Yes, said Adeimantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your own.

Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music?

Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in.

Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless.

Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public.

Is that true? I said.

That is my belief, he replied.

Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens.

Very true, he said.

And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen places in the State will raise them up again.

Very true, he said.

Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected.

What do you mean?

I mean such things as these:—when the young are to be silent before their elders; how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit; what honour is due to parents; what garments or shoes are to be worn; the mode of dressing the hair; deportment and manners in general. You would agree with me?

Yes.

But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters,—I doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting.

Impossible.

It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like?

To be sure.

Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and may be the reverse of good?

That is not to be denied.

And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them.

Naturally enough, he replied.

Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements with artisans; about insult and injury, or the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and exactions of market and harbour dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets, police, harbours, and the like. But, oh heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars?

I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves.

Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them.

And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection.

You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance?

Exactly.

Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try.

Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort.

Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail.

Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right.

These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces.

Assuredly not.

Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the citizens are forbidden under pain of death to alter the constitution; and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesman—do not these States resemble the persons whom I was describing?

Yes, he said; the States are as bad as the men; and I am very far from praising them.

But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption?

Yes, he said, I do; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and these are not much to be admired.

What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say?

Nay, he said, certainly not in that case.

Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra?

Yes, he said; that is just what they are doing.

I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations.

What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation?

Nothing to us, I replied; but to Apollo, the God of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all.

Which are they? he said.

The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind.

You are right, and we will do as you propose.

But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.

Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety?

I do not deny that I said so, and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word; but you must join.

We will, he replied.

Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect.

That is most certain.

And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just.

That is likewise clear.

And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue?

Very good.

If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there would be no further trouble; or we might know the other three first, and then the fourth would clearly be the one left.

Very true, he said.

And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number?

Clearly.

First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity.

What is that?

The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel?

Very true.

And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well?

Clearly.

And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse?

Of course.

There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel?

Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering.

Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements?

Certainly not.

Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots, I said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge?

Not by reason of any of them, he said.

Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth; that would give the city the name of agricultural?

Yes.

Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently-founded State among any of the citizens which advises, not about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with other States?

There certainly is.

And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked.

It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians.

And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge?

The name of good in counsel and truly wise.

And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths?

The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous.

Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge?

Much the smallest.

And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least.

Most true.

Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered.

And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied.

Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage, and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State.

How do you mean?

Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf.

No one, he replied, would ever think of any other.

The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly, but their courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the other.

Certainly not.

The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them; and this is what you term courage.

I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that I perfectly understand you.

I mean that courage is a kind of salvation.

Salvation of what?

Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by the words 'under all circumstances' to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration?

If you please.

You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white colour first; this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour.

Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous appearance.

Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure—mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree.

But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave—this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name.

Most certainly.

Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe?

Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words 'of a citizen,' you will not be far wrong;—hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are seeking not for courage but justice; and for the purpose of our enquiry we have said enough.

You are right, he replied.

Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State—first, temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search.

Very true.

Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance?

I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first.

Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request.

Then consider, he said.

Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding.

How so? he asked.

Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of 'a man being his own master;' and other traces of the same notion may be found in language.

No doubt, he said.

There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself;' for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted.

Certainly.

The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse—in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled.

Yes, there is reason in that.

And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words 'temperance' and 'self-mastery' truly express the rule of the better part over the worse.

Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true.

Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class.

Certainly, he said.

Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated.

Very true.

These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few.

That I perceive, he said.

Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation?

Certainly, he replied.

It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons?

Yes.

And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State?

Undoubtedly.

And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will temperance be found—in the rulers or in the subjects?

In both, as I should imagine, he replied.

Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony?

Why so?

Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant; not so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the right to rule of either, both in states and individuals.

I entirely agree with you.

And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice, if we only knew what that was.

The inference is obvious.

The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know.

Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show him—that is about as much as I am good for.

Offer up a prayer with me and follow.

I will, but you must show me the way.

Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must push on.

Let us push on.

Here I saw something: Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape.

Good news, he said.

Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows.

Why so?

Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands—that was the way with us—we looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her.

What do you mean?

I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her.

I grow impatient at the length of your exordium.

Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted;—now justice is this principle or a part of it.

Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.

Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us.

Yes, we said so.

Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference?

I cannot, but I should like to be told.

Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one.

That follows of necessity.

If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,—the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm—the question is not so easily answered.

Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which.

Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage.

Yes, he said.

And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice?

Exactly.

Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law?

Certainly.

And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own?

Yes; that is their principle.

Which is a just principle?

Yes.

Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him?

Very true.

Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State?

Not much.

But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State.

Most true.

Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing?

Precisely.

And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice?

Certainly.

This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just.

I agree with you.

We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet; but if, on trial, this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt; if it be not verified, we must have a fresh enquiry. First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual—if they agree, we shall be satisfied; or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will come back to the State and have another trial of the theory. The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls.

That will be in regular course; let us do as you say.

I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same?

Like, he replied.

The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just State?

He will.

And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes?

True, he said.

And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the State; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner?

Certainly, he said.

Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question—whether the soul has these three principles or not?

An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good.

Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous enquiry.

May we not be satisfied with that? he said;—under the circumstances, I am quite content.

I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied.

Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said.

Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?—how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit;—it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e.g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations; and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians.

Exactly so, he said.

There is no difficulty in understanding this.

None whatever.

But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action—to determine that is the difficulty.

Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty.

Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different.

How can we? he asked.

I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different.

Good.

For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part?

Impossible.

Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment—to such a mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest.

Very true.

And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference, and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest.

That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied.

Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways.

Certainly not, according to my way of thinking.

Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn.

Yes, he said, that will be the best way.

Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition)?

Yes, he said, they are opposites.

Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing,—all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned. You would say—would you not?—that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desire; or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question?

Very true.

And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection?

Certainly.

Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them?

Let us take that class, he said.

The object of one is food, and of the other drink?

Yes.

And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example, warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger?

Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object.

But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the same is true of every other desire.

Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say.

Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their correlatives simple.

I do not know what you mean.

Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less?

Certainly.

And the much greater to the much less?

Yes.

And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be?

Certainly, he said.

And so of more and less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double and the half, or again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower; and of hot and cold, and of any other relatives;—is not this true of all of them?

Yes.

And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge; I mean, for example, that the science of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture.

Certainly.

Because it has a particular quality which no other has?

Yes.

And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind; and this is true of the other arts and sciences?

Yes.

Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the other is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil; but only that, when the term science is no longer used absolutely, but has a qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of medicine.

I quite understand, and I think as you do.

Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation--

Yes, thirst is relative to drink.

And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only?

Certainly.

Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it?

That is plain.

And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same.

Impossible.

No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls.

Exactly so, he replied.

And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink?

Yes, he said, it constantly happens.

And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him?

I should say so.

And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease?

Clearly.

Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions?

Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different.

Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding?

I should be inclined to say—akin to desire.

Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.

I have heard the story myself, he said.

The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things.

Yes; that is the meaning, he said.

And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;—but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed, is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else?

Certainly not.

Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him—these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them.

True, he said.

But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more.

The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds.

I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider.

What point?

You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle.

Most assuredly.

But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason?

Yes, he said, there must be a third.

Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason.

But that is easily proved:—We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough.

Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us,

'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul,'

for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it.

Very true, he said.

And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number.

Exactly.

Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise?

Certainly.

Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues?

Assuredly.

And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just?

That follows, of course.

We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class?

We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said.

We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work?

Yes, he said, we must remember that too.

And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally?

Certainly.

And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony and rhythm?

Quite true, he said.

And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man?

Very true, he said.

Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and counsels?

True.

And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear?

Right, he replied.

And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole?

Assuredly.

And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel?

Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual.

And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what quality a man will be just.

That is very certain.

And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the State?

There is no difference in my opinion, he said.

Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying.

What sort of instances do you mean?

If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this?

No one, he replied.

Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country?

Never.

Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements?

Impossible.

No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties?

No one.

And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled?

Exactly so.

Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other?

Not I, indeed.

Then our dream has been realized; and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified?

Yes, certainly.

And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use?

Clearly.

But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,—he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals—when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.

You have said the exact truth, Socrates.

Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood?

Most certainly not.

May we say so, then?

Let us say so.

And now, I said, injustice has to be considered.

Clearly.

Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles—a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,—what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice?

Exactly so.

And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear?

What do you mean? he said.

Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body.

How so? he said.

Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease.

Yes.

And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice?

That is certain.

And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order?

True.

And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order?

Exactly so, he said.

Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same?

True.

And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice?

Assuredly.

Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed?

In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described?

Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way.

Certainly not, he replied.

Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at.

I am following you, he replied: proceed.

I said, The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are innumerable; there being four special ones which are deserving of note.

What do you mean? he said.

I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as there are distinct forms of the State.

How many?

There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said.

What are they?

The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, accordingly as rule is exercised by one distinguished man or by many.

True, he replied.

But I regard the two names as describing one form only; for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be maintained.

That is true, he replied.

BOOK V.

Such is the good and true City or State, and the good and true man is of the same pattern; and if this is right every other is wrong; and the evil is one which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms.

What are they? he said.

I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him: stretching forth his hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him towards him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, 'Shall we let him off, or what shall we do?'

Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice.

Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off?

You, he said.

I repeated, Why am I especially not to be let off?

Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children 'friends have all things in common.'

And was I not right, Adeimantus?

Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens—how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children—for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this.

To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed.

And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed.

I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it.

For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus,—to look for gold, or to hear discourse?

Yes, but discourse should have a limit.

Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us; take heart yourself and answer the question in your own way: What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be.

Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy; many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted; and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our aspiration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only.

Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you; they are not sceptical or hostile.

I said: My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these words.

Yes, he said.

Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse; the encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about: to declare the truth about matters of high interest which a man honours and loves among wise men who love him need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind; but to carry on an argument when you are yourself only a hesitating enquirer, which is my condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws. And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies than among friends, and therefore you do well to encourage me.

Glaucon laughed and said: Well then, Socrates, in case you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the homicide, and shall not be held to be a deceiver; take courage then and speak.

Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument.

Then why should you mind?

Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you.

For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd.

True.

Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design.

What do you mean?

What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them?

No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker.

But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way?

You cannot.

Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education?

Yes.

The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic.

Yes.

Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men?

That is the inference, I suppose.

I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous.

No doubt of it.

Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia.

Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous.

But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women's attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback!

Very true, he replied.

Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation.

No doubt.

But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good.

Very true, he replied.

First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion.

That will be much the best way.

Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves; in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended.

Why not? he said.

Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.' And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. 'And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?' And we shall reply: Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, 'Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?' Certainly they should. 'But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?'—What defence will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections?

That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side.

These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children.

By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy.

Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same.

Very true.

And must not we swim and try to reach the shore: we will hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us?

I suppose so, he said.

Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged—did we not? that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now what are we saying?—that different natures ought to have the same pursuits,—this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us.

Precisely.

Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction!

Why do you say so?

Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion.

Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument?

A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition.

In what way?

Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same natures.

Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us.

I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely?

That would be a jest, he said.

Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature.

True.

Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures?

Certainly.

And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits.

Very true, he said.

Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man?

That will be quite fair.

And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on the instant is not easy; but after a little reflection there is no difficulty.

Yes, perhaps.

Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the State.

By all means.

Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question:—when you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance to him?—would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted?

No one will deny that.

And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd?

You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true.

And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.

Very true.

Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on women?

That will never do.

One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and another has no music in her nature?

Very true.

And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics?

Certainly.

And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit?

That is also true.

Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this sort?

Yes.

Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness.

Obviously.

And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character?

Very true.

And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits?

They ought.

Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians—to that point we come round again.

Certainly not.

The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature.

That appears to be true.

We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial?

Yes.

And the possibility has been acknowledged?

Yes.

The very great benefit has next to be established?

Quite so.

You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the same?

Yes.

I should like to ask you a question.

What is it?

Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another?

The latter.

And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling?

What a ridiculous question!

You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens?

By far the best.

And will not their wives be the best women?

Yes, by far the best.

And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible?

There can be nothing better.

And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in such manner as we have described, will accomplish?

Certainly.

Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State?

True.

Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country; only in the distribution of labours the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking

'A fruit of unripe wisdom,'

and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about;—for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base.

Very true.

Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness.

Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped.

Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when you see the next.

Go on; let me see.

The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect,—'that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.'

Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable.

I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed.

I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both.

You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility.

But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both.

Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favour: let me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishes—that is a matter which never troubles them—they would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true—that is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of possibility.

I have no objection; proceed.

First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care.

That is right, he said.

You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them;—they must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other—necessity is not too strong a word, I think?

Yes, he said;—necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind.

True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid.

Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted.

Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred?

Exactly.

And how can marriages be made most beneficial?—that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding?

In what particulars?

Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others?

True.

And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only?

From the best.

And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age?

I choose only those of ripe age.

And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate?

Certainly.

And the same of horses and animals in general?

Undoubtedly.

Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!

Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill?

Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man.

That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding?

I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage.

And we were very right.

And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births.

How so?

Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion.

Very true.

Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small.

Certainly, he replied.

We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers.

To be sure, he said.

And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible.

True.

And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men--

Yes--

The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be.

Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure.

They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognises her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants.

You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children.

Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life?

Very true.

And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's?

Which years do you mean to include?

A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five.

Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour.

Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust.

Very true, he replied.

And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated.

Very true, he replied.

This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly.

That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on?

They will never know. The way will be this:—dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to inter-marry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters; if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them.

Quite right, he replied.

Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better—would you not?

Yes, certainly.

Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State,—what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil?

By all means.

Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity?

There cannot.

And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains—where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow?

No doubt.

Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized—when you have one half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens?

Certainly.

Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'his' and 'not his.'

Exactly so.

And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same way to the same thing?

Quite true.

Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual—as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering.

Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe.

Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him?

Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State.

It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles.

Very good.

Our State like every other has rulers and subjects?

True.

All of whom will call one another citizens?

Of course.

But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States?

Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers.

And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers?

They are called saviours and helpers, he replied.

And what do the rulers call the people?

Their maintainers and foster-fathers.

And what do they call them in other States?

Slaves.

And what do the rulers call one another in other States?

Fellow-rulers.

And what in ours?

Fellow-guardians.

Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend?

Yes, very often.

And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest?

Exactly.

But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger?

Certainly he would not; for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him.

Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,' would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk?

These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them?

Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any one is well or ill, the universal word will be 'with me it is well' or 'it is ill.'

Most true.

And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common?

Yes, and so they will.

And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain?

Yes, far more so than in other States.

And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children?

That will be the chief reason.

And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain?

That we acknowledged, and very rightly.

Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State?

Certainly.

And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,—that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians.

Right, he replied.

Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about 'mine' and 'not mine;' each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a common end.

Certainly, he replied.

And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion.

Of course they will.

Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to be honourable and right; we shall make the protection of the person a matter of necessity.

That is good, he said.

Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz. that if a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths.

Certainly.

To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the younger.

Clearly.

Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers.

That is true, he replied.

Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with one another?

Yes, there will be no want of peace.

And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one another.

None whatever.

I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep—the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of.

Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that.

And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed.

How so?

The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable burial.

Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are.

Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous discussion some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy—they had nothing and might have possessed all things—to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but of the whole?

Yes, I remember.

And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors—is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it?

Certainly not.

At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, 'half is more than the whole.'

If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when you have the offer of such a life.

You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of life such as we have described—common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together like dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve the natural relation of the sexes.

I agree with you, he replied.

The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community be found possible—as among other animals, so also among men—and if possible, in what way possible?

You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest.

There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them.

How?

Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do when they are grown up; and besides looking on they will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on and help, long before they touch the wheel?

Yes, I have.

And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians will be?

The idea is ridiculous, he said.

There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valour.

That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which may often happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover.

True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk?

I am far from saying that.

Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it?

Clearly.

Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be incurred.

Yes, very important.

This then must be our first step,—to make our children spectators of war; but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger; then all will be well.

True.

Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are safe and what dangerous?

That may be assumed.

And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the dangerous ones?

True.

And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers?

Very properly.

Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of chance about them?

True.

Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape.

What do you mean? he said.

I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape.

I believe that you are right, he said.

Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think?

By all means, I should say.

And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they like with him.

Certainly.

But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say?

I approve.

And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship?

To that too, I agree.

But you will hardly agree to my next proposal.

What is your proposal?

That he should kiss and be kissed by them.

Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valour.

Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible?

Agreed.

Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax, after he had distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very strengthening thing.

Most true, he said.

Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with

'seats of precedence, and meats and full cups;'

and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them.

That, he replied, is excellent.

Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race?

To be sure.

Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead

'They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men'?

Yes; and we accept his authority.

We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction; and we must do as he bids?

By all means.

And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age, or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours.

That is very right, he said.

Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this?

In what respect do you mean?

First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there is that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians?

To spare them is infinitely better.

Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe.

Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another.

Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but their armour? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of plunder.

Very true.

And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him,—is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead?

Very like a dog, he said.

Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial?

Yes, he replied, we most certainly must.

Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself?

Very true.

Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses, what is to be the practice?

May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion?

Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why?

Pray do.

Why, you see, there is a difference in the names 'discord' and 'war,' and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war.

That is a very proper distinction, he replied.

And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians?

Very good, he said.

And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; and such enmity is to be called discord.

I agree.

Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever.

Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other.

And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city?

It ought to be, he replied.

Then will not the citizens be good and civilized?

Yes, very civilized.

And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own land, and share in the common temples?

Most certainly.

And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by them as discord only—a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war?

Certainly not.

Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled?

Certainly.

They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies?

Just so.

And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city—men, women, and children—are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction?

I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another.

Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:—that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses.

Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous enactments, are very good.

But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside:—Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible; and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge: but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them; assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means—the rest may be left.

If I loiter for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and investigate.

The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible: speak out and at once.

Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice.

True, he replied; but what of that?

I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men?

The approximation will be enough.

We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact.

True, he said.

Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed?

He would be none the worse.

Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State?

To be sure.

And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described?

Surely not, he replied.

That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions.

What admissions?

I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in language? Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say?

I agree.

Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility which you demand; and will be contented. I am sure that I should be contented—will not you?

Yes, I will.

Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or, if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible.

Certainly, he replied.

I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one.

What is it? he said.

Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonour; and do you mark my words.

Proceed.

I said: 'Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,—nor the human race, as I believe,—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing.

Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be 'pared by their fine wits,' and no mistake.

You got me into the scrape, I said.

And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out of it; but I can only give you good-will and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than another—that is all. And now, having such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right.

I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State; then we shall be able to defend ourselves: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders.

Then now for a definition, he said.

Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation.

Proceed.

I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole.

I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory.

Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth.

If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the argument, I assent.

And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine.

Very good.

And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people,—but honour of some kind they must have.

Exactly.

Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only?

The whole.

And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole?

Yes, of the whole.

And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one?

Very true, he said.

Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right?

Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country—that makes no difference—they are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers?

Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation.

He said: Who then are the true philosophers?

Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth.

That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean?

To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make.

What is the proposition?

That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two?

Certainly.

And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one?

True again.

And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many?

Very true.

And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers.

How do you distinguish them? he said.

The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty.

True, he replied.

Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this.

Very true.

And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow—of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object?

I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming.

But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects—is he a dreamer, or is he awake?

He is wide awake.

And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion?

Certainly.

But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits?

We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied.

Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.)

I answer that he knows something.

Something that is or is not?

Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known?

And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown?

Nothing can be more certain.

Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being?

Yes, between them.

And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such?

Certainly.

Do we admit the existence of opinion?

Undoubtedly.

As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty?

Another faculty.

Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties?

Yes.

And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division.

What division?

I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean?

Yes, I quite understand.

Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking?

Yes.

And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it?

Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties.

And is opinion also a faculty?

Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion.

And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion?

Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs?

An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them.

Yes.

Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters?

That is certain.

Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being?

Yes.

And opinion is to have an opinion?

Yes.

And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge?

Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same.

Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion?

Yes, something else.

Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing?

Impossible.

He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing?

Yes.

And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing?

True.

Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge?

True, he said.

Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being?

Not with either.

And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge?

That seems to be true.

But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance?

In neither.

Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?

Both; and in no small degree.

And also to be within and between them?

Yes.

Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?

No question.

But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them?

True.

And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion?

There has.

Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty,—the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean.

True.

This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty—in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold—he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one—to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy?

No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest.

And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?—doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another?

Quite true.

And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names?

True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them.

And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this?

He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither.

Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being.

That is quite true, he said.

Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing about in some region which is half-way between pure being and pure not-being?

We have.

Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty.

Quite true.

Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like,—such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge?

That is certain.

But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only?

Neither can that be denied.

The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty.

Yes, I remember.

Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them?

I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true.

But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.

Assuredly.

BOOK VI.

And thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view.

I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened.

I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider.

And what is the next question? he asked.

Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State?

And how can we rightly answer that question?

Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State—let them be our guardians.

Very good.

Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes?

There can be no question of that.

And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of them—are not such persons, I ask, simply blind?

Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition.

And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing?

There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect.

Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences.

By all means.

In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State.

What do you mean?

Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption.

Agreed.

And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honourable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition.

True.

And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess?

What quality?

Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth.

Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them.

'May be,' my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather 'must be affirmed:' for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections.

Right, he said.

And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?

How can there be?

Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood?

Never.

The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth?

Assuredly.

But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel.

True.

He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure—I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one.

That is most certain.

Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character.

Very true.

Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered.

What is that?

There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human.

Most true, he replied.

Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life?

He cannot.

Or can such an one account death fearful?

No indeed.

Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?

Certainly not.

Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward—can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings?

Impossible.

Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.

True.

There is another point which should be remarked.

What point?

Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress.

Certainly not.

And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel?

That is certain.

Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes.

Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory?

Certainly.

And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion?

Undoubtedly.

And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion?

To proportion.

Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything.

Certainly.

Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being?

They are absolutely necessary, he replied.

And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,—noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred?

The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study.

And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State.

Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.

Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong?

I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your opinion.

Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right.

Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them?

You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable.

Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose.

I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering—every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not—the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?

Of course, said Adeimantus.

Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you understand already.

Certainly.

Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary.

I will.

Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him—that is not the order of nature; neither are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich'—the ingenious author of this saying told a lie—but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and star-gazers.

Precisely so, he said.

For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed.

Yes.

And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained?

True.

Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other?

By all means.

And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy.

Yes, that was said.

Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance with present notions of him?

Certainly, he said.

And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of knowledge is always striving after being—that is his nature; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on—the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail.

Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him.

And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie?

He will.

And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads?

Impossible.

Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after?

True, he replied.

Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher.

Exactly.

And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling—I am speaking of those who were said to be useless but not wicked—and, when we have done with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation of which we speak.

What are these corruptions? he said.

I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men.

Rare indeed.

And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare natures!

What causes?

In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praiseworthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them.

That is very singular, he replied.

Then there are all the ordinary goods of life—beauty, wealth, strength, rank, and great connections in the State—you understand the sort of things—these also have a corrupting and distracting effect.

I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean about them.

Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer appear strange to you.

And how am I to do so? he asked.

Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not.

Very true.

There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is greater.

Certainly.

And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?

There I think that you are right.

And our philosopher follows the same analogy—he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts?

When is this accomplished? he said.

When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame—at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have—he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be?

Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him.

And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been mentioned.

What is that?

The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless.

Indeed they do; and in right good earnest.

Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest?

None, he replied.

No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion—I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say.

I quite assent, he replied.

Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation.

What are you going to say?

Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him—he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator?

Indeed he would.

And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not?

No, nor am I likely to hear.

You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind?

Certainly not.

Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher?

Impossible.

And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world?

They must.

And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them?

That is evident.

Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence—these were admitted by us to be the true philosopher's gifts.

Yes.

Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones?

Certainly, he said.

And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes?

No question.

Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day possess.

That often happens, he said.

And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride?

To be sure he will.

Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen?

Far otherwise.

And even if there be some one who through inherent goodness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions?

There can be no doubt of it.

And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher?

Impossible.

Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of life?

We were quite right.

Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States.

That is most true, he said.

And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment.

That is certainly what people say.

Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them—a land well stocked with fair names and showy titles—like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable?

Yes.

Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance and come into a fortune; he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate?

A most exact parallel.

What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard?

There can be no question of it.

And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true wisdom?

No doubt, he said.

Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;—or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages' bridle; for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts—he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.

Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs.

A great work—yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself.

The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown—is there anything more which you wish to say?

Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her.

Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation which I bring against them—not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estranged;—as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human;—and now, I know, that you are going to ask, What that State is:

No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question—whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other?

Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws.

That was said, he replied.

Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult; and what still remains is the reverse of easy.

What is there remaining?

The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk; 'hard is the good,' as men say.

Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete.

I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit.

In what manner?

At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch as they never light up again. (Heraclitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.)

But what ought to be their course?

Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another.

How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all.

Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence.

You are speaking of a time which is not very near.

Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue—such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them—do you think that they ever did?

No indeed.

No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society.

They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak.

And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right?

Quite right.

If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and is—yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves.

My opinion agrees with yours, he said.

But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude?

I should imagine not, he replied.

O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of over-education, you show them your philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing their character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such as they supposed—if they view him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain. Who can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind.

I quite agree with you, he said.

And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this.

It is most unbecoming.

For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse?

Impossible.

And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but like every one else, he will suffer from detraction.

Of course.

And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue?

Anything but unskilful.

And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern?

They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking?

They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,—they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves made, a clean surface.

They will be very right, he said.

Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the constitution?

No doubt.

And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy; and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God.

Very true, he said.

And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, until they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God?

Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture.

And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such an one as we are praising; at whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard?

Much calmer, if there is any sense in them.

Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being?

They would not be so unreasonable.

Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest good?

Neither can they doubt this.

But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected?

Surely not.

Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realized?

I think that they will be less angry.

Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms?

By all means, he said.

Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers?

Surely no man, he said.

And when they have come into being will any one say that they must of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be saved is not denied even by us; but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escape—who will venture to affirm this?

Who indeed!

But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous.

Yes, one is enough.

The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them?

Certainly.

And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility?

I think not.

But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best.

We have.

And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible.

Very good.

And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but more remains to be discussed;—how and by what studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies?

Certainly.

I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their patriotism—he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen.

I perfectly remember, he said.

Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold word; but now let me dare to say—that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher.

Yes, he said, let that be affirmed.

And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found in shreds and patches.

What do you mean? he said.

You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them.

Very true, he said.

On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil.

Quite true.

And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any office or command.

Certainly, he said.

And will they be a class which is rarely found?

Yes, indeed.

Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation which we did not mention—he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, or will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises.

Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you mean by the highest of all knowledge?

You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts; and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom?

Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more.

And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion of them?

To what do you refer?

We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for you to say.

Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair measure of truth.

But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further.

Not an uncommon case when people are indolent.

Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State and of the laws.

True.

The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer circuit, and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling.

What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this—higher than justice and the other virtues?

Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline merely, as at present—nothing short of the most finished picture should satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy!

A right noble thought; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge?

Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be troublesome; for you have often been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness?

Assuredly not.

You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge?

Yes.

And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good?

How ridiculous!

Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it—for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term 'good'—this is of course ridiculous.

Most true, he said.

And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good.

Certainly.

And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same?

True.

There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved.

There can be none.

Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good—the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one.

Very true, he said.

Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,—of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?

Certainly not, he said.

I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them.

That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours.

And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered?

Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either?

Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters.

True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own.

Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know?

Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion.

And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road?

Very true.

And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty?

Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied.

Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hear—otherwise, not.

By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our debt for the account of the parent.

I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take, however, this latter by way of interest, and at the same time have a care that I do not render a false account, although I have no intention of deceiving you.

Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed.

Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at many other times.

What?

The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them the term 'many' is applied.

True, he said.

And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute; for they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each.

Very true.

The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen.

Exactly.

And what is the organ with which we see the visible things?

The sight, he said.

And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense?

True.

But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived?

No, I never have, he said.

Then reflect; has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard?

Nothing of the sort.

No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other senses—you would not say that any of them requires such an addition?

Certainly not.

But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen?

How do you mean?

Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible.

Of what nature are you speaking?

Of that which you term light, I replied.

True, he said.

Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing?

Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble.

And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear?

You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say.

May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows?

How?

Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun?

No.

Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun?

By far the most like.

And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun?

Exactly.

Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight?

True, he said.

And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind:

Will you be a little more explicit? he said.

Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them?

Very true.

But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them?

Certainly.

And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence?

Just so.

Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honour yet higher.

What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good?

God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another point of view?

In what point of view?

You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation?

Certainly.

In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.

Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven, how amazing!

Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you made me utter my fancies.

And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun.

Yes, I said, there is a great deal more.

Then omit nothing, however slight.

I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will have to be omitted.

I hope not, he said.

You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz'). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind?

I have.

Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you understand?

Yes, I understand.

Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made.

Very good.

Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge?

Most undoubtedly.

Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual is to be divided.

In what manner?

Thus:—There are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the soul uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images as in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves.

I do not quite understand your meaning, he said.

Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which they and every body are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others; but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion?

Yes, he said, I know.

And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on—the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind?

That is true.

And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value.

I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry and the sister arts.

And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses—that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.

I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason.

You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul—reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last—and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth.

I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement.

BOOK VII.

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

Yes, he said.

And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.

And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

No question, he replied.

To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

Far truer.

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

True, he said.

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

Not all in a moment, he said.

He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

Certainly.

Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

Certainly.

He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

Certainly, he would.

And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

'Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,'

and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.

Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

To be sure, he said.

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

No question, he said.

This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.

Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.

Yes, very natural.

And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?

Anything but surprising, he replied.

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.

That, he said, is a very just distinction.

But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.

They undoubtedly say this, he replied.

Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.

Very true.

And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth?

Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.

And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue—how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?

Very true, he said.

But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below—if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.

Very likely.

Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.

Very true, he replied.

Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all—they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.

What do you mean?

I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not.

But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better?

You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.

True, he said, I had forgotten.

Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

Quite true, he replied.

And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light?

Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.

Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.

Most true, he replied.

And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?

Indeed, I do not, he said.

And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.

No question.

Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics?

They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.

And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,—as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?

By all means, he replied.

The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell (In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.), but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy?

Quite so.

And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of effecting such a change?

Certainly.

What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes?

Yes, that was said.

Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality?

What quality?

Usefulness in war.

Yes, if possible.

There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not?

Just so.

There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and corruption?

True.

Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover?

No.

But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent into our former scheme?

Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science; and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking.

You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature; since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us?

Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the arts are also excluded, what remains?

Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of universal application.

What may that be?

A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of education.

What is that?

The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three—in a word, number and calculation:—do not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of them?

Yes.

Then the art of war partakes of them?

To be sure.

Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of counting his own feet—how could he if he was ignorant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been?

I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say.

Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic?

Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all.

I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of this study?

What is your notion?

It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seeking, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used; for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being.

Will you explain your meaning? he said.

I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the enquiry with me, and say 'yes' or 'no' when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them.

Explain, he said.

I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further enquiry is imperatively demanded.

You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade.

No, I said, that is not at all my meaning.

Then what is your meaning?

When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:—here are three fingers—a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger.

Very good.

You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the point.

What is it?

Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin—it makes no difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought the question what is a finger? for the sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger.

True.

And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which invites or excites intelligence.

There is not, he said.

But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at the extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other senses; do they give perfect intimations of such matters? Is not their mode of operation on this wise—the sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft?

You are quite right, he said.

And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light?

Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious and require to be explained.

Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects announced to her are one or two.

True.

And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different?

Certainly.

And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the two as in a state of division, for if there were undivided they could only be conceived of as one?

True.

The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused manner; they were not distinguished.

Yes.

Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and not confused.

Very true.

Was not this the beginning of the enquiry 'What is great?' and 'What is small?'

Exactly so.

And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible.

Most true.

This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the intellect, or the reverse—those which are simultaneous with opposite impressions, invite thought; those which are not simultaneous do not.

I understand, he said, and agree with you.

And to which class do unity and number belong?

I do not know, he replied.

Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the answer; for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being; but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks 'What is absolute unity?' This is the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being.

And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude?

Yes, I said; and this being true of one must be equally true of all number?

Certainly.

And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number?

Yes.

And they appear to lead the mind towards truth?

Yes, in a very remarkable manner.

Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician.

That is true.

And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher?

Certainly.

Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe; and we must endeavour to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; nor again, like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being.

That is excellent, he said.

Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how charming the science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper!

How do you mean?

I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You know how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule any one who attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide, they multiply (Meaning either (1) that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of fractions; or (2) that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the fractions of one continue to be units.), taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in fractions.

That is very true.

Now, suppose a person were to say to them: O my friends, what are these wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible,—what would they answer?

They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those numbers which can only be realized in thought.

Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called necessary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the attainment of pure truth?

Yes; that is a marked characteristic of it.

And have you further observed, that those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would otherwise have been.

Very true, he said.

And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many as difficult.

You will not.

And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.

I agree.

Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we enquire whether the kindred science also concerns us?

You mean geometry?

Exactly so.

Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician.

Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough; the question relates rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometry—whether that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the idea of good; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold.

True, he said.

Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us?

Yes, that is what we assert.

Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians.

How so?

They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like—they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science.

Certainly, he said.

Then must not a further admission be made?

What admission?

That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient.

That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true.

Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down.

Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect.

Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover the science has indirect effects, which are not small.

Of what kind? he said.

There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said; and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not.

Yes indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them.

Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study?

Let us do so, he replied.

And suppose we make astronomy the third—what do you say?

I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor.

I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive.

I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf.

Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences.

What was the mistake? he said.

After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas after the second dimension the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed.

That is true, Socrates; but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects.

Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons:—in the first place, no government patronises them; this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult; in the second place, students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and even if he could, as matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director of these studies and gave honour to them; then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made; since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light.

Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane surfaces?

Yes, I said.

And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward?

Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry; the ludicrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy, or motion of solids.

True, he said.

Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth.

The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Every one but myself, I said; to every one else this may be clear, but not to me.

And what then would you say?

I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards.

What do you mean? he asked.

You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back.

I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking?

I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight.

True, he replied.

The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any other proportion.

No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous.

And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation—that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth.

I quite agree, though I never thought of this before.

Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use.

That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers.

Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study?

No, he said, not without thinking.

Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons.

But where are the two?

There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named.

And what may that be?

The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions; and these are sister sciences—as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them?

Yes, he replied.

But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object.

What is that?

There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labour, like that of the astronomers, is in vain.

Yes, by heaven! he said; and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbour's wall—one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same—either party setting their ears before their understanding.

You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to enquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems—that is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not.

That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge.

A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful; that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good; but if pursued in any other spirit, useless.

Very true, he said.

Now, when all these studies reach the point of inter-communion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects; otherwise there is no profit in them.

I suspect so; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work.

What do you mean? I said; the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician?

Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them?

Neither can this be supposed.

And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.

Exactly, he said.

Then this is the progress which you call dialectic?

True.

But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an image)—this power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world—this power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described.

I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain (A play upon the Greek word, which means both 'law' and 'strain.'), and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these paths will also lead to our final rest.

Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen something like reality; of that I am confident.

Doubtless, he replied.

But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences.

Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last.

And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being—geometry and the like—they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science?

Impossible, he said.

Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider?

Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness?

At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a proportion:--

As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.

But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been.

As far as I understand, he said, I agree.

And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much?

Yes, he said; how can I deny it?

And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument—unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science;—dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus.

In all that I should most certainly agree with you.

And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you are nurturing and educating—if the ideal ever becomes a reality—you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts (Literally 'lines,' probably the starting-point of a race-course.), having no reason in them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters?

Certainly not.

Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions?

Yes, he said, you and I together will make it.

Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go?

I agree, he said.

But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered.

Yes, clearly.

You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before?

Certainly, he said.

The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education.

And what are these?

Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body.

Very true, he replied.

Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line; or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him.

Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts.

The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards.

What do you mean?

In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry—I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness.

Certainly, he said.

And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected?

To be sure.

And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities states and individuals unconsciously err; and the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard.

That is very true, he said.

All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present.

That would not be creditable.

Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous.

In what respect?

I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement.

Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so.

But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things—for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil.

Of course.

And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education.

Why not?

Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Very true.

Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.

That is a very rational notion, he said.

Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them?

Yes, I remember.

The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things—labours, lessons, dangers—and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number.

At what age?

At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected.

Certainly, he replied.

After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being.

Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root.

Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.

I agree with you, he said.

These, I said, are the points which you must consider; and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are most steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honour; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being: And here, my friend, great caution is required.

Why great caution?

Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced?

What evil? he said.

The students of the art are filled with lawlessness.

Quite true, he said.

Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them?

In what way make allowance?

I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth; he is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you?

If you please.

Then I should say, that while he is ignorant of the truth he will be likely to honour his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatterers; he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter.

He will.

But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honour and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations.

Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy?

In this way: you know that there are certain principles about justice and honour, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honouring them.

That is true.

There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers.

True.

Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before?

Impossible.

And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires?

He cannot.

And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it?

Unquestionably.

Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable.

Yes, he said; and, I may add, pitiable.

Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic.

Certainly.

There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early; for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them.

Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better.

And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world.

Too true, he said.

But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honour of the pursuit.

Very true, he said.

And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder?

Very true.

Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercise—will that be enough?

Would you say six or four years? he asked.

Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they must be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold: in this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch.

And how long is this stage of their lives to last?

Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation: the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honour them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if not, as in any case blessed and divine.

You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty.

Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures can go.

There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men.

Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honour that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city?

How will they proceed?

They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most.

Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being.

Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image—there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him.

There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said.

BOOK VIII.

And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings?

That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged.

Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you remember what we agreed?

Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole State.

True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path.

There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the State: you said that such a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived.

Your recollection, I said, is most exact.

Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then.

Yes, if I can, I will, I said.

I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking.

That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians.

Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them.

Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them?

Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.

Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five?

Certainly.

Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good, we have already described.

We have.

Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice.

Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.

Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the government of honour?—I know of no name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision.

That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable.

First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved.

Very true, he said.

In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?

How would they address us?

After this manner:—A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution:—In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number (i.e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.), but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. (Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 3 cubed, 4 cubed, 5 cubed, which together = 6 cubed = 216.) The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 = 4 x 100) (Or the first a square which is 100 x 100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100, and an oblong of 100 by 75.), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by (Or, 'consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters,' etc. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.

Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly.

Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak falsely?

And what do the Muses say next?

When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual owners; and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and they themselves were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them.

I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change.

And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy?

Very true.

Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities.

True, he said.

In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training—in all these respects this State will resemble the former.

True.

But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars—this State will be for the most part peculiar.

Yes.

Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please.

That is most true, he said.

And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music.

Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil.

Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is predominantly seen,—the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element.

Assuredly, he said.

Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been described in outline only; the more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour.

Very true, he replied.

Now what man answers to this form of government-how did he come into being, and what is he like?

I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which characterises him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon.

Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but there are other respects in which he is very different.

In what respects?

He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture; and he should be a good listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honour; claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase.

Yes, that is the type of character which answers to timocracy.

Such an one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian.

Who was that? said Adeimantus.

Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life.

Good, he said.

Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State.

Exactly.

His origin is as follows:—He is often the young son of a brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honours and offices, and will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble.

And how does the son come into being?

The character of the son begins to develope when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing.

Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves.

And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son; and if they see any one who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things—hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others—is drawn opposite ways: while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious.

You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly.

Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second type of character?

We have.

Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says,

'Is set over against another State;'

or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State.

By all means.

I believe that oligarchy follows next in order.

And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?

A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

I understand, he replied.

Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to oligarchy arises?

Yes.

Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other.

How?

The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?

Yes, indeed.

And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.

Likely enough.

And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.

True.

And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.

Clearly.

And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.

That is obvious.

And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.

They do so.

They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work.

Very true.

And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established.

Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking?

First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot?

You mean that they would shipwreck?

Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything?

I should imagine so.

Except a city?—or would you include a city?

Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all.

This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?

Clearly.

And here is another defect which is quite as bad.

What defect?

The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another.

That, surely, is at least as bad.

Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.

How discreditable!

And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings—they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?

Anything but well.

There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable.

What evil?

A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature.

Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.

The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.

True.

But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?

As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift.

May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive?

Just so, Socrates.

And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.

Most true, he said.

Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.

Clearly.

Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers?

Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler.

And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force?

Certainly, we may be so bold.

The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State?

True.

Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils.

Very likely.

Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State.

By all means.

Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise?

How?

A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son: at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost; he may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death, or exiled, or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him.

Nothing more likely.

And the son has seen and known all this—he is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion headforemost from his bosom's throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such an one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and scimitar?

Most true, he replied.

And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it.

Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.

And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?

Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came.

Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them.

Very good.

First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth?

Certainly.

Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable.

True.

He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents?

He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State.

You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said.

I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honour.

Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life?

True.

Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries?

Where must I look?

You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.

Aye.

It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions.

To be sure.

Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own.

Yes, and they will be strong in him too.

The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones.

True.

For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him.

I should expect so.

And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.

Very true.

Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State?

There can be no doubt.

Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment.

That, he said, is our method.

Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?—The good at which such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable?

What then?

The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance?

To be sure.

There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded.

That is tolerably clear.

And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary?

Yes, often.

And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution.

That is true.

On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their sting—that is, their money—into some one else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of children: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State.

Yes, he said, there are plenty of them—that is certain.

The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by another remedy:

What other?

One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters:—Let there be a general rule that every one shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the State.

Yes, they will be greatly lessened.

At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain.

Very true.

They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue.

Yes, quite as indifferent.

Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellow-sailors; aye and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger—for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich—and very likely the wiry sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh—when he sees such an one puffing and at his wits'-end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another 'Our warriors are not good for much'?

Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking.

And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise within—in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and may be at times distracted, even when there is no external cause.

Yes, surely.

And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot.

Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw.

And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? for as the government is, such will be the man.

Clearly, he said.

In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and frankness—a man may say and do what he likes?

'Tis said so, he replied.

And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases?

Clearly.

Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures?

There will.

This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States.

Yes.

Yes, my good Sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government.

Why?

Because of the liberty which reigns there—they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State.

He will be sure to have patterns enough.

And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed—there being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy—is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful?

For the moment, yes.

And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world—the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares?

Yes, he replied, many and many a one.

See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 'don't care' about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city—as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study—how grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour any one who professes to be the people's friend.

Yes, she is of a noble spirit.

These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

We know her well.

Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being.

Very good, he said.

Is not this the way—he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father who has trained him in his own habits?

Exactly.

And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary?

Obviously.

Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures?

I should.

Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it.

True.

We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary?

We are not.

And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards—of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good—shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary?

Yes, certainly.

Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them?

Very good.

Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class?

That is what I should suppose.

The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life?

Yes.

But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health?

Certainly.

And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary?

Very true.

May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production?

Certainly.

And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good?

True.

And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical?

Very true.

Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the oligarchical: the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process.

What is the process?

When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure—then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the democratical?

Inevitably.

And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and alike?

Certainly.

And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself.

It must be so.

And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored.

Yes, he said, that sometimes happens.

And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous.

Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way.

They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him.

Very true.

At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best guardians and sentinels.

None better.

False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place.

They are certain to do so.

And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters, and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men; and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, is trampled in the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them beyond the border.

Yes, with a will.

And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names; insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures.

Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough.

After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over—supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself up to their successors—in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another; he despises none of them but encourages them all equally.

Very true, he said.

Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the others—whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as good as another.

Yes, he said; that is the way with him.

Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on.

Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality.

Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many;—he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him.

Just so.

Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man.

Let that be his place, he said.

Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.

Quite true, he said.

Say then, my friend, In what manner does tyranny arise?—that it has a democratic origin is evident.

Clearly.

And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchy—I mean, after a sort?

How?

The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth—am I not right?

Yes.

And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy?

True.

And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution?

What good?

Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of the State—and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell.

Yes; the saying is in every body's mouth.

I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny.

How so?

When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cup-bearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs.

Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence.

Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit?

Certainly not.

By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them.

How do you mean?

I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger is quite as good as either.

Yes, he said, that is the way.

And these are not the only evils, I said—there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.

Quite true, he said.

The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other.

Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips?

That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just ready to burst with liberty.

When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing.

And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.

Yes, he said, I know it too well.

Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny.

Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?

The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy—the truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government.

True.

The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Yes, the natural order.

And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty?

As we might expect.

That, however, was not, as I believe, your question—you rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both?

Just so, he replied.

Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings.

A very just comparison.

These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible.

Yes, by all means, he said.

Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes; for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State.

That is true.

And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.

How so?

Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones.

Very true, he said.

Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass.

What is that?

They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest.

Naturally so.

They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones.

Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little.

And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.

That is pretty much the case, he said.

The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.

True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey.

And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves?

Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share.

And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best can?

What else can they do?

And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy?

True.

And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds revolution in them.

That is exactly the truth.

Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another.

True.

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness.

Yes, that is their way.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector.

Yes, that is quite clear.

How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus.

What tale?

The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it?

Oh, yes.

And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the favourite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizens; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf—that is, a tyrant?

Inevitably.

This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich?

The same.

After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown.

That is clear.

And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him.

Yes, he said, that is their usual way.

Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career—'Let not the people's friend,' as they say, 'be lost to them.'

Exactly.

The people readily assent; all their fears are for him—they have none for themselves.

Very true.

And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus,

'By pebbly Hermus' shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a coward.'

And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again.

But if he is caught he dies.

Of course.

And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 'larding the plain' with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute.

No doubt, he said.

And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in which a creature like him is generated.

Yes, he said, let us consider that.

At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets;—he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to every one!

Of course, he said.

But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

To be sure.

Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him?

Clearly.

And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war.

He must.

Now he begins to grow unpopular.

A necessary result.

Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done.

Yes, that may be expected.

And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything.

He cannot.

And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the State.

Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.

Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse.

If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.

What a blessed alternative, I said:—to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all!

Yes, that is the alternative.

And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require?

Certainly.

And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them?

They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them.

By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every land.

Yes, he said, there are.

But will he not desire to get them on the spot?

How do you mean?

He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol them in his body-guard.

To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all.

What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he has put to death the others and has these for his trusted friends.

Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort.

Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him.

Of course.

Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian.

Why so?

Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying,

'Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;'

and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions.

Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets.

And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny.

Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us.

But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies.

Very true.

Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour—the greatest honour, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further.

True.

But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and enquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and ever-changing army of his.

If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people.

And when these fail?

Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's estate.

You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will maintain him and his companions?

Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves.

But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates.

By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong.

Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him?

Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.

Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.

True, he said.

Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to tyranny?

Yes, quite enough, he said.

BOOK IX.

Last of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery?

Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining.

There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered.

What question?

I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused.

Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission.

Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful; every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them—either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them.

Which appetites do you mean?

I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there is no conceivable folly or crime—not excepting incest or any other unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food—which at such a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit.

Most true, he said.

But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, collecting himself in meditation; after having first indulged his appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from interfering with the higher principle—which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future: when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has a quarrel against any one—I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fantastic and lawless visions.

I quite agree.

In saying this I have been running into a digression; but the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you agree with me.

Yes, I agree.

And now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth upwards to have been trained under a miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament?

True.

And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was generated out of the oligarch?

Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still.

And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father's principles.

I can imagine him.

Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father:—he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrant-makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts—a sort of monstrous winged drone—that is the only image which will adequately describe him.

Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him.

And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy: and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation, and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full.

Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated.

And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant?

I should not wonder.

Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant?

He has.

And you know that a man who is deranged and not right in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods?

That he will.

And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being when, either under the influence of nature, or habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so?

Assuredly.

Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live?

Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me.

I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtezans, and all that sort of thing; Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul.

That is certain.

Yes; and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable, and their demands are many.

They are indeed, he said.

His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent.

True.

Then comes debt and the cutting down of his property.

Of course.

When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food; and he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, in order that he may gratify them?

Yes, that is sure to be the case.

He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and pangs.

He must.

And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the property, he will take a slice of theirs.

No doubt he will.

And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and deceive them.

Very true.

And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them.

Yes, probably.

And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them?

Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents.

But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some new-fangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary connection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake of some newly-found blooming youth who is the reverse of indispensable?

Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would.

Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother.

He is indeed, he replied.

He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the body-guard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life?

Yes, indeed, he said.

And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and become the body-guard or mercenary soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the city.

What sort of mischief?

For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cut-purses, foot-pads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak they turn informers, and bear false witness, and take bribes.

A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in number.

Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant.

Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant.

If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires.

Exactly.

When such men are only private individuals and before they get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of affection for them; but when they have gained their point they know them no more.

Yes, truly.

They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship.

Certainly not.

And may we not rightly call such men treacherous?

No question.

Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice?

Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right.

Let us then sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man: he is the waking reality of what we dreamed.

Most true.

And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes.

That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer.

And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and truly miserable; although this may not be the opinion of men in general?

Yes, he said, inevitably.

And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical State, and the democratical man like the democratical State; and the same of the others?

Certainly.

And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to man?

To be sure.

Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue?

They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst.

There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once enquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him; but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion.

A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as every one must, that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest.

And in estimating the men too, may I not fairly make a like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his dally life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger—he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men?

That again, he said, is a very fair proposal.

Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have before now met with such a person? We shall then have some one who will answer our enquiries.

By all means.

Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respective conditions?

What do you mean? he asked.

Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved?

No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved.

And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State?

Yes, he said, I see that there are—a few; but the people, speaking generally, and the best of them are miserably degraded and enslaved.

Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail? his soul is full of meanness and vulgarity—the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest.

Inevitably.

And would you say that the soul of such an one is the soul of a freeman, or of a slave?

He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion.

And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of acting voluntarily?

Utterly incapable.

And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse?

Certainly.

And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor?

Poor.

And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable?

True.

And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear?

Yes, indeed.

Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow and groaning and pain?

Certainly not.

And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires?

Impossible.

Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be the most miserable of States?

And I was right, he said.

Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man, what do you say of him?

I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men.

There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong.

What do you mean?

I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery.

Then who is more miserable?

One of whom I am about to speak.

Who is that?

He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant.

From what has been said, I gather that you are right.

Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest.

Very true, he said.

Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light upon this subject.

What is your illustration?

The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves; the only difference is that he has more slaves.

Yes, that is the difference.

You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants?

What should they fear?

Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this?

Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual.

Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him—will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves?

Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear.

The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will—he will have to cajole his own servants.

Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself.

And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life?

His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies.

And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound—he who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest.

Very true, he said.

And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own person—the tyrannical man, I mean—whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all—will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men.

Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact.

Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst?

Certainly.

He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance holds?

Very true, he said.

Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself.

No man of any sense will dispute your words.

Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all—they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical.

The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery.

Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston (the best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State?

Make the proclamation yourself, he said.

And shall I add, 'whether seen or unseen by gods and men'?

Let the words be added.

Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may also have some weight.

What is that?

The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration.

Of what nature?

It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers.

How do you mean? he said.

There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money.

That is true, he said.

If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion; and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or money.

I agree with you.

Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering and getting fame?

True.

Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious—would the term be suitable?

Extremely suitable.

On the other hand, every one sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame.

Far less.

'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul?

Certainly.

One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in others, as may happen?

Yes.

Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain?

Exactly.

And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects?

Very true.

Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver?

True, he said.

And the lover of honour—what will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him?

Very true.

And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them?

There can be no doubt of that, he replied.

Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless—how shall we know who speaks truly?

I cannot myself tell, he said.

Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason?

There cannot be a better, he said.

Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain?

The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted—or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted—the sweetness of learning and knowing truth.

Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience?

Yes, very great.

Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom?

Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only.

His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one?

Far better.

And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience?

Certainly.

Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher?

What faculty?

Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest.

Yes.

And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument?

Certainly.

If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy?

Assuredly.

Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest?

Clearly.

But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges--

The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest.

And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life.

Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life.

And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next?

Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour; who is nearer to himself than the money-maker.

Last comes the lover of gain?

Very true, he said.

Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure—all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls?

Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself?

I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions.

Proceed.

Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain?

True.

And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain?

There is.

A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either—that is what you mean?

Yes.

You remember what people say when they are sick?

What do they say?

That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill.

Yes, I know, he said.

And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain?

I have.

And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, is extolled by them as the greatest pleasure?

Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest.

Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful?

Doubtless, he said.

Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain?

So it would seem.

But can that which is neither become both?

I should say not.

And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not?

Yes.

But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion, and in a mean between them?

Yes.

How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain?

Impossible.

This then is an appearance only and not a reality; that is to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations, when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real but a sort of imposition?

That is the inference.

Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

What are they, he said, and where shall I find them?

There are many of them: take as an example the pleasures of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them.

Most true, he said.

Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

No.

Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort—they are reliefs of pain.

That is true.

And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature?

Yes.

Shall I give you an illustration of them?

Let me hear.

You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and middle region?

I should.

And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world?

To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise?

But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending?

No doubt.

All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions?

Yes.

Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only being drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white—can you wonder, I say, at this?

No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite.

Look at the matter thus:—Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the bodily state?

Yes.

And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul?

True.

And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either?

Certainly.

And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer?

Clearly, from that which has more.

What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgment—those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this way:—Which has a more pure being—that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal?

Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable.

And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence?

Yes, of knowledge in the same degree.

And of truth in the same degree?

Yes.

And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence?

Necessarily.

Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul?

Far less.

And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul?

Yes.

What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence and is less real?

Of course.

And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure?

Unquestionably.

Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.

Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle.

Their pleasures are mixed with pains—how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth.

Something of that sort must inevitably happen.

And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense?

Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also.

Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him?

Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural.

And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable?

Exactly.

But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own?

True.

And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure?

Yes.

And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order?

Clearly.

And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance? Yes.

And the royal and orderly desires are nearest?

Yes.

Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least?

Certainly.

But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly?

Inevitably.

Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them?

Will you tell me?

There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure.

How do you mean?

I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle?

Yes.

And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch?

He will.

And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal and aristocratical?

Yes, he is third.

Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three?

Manifestly.

The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure.

Certainly.

And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king.

Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum.

Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval.

What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain!

Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and years. (729 NEARLY equals the number of days and nights in the year.)

Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them.

Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue?

Immeasurably greater.

Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither: Was not some one saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just?

Yes, that was said.

Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him.

What shall we say to him?

Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes.

Of what sort?

An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one.

There are said of have been such unions.

Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many-headed monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will.

You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose.

Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second.

That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say.

And now join them, and let the three grow into one.

That has been accomplished.

Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human creature.

I have done so, he said.

And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another—he ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another.

Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says.

To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the entire human creature. He should watch over the many-headed monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in common care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself.

Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice say.

And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honour, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant?

Yes, from every point of view.

Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. 'Sweet Sir,' we will say to him, 'what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?' He can hardly avoid saying Yes—can he now?

Not if he has any regard for my opinion.

But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question: 'Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin.'

Yes, said Glaucon, far worse—I will answer for him.

Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large?

Clearly.

And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength?

Yes.

And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him?

Very true.

And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey?

True, he said.

And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle; the individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them.

Such appears to be the reason.

And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine rules; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals.

True, he said.

And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own, and when this is done they may go their ways.

Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest.

From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness?

From no point of view at all.

What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the body.

Certainly, he said.

To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will disregard others?

Clearly, he said.

In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul?

Certainly he will, if he has true music in him.

And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe; he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm?

Certainly not, he said.

He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means.

Very true.

And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man; but those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid?

Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman.

By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call.

I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth?

In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.

I think so, he said.

BOOK X.

Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry.

To what do you refer?

To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received; as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished.

What do you mean?

Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe—but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them.

Explain the purport of your remark.

Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will speak out.

Very good, he said.

Listen to me then, or rather, answer me.

Put your question.

Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know.

A likely thing, then, that I should know.

Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener.

Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you enquire yourself?

Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form:—do you understand me?

I do.

Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world—plenty of them, are there not?

Yes.

But there are only two ideas or forms of them—one the idea of a bed, the other of a table.

True.

And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea—that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances—but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he?

Impossible.

And there is another artist,—I should like to know what you would say of him.

Who is he?

One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen.

What an extraordinary man!

Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things—the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also.

He must be a wizard and no mistake.

Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself?

What way?

An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror.

Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.

Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another—a creator of appearances, is he not?

Of course.

But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed?

Yes, he said, but not a real bed.

And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed?

Yes, I did.

Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth.

At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth.

No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth.

No wonder.

Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is?

If you please.

Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say—for no one else can be the maker?

No.

There is another which is the work of the carpenter?

Yes.

And the work of the painter is a third?

Yes.

Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter?

Yes, there are three of them.

God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God.

Why is that?

Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and not the two others.

Very true, he said.

God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only.

So we believe.

Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed?

Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things.

And what shall we say of the carpenter—is not he also the maker of the bed?

Yes.

But would you call the painter a creator and maker?

Certainly not.

Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed?

I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.

Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator?

Certainly, he said.

And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?

That appears to be so.

Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?—I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?

The latter.

As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this.

What do you mean?

I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things.

Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent.

Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be—an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear—of appearance or of reality?

Of appearance.

Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.

Certainly.

And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man—whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

Most true.

And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well?

The question, he said, should by all means be considered.

Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him?

I should say not.

The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them.

Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit.

Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at second-hand; but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. 'Friend Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third—not an image maker or imitator—and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you?' Is there any city which he might name?

I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator.

Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive?

There is not.

Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him?

There is absolutely nothing of the kind.

But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him?

Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive?

Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind—if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator—can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries: 'You will never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of education'—and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough?

Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true.

Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures.

Quite so.

In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well—such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.

Yes, he said.

They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them?

Exactly.

Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right?

Yes.

Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation.

Proceed.

Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit?

Yes.

And the worker in leather and brass will make them?

Certainly.

But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form.

Most true.

And may we not say the same of all things?

What?

That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them?

Yes.

And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them.

True.

Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions?

Of course.

The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him?

True.

The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge?

True.

But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw?

Neither.

Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations?

I suppose not.

The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations?

Nay, very much the reverse.

And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude?

Just so.

Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in Iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree?

Very true.

And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth?

Certainly.

And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed?

What do you mean?

I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance?

True.

And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic.

True.

And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding—there is the beauty of them—and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight?

Most true.

And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul?

To be sure.

And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction?

True.

But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossible—the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing?

Very true.

Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure?

True.

And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation?

Certainly.

And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul?

No doubt.

This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim.

Exactly.

The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring.

Very true.

And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry?

Probably the same would be true of poetry.

Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting; but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad.

By all means.

We may state the question thus:—Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more?

No, there is nothing else.

But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself—or rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life? Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment?

And we were right, he said.

Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an omission which must now be supplied.

What was the omission?

Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another?

Yes.

But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow?

The latter, he said, is the truer statement.

Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone?

It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not.

When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do?

True.

There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow?

True.

But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him?

Certainly.

One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law?

How do you mean?

The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required.

What is most required? he asked.

That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art.

Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune.

Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason?

Clearly.

And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly?

Indeed, we may.

And does not the latter—I mean the rebellious principle—furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers.

Certainly.

Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated?

Clearly.

And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth—in this, I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small—he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth.

Exactly.

But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation:—the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing?

Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say.

Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast—the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most.

Yes, of course I know.

But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality—we would fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman.

Very true, he said.

Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person?

No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable.

Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view.

What point of view?

If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;—the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own.

How very true!

And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;—the case of pity is repeated;—there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home.

Quite true, he said.

And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action—in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.

I cannot deny it.

Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honour those who say these things—they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State.

That is most true, he said.

And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in the vain talk of fools,' and 'the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,' and the 'subtle thinkers who are beggars after all'; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation, that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her—we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she appears in Homer?

Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed.

Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon this condition only—that she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some other metre?

Certainly.

And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gainers—I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight?

Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers.

If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law.

Yes, he said, I quite agree with you.

Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue?

Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been.

And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue.

What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness.

Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity?

Say rather 'nothing,' he replied.

And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole?

Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask?

Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable?

He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this?

Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too—there is no difficulty in proving it.

I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light.

Listen then.

I am attending.

There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil?

Yes, he replied.

Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good?

Yes.

And you admit that every thing has a good and also an evil; as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron: in everything, or in almost everything, there is an inherent evil and disease?

Yes, he said.

And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies?

True.

The vice and evil which is inherent in each is the destruction of each; and if this does not destroy them there is nothing else that will; for good certainly will not destroy them, nor again, that which is neither good nor evil.

Certainly not.

If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no destruction?

That may be assumed.

Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul?

Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance.

But does any of these dissolve or destroy her?—and here do not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true?

Yes.

Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body?

Certainly not.

And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of its own?

It is, he replied.

Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body; although, if the badness of food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by this; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infection—this we shall absolutely deny?

Very true.

And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another?

Yes, he said, there is reason in that.

Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being done to the body; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any man.

And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust in consequence of death.

But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds?

Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer alive—aye, and well awake too; so far removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death.

True, I said; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction.

Yes, that can hardly be.

But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether inherent or external, must exist for ever, and if existing for ever, must be immortal?

Certainly.

That is the conclusion, I said; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality.

Very true.

But this we cannot believe—reason will not allow us—any more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity.

What do you mean? he said.

The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements?

Certainly not.

Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look.

Where then?

At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough.

True, he replied.

And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument; we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades.

Very true.

And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death.

Certainly not, he said.

Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument?

What did I borrow?

The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember?

I should be much to blame if I had forgotten.

Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us; since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own.

The demand, he said, is just.

In the first place, I said—and this is the first thing which you will have to give back—the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods.

Granted.

And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning?

True.

And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins?

Certainly.

Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue?

Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him.

And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed?

Certainly.

Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just?

That is my conviction.

And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal but not back again from the goal: they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow.

True.

And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by stranger and citizen; they are beaten and then come those things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting them, that these things are true?

Certainly, he said, what you say is true.

These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good things which justice of herself provides.

Yes, he said; and they are fair and lasting.

And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them.

Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more gladly hear.

Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinous, yet this too is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger who would carry the report of the other world to men, and they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival; and those who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from earth curiously enquiring about the things above, and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this:—He said that for every wrong which they had done to any one they suffered tenfold; or once in a hundred years—such being reckoned to be the length of man's life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example, there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behaviour, for each and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers, there were retributions other and greater far which he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another, 'Where is Ardiaeus the Great?' (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Er: he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit was: 'He comes not hither and will never come. And this,' said he, 'was one of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were tyrants; and there were also besides the tyrants private individuals who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell.' And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great.

Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions—the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest (or fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or sun) is brightest; the eighth (or moon) coloured by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding; the third (Venus) has the whitest light; the fourth (Mars) is reddish; the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion the fourth; the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens—Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other.

When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as follows: 'Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser—God is justified.' When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors; and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character in them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become different. But there was every other quality, and the all mingled with one another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the supreme peril of our human state; and therefore the utmost care should be taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find some one who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned severally and collectively upon virtue; he should know what the effect of beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all the natural and acquired gifts of the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined; he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this is the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villainies, he do irremediable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse himself; but let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness.

And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time: 'Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.' And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle—sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures—the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations.

All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.

And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.

One Day 
in the Life of 

Ivan Denisovich 

By 

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN 


New Delhi 

VTO YOUNG .ASIA PUBLICATIONS 



ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH* 


YOUNG ASIA PUBLICATIONS 
Post Box No. 3513 
D-305, Defence Colony 
NEW DELHI-3 


First Indian Edition 7961 


R. K. Printers, Delhi-7 



INTRODUCTION 


As nearly c\eryone must be aware by now, no 
contemporary Russian novel except Doctor Zhivago has 
been preceded by such salvos of publicity as has One Day 
in the Life of Ivan Denisovich , a prison epic by Alexander 
Solzhenitsyn. 

The novel itself, a graphically detailed description of 
one day of struggle, brutality, and privation in a Northern 
Siberian Camp for political prisoners during the winter of 
1951, is notable for its tacit recognition of the abuses of 
power under Joseph Stalin. 

As the title indicates, the story merely traces a routine 
day in the life of a political prisoner, Ivan Denisovich 
Shukhov, at one of the Siberian camps. This is a story 
of a man whose every nerve, from the movement he 
opens his eyes in the morning till he closes them at night, 
is strained in the task of sheer survival. Shukhov has 
been in the camp eight years and knows the ropes— how 
to avoid detection by the guards, how to wangle an extra 
bowl of gruel or husband a crust of bread inside his 
jacket. Eating, he rolls each pellet of bread slowly in his 
mouth to extract the last bit of taste and nourishment 
from it. Yet this monotonous succession of ordeals takes 
on, in Solzhenitsyn’s telling, the quality of intense adven- 
ture as we watch the unkillable individual pit himself 


(v) 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


against almost impossible odd simply to keep alive. And 
when Shukhov lies down to sleep, he can count his day — 
one of many thousands exactly like it— as a happy one r 
for at least he has survived. 

The hero of the novel, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a 
simple carpenter unjustly accused of collaboration with the 
Germans during the second World War, has survived more 
than half of a 10-year sentence— a bleak succession of 
thousands of days of beatings, frostbite, malnutrition, 
and incessant physical labour. As seen through his eyes, 
the novel is a bitter, unadorned documentary of that 
battle for survival. 

Solzhenitsyn’s manuscript was rejected by a number of 
editors in his own country as too hot to handle. Premier 
Khrushchev himself made the decision to publish, un- 
doubtedly aware that this novel would be a powerful 
weapon against the Stalinists. Consequently, Khrushchev 
himself recommended the publication of the novel. The 
novel appeared originally in Novy Mir (a liberal literary 
monthly) in its November 20, 1962 issue. The editor of 
Novy Mir warned Soviet readers that some of the language 
of the novel is shocking; and the warning holds for 
readers of the translations that the interpellation of some 
raw vulgarities in the speech of inmates and guards is 
necessary to convey the flavour of the talk is admitted. 
As an authentic picture of life in one of the many such 
Siberian penal camps, this can be recommended, with the 
reservation made above, to adult readers. It was a 
sensation, and the first edition was promptly sold out. 
Solzhenitsyn was hailed as one of the great Russian prose 


(V/) 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


writers, fromfLermontov to Chekhov. They have a worthy 
successor in him. His name was nominated for the Lenin 
Prize with the endorsement of practically all the Soviet 
Union’s liberal intelligentsia— still he won no award. If 
the story moves us, we can imagine how it must have 
affected the Russians, among whom nearly every family 
had a member who had been sent to the camps. 

The writer himself spent eight years (1945-53)in a camp 
much like the one he describes. Surrounded by the Germans 
in World War II, he broke through their lines and returned 
to his own Company. For this brave feat he was immedi- 
ately seized by the Russian secret police on suspicion that 
the Germans had let him return only to spy. He confessed 
because he thought he would be shot if he did not— a 
common belief that seems to shed light on how confessions 
were obtained during the Stalin period. >Yet he writes 
now without any show of rancour. One has the curious 
impression from “One Day” that the ordeal of the camps 
united the Russian people more profoundly in suffering, 
rather than producing any real political disaffection with 
the Communist regime in Moscow. 

“One Day” is a masterpiece in its own right, a work 
squarely in the mainstream of Russia’s literary tradition. 
The novelist speaks very much for himself, and in a voice 
of his own. At least, when he speaks in his mother tongue 
—•Russian. Despite some obvious flaws, the English trans- 
lation offers an approximate and still very exciting idea of 
Solzhenitsyn’s talent and the sweep of his vision. 

One Day , yields, more than anything else, a beautiful 
sense of its author as a Chekhovian affection, wholly 

(vii) 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


serious. As a revelation of the recent past, One Day tells 
us f nothing that many other witnesses — also victims of the 
Siberian camps— have not told. Tf, however, we do try to 
examine the book simply as a novel, what do we find ? A 
work that is modest in scope, pure in tone, and utterly 
authentic in treatment. 

Moreover, it is a novel from whose pages rises a fully 
alive person who communicates with us, whose feelings we 
share, whose thoughts we understand, however remote his 
experiences may be from our own— such a book is a good 
book. And such a book is Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s tale of 
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. 

However, One Day is not anti-Soviet, but simply anti- 
Stalinist, and a very moderate indictment of the labour 
camp system. Its claim to sensationalism rests principally 
on the fact that it is a clear acknowledgement of a black 
period in recent Soviet history, issued with the approval 
of the present regime. It is also a moving human record, 
since the novelist himself survived 3 years’ imprisonment 
in just such a camp. 

Bursting forth from the anonymous hell of Stalin’s 
prison, Solzhenitsyn may well be the greatest living Soviet 
novelist. But politically he is still on the attack. His tales 
deal with the evils of bureaucracy, and he is open in his 
condemnation of lingering Stalinism and of personal 
ambition. 

The Czech writer Pavel Licko’s account of his visit to 
Solzhenitsyn throws welcome light on a writer about, 
whose present life little has been known outside the USSR, 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


rand about whom it had been rumoured that he was dying 
of cancer. 

Mr. Licko tells us : “When my wife and I first read 
Solzhenitsyn’s book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 
we were curious to know if he was a professional writer 
or just a man who had suffered and had cried out his 
suffering in just this one book. As a translator of Russian 
literature, I wrote to him officially through the Soviet Writers 
Union inquiring about his work, Tnresponsehe sent me ten 
pages of his new work. This happened to be Cancer Ward . 
After that I understood that Russia had given birth to yet 
another of her great writers. I arranged that our official 
Slovak Communist Party newspaper Pravda published the 
excerpt. This was the first and only publication of Cancer 
Ward in Eastern Europe and, in fact, the first publication 
in the world of this novel. It made quite a splash in the 
literary circles in our country and I was sent to the Soviet 
Union by our leading literary journal to talk to 
Solzhenitsyn. But when I arrived in Moscow in March 
1967, 1 realised it was not so easy. . . Solzhenitsyn does not 
live in Moscow : he lives in the small town of Ryazan 200 
miles away. The Russian Writers Union kept telling me that 
he was busy or ill, or almost dying, and that in any case 
he did not like visitors. I could not just go there and check 
these stories. Ryazan is closed to all foreigners, even those 
from the Socialist countries, and I needed a special visa. 
I would never have got it through the Writers Union in 
spite of Solzhenitsyn’s invitation, which I had. I was a 
Soviet officer during the last war. I knew how to talk with 
‘Soviet Officials, and I finally got my Ryazan visa. But this 
proved to be not enough. First, some officials on the train 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


tried to tell me that the train was not going there an<f 
that I should leave it in an unknown town an hour and a 
half away from Moscow. Then I was dumped about ten 
miles outside Ryazan at a small station in the steppe. It 
seemed to have no name. After a while I found a taxi- 
driver, and 1 noticed that he had a labour camp number 
surrounded with a crown of barbed wire tatooed on his 
wrist. I told him I had come to see Solzhenitsyn. He 
didn’t ask for the address. He just took me there, refusing 
to talk on the way, in complete silence, and he refused to 
accept the fare . . . Solzhenitsyn lives in a standard Russian 
house, three storeys, new but already shabby. He has 
three rooms on the ground floor down a dirty corridor 
smelling of burst drain pipes. A very tall, bearded man, 
very athletic, met me at the door. We spent six hours in his 
flat, crammed with books and music sheets and full of old 
but tasteful furniture, including a grand piano. The books 
are mostly not in Russian. I remember Thackerary’s 
complete works in English, among other English books, 
and Anatole France in French. We ate, we drank only a 
little. Solzhenitsyn hardly drinks— this was the only time 
in Russia that I was refused a second glass of vodka. And 
we talked. I made some notes during the conversation. 
One of them read : “This man has a computer brain. It 
gives birth to sentences moulded in mathematically precise 
words’' — and that with a machine-gun speed, I must add, 
and spiced with Latin quotations. He was, of course, 
educated as a mathematician and he behaves like a 
modern-type scientist. When he makes an appointment 
he appears in the dot— a very un-Russian trait. He dresses, 
fashionably, moves like a sportsman, walks with a broad 


(*) 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


stride. He has the efficient manner and thinks like a. 
Russian, particularly about literature ... He told me that 
the writer’s main task is not to miss a single mistake in the 
social development of his country. He must discover the 
unexpected in the life of his society and he does it by 
exploring and following his memory, the memory of an 
artist. ‘The writer must always be all nerves,’ he said. He 
summed up his attitude to modern Soviet literature in one 
word : ‘cosmetics’. He is not overwhelmed by modem 
Western European literature either. He said that Western 
Europe had not lived through any cataclysms recently, that 
life had been too prosperous and too quiet there to give 
birth to a great literature. ‘I have a feeling,’ he said, ‘that 
a great part of their literature is rather petty, though I 
don’t know all of it. Good literature arises out of pain. 
That is why I pin my literary hopes on Eastern Europe/ 
He always includes Russia in Eastern Europe. ‘What is 
good literature ?’ I asked him. ‘A good book,’ he said, ‘is 
one that has colour, power and air. What a writer needs 
above all is not money or glory, but objective criticism to 
point out to him when his books lack these qualities.’... 
He told me that he still lived off the mistake of Russia’s 
last dictator— that is, off Khrushchev’s decision to publish 
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. He also got some 
foreign currency from Sweden, directly from the Swedish 
Ambassador and strictly legally, of course. He bought 
himself a small car in a hard-currency store with it* But 
he never saw a penny or a kopek, or a centime, or a 
pfenning, of the foreign royalties that the state-owned 
Soviet authors’ agency Mezhkniga collected abroad on his 
behalf for Ivan Denisovich. He lives very economically* 


(xi) 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


though not badly by Russian standards and he believes 
that he has enough money to last him through his lifetime. 
His latest novels are only spread in Russia as ‘under- 
ground* typescripts — there are thousands of these — and 
there is no royalty attached to them, naturally. He does 
not feel himself to be the focal point of a new movement 
in Russia. But objectively speaking, he enjoys great 
authority and respect among the writers and among the 
intelligentsia. In the camps, thousands of people 
memorised his ‘microstories\ which he composed in his 
head without writing them down, simply because they 
admired them. He is the beginning of an intellectual 
movement which might eventually bridge the gap between 
Russia and the rest of the world. I think that the 
emergence of Solzhenitsyn is more important in its 
invasion of my country in its positive effect than even 
the invasion of my country is in its negative effect, painful 
as that is for all of us in Czechoslovakia. 


— Publishers 


(xii) 



EXPLANATORY NOTES 


The following notes refer to words asterisked in the text, in 
the order in which they appear. 

“Free” workers (Volnye )— The term used by the 
prisoners about the people “outside” ( navole ). These 
“free” workers employed on construction sites in the 
vicinity of Soviet concentration camps were mostly 
former prisoners themselves who, after serving their 
sentences, either had no home to go back to or were 
not allowed by the authorities to return to their 
former places of residence. 

Western Ukrainian— A native of that Ukrainian ter- 
ritory which until World War II belonged to Poland 
and was subsequently annexed by the Soviet Union. 
The implication of the passage is that the people in 
this region still had not lost some of the manner of 
non-Soviet society. 

Ust-Izhma— One of the many camps on the river 
Pechora, which flows into the Barents Sea. In these 
camps, the prisoners were employed mostly in cutting 
timber. 

“Special” camp (Osoblager )— Camps with a particularly 
harsh regime. 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Wolkovoy— A name derived from volk, meaning 
“wolf.” 

Article 58 — The notorious article of the Soviet Crimi- 
nal Code that covers a wide range of “anti-Soviet” 
offenses —espionage, sabotage, propaganda against 
the regime— and was interpreted to cover the 
activities of any “socially dangerous elements.” 
Under Stalin, it was applied indiscriminately and 
automatically to untold numbers of people (like 
Shukhov in this novel) on mere suspicion of dis- 
loyalty or disaffection. 

Old Believers (Staroobryadtsy )— Schismatics of the 
Russian Orthodox Church who refused to accept 
certain reforms introduced by the Patriarch Nikon in 
the seventeenth century. They were persecuted both 
under the Czars and under the Soviets. 

Bendera — Stepan Bendera, the leader of the Western 
Ukrainian nationalist partisans who at first collabo- 
rated with the Germans against the Soviets during 
the war, but then became disillusioned with the 
Germans and continued ^uerrila warfare on Soviet 
territory until about 1950. Bendera was assassinated 
by Soviet agents in Germany in October, 1959. 

"“Goner” ( Dokhodyaga ) — Camp slang for a prisoner 
who was so exhausted by work and wasted by disease 
that he had little time left to live. 

Oprichniki — Ivan the Terrible’s janizaries, who in the 
sixteenth century were .used to crush all opposition 
to the Czar. 


(xiv) 



Explanatory Notes 


“How are you serving ?” ... “I serve the working 
people” — A standard form of address between officers 
and men in the Soviet Army. 

“Kirov business”— Sergei Kirov, a member of the 
Politburo and Party boss of Leningrad. His assas- 
sination there in 1934, probably engineered by Stalin 
himself, provided the excuse for mass arrests and the 
liquidation of real and imagined political opponents 
that culminated in the Great Purge of 1936-38. 

Zavadsky— Yuri Zavadsky, a prominent Soviet stage 
producer associated with the Moscow Art Theater, 
the Theater of the Red Army, and the Theater of the 
Moscow City Soviet. 


(*V) 




R EVEILLE was sounded, as always, at 5 A M. -a 
hammer pounding on a rail outside camp HQ. 
The ringing noise came faintly on and off 
through the windowpanes covered with ice more than 
an inch thick, and died away fast. It was cold and 
the warder didn’t feel like going on banging. 

The sound stopped and it was pitch black on the 
other side of the window, just like in the middle of 
the night when Shukhov had to get up to go to the 
latrine, only now three yellow beams fell on the window 
— from two lights on the perimeter a nd one inside the 
camp. 

He didn’t know why but nobody’d come to open 
up the barracks. And you couldn’t hear the orderlies 
hoisting the latrine tank on the poles to carry it out. 

Shukhov never slept through reveille but always 
got up at once. That gave him about an hour and a 
half to himself before the morning roll call, a time 
when anyone who knew what was what in the camps 
could always scrounge a little something on the side. 
He could sew someone a cover for his mittens out of 
a piece of old lining. He could bring one of the big 
gang bosses his dry felt boots while he was still in his 
bunk, to save him the trouble of hanging around the 
pile of boots in his bare feet and trying to find his 
own. Or he could run around to one of the supply 


1 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


rooms where there might be a little job, sweeping or 
carrying something. Or he could go to the mess hall 
to pick up bowls from the tables and take piles of 
them to the dishwashers. That was another way of 
getting food, but there werd always too many other 
people with the same idea. And the worst thing was 
that if there was something left in a bowl you started 
to lick it. You couldn’t help it. And Shukhov could 
still hear the words of his first gang boss, Kuzyomin 
— an old camp hand who’d already been inside for 
twelve years in 1943. Once, by a fire in a forest clear- 
ing, he’d said to a new batch of men just brought in 
from the front : 

“It’s the law of the jungle here, fellows. But even 
here you can live. The first to go is the guy who licks 
out bowls, puts his faith in the infirmary, or squeals to 
the screws.” 

He was dead right about this — though it didn’t 
always work out that way with the fellows who 
squealed to the screws. They knew how to look after 
themselves. They got away with it and it was the 
other guys who suffered. 

Shukhov always got up at reveille, but today he 
didn’t. He’d been feeling lousy since the night before — 
with aches and pains and the shivers, and he just 
couldn’t manage to keep warm that night. In his sleep 
he’d felt very sick and then again a little better. All 
the time he dreaded the morning. 

But the morning came, as it always did. 

Anyway, how could anyone get warm here, what 
with the ice piled up on the window and a white 


2 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


cobweb of frost running along the whole barracks 
where the walls joined the ceiling? And a hell of a 
barracks it was. 

Shukhov stayed in bed. He was lying on the top 
bunk, with his blanket and overcoat over his head and 
both his feet tucked in the sleeve of his jacket. He 
couldn’t see anything, but he could tell by the sounds 
what was going on in the barracks and in his own 
part of it. He could hear the orderlies tramping down 
the corridor with one of the twenty-gallon latrine 
tanks. This was supposed to be light work for people 
on the sick list — but it was no joke carrying the thing 
out without spilling it ! Then someone from Gang 75 
dumped a Pile of felt boots from the drying room on 
the floor. And now someone from his gang did the 
same (it was also their turn to use the drying room 
today). The gang boss and his assistant quickly put on 
their boots, and their bunk creaked. The assistant 
gang boss would now go and set the bread rations. 
And then the boss would take off for the Production 
Planning Section (PPS) at HQ. 

But, Shukhov remembered, this wasn’t just the 
same old daily visit to the PPS clerks. Today was 
the big day for them. They’d heard a lot of talk of 
switching their gang — 104 — from putting up work- 
shops to a new job building a new “Socialist Com- 
munity Development.” But so far it was nothing more 
than bare fields covered with snowdrifts, and before 
anything could be done there, holes had to be dug, 
posts put in, and barbed wire put up — by the prisoners 
for the prisoners, so they couldn’t get out. And then 


3 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


they could start building. 

You could bet your life that for a month there’d 
be no place where you could get warm— not even a 
hole in the ground. And you couldn’t make a fire — 
what could you use for fuel ? So your only hope was 
to work like hell. 

The gang boss was worried and was going to try 
to fix things, try to palm the job off on some other 
gang, one that was a little slower on the uptake. Of 
course you couldn’t go empty-handed. It would take 
a pound of fatback for the chief clerk. Or even two. 

Maybe Shukhov would try to get himself on the 
sick list so he could have a day off. There was no 
harm in trying. His whole body was one big ache. 

Then he wondered — which warder was on duty 
today ? 

He remembered that it was Big Ivan, a tall, 
scrawny sergeant with black eyes. The first time you 
saw him he scared the pants off you, but when you 
got to know him he was the easiest of all the duty 
warders — wouldn’t put you in the can or drag you 
off to the disciplinary officer. So Shukhov could stay 
put till it was time for Barracks 9 to go to the mess 
hall. 

The bunk rocked and shook as two men got up 
together — on the top Shukhov’s neighbor, the Baptist 
Alyoshka, and down below Buynovsky, who’d been 
a captain in the navy. 

When they’d carried out the two latrine tanks, the 
orderlies started quarreling about who’d go to get 


4 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the hot water. They went on and on like two old 
women. The electric welder from Gang 20 barked 
at them : 

“Hey, you old bastards !” And he threw a boot 
at them. “I’ll make you shut up.” 

The boot thudded against a post. The orderlies 
shut up. 

The assistant boss of the gang next to them grum- 
bled in a low voice : 

“Vasili Fyodorovich ! The bastards pulled a fast 
one on me in the supply room. We always get four 
two-pound loaves, but today we only got three. 
Some-one’ll have to get the short end.” 

He spoke quietly, but of course the whole gang 
heard him and they all held their breath. Who was 
going to be shortchanged on rations this evening ? 

Shukhov stayed where he was, on the hard- 
packed sawdust of his mattress. If only it was one 
thing or another — either a high fever or an end to 
the pain. But this way he didn’t know where he was. 

While the Baptist was whispering his prayers, 
the Captain came back from the latrine and said to 
no one in particular, but sort of gloating: 

“Brace yourselves, men! It’s at least twenty 
below.” 

Shukhov made up his mind to go to the infirmary. 

And then some strong hand stripped his jacket 
and blanket off him. Shukhov jerked his quilted 
over-coat off his face and raised himself up a bit. 
Below him, his head level with the top of the bunk, 
stood the Thin Tartar. 


5 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


So this bastard had come on duty and sneaked 
up on them. 

“S-854 !” the Tartar read from the white patch 
on the back of the black coat. “Three days in the 
can with work as usual.” 

The minute they heard his funny muffled voice 
everyone in the entire barracks — which was pretty 
dark (not all the lights were on) and where two 
hundred men slept in fifty bug-ridden bunks— came 
to life all of a sudden. Those who hadn’t yet gotten 
up began to dress in a hurry. 

“But what for. Comrade Warder ?” Shukhov 
asked, and he made his voice sound more pitiful 
than he really felt. 

The can was only half as bad if you were given 
normal work. You got hot food and there was no 
time to brood. Not being let out to work — that was 
real punishment. 

“Why weren’t you up yet? Let’s go to the 
Commandant’s office,” the Tartar drawled— he and 
Shukhov and everyone alse knew what he was 
getting the can for. 

There was a blank look on the Tartar’s hairless, 
crumpled face. He turned around and looked for 
somebody else to pick on, but everyone — whether in 
the dark or under a light, whether on a bottom bunk 
or a top one— was shoving his legs into the black, 
padded trousers with numbers on the left knee. Or 
they were already dressed and were wrapping them- 
selves up and hurrying for the door to wait outside 
till the Tartar left. 


6 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


If Shukhov had been sent to the can for some- 
thing he deserved he wouldn’t have been so upset. 
What made him mad was that he was always one of 
the first to get up. But there wasn’t a chance of 
getting out of it with the Tartar. So he went on 
asking to be let off just for the hell of it, but mean- 
time pulled on his padded trousers (they too had a 
worn, dirty piece of cloth sewed above the left knee, 
with the number S-854 painted on it in black and 
already faded), put on his jacket (this had two 
numbers, one on the chest and one on the back), 
took his boots from the pile on the floor, put on his 
cap (with the same number in front), and went out 
after the Tartar. 

The whole Gang 104 saw Shukhov being taken 
off, but no one said a word. It wouldn’t help, and 
what could you say ? The gang boss might have 
stood up for him, but he’d left already. And 
Shukhov himself said nothing to anyone. He didn’t 
want to aggravate the Tartar. They'd keep his 
breakfast for him and didn’t have to be told. 

The two of them went out. 

It was freezing cold, with a fog that caught your 
breath. Two large searchlights were crisscrossing 
over the compound from the watchtowers at the far 
corners. The lights on the perimeter and the lights 
inside the camp were on full force. There were so 
many of them that they blotted out the stars. 

With their felt boots crunching on the snow, 
prisoners were rushing past on their business — to 


7 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the latrines, to the supply rooms, to the package 
room, or to the kitchen to get their groats cooked. 
Their shoulders were hunched and their coats 
buttoned up, and they all felt cold, not so much 
because of the freezing weather as because they knew 
they’d have to be out in it all day. But the Tartar 
in his old overcoat with shabby blue tabs walked 
steadily on and the cold didn’t seem to bother him 
at all. 

They went past the high wooden fence around the 
punishmept block (the stone prison inside the camp), 
past the barbed-wire fence that guarded the bakery 
from the prisoners, past the corner of the HQ where 
a length of frost-covered rail was fastened to a post 
with heavy wire, and past another post where — in a 
sheltered spot to keep the readings from being too 
low — the thermometer hung, caked over with ice. 
Shukhov gave a hopeful sidelong glance at the milk- 
white tube. If it went down to forty-two below zero 
they weren’t supposed to be marched out to work. 
But today the thermometer wasn’t pushing forty or 
anything like it. 

They went into HQ — straight into the warders’ 
room. There it turned out — as Shukhov had already 
had a hunch on the way — that they never meant to 
put him in the can but simply that the floor in the 
warders’ room needed scrubbing. Sure enough, the 
Tartar now told Shukhov that he was letting him off 
and ordered him to mop the floor. 

Mopping the floor in the warders’ room was the 
job of a special prisoner— the HQ orderly, who never 


8 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


worked outside the camp. But a long time ago he’d 5 
set himself up in HQ and now had a free run of the 
rooms where the Major, the disciplinary officer, and 
the security chief worked. He waited on them all the 
time and sometimes got to hear things even the 
warders didn’t know. And for some time he’d figured 
that to scrub floors for ordinary warders was a little 
beneath him. They called for him once or twice, then 
got wise and began pulling in ordinary prisoners to 
do the job. 

The stove in the warders’ room was blazing away. 
A couple of warders who’d undressed down to their 
dirty shirts were playing checkers, and a third who’d 
left on his belted sheepskin coat and felt boots was 
sleeping on a narrow bench. There was a bucket and 
rag in the corner. 

Shukhov was real pleased and thanked the Tartar 
for letting him off : 

“Thank you, Comrade Warder. I’ll never get up 
late again.” 

The rule here was simple — finish your job and get 
out. Now that Shukhov had been given some work, 
his pains seemed to have stopped. He took the bucket 
and went to the well without his mittens, which he’d 
forgotten and left under his pillow in the rush. 

The gang bosses reporting at the PPS had formed' 
a small group near the post, and one of the younger 
ones, who was once a Hero of the Soviet Union, 
climbed up and wiped the thermometer. 

The others were shouting up to him : “Don’t 
breathe on it or it’ll go up.” 


9 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Go up ... the hell it will ... it won’t make a 
fucking bit of difference anyway.” 

Tyurin — the boss of Shukhov's work gang — was 
not there. Shukhov put down the bucket and dug his 
hands into his sleeves. He wanted to see what was 
going on. 

The fellow up the post said in a hoarse voice : 
“Seventeen and a half below — shit !” 

And after another look just to make sure, he 
jumped down. 

“Anyway, it’s always wrong — it’s a damned liar,” 
someone said. “They’d never put in one that works 
here.” 

The gang bosses scattered. Shukhov ran to the 
well. Under the flaps of his cap, which he’d lowered 
but hadn’t tied, his ears ached with the cold. 

The top of the well was covered by a thick crust 
of ice so that the bucket would hardly go through the 
hole. And the rope was stiff as a board. 

Shukhov’s hands were frozen, so when he got back 
to the warders’ room with the steaming bucket he 
shoved them in the water. He felt warmer. 

The Tartar had gone, but four of the warders 
were there quarreling. They’d quit playing checkers 
or sleeping and they were arguing about how much 
millet they’d get in January. (There was a shortage 
of food in the local “free” workers’* settlement, and 
though ration cards had gone out a long time ago, 
the warders could still buy some foodstuffs at a cut 
rate the locals couldn’t get.) 


10 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Shut the door, you shilhead ! It’s cold,” one of 
them shouted. 

It wasn’t a good idea to get your felt boots wet in 
the morning. You didn’t have anything extra to 
-change into, even if you could run back to your bar- 
racks. During his eight years inside, Shukhov had 
seen all kinds of ups and downs in the footwear situa- 
tion. There’d been times when they’d gone around 
all winter without any felt boots at all, times when 
they hadn’t even seen ordinary boots but only shoes 
made of birch bark or shoes of the “Chelyabinsk 
Tractor Factory model” (that is, made of strips of 
tires that left the marks of the treac( behind them). 
Now the boot situation had begun to look up. In 
October— this because he’d once managed to wangle 
himself a trip to the stores with the number-two man 
in his gang — Shukhov had gotten a pair of sturdy 
boots with good strong toes that were roomy enough 
inside for two thicknesses of warm foot-cloths. For a 
week he was on top of the world and went around 
knocking his new heels together with joy. Then felt 
boots were issued in December and life was great. 
You didn’t want to die. Then some swine in the book- 
keeping department put a bug in the Commandant’s 
ear : “Let’em have the felt boots, but make’em hand 
in the others. It’s not right for a prisoner to have two 
pairs at the same time.” So Shukhov had to choose 
whether he’d get through the whole winter in the 
new boots or take the felt boots— right through the 
.spring thaws — and hand in the new ones. He’d 


11 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


treated them with loving care, he rubbed them with 
grease to make the leather soft, those lovely new 
boots. During the whole eight years, nothing had hit 
him more than having to turn in those boots. They’d 
been dumped with all the others in one heap, and 
he’d never find them again in the spring. 

Now Shukhov had an idea. He quickly kicked 
off his felt bools, stood them in a corner, threw the 
foot-cloths on top of them (the spoon he always kept 
in one boot clattered onto the floor — even in the rush 
to leave the barracks, he hadn’t forgotten it), and 
dropped to the floor in his bare feet and started 
sloshing water right under the warders’ boots. 

“Take it easy, you bastard !” one of them said, 
seeing what Shukhov was up to, and he lifted up his 
feet. 

. . . “What do you mean, rice ? That’s on a different 
quota and and there’s just no comparison.”... 

“Why are you using all that water, stupid? That’s 
no way to wash a floor.” 

“There’s no other way. Comrade Warder ! Tht 
dirt’s worked right into it.” 

“Didn’t you ever see your old lady wash the 
floor, stupid?” 

Shukhov straightened up and held the dripping 
rag in his hand. He gave an innocent smile which 
showed that some of his teeth were missing — they'd 
been thinned out by scurvy at Ust-Izhma in 1943, a 
time when he thought he was on his last legs. He 
was really far gone. He had the runs, with bleeding, 
and his insides were so worn out he couldn’t keep*’ 


12 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


anything down. But now all that was left from those 
days was his funny way of talking. 

“They took me away from her in 1941, Comrade 
Warder. I don’t even remember what she was like.” 

“Just look at how they mop.. The bastards can't 
do anything and don’t want to either. They’re not 
worth the bread we give ’em. They ought to get shit 
instead.” 

“Anyway, why mop the fucking thing every day? 
It makes the place damp all the time. Now, 854, 
listen here. Just wipe it over a little so it’s not too 
wet and get the hell out of here.” 

...“Rice! You can’t compare millet and rice!”... 

Shukhov quickly finished up the job. There’s 
work and work. It’s like the two ends of a stick. If 
you’re working for human beings, then do a real job 
of it, but if you work for dopes, then you just go 
through the motions. Otherwise they’d all have kicked 
the bucket long ago. That was for sure. 

Shukhov went over the floorboards, leaving no 
dry patches, threw his rag behind the stove without 
wringing it out, pulled on his boots, splashed the 
water out of his pail onto the path used by the top 
brass, and cut across to the mess hall, past the bath- 
house and the dark, cold recreation hall. 

He also had to make it to the hospital block— he 
was aching all over again. Then he had to keep out 
of sight of the warders in front of the mess hall. The 
Commandant had given strict orders to pick up any 
stray prisoners and put them in the cells. 


13 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Today (this didn’t often happen) there wasn’t a. 
big crowd lined up in front of the mess hall. So he 
went straight in. 

It was like a steam bath inside — what with the 
frosty air coming in through the doors and the steam 
from the thin camp gruel. The men were sitting at 
tables or crowding in the spaces between them, wait- 
ing for places. Shouting their way through the mob, 
two or three prisoners from each gang were carrying 
bowls of gruel and mush on wooden trays and look- 
ing for a place for them on the tables. And even so, 
they don’t hear you, the dopes, they bump into your 
tray and you spill the stuff! And then you let them 
have it in the neck with your free hand ! That’s how 
to do it. That’ll teach them to get in the way look- 
ing out for leftovers. 

On the other side of the table there was a young 
fellow who was crossing himself before he started to 
eat. Must have been a Western Ukrainian* and new 
to the place. The Russians didn’t even remember 
which hand you cross yourself with. 

It was cold sitting in the mess hall and most of 
the men ate with their caps on, but without hurrying, 
chasing bits of rotten fish among the cabbage leaves 
and spitting the bones out on the table. When there 
was a whole pile of them, someone would sweep 
them off before the next gang came, and they were 
ground underfoot on the floor. 

Spitting the bones out on the floor was thought 
bad manners. 

In the middle of the mess hall there were two 


14 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


rows of what you might call pillars or supports. 
Fetyukov, another fellow from the same gang, was- 
sitting by one of them and guarding Shukhov’s break- 
fast. He didn’t count for much in the gang — even 
less than Shukbov. To look at them, the gang was 
all the same — the same black overcoats and numbers 
— but underneath they were all different. You couldn't 
ask the Captain to guard your bowl, and there were 
jobs even Shukhov wouldn’t do— jobs that were 
beneath him. 

Fetyukov spotted Shukhov and gave up his seat 
with a sigh. 

“It’s all cold now. I was going to eat it for you 
— I thought you were in the cooler.” 

He didn’t wait around. He knew that Shukhov 
wouldn’t leave him any. He’d polish off both bowls 
himself. 

Shukhov pulled his spoon out of his boot. He 
was very fond of his spoon, which had gone with him 
all over the North. He’d made it himself from alumi- 
num wire and cast it in sand. And he’d scratched on 
it : “Ust-Izhma, 1944.”* 

Then Shukhov took his cap off his shaved liead- 
however cold it was, he would never eat with it on. 
He stirred up the cold gruel and took a quick look 
to see what was in his bowl. It was the usual thing. 
It hadn’t been ladled from the top of the caldron, 
but it wasn’t the stuff from the bottom either. He 
wouldn’t put it past Fetyukov to pinch a potato 
from it. 

The only good thing about camp gruel was it was< 


15 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


usually hot, but what Shukhov had was now quite 
cold. Even so, he ate it slow and careful like he 
always did. Mustn’t hurry now, even if the roof 
caught fire. Apart from sleeping, the prisoners’ time 
was their own only for ten minutes at breakfast, five 
minutes at the noon break, and another five minutes 
at supper. 

The gruel didn’t change from one day to the next. 
It depended on what vegetables they’d stored for 
winter. The year before they’d only stocked up with 
salted carrots, so there was nothing but carrots in 
the gruel from September to June. And now it was 
cabbage. The camp was fed best in June, when they 
ran out of vegetables and started using groats instead. 
The worst time was July, when they put shredded 
nettles in the caldron. 

The fish was mostly bones. The flesh was boiled 
off except for bits on the tails and the heads. Not 
leaving a single scale or speck of flesh on the skeleton, 
Shukhov crunched and sucked the bones and spit 
them out on the table. He didn’t leave anything — not 
even the gills or the tail. He ate the eyes too when 
they were still in place, but when they’d come off and 
were floating around in the bowl on their own he 
didn’t eat them. The others laughed at him for 
this. 

Shukhov made a kind of saving today. He hadn’t 
been back to his barracks to collect his bread ration, 
and now he was eating without it. Bread — well, you 
could always eat that by itself, and he’d feel less 
hungry later on. 


16 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The second course was a mush out of magara. It 
was one solid lump, and Shukhov broke it off in 
pieces. When it was hot — never mind when it was 
cold — it had no taste and didn’t fill you. It was noth- 
ing but grass that looked like millet. They’d gotten 
the bright idea of serving it instead of groats. It came 
from the Chinese, they said. They got ten ounces of 
it and that was that. It wasn’t the real thing, but it 
passed for mush. 

He licked his spoon, pushed it back in his boot, 
put on his cap, and went to the hospital block. 

The sky was as dark as ever, and the stars were 
blotted out by the camp lights. And the two search- 
lights were cutting broad swathes through the com- 
pound. At the time they set up the camp — it was a 
“Special” one*— -the guards still had a lot of flares. 
If the electricity failed, they’d send a shower of 
rockets over the compound — white, green, and red — 
just like at the front. Then they stopped using them. 
Maybe they thought it was too expensive. 

It was just as dark as it was at reveille. But from 
this, that and the other an old hand could see that 
roll call would soon be sounded. Clubfoot’s assistant 
(Clubfoot was a mess-hall orderly who kept an 
assistant out of his own pocket) had gone to summon 
Barracts 6 to breakfast. Number 6 was for invalids, 
men who couldn’t work off the compound. An old 
artist with a little beard trotted over to the Culture 
and Education Section (CES) to get paint and a 
brush to paint number tags for prison uniforms. 


17 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Once more the Tartar dashed across the yard toward 
HQ. There weren’t many people around. They’d all 
gone under cover and were warming themselves these 
last sweet minutes. 

Shukhov ducked behind the corner of a hut to get 
out of the Tartar’s way. If he caught him a second 
time he’d screw him good. Anyway, you had to keep 
your eyes open all the time. You had to be careful 
the warders didn’t see you alone, but only in a crowd. 
They were always on the lookout for someone to do 
a job or to have someone to pick on if they were in a 
lousy mood. They’d put out a standing order in the 
camp that you had to take your cap off at a distance 
of five paces when you saw a warder, and keep it off 
till you were two paces past him. Some of the ward- 
ers wandered around with their eyes shut and just 
didn't care, but others got a kick out of it. The num- 
ber of guys that had been put in the can just on this! 
No thank you. Better to wait around the corner. 

The Tartar went by. And Shukhov was just about 
to go on to the hospital when he suddenly remem- 
bered that the Latvian in Barracks 7 had told him 
to come this morning before roll call to buy a couple 
of mugs of tobacco. But Shukhov was so busy it had 
gone clean out of his head. The big Latvian had 
gotten a package from home the evening before, and 
maybe by tomorrow there wouldn’t be any left. It 
might be a month before there’d be another package. 
And his tobacco was good. It had the right strength 
and it smelled good and it was sort of brownish. 

Shukhov felt bothered and stopped dead. Should 


18 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


he look in at Number 7 ? But he was near the hospi- 
tal, so he went on up to the steps. The snow crunched 
under his feet. 

The corridor in the hospital was so clean — it 
always was — that he was scared to walk along it. The 
walls were painted a shiny white, and the furniture 
was all white as well. 

But the office doors were shut. The doctors must 
still be in bed. One of the medics — a young fellow by 
the name of Nikolay Vdovushkin -was sitting in the 
orderlies’ room at a nice clean desk and he was 
wearing a nice clean white coat. He was writing 
something. 

There was no one else around. 

Shukhov took off his hat, as though this was one 
of the higher-ups, and in the good old camp fashion, 
looking at things you weren’t supposed to see, he 
couldn’t help noticing that Vdovushkin was writing 
in neat, straight lines, starting each line right under 
the one before with a capital letter and leaving a 
little room at the side. Shukhov saw at once, of course 
that this wasn’t work but some stuff of his own and 
none of Shukhov’s business. 

“Listen, Nikolay Semyonovich, I’m feeling kind 
of sick,” he said, with a hangdog look, as if he was 
trying to scrounge something. 

Vdovushkin looked up from his work, cool and 
wide-eyed. He wore a white cap, to match his coat, 
and he had no number tags. 

“But why did you wait till now ? And why didn’t 


19 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


doctor who’d come with a recent batch of prisoners— 
Stepan Grigoryevich, a loudmouth know-it-all who 
never stayed still himself and never let the patients 
alone either. He’d had the bright idea of putting all 
the walking cases to work around the hospital, mak- 
ing fences and paths and carrying earth to the flower- 
beds. And in the winter there was always snow to 
clear. He kept saying that work was the best cure 
for illness. 

What he didn't understand was that work has 
killed many a horse. If he'd put in a little hard work 
laying bricks, he wouldn’t go around shooting off his 
mouth so much. 

Vdovushkin was still writing away. He really was 
doing something on the side, something that didn’t 
mean much to Shukhov. He was copying out a long 
poem that he’d given the finishing touches to the day 
before and had promised to show Stepan Grigorye- 
vich today— the man who believed in work as a 
cure-all. 

This sort of thing could only happen in a camp. 
It was Stepan Grigoryevich who told Vdovushkin to 
say he was a medic and then gave him the job. So 
Vdovushkin started learning how to give injections to 
poor, ignorant prisoners who would never let it enter 
their simple, trusting minds that a medic might not 
be a medic at all. Nikolay had studied literature at 
the university and had been arrested in his second 
year. Stepan Grigoryevich wanted him to write the 
sort of thing here he couldn’t write “outside”. 

The signal for roll call came faintly through the 


22 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


double windows. They were covered by ice. Shukhov 
sighed and stood up. He still felt feverish, but it 
looked as though he had no chance to get out of 
work. Vdovushkin reached for his thermometer and 
squinted at it. 

“Look, it’s hard to say — just under ninety-nine. If 
it were over a hundred, it’d be a clear case. But as 
things are I can’t let you off. Take a chance and stay 
if you want. If the doctor takes a look at you and 
thinks you’re sick, he’ll let you off. But if not, it’s 
the cooler for you. You’d be better off going to 
work.’’ 

Shukhov said nothing. He didn’t even nod. He 
rammed on his cap and went out. 

When you are cold, don’t expect sympathy from 
someone who’s warm. 

The air outside hit Shukhov. The cold and the 
biting mist took hold of him and made him cough. 
It was 16 degrees below, while his own temperature 
was 99 above. He had to fight it out. 

Shukhov trotted off to his barracks. The yard was 
absolutely empty. There wasn’t a soul to be seen. It 
was that short, blissful moment when there was no 
way out any more, but people kidded themselves that 
there was and that there wouldn’t be a roll call. The 
escort guards were sitting in their warm barracks, 
leaning their heads against their rifles — it was no 
picnic for them either to kick their heels on top of 
watchtowers in this freezing cold. The guards in the 
main guardhouse threw some more coal in the stove. 


23 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The warders in the warders’ room were finishing 
their last cigarette before going out to search the 
prisoners. 

The prisoners — they were now dressed in all their 
rags, tied around with all their bits of string and their 
faces wrapped in rags from chin to eyes to protect 
them from the cold — were lying on their bunks on 
top of their blankets with their boots on, quite still 
and with their eyes closed. Just a few seconds more 
until the gang boss would yell : “Fall out !” 

Nearly all the men in Barracks 9, including Gang 
104, were dozing. Only the assistant gang boss, 
Pavlo, was busy, moving his lips as he counted some- 
thing with the help of a small pencil. And on a top 
bunk the Baptist Alyoshka, Shukhov’s neighbor, neat 
and cleanly washed, was reading his notebook in 
which he had half the Gospels copied down. 

Shukhov raced in but didn’t make a sound, and 
went to Pavlo’s bunk. 

Pavlo raised his head. “Didn't they put you in 
the cooler, Ivan Denisovich? And are you still 
alive ?” (They simply couldn't teach Western 
Ukrainians to change their ways. Even in camp 
they were polite to people and addressed them by 
tbeir full name.) 

Pavlo handed him his bread ration from the table. 
There was a little white heap of sugar on top of it. 

He was in a great hurry, but he answered just as 
politely (even an assistant gang boss is a big shot of 
sorts, and more depends on him than on the 
Commandant). He scooped up the sugar with his 


24 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


lips, licked the bread clean with his tongue, and put 
-one leg on the ledge to climb up and make his bed. 
He looked at the ration, turning it, weighing it in his 
hand as he moved, to see if it was the full pound 
-due him. Shukhov had had thousands of these rations 
in prisons and camps, and though he’d never had a 
chance to weigh a single one of them on a scale and 
he was always too shy to stick up for his rights, he 
and every other prisoner had known a long time that 
the people who cut up and issued your bread 
wouldn’t last long if they gave you honest rations. 
Every ration was short. The only question was — by 
how much ? So you checked every day to set your 
mind at rest, hoping you hadn’t been too badly 
treated. (“Perhaps my ration is almost full weight 
today.”) 

“It’s about half an ounce short,” Shukhov figured, 
and he broke the bread in two. He stuck half inside 
his clothes — into his jacket, where he’d sewed in a 
little white pocket (the factory makes prison jackets 
without pockets). He thought of eating the other 
half, the one he hadn’t eaten at breakfast, right away, 
but food eaten quickly isn’t food. Is does no good, 
doesn’t fill you. He made a move to shove his half- 
ration in his locker, but changed his mind again. 
He remembered the orderlies had already been 
beaten up twice for thieving. The barracks was as 
public as the courtyard of an apartment building. 

So, not letting go of the bread, Ivan Denisovich 
pulled his feet out of his felt boots, neatly leaving his 
foot-cloths and spoon inside them, climbed up bare- 


25 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


footed, widened the little hole in his mattress, and 
hid the other half of his rations in the sawdust. He 
snatched his cap off his head, pulled a needle and 
thread out of it (this too was hidden carefully 
because they also checked prisoners’ caps at 
inspection ; once a warder had pricked himself on the 
needle and had been so angry he’d almost smashed 
Shukhov’s head in). Three quick stitches and he’d 
sewed up the hole where the ration was hidden. 
Meanwhile the sugar in his mouth had melted. 
Shukhov’s whole body was tense : at any moment the 
work-controller would start yelling in the doorway. 
Shukhov’s fingers moved like lightning while his 
mind was running ahead thinking what he had to do 
next. 

The Baptist was reading the Gospels not just to 
himself but almost aloud. Maybe this was for 
Shukhov’s benefit (these Baptists love to spread a 
little propaganda) : 

“But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a 
thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other 
men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, 
let him not be ashamed ; but let him glorify God on 
this behalf.” 

One great thing about Alyoshka was he was so 
clever at hiding this book in a hole in the wall that it 
hadn’t been found on any of the searches. 

With the same swift movements, Shukhov hung 
his overcoat on a crossbeam, and from under the 
mattress he pulled out his mittens, a pair of thin 
foot-cloths, a bit of rope, and a piece of rag with 


26 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

two tapes. He evened the sawdust in his mattress a 
little (the stuff was heavy and hard-packed), tucked 
in his blanket all around, threw his pillow into place, 
then climbed down barefooted and started putting 
on his foot wrappings - first his good new foot-cloths 
and then on top the ones that weren’t so good. 

Then the gang boss cleared his throat loudly, got 
up and shouted : 

“Snap out of it, 104! Out-si-ide!” 

Right away everyone in the gang, whether snooz- 
ing or not, yawned and made for the door. The gang 
boss had been in camps for nineteen years, and he 
wouldn’t chase you out to the roll call one second too 
early. When he said “Outside !” the time had really 
come. 

As the men filed out without a word, clumping 
their feet, first into the corridor, then through the 
entry way and out to the steps — and after the boss of 
Gang 20 had also yelled “Out-si-ide !” the same way 
as Tyurin — Shukhov managed to put on his felt 
boots over his two pairs of foot-cloths. Then he put 
his overcoat over his jacket and tied it tightly with the 
rope (leather belts were taken away from prisoners — 
they weren’t allowed in “Special” camps). 

Shukhov finished all his chores and caught up with 
the last of the men in the entryway as they filed 
through the door and out to the steps. Bulky, wearing 
everything they had, they edged put in the single file, 
and nobody was in a hurry to get out first. They 
trudged toward the yard and you could only hear the 


27 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


^crunch of their boots. 

It was still dark, though the sky in the east was 
getting bright and looked kind of green. A nasty 
little wind was blowing. 

This was the toughest moment — when you lined 
up for roll call in the morning. Into the bitter cold 
in the darkness with an empty belly — for the whole 
day. You’d lost the use of your tongue. You didn’t 
want to talk to anyone. 

Near the perimeter a deputy work-controller was 
going frantic. 

“Well, Tyurin, how long are we supposed to 
wait? Dragging your feet again, eh?” 

Maybe Shukhov was frightened of him, but not 
Tyurin. He wouldn’t waste his breath on him in this 
cold, and he just trudged on without a word. The 
gang came after him over the snow : tramp-tramp- 
tramp, crunch-crunch-crunch. 

The boss must have slipped the fellow two pounds 
of fatfcack — you could see from the other gangs near- 
by the Gang 104 was being lined up in its usual 
place. It was only the other poor suckers who’d be 
marched off to the Socialist Community Develop- 
ment. God, it’d be hell there today, with a tempera- 
ture of sixteen below and the wind and no cover at 
all! 

The boss needed a lot of fatback to slip to the 
people in the PPS and still have enough left for his 
own belly. He didn’t get any packages from home, 
but he was never short of fatback. It was always 
handed over to him right away by anyone in the 


28 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


gang who got some. 

That was the only way you could live. 

The chief work-controller made a note on a board, 

“Tyurin, you have one sick today and twenty-three 
to go out. Right ?” 

“Twenty-three.” The boss nodded. 

Who was missing? Panteleyev wasn’t there. But 
was he sick ? 

And right away there was a lot of whispering in 
the gang. Panteleyev the sonofabitch had managed 
to get out of it again. He wasn’t sick at all — the 
security officer had kept him behind. He’d be 
squealing on somebody again. 

They could easily send for him in the daytime — 
keep him there three hours if they liked — and no- 
body’d be any the wiser. 

They worked it through the sick list. 

The whole yard was black with prisoners’ coats, 
and the gangs shuffled forward to be frisked. Shukhov 
remembered that he wanted to get the number on his 
jacket redone, and made his way over to the other 
side of the yard. There were a couple of men 
waiting in front of the artist. Shukhov joined them. 
These number tags were nothing but trouble. The 
warders could spot you a long way off and the 
guards could write the number down when you did 
something wrong. And if you didn’t have it redone, 
they'd put you in the cooler for not looking after it 
properly. 

There were three of these artists in the camp. They 
painted picture free for the higher-ups, and also 


29 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


took turns painting numbers at roll call. Today it 
was the old man with the little gray beard. When he 
painted the number on your cap, it was like a priest 
anointing your brow. He’d paint a little, and then a 
little more— and breath on his fingertips. His knitted 
mittens were thin and his hands went stiff with cold 
so he couldn’t make the numbers. 

The artist gave Shukhov a new “S-854” on his 
jacket, and Shukhov, with his rope belt in his hand — 
not bothering to fasten up his coat because they 
weren’t far from the friskers — went back to his gang. 
And he noticed at once that another fellow from his 
gang, Caesar, was smoking— not his pipe, but a ciga- 
rette —which meant there was a chance of cadging a 
smoke. But Shukhov didn’t ask him outright. He 
stopped just next to Caesar, turned halfway towards 
him, and then looked past him. 

He looked past as if he didn’t care, but he could 
see how after every drag (Caesar was thinking about 
something and he wasn’t taking many drags) the rim 
of red ash moved along the cigarette and burned it 
down nearer and nearer to the holder. 

Right at this moment, that scavenger Fetyukov 
latched onto them, and stood right in front of Caesar 
and stared with burning eyes at his mouth. 

Shukhov didn’t have a shred of tobacco left and 
saw no chance of getting any today before the 
evening. He was tense all over from waiting, and 
.right now he thought he’d rather have this butt than 


30 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


4iis freedom. But he wouldn’t stoop as low as Fetyu- 
kov and look straight at the guy’s mouth. 

Caesar was a mixture of all races — whether he 
was a Greek, a Jew, or a gypsy you just couldn’t 
tell. He was still young. He’d been a cameraman for 
the movies — but they put him inside before he’d 
finished shooting his first film. He had a big, black, 
bushy mustache. They hadn’t shaven it off here 
because this was bow he looked on the photo in his 
records. 

“Caesar Markovich.” Fetyukov drooled at him — 
he couldn’t stand it any longer — “please give me one 
little drag!” He wanted it so badly his face was 
twitching all over. 

Caesar’s eyebrows went up a little — they were half- 
lowered over his black eyes — and he looked at Fetyu- 
kov. The reason he’d started smoking a pipe was so 
that people wouldn’t bother him and cadge butts from 
him. It wasn’t that he grudged them the tobacco, 
but he didn’t like having his thoughts interrupted. 
He smoked to help his mind come up with great 
ideas. But all he needed to do was light a cigarette 
and right away he could see that look in people’s 
eyes: “Leave a bit for me.” 

Caesar turned to Shukhov and said: “Here you 
are, Ivan Denisovich!” 

He twisted the burning butt out of the short amber 
holder with his thumb. 

Shukhov jumped (even though he’d thought Cae- 
sar would .give it to him of his own accord). He took 


31 



One Day in ihe Life of Ivan Denisovich 


it with one hand, quickly and thankfully, and put his- 
other hand underneath to guard against dropping it. 
He wasn’t hurt because Caesar was squeamish about 
letting him smoke it in the holder (some people have 
clean mouths, others have foul mouths), and it didn’t 
hurt his hardened fingers when the butt burned right 
down to them. The great thing was that he’d beaten 
that scavenger Fetyukov to it, and here he was now 
smoking away till it burned his lips. Mmmm. . . . 
The smoke seemed to go all through his hungry body 
and into his feet and his head. 

Just as this wonderful feeling spread all through 
him, Ivan Denisovich heard a roar from the men: 

“They’re taking our undershirts away . . . !” 

That’s life in the camp. Shukhov had gotten used 
to it. Give’em half a chance, if you didn’t watch out 
they’d be at your throat. 

Why shirts? They’d been issued by the Comman- 
dant himself . . . ! No, something was wrong. . . . 

There were only two gangs ahead of them before 
the friskers, and everyone in Gang 104 spotted Lieu- 
tenant Volkovoy, the disciplinary officer. He’d come 
over from HQ and shouted something to the warders. 
And the warders, who’d been taking it easy, now 
really got busy and went for the men like wild ani- 
mals. Their boss yelled: 

“Open your shirts!” 

They said even the Commandant was scared of 
Volkovoy — let alone the prisoners and warders. Not 
for nothing was he called Volkovoy.* And he always- 


32 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


looked at you like a wolf. He was dark and tall and 
scowling, and always dashing around. He’d come at 
you from behind the corner of the barracks, shout- 
ing: “What’s going on here?” You couldn’t keep out 
of bis way. In the early days he carried a whip of 
braided leather as long as his arm. They said he beat 
people with it. And he’d sneak up behind someone 
during the evening roll call and let him have it in the 
neck with his whip. “Get back into line, you scum.” 
Everybody would back away from him. The fellow 
he’d whipped would take hold of his neck and wipe 
off the blood and keep his trap shut so as not to get 
shoved in the cooler on top of it. 

Now, for some reason or other, he’d stopped 
going around with the whip. 

When it was freezing, the frisking routine was not 
so tough in the morning — though it still was in the 
evening. 

The prisoners undid their coats and held them 
open. They marched up by fives, and five warders 
were waiting for them. They put their hands inside 
the prisoners’ coats and felt their jackets. They pat- 
ted the pocket (the only one allowed) on the right 
knee. They had gloves on, and if they felt something 
odd they didn’t yank it out right away but asked, 
taking their time: “What do you have there?” 

What did they hope to find on a prisoner in the 
morning? Knives? But knives don’t get taken out of 
camp, they get brought in. What they had to watch 
out for in the mornings was people carrying a lot of 


33 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


food to escape with. There was a time when they 
were so worried about bread— a six-ounce ration for 
the noon meal — that an order was issued for each 
gang to make itself a wooden box and put every- 
body’s bread together in it. It was anybody’s guess 
why they thought this would help. Most likely the 
idea was to make things even tougher for people and 
add to their troubles— you took a bite out of it to 
put your markon it, and threw it in the box. But all 
these hunks looked alike anyway. It was all the same 
bread. Then all the way you worried yourself sick 
about not getting your own piece back. And some- 
times you got into a fight with people over it. Then 
one day three fellows escaped from the building site 
in a truck and took one of these boxes with them. 
So the bosses had all the boxes chopped up in the 
guardroom and then they went back to the old 
system. 

In the mornings they also had to look out for 
anyone with civilian clothes under his camp uniform. 
They’d long ago taken away these clothes and they 
said you’d get them back when your sentence was up. 
But nobody’d ever been let out of this camp yet. 

And another thing they checked for — letters you 
might try and slip to someone on the outside to mail. 
If they searched everybody for letters, they’d still be 
at it by noon. 

But Voikovoy shouted to the warders to give 
them a real going over, and the warders quickly re- 
moved their gloves, told the men to open their jackets 
(where each man had taken a little of the warmth 


34 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


from his barracks) and undo their shirts. Then they 
began to feel around to see whether extra clothes had 
been put on against regulations. Each prisoner was 
allowed a shirt and vest, and anything extra had to 
come off — that was Volkovoy’s order passed down 
through the ranks of the prisoners. The gangs that 
had gone ahead were lucky — some of them had alreay 
been checked out through the gates. But the rest 
had to open up. Anyone with extra clothing on had 
to strip it off right there in the freezing cold ! 

The warders got busy, but then they had trouble. 
The gates were clear now and the guards were yelling: 
“Come on, come on !” So 104 got a break from 
Volkovoy. He told them to report if they had any- 
thing extra and hand it to the stores that evening 
with a note explaining how and why they’d hidden it. 

Everything on Shukhov was regular issue. Let 
them look, he had nothing to hide. But they caught 
Caesar with a woolen shirt, and the Captain with 
some kind of jersey. The Captain kicked up a fuss, 
just like he used to on his ship— he’d only been here 
three months. 

“You’ve no right to strip people in the cold ! You 
don’t know Article Nine of the Criminal Code !” 

They had the right and they knew the article. 
You’ve still got a lot to learn, brother. 

“You’re not Soviet people,” the Captain kept on 
at them. “Your’e not Communists !” 

Volkovoy could take the stuff about the Criminal 
Code, but this made him mad. He looked black as 
a thundercloud and snapped at him: 


35 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

“Ten days’ solitary !” 

And a bit quieter, he said to the chief warder ' 
“You can see to that in the evening.” 

They didn’t like putting people in solitary in the 
morning because it meant losing a day’s work. So 
let him break his back all day and shove him in the 
cells at night. 

The punishment block was nearby, on the left 
of the perimeter, a stone building with two wings. 
They’d finished building the second wing this autumn 
— one wasn’t enough. The prison had eighteen blocks 
divided into small solitary cells. The rest of the 
camp was made of wood — only the prison was stone. 

The cold had gotten under their shirts — there was 
no getting rid of it now. They’d just wasted their 
time wrapping themselves up. And Shukhov’s back 
ached enough as it was. If only he could lie down in 
a hospital bed right now and sleep. That was all he 
wanted. With a nice heavy blanket. 

The prisoners were standing in front of the gate 
buttoning and tying their coats, and the guards were 
waiting for them outside. 

“Come on ! Come on !” 

And a work-controller was showing them in the 
back. 

“Come on ! Come on !” 

First there was one gate just at the perimeter. 
Then a second gate. And there were railings on both 
sides. 

“Stop !” yelled one of the guards. “Just like a 


36 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


bunch of sheep ! Line up by fives !” 

Now it was getting light. On the other side of 
the guardhouse the escort’s fire was almost out. They 
always lit a fire before roll call to keep warm and to 
get some light for the count. 

A guard was counting in a loud, harsh voice : 
'‘One, two, three !” 

The men peeled off by fives and filed through, so 
whichever way you looked at them, from front or 
behind, you could see five heads, five backs, and ten 
legs. 

A second guard, whose job it was to check the 
count, stood by the railings without speaking and 
just made sure the number was right. 

The lieutenant stood still and watched. He’d 
come outside to doublecheck the count. That was the 
routine when they left the camp. 

The men meant more to a guard than gold. If 
there was one man missing on the other side of the 
wire, he’d soon be taking his place. 

The gang formed up again. 

Now it was the sergeant who did the counting. 

“One, two, three !” 

Again groups of five men peeled off and marched 
in separate ranks. 

The second-in-command of the escort checked 
•them in on the other side. 

Then there was another lieutenant. He was double- 
checking for the escort. 

They couldn’t afford to make a mistake. If they 
signed for one too many, they’d also had it. 


37 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


There were escorts all over the place. They ringed 
the column going to the power station, shouldered 
their tommy guns and pointed them straight at your 
face. And then their were fellows with dogs. One of 
the dogs was baring his teeth like he was laughing 
at the prisoners. The escorts all were short for 
jackets. Only six of them had long sheepskin coats. 
They took turns wearing the long coats — they were 
for the one’s who manned the watchtowers. 

And once again they were lined up by fives and 
re-counted by the escorts. 

“It’s always coldest at dawn,” the Captain ex- 
plained. “Because that’s the last stage of the loss of 
heat by radiation which takes place at night.” 

The Captain liked to explain things. He could 
figure out the phases of the moon, whether new or. 
old, for any day of any year. 

The Captain was clearly going downhill. His: 
cheeks were caved in, but he kept his spirits up. 

The cold here outside the camp, with a wind 
blowing, was biting Shukhov’s face, even though it 
could take almost anything by now. He knew he’d 
have the wind in his face like this all the way to the* 
power plant, so he put his piece of rag over it. Like 
many of the others, he had a rag with two long tapes* 
to use when the wind was in his face. A rag like; 
this really helped. Shukhov put it around his face,, 
right up to his eyes, ran the taps under his ears, and 
tied them behind his head. Then he covered the back 
of his neck with the flap of his cap and pulled up the 


38 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


collar of his jacket. Then he palled down the front 
flap over his forehead. So all you could see was his 
eyes. He tightened his coat around his middle with 
the rope. Now everything was okay. Only his mittens 
were thin and his hands were already frozen. He 
rubbed them and clapped them together. He knew 
that at any moment he’d have to put them behind 
his back and keep them there for the rest of the way. 

The commander of the escort read the daily 
“sermon,” which everyone was fed up with : 

“Your attention, prisoners ! You will keep strict 
columns order on the line of march ! You will not 
straggle or bunch up. You will not change places 
from one rank of five to another. You will not talk or 
look around to either side, and you will keep your 
arm« behind you ! A step to right or left will be 
considered an attempt at escape, and the escort will 
open fire, without warning ! First rank, forward 
march !” 

The first two escort guards must’ve already 
started along the road In front the column swayed, 
men began to swing their shoulders, and the escort 
guards, twenty paces away at either side of the 
column and with ten paces between them, started off, 
their tommy guns at the ready. 

There hadn’t been any new snow for a week now, 
and the road was well trodden. They went around 
the edge of the camp and the wind hit them side- 
ways. Hands behind backs and heads lowered, the 
column started off as if to a funeral. All you could 
see was the legs of the two or three people in front 


39 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


of you and the bit of trampled ground under your 
feet. From time to time a guard shouted : “Y-47 : 
Put your hands behind you !” “B-502 ! Keep up 
there ! ” Then even they began to shout less often. 
The wind whipped them and made it hard for them 
to see. And they weren’t allowed to use face-rags. It 
was no fun for them either 

Everyone talks in the column when it’s warmer, 
no matter how much they’re shouted at. But today 
everyone was bent forward, hiding behind the back 
of the man in front and thinking his own thoughts. 

Even a prisoner’s thoughts weren’t free but kept 
coming back to the same thing, kept turning the 
same things over again. Will they find that bread in 
the mattress ? Will the medics put me on the sick list 
this evening? Will they put the Captain in the cooler 
or not? And where did Caesar get that warm shirt? 
He must’ve gotten it out of someone in the stores 
with a bribe. Where else? 

Since he’d had no bread at breakfast and what 
he’d eaten was cold, Shukhov felt really hungry 
today. And to keep his belly from winning and 
asking for food, he stopped thinking about the camp 
and thought instead about that letter he’d soon be 
sending home. 

The column marched past the carpentry work- 
shop built by the prisoners, past a block of living 
quarters (also built by the prisoners, but for “free” 
workers), and past the new club (also the work of 
prisoners, from the foundations to the decorations 
on the walls, but it was only the “free” ones who saw 


40 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the movies there). The column came out into the 
steppe with the wind right in their faces, and there 
was a red sunrise. Bare white snow lay as far as the 
eye could see and there wasn’t a tree in sight. 

It was the beginning of a new year— 1951— and 
Sbukhov was allowed to write two letters home this 
year. He’d sent his last one off in July and had an 
answer in October. In Ust-Izhma there had been a 
different system — you could write once a month if 
you wanted. But what can you say in a letter ? He 
hadn’t written any more often there. 

He’d left home on the twenty-third of June, 1941. 
One Sunday morning, people had come back from 
the church in Polomnya and said the war had started. 
They’d heard about it at the Polomnya post office, 
but in Temgenyovo — the village he lived in — no one 
had a radio before the war. Now, they wrote, there 
was “p>PP e d” radio in every hut, blaring all the time. 

Writing now was like throwing stones into a 
bottomless pit. They fell down and disappeared, and 
no sound came back. What was the point of telling 
them what gang you worked in and what your boss 
was like ? Now you had more in common with that 
Latvian Kilgas than with your own family. 

Anyway, they only wrote twice a year, and you 
-couldn’t make out how they were getting along. 
They told you there was a new boss in the kolkhoz — 
but there was nothing new about that, they had a 
new one every year. Or the kolkhoz had been “amal- 
gamated” — but that was nothing new either, they 


41 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


were always amalgamating them and splitting them 
up again. Or somebody hadn’t done his work quota 
and had his private plot cut down to three-eighths of 
an acre, and others had lost it all. 

The thing Shukhov didn’t get at all was what his 
wife wrote about how not a single new member had 
come to the kolkhoz since the war. All the youngsters 
were getting out as best they could — to factories in 
the towns or to the peat fields. Half the kolkhozniks- 
had not come back after the war, and those who had 
wouldn’t have anything to do with the kolkhoz — they 
lived there but earned their money somewhere out- 
side. The only men in the kolkhoz were the gang boss, 
Zakhar Vasilyevich, and the carpenter, Tikhon, who 
was eighty-four, had married not long ago, and even 
had children already. The real work in the kolkhoz 
was done by the same women who’d been there since 
the start, in 1930. 

The thing Shukhov just couldn’t figure out was 
these people living on the farm but working outside. 
Shukhov had seen how it was on both individual and 
collective farms, but the idea of peasants not working 
in their own village— that he just couldn’t take. Did 
they go off to seasonal work or something? And 
what did they do about getting the hay in ? 

His wife had told him they’d given up seasonal 
work a long time ago. They didn’t do any carpentry 
any more — a thing their village was known for every- 
where— and they didn’t weave baskets any more. Who^ 
wanted that sort of thing nowadays? But now they* 
were on to something new— painting carpets. Some- 


42 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


one had got hold of some stencils in the war, and the* 
thing had really caught on. More and more people 
were doing it and getting good at it. They didn’t 
have any regular jobs and they helped in the kolkhoz 
for only a month in the year getting the hay in and 
harvesting. And they got a paper from the kolkhoz 
to say that for the other eleven months they’d been 
let off to take care of their own business and that 
they owed no taxes. They went all over the country 
and even flew in planes because their time was 
valuable. They raked in thousands of rubles painting 
carpets all over the place. They got 50 rubles for a 
carpet painted on some old sheet — these carpets, they 
said, could be finished in an hour. His wife hoped 
he’d be back one day and become one of these painters. 
Then they’d get out of the poverty with which she 
was struggling, send the children to technical school, 
and put up a new hut in place of the rotten old shack 
they were living in now. All these carpet painters were 
putting up new houses, and nowadays it cost you 
25,000 rubles, not 5,000 like in the old days, to build 
a house near the railroad. 

Then •he wrote back to his wife and asked her to' 
tell him how the hell he could be a carpet painter if 
he’d never been able to draw. And what was so great 
about these carpets ? What did they put on them ? ’ 
His wife wrote back that any fool could make them?' 
You just put on the stencil and dabbed paint through 
the holes. There were three kinds. One, the “Troika,” 
had a picture of a carriage drawn by three horses 
will; beautiful harness, and a hussar inside. The 


43 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

second was the “Stag,” and the third was imitation 
Persian. There weren’t any other patterns, but people 
all over the country were glad enough of even these 
and couldn’t get their hands on them fast enough, 
because a real carpet doesn’t cost 50 rubles — it costs 
thousands. 

Shukhov would have given a lot to see these 
carpets. 

In all the time he spent in camps and prisons, Ivan 
Denisovich had gotten out of the habit of worrying 
about the next day, or the next year, much less how 
to feed his family. The fellows at the top thought 
about everything for him, and it was kind of easier 
like that. Winter after winter, summer after summer 
— he still had a long time to go. But this business 
-about the carpets upset him. 

It looked like an easy, sure-fire way of making 
money. And it would be sort of wrong if he didn’t 
keep up with the other fellows in the village. But 
"deep down inside, Ivan Denisovich didn’t want to 
have anything to do with this carpet business. Yotf 
had to have a lot of gall and you had to know how 
to grease the right palm. Shukhov had been walking 
this earth for forty years. He’d lost half his teeth and 
he was getting bald. He'd never given or taken a 
bribe from anybody, and he hadn’t learned that trick 
in the camp either. 

Easy money doesn’t weigh anything and it doesn’t 
give you that good feeling you get when you really 
earn it. The old saying was true— what you don’t pay 
for honestly, you don't get good value for. Shukhov’s 


44 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


hands were still good for something. Back home he’d* 
surely find himself work making stoves, or something 
in the carpentry line, mending pots and pans. 

The only catch was — if you’d been convicted with 
loss of civil rights, you couldn’t get work anywhere 
and you weren’t allowed back home. So maybe it 
would have to be those carpets after all. 

The column had now arrived and stopped in front 
of the guardroom of the vast compound where the 
building site was. A little before that, two of the 
escorts in sheepskin coats had peeled off at a corner 
of the compound and made for the watchtowers at 
the far end. The prisoners would only be let in when 
the watchtowers had been manned. The officer in 
charge, with a tommy gun over his shoulder, went to 
the guardhouse. And there were great clouds of smoke 
pouring out of the guardroom chimney. They had a 
watchman there all night — a “free” worker, not a 
prisoner — so boards and cement wouldn’t be stolen. 

The big, red sun, sort of covered in mist, was 
slanting through the wires of the gate, across the 
whole compound and through the wire far over on 
the other side. Alyoshka, at Shukhov’s side, looked 
at the sun and rejoiced. A smile came to his lips. 
His cheeks were sunken, he lived only on his ration 
and didn’t earn anything extra. What was he so 
pleased about? On Sundays he spent all the time 
whispering with the other Baptists. The camp didn’t 
worry them— it was like water off a duck’s back. 

Shukhov’s face-rag had gotten all wet from his 


45 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


"breath on the way, and it was frozen and bad turned 
into an icy crust. He shoved it off his face onto his 
neck and stood with his back to the wind. He wasn’t 
cold all through, but his hands were frozen in the 
thin mittens and the toes of his left foot had gotten 
numb — it was that left boot which had a hole burned 
in it and had to be sewed up again. 

He had an aching pain all the way from the small 
of his back to his shoulders, so how could he work? 
He looked around and caught sight of the gang boss. 
He was at the end of the column. He had powerful 
shoulders and a large face. He looked grim. He 
didn’t stand for any fucking nonsense in the gang, but 
he kept them pretty well fed and was always worried 
about getting them a good ration. He was doing his 
second sentence and he had lived practically all his 
life in the camps. What he didn’t know about the 
camps wasn’t worth knowing. 

In a camp, your gang boss is everything. A good 
one can give you a new lease on life, but a bad one 
will finish you off. Shukhov had known Tyurin in 
the old Ust-lzhma days, only he wasn’t in his gang 
there. And when prisoners sentenced under Article 
58 * had been switched from the ordinary camp at 
Ust-lzhma to the penal camp, Tyurin had picked 
him out. Shukhov never had any dealings with the 
Commandant, the PPS, the work-supervisors, and the 
engineers. The boss took care of all that sort of 
thing. He was like a rock. But he only had to raise 
an eyebrow or point a finger and you ran off to do 
what he wanted. You could cheat anyone you liked 


46 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

in the camp, but not Tyurin. That way you’d stay 
alive. 

Shukhov wanted to ask him if they were going to 
work in the same place like yesterday or if they were 
going to another place, but he didn’t dare break in 
on his thoughts. He’d only just wangled them out of 
the Socialist Community Development, and now he 
must have been figuring out how to get them good 
rates for the job. And their ration for the next five 
days depended on this. 

Tyurin’s face was covered with large pockmarks. 
He could face the wind without wincing — the skin on 
his face was tough like the bark of an oak tree. 

The men in the column were slapping their hands 
together and stamping their feet. The wind was 
brutal. It looked like the guards were already up on 
all six watchtowers, but the men were still not being 
let inside. They must have another security drive on. 

Here it was ! The officer in charge of the escort 
came out of the guardroom with an inspector. They 
stood on each side of the gate and opened it. 

“Line up by fi-i-ves ! One ! Two-o !” 

The prisoners marched as though they were on 
parade — almost like soldiers. Once they got into the 
compound, they knew what to do without being told. 

Just past the guardroom was the work office. The 
work-supervisor was standing there, calling over the 
gang bosses. And one of the foremen — a man called 
Dcr — went over to them. A real bastard. He was a 
prisoner himself, but he treated everybody else like 
dirt. 


47 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


It was eight o’clock, maybe five minutes past (the- 
steam engine they used to generate power had just 
given a blast on its whistle). The fellows in charge 
were scared stiff about the prisoners wasting time 
and ducking into shelters to keep warm. But the 
prisoners had a long day and took their time. As 
soon as they got into the compound they started 
bending down to pick up pieces of wood. It all came 
in handy for the stove back in camp. 

Tyurin told his assistant, Pavlo, to come to the 
office with him. Caesar went along too. Caesar was 
rich, got two packages from home every month, and 
bribed all the right people. He had a soft job in the 
office, helping the fellow in charge of the work sheets. 

The rest of Gang 104 took off like greased light- 
ning. 

The sun came up, red and hazy, over the empty 
compound. There were panels for prefabs covered 
over with snow, and the beginning of a brick wall 
they’d stopped work on. Then there was a broken 
part of a bulldozer. And a scoop and some metal 
scrap. There were ditches, trenches, and holes all 
over the place. The vehicle-repair shops were finished 
except for the roofs, and on a rise there was a power 
plant where they’d started on the second story. 

Everybody was out of sight — all but the six sentries 
standing on the watchtowers and the men bustling 
around the office. This was the best moment in the 
day for a prisoner. They said the chief supervisor 
had threatened no end of times to pass out the work 


48 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


orders the evening before. But it never really worked 
because they’d always change their minds by the 
morning. 

But as it was they now had a moment to them- 
selves. While they were figuring things out, you 
could find some warm spot and stay there for a spell 
before you started breaking your back. It was good 
if you could get near the stove to take your foot- 
cloths off, warm them a little, and then put them on 
again. Then your feet would be warm all day long. 
But even if you couldn’t get to a stove it was still 
great. 

Gang 104 went to the repair shops, where they’d 
put window panes in last autumn, and Gang 38 was 
making concrete blocks. Some of these blocks were 
lying around in their molds, others were standing 
upright, and there was steel meshwork for rein- 
forcing the concrete. There was a high roof and an 
earthen floor, and it never really got warm here. But 
it was heated and they weren’t stingy with the coal 
— not so people could get warm, but so the blocks 
would set better. There was even a thermometer, 
and on Sundays, if the prisoners weren’t working, 
they had a “free” worker in there to keep the fire 
going. 

Of course, the men of Gang 38 were hogging the 
stove, drying out their foot-cloths. Okay, so the rest 
of us have to sit in a corner. What the hell. 

Shukhov perched on the edge of a wooden mold 
with his back to the wall. The seat of his padded 
pants had seen worse. When he leaned back, his coat 


49 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


and jacket pulled tight around his body, and on the 
left side of his chest, by his heart, he felt something 
hard. This was the hunk of bread in his inside pocket, 
the half of his morning ration he’d saved for the 
meal break. He always brought this much with him 
to work and never touched it before the meal break. 
He always ate the other half at breakfast, but today 
he hadn’t. He now saw it wasn’t a saving at all. He 
felt a great hunger pang and wanted to eat it right 
away in this warm place. There were five hours till 
the meal break — it was a long time. 

The pain in his back had now shifted to his legs 
and they felt all weak. If only he could get near the 
stove. 

He put his mittens on his knees, undid his coat, 
untied the frozen face-rag from his neck, broke the 
ice to fold it up, and put it in his pocket. Then he 
took the bread in a piece of white cloth and cradled it 
behind the flap of his coat not to lose a single crumb, 
starting gradually nibbling at it and chewing it. He 
had carried the bread under two layers of clothes 
and warmed it with his own body, so it wasn’t frozen 
at all. 

In the camps he often remembered how they used 
to eat at home in the village — potatoes by the panful 
and pots of kasha, and in the early days before that, 
great hunks of meat. And they swilled enough milk to 
make their bellies burst. But he understood in the 
camps this was all wrong. You had to eat with all 
your thoughts on the food, like he was nibbling off 
these little bits now, and turn them over on your 


50 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


tongue, and roll them over in your mouth — and then 
it tasted so good, this soggy black bread. What had 
he eaten this eight years and more ? Nothing at all. 
But the work he’d done on it ! 

He was busy with his six ounces of bread while 
his whole gang sat there on the same side of the 
shed. 

Two Estonians, who were like blood brothers, were 
sitting on a low concrete block and smoking half a 
cigarette in turns from the same holder. They were 
both very fair, tall, and thin. Both had long noses 
and big eyes. They stuck together as though they 
couldn’t breathe without each other. The gang boss 
never separated them. They shared all their food 
and slept on the top level of the same bunk. And in 
the column or at roll call or going to bed at night, 
they were always talking to each other in slow, quiet 
voices. But they weren't brothers at all, they’d only 
gotten to know each other here in the gang. One of 
them, they said, had been a fisherman, the other had 
been taken to Sweden by his parents when the Soviets 
came to Estonia and he was still a kid. But after he 
grew up he came back to Estonia of his own accord 
to get a college education. 

Nowadays people say it doesn’t matter where you 
come from and that there are bad people everywhere. 
But of all the Estonians he’d seen, Shukhov had never 
come across a bad one. 

They were still sitting, either on the slabs or on 
the molds or just on the ground. You didn’t feel like 


51 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


talking in the morning, and they were all wrapped 
up in their own thoughts. That scavenger Fetyukov 
had scrounged together quite a pile of cigarette butts 
from somewhere (he would even pick them up out of 
a spittoon without batting an eye), and now he was 
sorting them out on his knees and putting all the 
unburned tobacco in a piece of paper. Fetyukov 
had three children “outside,” but they’d all disowned 
him when he was arrested, and his wife had married 
again. So there was no one to send him things. 

The Captain kept looking at Fetyukov out of the 
corner of his eye, and then he yelled : 

“Hey, what are you collecting all that crap for? 
You’ll get syphilis. Throw it out !” 

The Captain was used to giving orders and he 
always talked to people like this. 

But Fetyukov didn’t have to take orders from the 
Captain. He didn’t get any packages either. So he 
just leered at him in a nasty way — he’d lost some of 
his teeth — and said, “Just wait. Captain, till you’ve 
been here eight years, you’ll be doing the same thing. 
It's happened to better men than you.” 

Fetyukov was judging by himself, but may be the 
Captain wouldn't go down so quickly. 

“What’s that ? What’s that ?” SenkaKlevshinsaid. 
He was rather deaf and couldn’t hear what they were 
saying. He thought they were talking about the 
Captain’s trouble at roll call. “You shouldn’t have 
yelled at them like that.” He shook his head sadly. 
“It would’ve blown over.” 

Senka Klevshin was a quiet fellow and h e ’d had 


52 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


a very hard life. One of his eardrums had burst back 
in forty-one. Then he’d been taken prisoner, but he 
got away. They caught him and stuck him in Buchen- 
wald. In Buchenwald he’d stayed alive by a miracle, 
and now he was here quietly doing his sentence. He 
said if you kicked up a fuss you were finished. 

The only thing for you was to put your back into 
the work — that was for sure. If you tried to fight 
them, they’d break your neck. 

Alyoshka dropped his face into his hands. He was 
praying. 

Shukhov ate his ration nearly to the end, but he 
saved a bare crust, a round piece from the top, be- 
cause you couldn’t clean out the mush in your bowl 
with a spoon like you could with bread. He wrapped 
up the crust again in the white cloth for the next 
meal, stuck the cloth in the pocket on the inside of 
his jacket, buttoned himself up against the cold, and 
got ready. Let them send him to work now if they 
wanted. But he’d like it better if they waited awhile. 

Gang 38 got up. Some of them went to the cement- 
mixer, some to get water, some to the steel mesh- 
work. 

But neither Tyurin nor Pavlo had come back to 
the gang. And though they had been sitting down for 
barely twenty minutes, and the workday — a short 
winter one — went on only till six, they all thought this 
had been wonderful luck, and the evening didn’t 
seem far off now. 

“You know there hasn’t been a blizzard fora long 
time!” the Latvian Kilgas said with a sigh. He had 


53 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


red cheeks and was well fed. “Not one storm all win- 
ter! What kind of a winter is that?” 

“Yes . . . not a single blizzard . . . not a single 
blizzard.” A sigh went through the gang. 

When there was a snowstorm in these parts, they 
didn’t dare take you out of the barracks — let alone to 
work. Without a rope slung between your barracks and 
the mass hall, you could get lost. If a prisoner froze 
to death in the snow, the dogs could eat him for all 
anyone cared. But what if he escaped? It happened 
sometimes. When there was a storm, the snow was 
very, very fine, but in the snowdrifts it got packed 
down. Prisoners had gotten over the wire across 
these snowdrifts and made a run for it. But it’s true 
they didn’t get far. 

Come to think about it, snowstorms weren’t much 
use. They kept the prisoners locked in. The coal was 
late coming in and the warmth was blown out of the 
barracks. They brought no flour into the camp, and 
there was no bread, and things got fouled up in the 
mess hall. And it didn’t matter how long the blizzard 
lasted — a couple of days or a week — they counted 
the days they lost as days off. and the men were 
marched out to work for the same number of Sun- 
days in a row. 

All the same, the men loved storms and prayed 
for them. Any time there was a low wind, everyone 
stared at the sky: “Give us some of the real stuff!” 

Snow, they meant. The thing was that most of the- 
time you only got a little powdered §now, not a real 
blizzard. 


54 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Now someone tried to horn in on Gang 38’s stove, 
but they sent him packing. 

Tyurin came in. He looked black. The men saw 
that they’d have to get down to work, and right 
away. 

“Now then!” Tyurin looked around. “Are you all 
here, 104?” And not checking or counting — because 
nobody could have gone anywhere — he started giving 
them their working orders in a hurry. He sent the 
two Estonians and Klevshin and Gopchik to get the 
big cement-mixer from nearby and take it to the 
power plant. It was clear from this that the gang was 
being put on the unfinished power plant that they’d 
stopped work on in the autumn. He sent two others 
to the tool shop, where Pavlo was getting the tools. 
He told four others to clear the snow from around 
the plant, by the entrance to the generator room, and 
inside it, and from the ladders. He told another two 
to get the coal stove going there and to pinch some 
boards and chop them up. One man was to take 
cement there on a small sledge. Two were to carry 
water, two had to bring sand, and another had to 
clear the snow off the sand and break it up with a 
crowbar. 

After all this, only two of them, Shukhov and 
Kilgas, the best workers in the gang, still hadn’t got- 
ten their orders. The boss called over and said: 
“Now, boys!” (He wasn’t any older than them, but 
had this way of calling people “boys’’). “After the 
meal break, you’ll lay bricks on the second story, 
where Gang 6 left off the job last fall. But now I 


55 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


want you to cover up the windows in the generator 
room. There are three big windows there, and the 
irst thing is to board them up with something. I’ll 
send some others along to help, but start thinking 
what you’re going to do it with. We’ll use the gen- 
erator room for mixing the mortar and warming up. 
If we don’t manage to keep it warm, we’ll freeze like 
stray dogs. Get it?” 

He might have said something else, but Gopchik 
ran up to him — he was a kid of about sixteen with 
rosy cheeks — and complained that another gang 
wouldn’t give them the cement-mixer and were 
fighting over it. So Tyurin went there. 

Never mind how hard it was to begin the work- 
day in such freezing cold, the thing was to get over 
the beginning— that was the important part. 

Shukhov and Kilgas glanced at each other. They’d 
•ften worked together and they looked up to each 
other because they were both skilled men. Shukhov 
was a carpenter and Kilgas a bricklayer. It wasn’t 
easy to find anything in the snow to board up those 
windows with. But Kilgas said: 

“Ivan! I know a spot near those prefabs where 
there's a big roll of roofing-felt. Hid it there myself. 
Let’s go.” 

Kilgas was a Latvian but spoke Russian like a 
Russian. There was a village of Old Believers* near 
where he came from, and he learned it when he was 
small. He’d been in the camps only two years, but 
he knew his way around and he also knew that if 
you didn’t help yourself, nobody else would. Kilgas 


56 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


and Shukhov had the same name and they called 
-each other Ivan. 

They decided to get the roofing-felt. But first 
Shukhov ran off to get his trowel from the half- 
finished repair shops. A trowel is a great help to a 
bricklayer when it’s light and fits his hand. But on 
every working site it’s a rule that at night you hand 
in all the tools they gave you in the morning. And 
it’s a matter of luck what tool you get next day. But 
Shukhov had once managed to pull a fast one on the 
fellow in the tool shop and kept the best trowel for 
himself. Now he hid it in a different place every 
night and got it in the mornings if he was going to 
do any bricklaying. Of course, if they’d sent Gang 
104 to the Socialist Community Development today, 
he wouldn’t have been able to get it. But now he 
rolled away a small stone and stuck his fingers in a 
crack. There it was ! He pulled it out. 

Shukhov and Kilgas left the repair shops and 
went over to the prefabs. There was a cloud of steam 
from their breath. The sun had already come up, but 
there was a mist and they couldn’t see the rays. They 
thought they saw something that looked like posts 
sticking out all around the sun. 

“There are posts over there,” Shukhov said, and 
jerked his head. 

“We don’t mind posts,” said Kilgas, and he 
laughed. “As long as they don’t stretch barbed wire 
.over them, that’s the thing to look out for.” 

Kilgas couldn’t say a word without making a joke. 
The whole gang liked him for this. And the way all 


57 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the Latvians in the camp looked up to him ! But of 
course Kilgas ate pretty good with his two packages 
a month. He looked kind of healthy, just like he 
wasn’t in a camp at all. It was easy for him to make 
jokes. 

This site of theirs was really big. It took quite a 
while to get across it. On their way, they ran into 
some of the boys from Gang 82 who’d been put on 
digging up holes again. They didn’t want very big 
holes — only a few feet deep. But the ground here 
was like stone even in summer, and now it was frozen 
stiff and it was impossible to dig. Hit it with a pick 
and it just skidded off. All you got was sparks, no 
earth at all. The fellows stood there by their holes 
and just looked around. There was nowhere to get 
warm and they couldn’t leave. So they went at it 
again with their picks. That was the only way to 
keep warm. 

Shukhov saw someone he knew among them — a 
fellow from Vyatka— and gave him a piece of ad vice. 
“Listen, fellows. Why don’t you start afire over these 
holes to thaw out the ground ?’’ 

“They won’t let us.” The man from Vyatka 
sighed. “They won't give us any wood.” 

“You should find some.” 

But Kilgas just spat : “Now tell me, Ivan, if our 
bosses had any sense, would they send people out to 
hack the ground with picks in cold weather like this?” 
He swore under his breath a couple of times and said 
nothing more. You couldn’t talk much in this sort 


58 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


of cold. They went on till they came to the place- 
where the prefab panels were buried under the snow. 

Shukhov liked working with Kilgas. The only bad 
thing about him was that he didn’t smoke and he 
never got any tobacco in his packages. 

Kilgas really kept his eyes open. They picked up 
a board and then another, and there was the roll of 
roofing-felt. 

They took it out. But how could they carry it? 
It didn’t matter about being seen from a watchtower. 
The guards only worried about people running away. 
That was their only concern. But inside you could 
chop up all the panels for firewood for all they cared. 
And if a camp warder ran into you, that didn’t 
matter either. They were always on the lookout them- 
selves for something that might come in handy. And 
the men couldn’t care less either, nor could the gang 
bosses. The only people who worried were the chief 
work-supervisor, who wasn’t a prisoner, and Der, the 
foreman, who was, and that beanpole Shkuropatenko. 
Shkuropatenko was no one in particular, just an 
ordinary prisoner, but he was paid for guarding the 
prefabs and stopping the prisoners from pinching them. 
It was this Shkuropatenko who was most likely to 
catch them. 

“Look, Ivan, we can’t carry it lengthways.” 
Shukhov said. “Let’s carry it upright with our arms 
around it and take it slow. We’ll screen it with our 
bodies, and he won’t see what we’ve got.” 

This was a good idea of Shukhov’s. The roll was 
clumsy to carry, so they didn’t pick it up but squeez- 


59 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


«d it between themselves like a third man and started 
off. All you could see from the side was two men 
walking close together. 

“If the work-supervisor secs this on the windows 
later on, he’ll guess what happened anyway,” Shukhov 
said. 

“What’s that got to do with us ?” Kilgas asked. 
“Wc can say it was already there when we came to 
the power plant. They’re not going to tell us to pull 
it down.” 

That was true enough. 

His fingers were numb in his mittens. He couldn’t 
feel them at all. And the cold had gotten into his 
left boot. Your boots were the main thing. His 
hands would warm up at work. 

They walked over the untouched snow and came 
out on a sledge track that ran from the tool shop to 
the power plant. This meant they must have taken 
the cement there already. 

The power plant was on a rise and it was right at 
the edge of the compound. No one had been in the 
power plant for a long time, and the snow all around 
it was unmarked. So the sledge track, the new path, 
and the deep footprints stood out more clearly and 
showed the men had gone that way. And they were 
already clearing snow with wooden shovels near the 
power plant and clearing a path for a truck. 

It would be good if the hoist was working. But 
the motor had burned out and it looked like it hadn’t 
been fixed. Which meant they’d once more have to 
carry everything up to the second story themselves — 


60 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the mortar and the bricks. 

The power plant had been there for two months, 
like a gray skeleton in the snow. But now Gang 104 
had come. And what kept them going? Their empty 
bellies were held in by rope belts. The cold was 
fierce. There was no shelter and no fire. But they’d 
come and so life began again. 

The cement-mixer was right there by the entrance 
to the generator room, but it had come apart. It was 
really rickety and Shukhov didn’t think they'd get 
it there in one piece. The gang boss swore just for 
the hell of it, but he saw that nobody was to blame. 
Then Kilgas and Shukhov came up, carrying the 
roofing-felt between them. The gang boss was pleased 
and decided on a switch of jobs. He told Shukhov 
to fix the flue on the stove so they’d get it going as 
fast as possible. And Kilgas was told to patch up 
the mixer, with the two Estonians helping him. He 
gave Senka Klevshin an ax to cut laths to nail the 
felt on, because it wasn’t the right width for the 
windows. Where could they get the wood ? The 
work-supervisor sure wouldn’t give them any just to 
make a shelter. The boss looked around and so did 
the others. All they could do was take the boards 
used a hand-rails for the ladders up to the second 
story. They’d just have to go up carefully if they 
didn’t want to break their necks. There was no 
other way. 

You might well ask why a prisoner worked so 
hard for ten years in a camp. Why didn’t they say 


61 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

to hell with it and drag their feet all day long till the 
night, which was theirs? 

But it wasn’t so simple. That’s why they’d 
dreamed up these gangs. It wasn’t like gangs “out- 
side,” where every fellow got paid separately. In the 
camps they had these gangs to make the prisoners 
keep each other on their toes. So the fellows at the 
top didn’t have to worry. It was like this— either you 
all got something extra or you all starved. (“You’re 
not pulling your weight, you swine, and I’ve got to 
go hungry because of you. So work, you bastard !”) 

So when a really tough job came along, like now, 
you couldn’t sit on your hands. Like it or not, you 
had to get a move on. Either they made the place 
warm within two hours or they’d all be fucking well 
dead. 

Pavlo’d come with the tools already. All they 
had to do was pick out what they needed. And he 
also brought some pipes. True, there was nothing to 
fit ’em with, but there was a hammer and a small 
hatchet. They’d do it somehow. 

Shukhov clapped his mittens together, placed the 
pipes end to end, and started fixing them up, dove- 
tailing the joints. He’d hidden his trowel nearby. 
They were all friends in the gang, but that wouldn’t 
stop one of them from working a switch. He 
wouldn’t even put it past Kilgas. 

The only thought in his head now — and his only 
worry — was how to fix the flues so they wouldn’t 
smoke. He sent Gopchik to fasten the pipe at the 
window where it went out. 


62 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


There was another potbellied stove in the corner 
■with a brick flue. There was a red-hot iron plate on 
top of it to thaw out the sand and dry it. So they’d 
already got that one going, and the Captain and 
Fetyukov were carrying sand there in hods. You 
•didn’t need any brains to carry a hod. That was why 
Tyurin gave this work to people who used to run 
things before they got to the camp. Fetyukov was 
once some kind of a big shot in an office. He used to 
ride around in a car. 

In the beginning Fetyukov tried to bully the 
Captain. But the Captain hit him in the teeth a 
couple of times, so they called it off. 

The boys tried to get near the stove with the sand 
to warm up, but Tyurin stopped them. “Get on with 
the job first or I’ll warm your asses for you !” he 
said. 

Beat a dog once and you only have to show him 
the whip. The cold was vicious, but it had nothing 
on the gang boss. They all went back to work. 

Shukhov heard Tyurin say in Pavlo’s ear : “You 
stay here and keep ’em at it. I’ve got to go and fix 
the work rates.” 

More depends on the work rates than on the work 
itself. A clever boss who knows his business really 
sweets over these work rates. That’s where the ration 
comes from. If a job hadn’t been done, make it look 
like it had. If the rates were low on a job, try to hike 
’em up. You had to have brains for this and a lot 
of pull with the fellows who kept the work sheets. 
And they didn’t do it for nothing. 


63 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


But come to think of it, who were these rates for T 
For the people who ran the camps. They made 
thousands on the deal and got bonuses on top for the 
officers. Like old Volkovoy, with that whip of his. 
And all you got out of it was six ounces of bread in 
the evening. Your life depended on them. 

They brought two buckets of water, but it froze 
on the way over. Pavlo figured there was no point in 
carrying it. They could get it quicker by melting 
snow on the spot. They put the buckets on the stove. 

Gopchik brought along some new aluminium wire, 
the kind electricians used. 

He said : “Ivan Denisovich! This is good wire for 
spoons. Will you teach me how to make a spoon ?” 

Ivan Denisovich liked this little rascal Gopchik 
(his own son had died young, and he had two grown- 
up daughters at home). Gopchik had been arrested 
for taking milk to Bendra partisans* in the woods. 
They gave him the same sentence a grownup got. He 
was friendly, like a little calf, and tried to please 
everybody. But he could be sly too. He ate the stuff 
in the packages he got, all by himself, at night. But 
come to think of it, why should he feed everybody ? 

They broke off some wire to make spoons and hid 
it in a corner. Shukhov made a sort of stepladder out 
of two planks and sent Gopchik to fix the chimney. 
Gopchik ran up the ladder like a squirrel. He 
banged in a nail, threw the wire over it, and fixed it 
around the pipe. Then Shukhov got busy and put 
another piece of pipe on top where the flue came out. 


64 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


There was no wind today, but there might be to- 
morrow, and this was to stop the smoke from 
blowing back. This stove was for them, you' see. 

Senka Klevshin had already made some long laths. 
They told Gopchik to nail them on. He climbed up 
the windows, the little rascal, and shouted down. 

The sun was higher now, the haze had gone, and 
there was no sign of those funny posts any more. And 
it was all crimson. They put the stolen wood in the 
stove and lit it. It was much more cheerful like that. 

“Its only cows who get warm from the sun in 
January,” Shukhov said. 

Kilgas finished hammering the cement -mixer 
together, gave it a last tap, and shouted : “Listen, 
Pavlo, this job’ll cost the boss a hundred rubles. I 
won’t take less !” 

Pavlo laughed. “You’ll be lucky if you get a little 
extra on your ration.” 

“You’ll get your bonus from the judge,” Gopchik 
shouted down. 

“Hold it, hold it,” Shukhov yelled. (They were 
cutting the roofing-felt the wrong way). 

He showed them how to do it. 

Some of the men were crowding around the other 
stove and Pavlo chased them away. He gave Kilgas 
some helpers, and told him to make hods for carrying 
the mortar up. He . put two more men on to carry 
sand. He sent someone else up to clear the snow off 
the scaffold and the walls. And he got another man 
to shovel hot sand from the stove into the mixer. 

They heard a motor outside. A truck with bricks 


65 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


was coming through. Pavlo ran out and waved his 
hands to show them where to unload. 

Thex nailed on one strip of the felt and then an- 
other. But what protection do you get from roofing- 
felt? It’s nothing but paper, really. All the same, it 
made a kind of solid wall. And it was darker inside, 
so the stove looked brighter. 

Alyoshka brought some coal. Somebody shouted, 
“Pile it on !” Someone else yelled, “Don't, we’ll get 
warmer from the wood !” He didn’t know what to do, 
he just stood there. 

Fetyukov squatted down by the stove, and put his 
felt boots right up to the fire, the dope. The Captain 
pulled him up by the scruff of the neck and pushed 
him over to the hods. “Go and carry sand, you bas- 
tard !” 

To the Captain, camp work was like the navy. (“If 
you're told to do something, then get down to it !”) 
He’d gotten pretty thin in the last month, but he was 
still doing his best. 

Before long, all three windows were covered with 
felt. Now the only light came from the door. And 
the cold came in with it. Pavlo told them to cover the 
top part of the door and leave the bottom part open, 
just enough to get in and out with your head down. 
They did it. 

Meantime three dump trucks had brought the 
bricks. Now the thing was how they could get them 
up to the top without a hoist. 

“Hey, you bricklayers ! Let’s go up and take a 


66 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 
look,” Pavlo called. 

Bricklaying was a job you could take pride in. 
Shukhov and Kilgas went up with PavIo.^The ladder 
was pretty narrow and Senka had taken away the 
handrails for firewood, so you had to stick close to 
the wall if you didn’t want to fall off. And another 
thing was the snow had frozen to the rungs and made 
them slippery, so you couldn’t get a grip with your 
feet. How the hell could they carry the mortar up ? 

They looked to see where to start laying. The fel- 
lows up there were shoveling away the snow already. 
They’d start over here. They’d have to hack the ice 
off the bricks and then scrape them clean. 

They figured out how they’d get the bricks up. 
It’d be best if they didn’t carry them up the ladder 
but had four fellows down below throw them to the 
first scaffold, then another two throw them up from 
there to the second story. And then there’d be two 
more fellows up here to carry them over to the walls. 
That’d be the quickest way. 

There wasn't much of a wind up here, but you 
could still feel it. Enough to go right through you 
when you were working. But if you ducked down 
behind the wall it was a lot warmer. 

Shukhov looked up to the sky and gasped. It was 
clear, and by the sun it was almost noon. It was a 
funny thing how time flew when you were working! 
He was always struck by how fast the days went in 
camp — you didn’t have time to turn around. But the 
end of your sentence never seemed to be any closer. 

They came down again and found everybody 


67 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


huddled around the stove, except the Captain and 
Fetyukov were carrying sand. Pavlo got mad and 
chased out eight of the fellows to get bricks, and told 
two of them to put dry cement and sand in the mixer. 
And he sent two others for water and coal. 

Kilgas said to the fellows working with him: 
“Come on, let’s finish these hods.” 

“Maybe I can give them a hand,” Shukhov said 
to Pavlo. 

“Okay,” Pavlo nodded. 

Then they brought in a can to melt snow for the 
mortar. They heard somebody say it was twelve 
o’clock already. 

“It must be,” Shukhov said. “The sun’s right 
overhead.” 

“If it’s right overhead,” the Captain shot back, 
“that means it’s one o’clock, not twelve.” 

“How come?” Shukhov asked. “Any old man can 
tell you the sun is highest at noon.” 

“That’s what the old guys say !” the Captain 
snapped. “But since then, there’s been a law passed 
and now the sun’s highest at one.” 

“Who passed the law ?” 

“The Soviet Government !” 

The Captain went out with the hods. But Shukhov 
wouldn’t have gone on arguing anyway. Did the sun 
come under their laws too ? 

With a little more banging and hammering, they 
put together four hods. 

“Okay, let’s sit down and warm up,” Pavlo said 
to the two bricklayers. “Senka, you’ll be laying bricks 


68 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


after the meal break too. So sit down and get warm.” 

This time they had every right to sit down at the 
stove. They couldn’t start the job before lunchtime 
anyhow, and if they started mixing the mortar too 
soon it’d freeze. 

The coal in the stove was really going now and 
giving out a steady heat. But it only hit you near the 
stove — the rest of the shed was cold as ever. 

All four of them took off their mittens and held 
their hands over the stove. 

One thing you had to know was never to put your 
feet near the stove with your boots on. If they were 
regular boots, the leather cracked. And if they were 
felt, they got damp and steamed, and your feet didn’t 
get any warmer. And if you put them right up to the 
fire, they got burned. Then you had to go along till 
spring with a hole in them. There weren’t any more 
where they came from. 

“Why should Shukhov worry?” Kilgas was kidding 
him. “He’s got one foot out of here already.” 

“Yeah, the one without the boot,” someone 
butted in. They laughed. (Shukhov had taken off his 
left boot — the one with the hole in it— and was 
warming his foot-cloths.) 

“Shukhov’s sentence is almost up.” 

They’d given Kilgas twenty-five years. In the good 
old days it was always ten. But in 1949 they started 
slapping on twenty-five, regardless. Maybe you could 
last ten years and still come out of it alive, but how 
the hell could you get through twenty-five? 

Shukhov sort of liked the way they pointed at him 


69 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

— the lucky guy nearly through with his sentence. But 
he didn’t really believe it. Take the fellows who 
should’ve been let out in the war. They were all kept 
in till forty-six — ‘till further notice.” And then those 
with three years who’d gotten five more slapped on. 
They twisted the law any way they wanted. You 
finished a ten-year stretch and they gave you another 
®ne. Or if not, they still wouldn’t let you go home. 

But sometimes you got a kind of funny feeling 
inside. Maybe your number really would come up 
one day. God, just to think you might walk out and 
go home ! 

But old camp hands never said anything like that 
out loud. Shukhov said to Kilgas: “Don’t start count- 
ing up all the years you’ve got to go. Whether you’ll 
be here for the whole twenty-five years or not is any- 
body's guess. All I know is I've done eight of mine, 
that’s for sure.” 

So you just went on living like this, with your eyes 
•n the ground, and you had no time to think about 
how you got in and when you’d get out. 

In his record it said Shukhov was in for treason. 
And it’s true he gave evidence against himself and 
said he’d surrendered to the enemy with the inten- 
tion of betraying his country, and come back with 
instructions from the Germans. But just what he was 
supposed to do for the Germans neither Shukhov 
aor the interrogator could say. So they just left it at 
that and put down: “On instructions from the 
Germans.” 


70 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The way Shukhov figured, it was very simple. If 
he didn’t sign, he was as good as buried. But if he 
did, he’d still go on living a while So he signed. 

It happened like this. In February of forty-two 
his whole army was cut off on the Northwestern 
Front. They didn’t send any food by air — there just 
weren't any planes. Then things got so bad they cut 
the hoofs off dead horses, soaked them in water to 
soften them up a little, and ate them. And they didn’t 
have any ammo. The Germans tracked them down 
in the woods and rounded them up. Shukhov spent 
a couple of days in a POW cage in the forest. Then 
he got away with four others. They made their way 
through the forest and the bogs and got back to their 
©wn lines. And when they got there, a machine gun- 
ner opened fire. Two of them were killed on the spot 
and another died from his wounds. So only two of 
them made it. If they’d had any sense, they’d have 
said they got lost wandering in the woods— then 
nothing would have happened to them. But they told 
the truth and said they’d gotten away from the 
Germans. (“From the Germans, eh, you mother- 
fuckers!”) If all five of them had made it, maybe 
they’d have checked their story and believed it. But 
just the two of them didn’t have a chance. It was 
quite clear, they said, that they’d fixed up their escape 
with the Germans, the bastards. 

Deaf as he was, Senka Klevshin could hear what 
they were talking about and said in a loud voice : 
“I got away three times and they caught me every 


71 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


time.” 

Senka had really been through the mill Most of 
the time he didn’t talk. He couldn’t hear what people 
said and usually kept his mouth shut.. So they didn’t 
know much about him. All they knew was he'd been 
in Buchenwald and was in the camp underground 
there. He’d smuggled arms in for an uprising. Then 
the Germans hung him up with his arms tied behind 
his back and beat him 

“But what kind of camps were you in for those 
eight years, Ivan ?” Kilgas asked. “Most of the time 
you’ve been in those ordinary camps with women, 
where they don’t make you wear numbers. But eight 
years in a penal camp is a different story ! Nobody’s 
ever come out of this alive.” 

“We didn’t have any women. All I ever saw was 
logs.” 

He started into the fire and remembered his seven 
years in the North. The way he’d hauled logs for 
three years to make crates and railroad ties. The 
campfire used to flicker just like this in the lumber 
camp — when they had to work at night, that is. The 
Commandant's rule was — any gang that didn’t do 
its quota in the daytime was kept on the job at night. 
They used to get back to camp after midnight and go 
out again in the morning. 

“Don’t kid yourself, fellows, it’s easier here,” he 
said in his funny way (he had that gap in his teeth). 
“Here you knock off the same time every day. Quota 
or no quota, they march you back to the camp. And 
the basic ration is six ounces more. You can live. So 


72 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


what if it is a ‘Special’ camp? Do the numbers bother 
you or something? They don’t weigh anything.” 

“The hell it’s easier !” Fetyukov hissed. (It was 
getting close to the meal break and they were all 
drawn up around the stove.) “They slit your throat 
here while you’re in bed ! You call that easy ?” 

“That happens only to squealers, not human 
beings !” Pavlo put a finger up, like he was warning 
Fetyukov. 

It was true enough. This was a new thing in the 
camp. Two stool pigeons had their throats slit right 
in their bunks after reveille. And then they killed a 
guy who was really straight. They must’ve gotten him 
mixed up with somebody else. And one of the 
squealers beat it to the punishment block, and got 
them to hide him there. It was a funny business, this. 
It never happened in the ordinary camps. And it was 
something new here too. 

The whistle on the steam engine went off. It 
didn’t go off full blast right away, but sounded kind 
of hoarse at first, like it was clearing its throat. 

They’d gotten through half a day. It was meal- 
time. 

Hell, they’d been slow ! They should’ve gone to the 
mess hall long ago to get in line. There were eleven 
gangs on the site, but the mess hall wouldn’t hold 
more than two at a time. 

Tyurin hadn’t come back yet. Pavlo gave a quick 
look around and said : “Shukhov and Gopchik, you 
come with me. Kilgas, when Gopchik gets back to 


73 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


time.” 

Senka had really been through the mill Most of 
the time he didn’t talk. He couldn’t hear what people 
said and usually kept his mouth shut. So they didn’t 
know much about him. All they knew was he’d been 
in Buchenwald and was in the camp underground 
there. He’d smuggled arms in for an uprising. Then 
the Germans hung him up with his arms tied behind 
his back and beat him 

“But what kind of camps were you in for those 
eight years, Ivan?” Kilgas asked. “Most of the time 
you’ve been in those ordinary camps with women, 
where they don’t make you wear numbers. But eight 
years in a penal camp is a different story ! Nobody’s 
ever come out of this alive.” 

“We didn’t have any women. All I ever saw was 
logs.” 

He started into the fire and remembered his seven 
years in the North. The way he’d hauled logs for 
three years to make crates and railroad ties. The 
campfire used to flicker just ,like this in the lumber 
camp— when they had to work at night, that is. The 
Commandant’s rule was— any gang that didn’t do 
its quota in the daytime was kept on the job at night. 
They used to get back to camp after midnight and go 
out again in the morning. 

“Don’t kid yourself, fellows, it’s easier here,” he 
said in his funny way (he had that gap in his teeth). 
“Here you knock off the same time every day. Quota, 
or no quota, they march you back to the camp. And 
the basic ration is six ounces more. You can live. So 


72 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


what if it is a ‘Special’ camp ? Do the numbers bother 
you or something ? They don’t weigh anything.” 

“The hell it’s easier !” Fetyukov hissed. (It was 
getting close to the meal break and they were all 
drawn up around the stove.) “They slit your throat 
here while you’re in bed ! You call that easy?” 

“That happens only to squealers, not human 
beings !” Pavlo put a finger up, like he was warning 
Fetyukov. 

It was true enough. This was a new thing in the 
camp. Two stool pigeons had their throats slit right 
in their bunks after reveille. And then they killed a 
guy who was really straight. They must’ve gotten him 
mixed up with somebody else. And one of the 
squealers beat it to the punishment block, and got 
them to hide him there. It was a funny business, this. 
It never happened in the ordinary camps. And it was- 
something new here too. 

The whistle on the steam engine went off. It 
didn’t go off full blast right away, but sounded kind 
of hoarse at first, like it was clearing its throat. 

They’d gotten through half a day. It was meal- 
time. 

Hell, they’d been slow ! They should’ve gone to the 
mess hall long ago to get in line. There were eleven 
gangs on the site, but the mess hall wouldn’t hold 
more than two at a time. 

Tyurin hadn’t come back yet. Pavlo gave a quick 
look around and said : “Shukhov and Gopchik, you 
come with me. Kilgas, when Gopchik gets back to- 


73 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


you, send the gang along at once !” Other 'fellows 
moved into their places by the stove right away. It 
could have been a woman the way they cuddled up 
to it. 

“Snap out of it !” somebody shouted. “Let’s have 
a smoke !” 

They looked at each other to see who’d light up. 
But nobody did. Either they didn’t have any tobacco 
®r if they did they weren’t letting anybody know. 

Shukfaov went out with Pavlo, and Gopchik 
trotted after them. 

“It’s a little warmer,” Shukhov said when they 
got outside. “About one degree below, no more. 
Good weather for bricklaying.” 

They turned around and looked at the bricks. A 
lot had already been thrown up to the scaffold, and 
some were already on the floor of the second story. 

Shukhov squinted up at the sun to check what 
the Captain had said about that law. 

Out here in the open where there was nothing to 
stop it, the wind was blowing quite hard and bit your 
face, to let you know it was still January. 

The mess hall on the working site was just a 
wooden shack with a stove in the middle. They’d 
nailed rusty metal sheets over it to cover the cracks. 
Inside it was split up into a kitchen and an eating 
room. There were no floors in either part. The earth 
had been trampled down by people’s feet and was 
full of pits and bumps. And what they called the 
kitchen had just a square stove with a caldron. 


74 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The kitchen was run by two people — the cook 
and a sanitary inspector. When they left in the 
morning, the cook got an issue of groats from the big 
kitchen in the camp. It worked out to about two 
ounces a head — about two pounds for each gang. That 
is, a little over twenty pounds for everybody working 
on the site. The cook didn’t carry that stuff himself 
on the two-mile march from the camp. He had a 
trusty who carried it for him. He thought it was 
better to slip an extra portion of the stuff to a trusty 
at the expense of the prisoners’ bellies rather than 
break his own back. Then there was water and fire- 
wood to carry and the stove to light. The cook didn’t 
do that either. He had other prisoners and “goners”* 
to do it. And they got their cut too. It’s easy to give 
away things that don’t belong to you. 

The rule was you had to eat inside the mess hall. 
So they had to bring bowls from the camp every 
day. (They couldn’t leave them on the site overnight 
because they’d be pinched by “free” workers.) So 
they brought about fifty of them over and washed 
them for each new batch that came in to eat. (And 
the man who carried the bowls got his cut.) 

To stop people taking the bowls out of the mess 
hall, they put another trusty at the door. But they 
could watch as much as they liked, people took them 
out all the same. They talked their way past the 
trusty or slipped by while he was’t looking. So on 
top of all this, they had another fellow who had to 
wander around the site and pick up dirty bowls and 
take them back to the kitchen. Both these got their 


75 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


cut too. 

All the cook did was put groats and salt in the 
caldron, and if there was any fat he split it between 
the caldron and himself. (The good fat never got as 
far as the prisoners. Only the bad stuff went in the 
caldron. So what did they care if the fat the stores 
handed out was no good !) Then his only job was to 
stir the mush when it was nearly ready. The sanitary 
inspector didn’t even do that much. He just sat and 
watched. When the mush was ready, the cook gave 
him some right away and he could eat all he wanted. 
And so could the cook Then one of the gang 
bosses — they took turns, a different one every day — 
came to taste it and see if it was good enough for 
the men to eat. He got a double portion too. 

After all this, the whistle went off. Now the other 
gang bosses came and the cook handed them their 
bowls through a kind of hatch in the wall. The bowk 
had this watery mush in them. And you didn't ask 
how much of the ration they’d really put in it. 
You’d get hell if you opened your mouth. 

The wind was whistling over the plain. It was hot 
and dry in summer and freezing cold in winter. 
Nothing would ever grow on that plain, even without 
the barbed wire. The only grain they knew about 
grew in the place where they handed out the bread 
ration, and oats ripened only in the camp stores. And 
you could kill yourself with work here or you could 
lay down and die, but you’d never beat any more 
food out of this earth than what the Commandant 
handed over. And you didn’t get that in full either. 


76 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

what with the cooks and all their pals. They stole all 
the way down the line — out here on the site, in the 
camp, and in the stores too. And you never saw these 
thieves doing any hard work. But it was you who 
sweated, and you took what they gave you and didn’t 
hang around the hatch. 

It was every man for himself. 

Pavlo, Shukhov, and Gopchik went into the mess 
hall. The men were standing jammed up against each 
other — so many backs you couldn’t even see the low 
tables or the benches. Some were eating sitting down, 
and others on their feet. Gang 82, who’d been dig- 
ging holes in the open the whole morning, came in 
first after the whistle and grabbed all the seats. Even 
if they’d finished eating, they still hung around. 
Where else could they get a little warmth ? The others 
were swearing at them. But you might just as well 
swear at a brick wall. What did they care ? It was 
better here than out in the cold. 

Pavlo and Shukhov pushed their way through. 
They’d come at a good time. One gang was getting 
its stuff, another was waiting in line, and the assistant 
gang bosses were standing by the hatch too. This,* 
meant 104 was next in line. d 

“Bowls ! Bowls 1” the cook shouted through thl| 
batch, and people were shoving them at him from 
the other side. Shukhov got some bowls too and 
shoved them through the hatch, not to get anything 
extra for himself but to speed things up. Some of 
the cook’s pals were washing bowls in the kitchen. 
And they weren’t doing it for nothing. 


77 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The assistant gang boss in front of Pavlo was 
getting the stuff for his men, and Pavlo shouted back 
over people’s heads : “Gopchik !” 

“I’m here,” Gopchik answered from the door. He 
had a squeaky little voice like a young goat. 

“Call the gang !” 

Gopchik ran off. 

The mush they were giving out today wasn’t bad. 
It was the best kind, made of oats. It didn’t come 
very often. It was usually magara twice a day, or 
flour mixed with water. These oats were more filling, 
and that’s what counted. 

The amount of oats Shukhov fed to horses when 
he was a boy, and he never thought he’d long for a 
handful himself one day ! 

“Bowls ! Bowls !” they were shouting from the 
hatch. 

Gang 104’s turn was coming. The assistant gang 
boss in front took his special double portion and 
cleared out. 

This came out of their bellies too. And again 
nobody said a thing. Every gang boss had the right 
to a double portion, and he could eat it himself or 
give it to his assistant. Tyurin gave his to Pavlo. 

Now Shukhov squeezed through to one of the 
tables, chased away a couple of “goners,” asked 
another prisoner to have a heart and go away, and 
cleared enough room at the table for twenty bowls. 
(First he’d put twelve close together, then another 
six on top of them, and another two on top of those.) 
Next he had to take the bowls from Pavlo, count 


78 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


them over and make sure nobody swiped one from 
the table. Or knocked one off with his elbow. And 
on both sides men were getting up from the bench or 
sitting down to eat. He had to keep an eye on them 
to be sure they were eating their own stuff and not 
what belonged to his gang. 

“Two ! Four ! Six !” the cook counted on the 
other side of the hatch. He gave out two at a time. 
It was easier not to lose count that way. 

“Two, four, six,” Pavlo said after him into the 
hatch. And he passed them over to Shukhov two by 
two, and Shukhov put them on the table. Shukhov 
didn’t count out loud, but he kept a closer check 
than anybody. 

“Eight, ten.” 

Why wasn’t Gopchik there with the gang yet ? 

“Twelve, fourteen.” 

Then they ran out of bowls in the kitchen. Over 
Pavlo’s head and shoulders, Shukhov could see the 
cook put two bowls down on the edge and stop with 
his hands still on them, like he was thinking about 
something. He must have turned around to bawl 
out the dishwashers. Just then a pile of empty bowls 
was shoved at him through the hatch. He let go of 
the two bowls and passed the empty ones back. 

Shukhov took his eyes off the pile of bowls he 
had on the table, turned around and threw one leg 
over the bench, grabbed both the bowls and said, 
“Fourteen,” but not loud. This was meant for Pavlo 
and not for the cook. 

“Hey ! Where’re you going with those?” the cook 


79 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


yelled. 

“They're ours ! They’re ours !” Pavlo shouted 
back. 

“They may be yours, but don’t make me lose 
count !’’ 

“Well, it was fourteen,” Pavlo said, and shrugged 
his shoulder. He wouldn’t have gone in for this kind 
of thing on his own because he had his position to 
think of. But he went along with Shukhov, and he 
could always get out of it by saying it wasn’t his 
fault. 

“I already said fourteen,” the cook yelled like 
crazy. 

“Sure you did, but you didn’t give them out, you 
had your hands on them !” Shukhov shouted. “Come 
over here and count ’em if you don’t believe me. 
They’re all over here on the table !” 

While he was shouting like this at the cook, 
Shukhov saw the two Estonians coming through the 
crowd and he slipped the two extra bowls to them. 
Then he turned back to the table again and counted 
up to see if all the bowls were still there. But his 
neighbours had been slow, they hadn’t pinched any- 
thing, though they easily could have. 

The cook stuck his ugly red puss through) the 
hatch. 

“Where are they ?” He was getting nasty., 

“Take a look. You’re welcome!” Shukhov 
shouted. “Get out of the way! Don’t; block his 
view !” He gave somebody a shove. “Here’s two !” 
He held up the two bowls from the top. “And here’s 


80 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

the other twelve by rows of four. Count’em !” 

“Where’s your gang?” The cook took a sharp 
look at him through the little space in the hatch. The 
reason it was narrow was to stop anybody from look- 
ing in to see how much was left in the caldron. 

“They’re not here yet,” Pavlo said and shook his 
head. 

“What the fucking hell do you mean taking bowls 
before your gang comes ?” He was mad. 

“Here they are now,” Shukhov shouted. 

They could all hear the Captain yelling in the 
doorway like he was still on the bridge of his ship : 
“What’s everybody hanging around for? You’ve had 
your meal, so get out! Give somebody else a chance !” 

The cook grumbled something, straightened up, 
and now all you could see was his hands in the hatch 
again. 

“Sixteen, eighteen.” 

Then he ladled out the last one, a double helping. 
“Twenty-three. That’s it ! Next !” 

The other fellows in the gang pushed through 
and Pavlo handed their bowls to them. Some went 
over to another table, and he had to pass the bowls 
over people’s heads. 

In summer they sat five men to a bench. But 
now, in winter, their clothes were so bulky, they 
t»arely managed four. Even, so, they didn’t have 
much elbow room for their spoons. 

Figuring he had a claim on one of the bowls he’d 
finagled, Shtikhov started eating his own portion 
fast. He lifted his right leg, pulled the spoon marked 


81 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Ust-Izhma, 1944” from the top of his boot, took 
off his cap, tucked it under his left arm, and stirred 
his mush. 

Now he had to give all his time to eating. He 
had to scrape the stuff out from the bottom, put it 
carefully in his mouth, and roll it around with his 
tongue. But he must hurry so Pavlo would see he’d 
finished and give him a second bowl. And now 
Fetyukov, who’d come in with the Estonians and 
seen the business with the two extra bowls, stood 
right across from Pavlo and ate standing up. He 
kept looking over at them. He was trying to make 
Pavlo see he ought to get at least half a helping 
more, if not a full one. 

But Pavlo he was a young, dark fellow just 
went on eating, and you couldn't tell from his face if 
he could see the people next to him or not, and if he 
remembered about the two extra bowls. 

Shukhov finished the first bowl. Maybe it was be- 
cause he’d set his mind on two helpings, but this first 
one just didn’t fill him the way oatmeal always did. 
He reached into his inside pocket, took the round 
piece of crust out of the white cloth, and started 
mopping up all the bits of oatmeal still sticking to 
the bottom and sides of the bowl. When he’d gotten 
enough of it together, he licked it all off and then 
started over again. When he was through, the bowl 
was clean like it had been washed, except it wasn’t 
so shiny. He handed the bowl over his shoulder to 
one of the dishwashers and went on sitting there for 
a minute with his cap still off. 


82 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Though it was Shukhov who’d finagled the bowls, 
it was Pavlo who doled them out. 

Pavlo kept him dangling a little longer, till he’d 
finished eating. Pavlo didn’t lick his bowl, only the 
spoon. Then he put it away and crossed himself. 
Then he touched the two extra bowls -there were so 
many others on the table, he couldn’t shove them 
across — sort of telling Shukhov they were his. 

“Ivan Denisovich, take one for yourself. And take 
the other over to Caesar.” 

Shukhov rembered they had to take one bowl to 
Caesar in the office. (Caesar thought it was beneath 
him to go to the mess hall, either here or in the camp.) 
He hadn’t forgotten that, but when Pavlo touched 
the two bowls his heart missed a beat. Maybe Pavlo 
was going to let him have both. But now he came 
down to earth again. 

So he bent down over this windfall that was now 
his by right and took his time over it, and he didn’t 
even feel it when fellows from the new gang coming 
in pushed him. The only thing that worried him was 
that Fetyukov might get an extra helping. You 
couldn’t beat Fetyukov when it come to scrounging, 
though he didn’t have the guts to pinch anything. 

The Captain was sitting near them. He’d finished 
his mush some time ago and didn’t know the gang 
had gotten any extras. And he didn’t keep looking 
around to see what Pavlo still had there. He was 
feeling nice and warm here and didn’t have the strength 
to get up and go out again in the freezing cold or 
back to that power plant where there was no warmth 


83 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


at all. And now he was taking up space somebody 
else could use from the new gang coming in — just like 
the people he’d tried to chase out only five minutes 
ago when he shouted at them. He hadn’t been in the 
camp very long. It was moments like this (though he 
didn’t know it) that were important for him. This was 
the sort of thing that was changing him from a bossy, 
loudmouth naval officer into a slow-moving and 
cagey prisoner. He’d have to be like this if he wanted 
to get through his twenty-five years in camp. 

People were already shouting at him and shoving 
him in the back to get him to leave his place. 

Pavlo said : “Captain ! Hey, Captain !” 

The Captain started, like out of his sleep, and 
turned around. Pavlo handed him the mush without 
asking if he wanted it or not. 

The Captain’s eyebrows went up, and he looked 
at the stuff as if he’d never seen anything like it in 
all his life. 

“Take it, take it,” Pavlo said to set his mind at 
rest. He grabbed the last bowl of mush for the gang 
boss and went out. 

The Captain had a kind of shamefaced smile on 
his chapped lips. (He’d sailed ships all around Europe 
and the Arctic.) He bent down over the half bowl of 
thin oatmeal mush and he was happy. There was no 
fat in it— just water and oats. 

Fetyukov gave Shukhov and the Captain a nasty 
look and went off. 

But to Shukhov’s way of thinking, it was only 
right to give it to the Captain. The time would come 


84 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


when he’d learn the ropes, but as it was he didn’t 
know his way around yet. 

Shukhov had a faint hope that Caesar might give 
the Captain his mush too. But then why should he, 
seeing he hadn’t had a package for two weeks now ? 

After he finished his second helping he cleaned 
the bottom and sides of the bowl with his crust of 
bread licking it all the time. Then he ate the crust 
as well. After he was all through, he took Caesar’s 
cold mush and went off. 

“Going to the office,” he said to the trusty at the 
door, who wasn’t supposed to let people through 
with bowls, and pushed past him. 

The office was a wooden shack next to the guard- 
room. Smoke was still belching out of the chimney, 
just like in the morning. The stove was kept going 
by an orderly who also worked as a messenger and 
was given a piece rate for this. The office never ran 
.out of firewood. 

The outside door and then the inside door (it 
was padded with rope) creaked when Shukhov opened 
them. He slipped in and brought a billowing cloud of 
«team with him, and pulled the door to fast (so they 
wouldn’t yell at him “Shut the door, you bastard !”). 

It was real hot inside — like a steam bath, he 
thought. The sun looked playful through the melting 
ice on the windowpanes — it wasn’t angry like on top 
of the power plant. And smoke from Caesar’s pipe 
was curling through the sunbeams like incense in a 
church. The stove was glowing red-hot — they’d stoked 
it up so much, the bastards. And the flues were red- 


85 



One Day in the Life of ivan Denisovich 


hot too. 

Just sit down for a minute in that heat and you’d 
go to sleep right away. 

There were two rooms in the office. The second 
one, the work-supervisor’s, had the door slightly ajar. 
You could hear him shouting in there: 

“We’re overspending on wages and we’re over- 
spending on building materials. The prisoners are 
chopping up expensive boards and prefab walls and 
burning them in their shelters. But you don’t see a 
thing. And the other day they were unloading 
cement at the depot in a high wind and carting it a 
few yards in hods. So we were ankle-deep in cement 
all over the area around the depot, and they went 
away covered in the stuff. All this waste!” 

From the sound of things the supervisor was hav- 
ing a conference. Must have been with the foremen. 

An orderly was snoozing on a bench in a corner 
by the door. Next to himwasB-219, Shkuropatenko. 
He was like a bent beanpole. He was staring through 
the window and watching so nobody pinched his 
precious prefabs. He’d been caught napping over the 
roofing-felt, the sucker! 

There were two book-keepers — they were prisoners 
too— toasting bread on the stove. They’d rigged up 
a wire frame so it wouldn’t burn. 

Caesar was lolling in his chair at a table and 
smoking his pipe. He had his back to Shukhov and. 
. couldn’t see him. 

' K-123 was sitting across from him. He was a 
* Scrawny old man who’d done twenty years. He was 

f 


86 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


eating mush. 

“You’re wrong, pal,” Caesar was saying, and he 
was trying not to be too hard on him. “One must 
say in all objectivity that Eisenstein is a genius. Now 
isn’t Ivan the Terrible a work of genius? The oprich- 
niki* dancing in masks! The scene in the cathedral!’’ 

“All show-off!” K-123 snapped. He was holding 
his spoon in front of his mouth. “Too much art is no 
art at all. Like candy instead of bread! And the 
politics of it is utterly vile — vindication of a one-man 
tyranny. An insult to the memory of three genera- 
tions of Russians intellectuals!” (He ate his mush, 
but there was no taste in his mouth. It was wasted 
on him.) 

“But what other treatment of the subject would 
have been let through . . . ?” 

“Ha! Let through, you say? Then don’t call him 
a genius! Call him a toady, say he carried out orders 
like a dog. A genius doesn’t adapt his treatment to 
the taste of tyrants!” 

“Hm, hm!” Shukhov cleared his throat. He was 
afraid to butt in on this learned conversation. But he 
couldn’t just go on standing there. 

Caesar looked around and stretched out his hand 
for the mush, as if it had just come to him out of 
thin air. He didn’t even look at Shukhov and went 
back to his talk. 

“But listen! It’s not what but how that matters in 
art.” 

K-123 jumped up andjbanged his fist on the table. 

“No! Your how can go to hell if it doesn’t raise 


87 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the right feelings in me!” 

After he’d handed over the mush, Shukhov went 
on standing there for just as long as was decent. He 
thought Caesar might give him a little tobacco. But 
Caesar’d clean forgot he was standing there behind 
him. 

So Shukhov turned and walked out quietly. 

It wasn’t bad outside. Not too cold. They’d do 
all right with the bricklaying today. 

Shukhov walked along a path. He saw a chunk 
of metal in the snow. It had broken off a steel plate. 
He could think of no particular use for it, but you 
never know when something might come in handy. 
He picked it up and put it in the knee pocket of his 
pants. He’d hide it in the power plants. It’s better 
to be thrifty than wealthy. 

When he got to the power plant, he first took his 
trowel from its hiding place and stuck it behind his 
rope belt. Then he ducked into the shed where they 
made the mortar. 

It seemed dark here, coming out of the sun, and 
no warmer than outside. And it felt damper some- 
how. 

The men were huddled around two stoves — the 
one Shukhov had set up here and the other one 
where the sand, steaming a little, was being heated. 
Those who didn’t have a place were sitting on the 
edge of the trough where the mortar was mixed. The 
gang boss was sitting right by the stove eating his 
mush. Pavlo’d warmed it up for him. 


88 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The men were whispering among themselves. 
They were a little more cheerful. They told Ivan 
Denisovich that the boss had managed to wangle 
better rates for them. He’d come back from the office 
in a good mood. 

What sort of work he’d dreamed up for them was 
his business. What had they done in the morning? 
Nothing. They had nothing coming to them for the 
stove and the shelter. This was for them and didn’t 
•count as output. But something had to go down on 
the work sheet. May be Caesar would monkey with 
the cards for them too. The boss was respectful to 
him and there must be a reason for it. 

Tyurin got “better rates,” which meant they’d 
have good bread rations for five days. Well, may be 
four. The higher-ups always cheat on one day out of 
five. On the “guaranteed” day off they put every- 
body on an equal footing, both good and bad. Just- 
so-nobody-gets-upset sort of thing, and share and 
share alike. They saved something on this and it 
came out of the men’s bellies. So what? A prisoner’s 
belly can stand anything. Get by somehow today and 
•oat tomorrow. That’s what they all dream when they 
lie down to sleep on the day off. 

But come to think of it, they ate four days for 
every five they worked. 

The gang was quiet. The guys with tobacco were 
smoking on the sly. They were huddling in the dark- 
ness and looking at the fire. Like one big family. It 
'•was a family, your gang. They were listening to the 
•boss tell a story to a couple of the guys near the 


89 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

stove. He never wasted his breath on talk, and if he 
got going with a story it meant he was in a good 
mood. 

And he’d never learned to eat with his cap on, the 
boss He looked old without it. His head was shaved, 
like everybody else’s, and by the light of the stove you 
could see the stubble was all gray. 

“I was scared enough in front of the Major," he 
was saying, “but now I was up in front of the Colonel. 
‘Private of the Red Army Tyurin reporting,’ I 
say. He started at me and his eyebrows were fierce. 
‘What’s your first name and your father’s first name ?’ 
he asks. So I tell him. ‘And your date of birth?’ I tell 
him that too. I was twenty-two then, in 1930, just a 
kid. ‘Well, how are you serving,* Tyurin ?’ ‘I serve 
the working people !’ He blew up and banged both 
his fists on the table: ‘You serve the working people, 
but what are you, you bastard ?’ I boiled up inside* 
but I held myself in: ‘Machine-gunner first class. 
Top marks in military and political...’ I say. ‘What 
do you mean, first class, you swine ? Your father’s a 
kulak! Here are the papers from Karnen! Your 
father’s a kulak and you ran away. They’ve been 
hunting you for two years now !” I got pale all over 
and said nothing. I didn’t write home for a year so 
they wouldn’t get on my track. I didn’t know whether 
my folks were still alive and they knew nothing about, 
me. ‘You’ve got no conscience’, he bawls, ‘deceiving; 
the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government !’ and his- 
four shoulder straps were shaking. I thought he was. 
going to beat me up. But he didn’t. He signed at> 


90 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

order for me to be kicked out in six hours.. -It was*. 
November. They stripped off my winter uniform and 
gave me a worn-out summer one with an overcoat 
that was too short. I was all fucked up and didn’t 
know I could have kept the other uniform and told 
them to go to hell . And they gave me a lousy 
discharge: ‘Dismissed from the ranks as the son of 
a kulak.’ Some chance of getting a job with that ! It 
was a four days’ train ride home and they didn’t give 
me a ticket. They didn’t give me any food either. 
They just gave me my last meal in the barracks and 
kicked me out. 

“By the way, in thirty-eight I met my old ser- 
geant in the Kotlas transit camp. He’d gotten ten 
years too. Well, I got to know from him that this- 
Colonel and his commissar were both shot in thirty- 
seven. It didn’t make much difference then whether 
they were proletarians or kulaks, whether they had a 
conscience or not ... I crossed myself and said: 
‘There’s a God in heaven after all. He’s long-suffer- 
ing, but when he hits you, it hurts.’” 

After the two bowls of mush, Shukhov wanted a 
smoke real bad. And figuring he could buy a couple 
of mugs of tobacco from the Latvian in Barracks 7 
and pay back the loan later, he said quietly to the 
Estonian fisherman: 

“Listen, Eino, lend me a little till tomorrow— just 
enough for one cigarette. You know I won’t gyp 
you.” 

Eino looked Shukhov straight in the eyes and then 


91 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


looked at his bosom pal. They always shared and 
shared alike and wouldn’t use a single shred of 
tobacco without the other knowing. They said some- 
thing to each other under their breath and Eino got 
out his pouch stitched with pink cord. He took some 
tobacco and put it in Shukhov’s hand. Then he had 
another look and threw in a few more strands — just 
enough to make a cigarette but no more. 

Shukhov had some newspaper. He tore a piece 
•off, rolled a cigarette, and lit it with a cinder that 
had fallen between the boss’s feet. And then he 
•dragged and dragged on it, over and over again ! He 
had a giddy feeling all over his body, like it was go- 
ing to his feet as well as his head. 

The minute he started to smoke, he saw a pair of 
green eyes flashing at him from the other end of the 
shed. It was Fetyukov. He might have taken pity 
on that scavenger, but he’d been cadging already to- 
day. Shukhov had seen him at it. Better leave the 
butt for Senka Klevshin. He couldn’t hear the boss’s 
story, poor devil, and was just sitting therein front of 
the stove with his head on one side. 

The boss’s face — it was all pockmarked— was lit 
up by the fire. He told his story without pity, like it 
■wasn’t about himself: 

“I sold the junk I had for a quarter of its worth 
to a dealer and bought two loaves of bread on the 
black market. They’d brought in ration cards by 
then. I thought I’d get home by riding freights, but 
they’d just put out some tough laws against that. 


92 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


And you couldn’t get tickets then, remember, even 
with money, never mind without it. They only gave 
’em out for vouchers or for travel orders. You 
couldn’t even get into the station — they had militia- 
men at the gates and guards on both sides of the 
tracks. The sun was going down and the puddles 
were freezing over. Where could I spend the night ? 
I climbed a brick wall, jumped over with my two 
loaves of bread, and got into the station latrine. I 
hid out there for a while, but there was no one after 
me. Then I came out, just like I was a passenger, a 
soldier in uniform. The Vladivostok-Moscow was 
standing right there on the track. There was a great 
scramble for getting boiling water and people were 
hitting each other on the head with their kettles. 
There was a girl in a blue dress with a large teakettle, 
but she was too scared to try and get some water — 
afraid she’d get her tiny little feet scalded or crushed. 
‘Here, hold these,’ I said and gave her my loaves. 
‘I’ll get it for you!’ By the time I got it, the train was 
just ready to go. She was standing there with my 
loaves and crying and didn’t know what to do with 
them — she wouldn’t have minded losing her kettle. 
‘Run !’ I shouted, ‘Run ! I’ll come after you !’ So she 
made a dash for the train. I caught up with her and 
pushed her into the coach — the train was already 
moving— with one arm and then jumped on myself. 
The conductor didn’t try to hit me over the knuckles 
or push me off — there were other soldiers in the coach 
and he thought I belonged with them.” 


93 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Shukhov nudged Senka in the ribs for him to take 
•the butt, poor devil. He gave it to him in his wooden 
holder. Let him have a draw on it, it didn’t matter. 
Senka was a real character. He put his hand on his 
heart and bowed like an actor on a stage. 

The boss went on : “There were six other girls 
in the compartment — it was reserved — students from 
Leningrad they were, going back home from some 
fieldwork or other. They had bread and butter and 
all kinds of fancy things on the tables in front of 
them. Their coats were hung up on hooks and they 
had covers on their suitcases. They didn’t know what 
real life was— they’d had it easy all the way . . . 

We talked and joked and had tea together. Then 
they asked me what coach I’d come from. I sighed 
and told them the truth. ‘Girls,’ I said, “in the coach 
I come from you can’t live. . . .”’ 

It was quite in the shed. The stove was blazing. 

“After a lot of oh-ing and ah-ing they had a little 
talk and hid me under their coats on the top bunk. 
They got me all the way to Novosibirsk like that. ... 
By the way, I met one of those girls later in one of 
the Pechora camps and did her a favor in return. 
She’d been picked up in thirty-five over the Kirov 
business* and she was just about on her last leg 
doing ‘hard.’ I managed to fix her up in one of the 
workshops.” 

“Maybe I should start making the mortar?” 
Pavlo asked the boss in a whisper. 

But the boss didn’t hear him. He went on with 


94 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 
his story : 

“I got home late one night and went in through 
the back garden. I went away again the same night 
and took my kid brother with me. I took him down 
south, to Frunze, where it’s warmer, I had no food 
for him or me. They were making tar in a caldron 
on one of the streets there, and a gang of young thugs 
"was sitting around it. 1 went and sat down with them 
and I said, ‘Listen here, gentlemen of the gutter, 
take this kid brother of mine and give him an 
education. Teach him hoW to live.’ And they did. 
Sorry I didn’t go off with them myself. . . .” 

“And you never saw your brother again?” asked 
the Captain. 

The boss yawned. 

“No, I never saw him again.” And he yawned 
once more. Then he said : “Don’t worry, boys ! We’ll 
make ourselves at home in the power plant. You 
boys making the mortar’d better get busy. Don’t wait 
for the whistle.” 

That’s how it was in your gang. The higher-ups 
had a job to get a prisoner to work even in working 
hours, but your boss only had to say the word, even 
if it was the meal break, and you worked. Because it 
was the boss who fed you. And he wouldn’t make 
you work if you didn’t have to. 

If they didn’t start making the mortar before the 
whistle, the men laying the bricks would be held up. 

Shukhov sighed and got up. 

“I’ll go and clear the ice.” 


95 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


He took a hatchet and a wire brush for the ice, a 
bricklayer’s gavel, a yardstick, and a plumb line. 

Kilgas looked at Shukhov and made a face as if 
to ask what he meant by going on ahead of the boss. 
Kilgas didn’t have to worry about food for the gang. 
What did he care how much bread they got? He 
did all right on packages from home. 

All the same he got to his feet. He knew he 
couldn’t hold up the gang just for himself. 

“Hold it, Ivan, I’ll come along too,” he said. 

Trust old moonface. If he’d been working for 
himself, he’d have been on his feet even sooner. (And 
another reason Shukhov was in a hurry— he wanted 
to grab the plumb line before Kilgas. They’d only 
gotten one from the tool shop.) 

“Will there be three laying the bricks?” Pavlo 
asked the boss. “Should we put another man on ? Or 
won’t there be enough mortar?” 

The boss frowned and thought a while. “I’ll be 
the fourth man myself, Pavlo. And what’s that about 
the mortar? The mixer’s so big you could put six 
men on the job. You take the stuff out at one end 
while it’s being mixed at the other. You just see 
we’re not held up a single minute !” 

Pavlo jumped up. He was a young fellow and he 
had a good color. He still hadn’t been too hard bit 
by life in the camps. And his cheeks were still round 
from eating those Ukrainian dumplings back home. 
“If you lay bricks,” he said, “I’ll make the mortar. 
And we’ll see who works the fastest! Where’s the 
biggest shovel around here ?” 


96 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Tvarmth in it. When you slapped it on the wall with 
your trowel you had to work quick so it wouldn’t 
freeze. If it did, you couldn’t get it off again, either 
with your trowel or the back of your gravel, and if 
you laid a brick a little out of place it froze to the 
spot and stuck there. Then the only thing to do 
was pry it off with the back of the pick and hack 
the mortar away again. 

But Shukhov never made a mistake. His bricks 
were always right in line. If one of them was broken 
or had a fault, Shukhov spotted it right off the bat 
and found the place on the wall where it would fit. 

He’d scoop up some steaming mortar with his 
trowel, throw it on, and remember how the groove 
of the brick ran so he’d get the next one on dead 
center. He always put on just enough mortar for 
each brick. Then he’d pick up a brick out of the pile, 
but with great care so he wouldn’t get a hole in his 
mitten — they were pretty rough, these bricks. Then 
he’d level off the mortar with a trowel and drop the 
brick on top. He had to even it out fast and tap it 
in place with his trowel if it wasn’t right, so the out- 
side wall would be straight as a die and the bricks 
level both crossways and lengthways, and then they 
froze in place. If any mortar was squeezed out from 
under a brick, you had to scrape it off with the edge 
of your trowel fast as you could and throw it away 
(in summer you could use it for the next brick, but 
not in this weather). This could happen when you 
had a brick with a piece broken off the end, so 
you had to lay on a lot more mortar to fill in. You 


101 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

couldn’t just lay a brick like that, but you had to 
slide it up to the next one, and that’s when you’d get 
this extra mortar running out. 

He was hard at work now. Once he ironed out 
the snags left by the guy who’d worked here before 
and laid a couple of rows of his own, it’d be easy 
going. But right now he had to watch things like a 
hawk. 

He was working like crazy on the outside row to 
meet Senka halfway. Now Senka was getting closer 
to Shukhov. He’d started together with the boss at 
the corner, but the boss was now going the other 
way. Shukhov signaled the fellows carrying the hods 
to bring the stuff up to him on the double. He was 
so busy he didn’t have time to wipe his nose. 

When he and Senka came together, they started 
taking mortar out of the same hod. There wasn’t 
enough to go around. 

“Mortar !” Shukhov yelled over the wall. 

“Here she comes !’’ Pavlo shouted back. 

Another hod came along, and they used up what 
was still soft. But a lot of it was frozen to the sides 
and they told the fellows to scrape it off themselves. 
There was no sense in them carrying all the frozen 
stuff down again. 

“Okay, that’s it. Next one.” 

Shukhov and the other bricklayers didn’t feel the 
cold any more. They were now going all out and 
they were hot — the way you are at the start of a job 
like this when you get soaking wet under your coat 
and jacket and both shirts. But they didn’t stop for 


102 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

a second and went on working like crazy. After an 
hour, they got so hot the sweat dried on them. The 
main thing was they didn’t get the cold in their feet. 
Nothing else mattered. The slight cutting wind didn’t 
take their minds off the work. Only Klevshin kept 
banging one foot against the other. He wore size 
nine, but each boot was a different size and both 
were tight. 

Tyurin kept shouting for more mortar and so did 
Shukhov. Any fellow who really worked hard always 
became a sort of gang boss for a time. The main 
thing for Shukhov was not to lag behind, and for 
this he’d have chased his own brother up and down 
that ladder with a hod. 

At first it was the Captain and Fetyukov who 
carried the stuff up together. The ladder was steep 
and slippery, and for a time the Captain went pretty 
slow. Shukhov tried to push him a little : “Come 
on there. Captain. We need more bricks. Captain.” 

But the Captain got better all the time and Fetyu- 
kov got slacker and slacker. He kept tilting the hod 
— the sonofabitch — and spilled some of the mortar 
to ease the load. 

Once Shukhov gave him a poke in the back. “You 
lazy slob. I bet you really took it out on the fellows 
in that factory you managed !” 

“Boss,” the Captain shouted, “give me a man to 
work with. I can’t go on with this shithead.” 

So Tyurin switched them around. He put Fetyu- 
kov on the job throwing bricks up to the scaffold in 
a place where they could see how much work he was 


103 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

doing. And he put Alyoshka with the Captain. 
Alyoshka was a quiet fellow and he took orders from 
anybody who felt like giving them. “Full steam 
ahead, sailor,” the Captain shouted at him. “Look 
at the way they’re laying those bricks.” 

Alyoshka gave him that meek smile of his. “If we 
have to go faster, then let’s go. Whatever you say.” 
And they went down the ladder. A meek fellow like 
that is a real godsend in any gang. 

The boss shouted down to somebody. It seemed 
another truck with bricks had come. They hadn’t 
brought a brick for six months and now they were 
coming thick and fast. This was the time to work, 
while they were still bringing them. It was only the 
first day. If things got held up later on they’d never 
get back in the swing of it. 

Down below the boss was swearing again, some- 
thing about the hoist. Shukhov would’ve liked to find 
out what was going on, but he didn’t have the time. 
He was finishing off a row. A couple of the hod men 
came up and told him an electrician had come to fix 
the motor on the hoist. The foreman in change of 
electrical work had come with him. He was a “free” 
worker and he just stood looking while the electrician 
tinkered with the motor. 

That’s how it always was. One fellow looked on 
while the other worked. If they could fix the hoist 
now they could use it to bring up the bricks and 
mortar. 

Shukhov was already on his third row of bricks 
(and so was Kilgas) when another of those higher-ups 


104 



OnefDay in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

That’s what these gangs did to a man. There was 
Pavlo who used to carry a gun in the forests and 
make raids on villages. Why the hell should he kill 
himself with work in this place ? But there’s nothing 
you wouldn’t do for your boss. 

Shukhov went up with Kilgas. They could hear 
Senka coming up the ladder after them. He’d gotten 
the idea, deaf as he was. 

The walls for the second story had only just been 
started. Three rows of bricks all around and a little 
higher in places. This was the quickest part of the 
job — from knee level up to your chest and no need to 
stand on scaffolds. 

The scaffolds had all been carted off by the other 
prisoners — either taken away to other buildings or 
burned — just so nobody else could have them. Now, 
to do a decent job, they’d have to make new ones the 
next day. If not they’d be stymied. 

You could see a lot from the top of the plant — 
the whole compound covered with snow and not a 
soul in sight (the prisoners were all under cover, 
trying to get warm before the whistle blew), the black 
watchtowers, and the pointed poles with barbed wire. 
You couldn’t see the wire if you looked into the sun, 
only if you looked away from it. It was shining bright 
and your eyes couldn’t stand the light. 

And close by, you could see the steam engine that 
made the power. It was smoking like hell and making 
the sky black. Then it started breathing hard. It 
always wheezed like a sick man before it sounded 


97 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the whistle. There it came now. They hadn’t put in 
that much overtime after all. 

“Hey, Stakhanovite ! Hurry up with that plumb 
line !” Kilgas tried to hustle him. 

“Look at all that ice on your part of the wall !” 
Shukhov jeered back at him. “Do you think you 
can clear it off by the evening? That trowel won’t be 
much good to you if you don’t !” 

They were going to lay the walls they’d settled on 
in the morning, but then the boss shouted up at 
them : 

“Hey, there ! we’ll work two to a wall so the 
mortar doesn’t freeze in the hods. You take Senka 
on your wall, Shukhov, and I’ll work with Kilgas. 
Meanwhile Pavlo’ll clean off Kilgas’ wall for me.” 

Shukhov and Kilgas looked at each other. He 
was right. It would be easier like that. They grabbed 
their picks. 

Shukhov no longer saw the view with the glare 
of sun on the snow. And he didn’t see the prisoners 
leaving their shelters either and fanning out over the 
compound, some to finish digging holes started in the 
morning and others to put up the rafters on the roofs 
of the worhshops. All he saw now was the wall 
in front of him — from the left-hand corner where it 
was waist-high to the right-hand corner where it 
joined up with Kilgas’. He showed Senka where to 
hack off the ice and he hacked away at it himself for 
all he was worth with the head and blade of his pick, 
so that chips of ice were flying all around and in his 
face too. He was doing a good job and he was fast. 


98 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


but his mind wasn’t on it. In his mind, he could see 
the wall under the ice, the outside wall of the power 
plant that was two bricks thick. He didn’t know 
the man who’d worked on it in his place before. But 
that guy sure didn’t know his job. He’d messed it 
up. Shukhov was now getting used to the wall like 
it was his own. One brick was too far in, and he’d 
have to lay three rows all over again to make it flush 
and also lay the mortar on thicker. Then in another 
spot the wall was bulging out a little, and he’d have 
to make that flush too. He figured how he’d split 
up the wall. The part he’d lay himself from the 
beginning, on the left, and what Senka’d lay as far 
as Kilgas, to the right. There on the corner, he 
guessed, Kilgas wouldn’t be able to hold back and 
he’d do some of Senka’s job for him so it would be 
a little easier on Senka. And while they were busy 
at the corner, he’d put up more than half the wall 
here so they wouldn’t get behind. And he figured 
out how many bricks he’d lay where. The minute 
they started bringing bricks up, he grabbed hold of 
Alyoshka : “Bring ’em over to me ! Put ’em right 
over here !” 

Senka was hacking off the last of the ice, and 
Shukhov picked up a wire brush and started scrubbing 
the wall with it all over. He cleaned the top layer of 
bricks till they were a light gray color like dirty 
snow and got the ice out of the grooves. While he 
was still busy with his brush Tyurin came up and set 
his yardstick up at the corner. Shukhov and Kilgas 
had put theirs up a long time ago. 


99 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Hey !” Pavlo shouted from down below. “Any- 
body still alive up there ? Here we come with the 
mortar !” 

Shukhov got in a sweat. He hadn’t put up his 
leveling string yet. He figured he’d put it high 
enough for three rows at once, and some to spare. 
And to make things easier for Senka, he took part of 
the outside row and left him a little of the inside. 
While he was putting up the string, he told Senka 
with words and signs where to start laying. He got it 
deaf as he was. He bit his lips and squinted over at 
the boss’s wall as if to say, “Well show 'em. We’ll 
keep up with ’em.” And he laughed. 

Now they were bringing the mortar up the ladder. 
There’d be eight men on the job, working in twos. 
The boss told them not to put troughs with mortar 
near the bricklayers — the mortar’d only freeze before 
they got to use it — but to have the stuff brought up 
to them in the hods so they could take it out right 
away, two at a time, and slap it on the wall. And so 
the guys who brought up the hods wouldn’t stand 
around freezing up here on top, they’d carry bricks 
over to the layers. And when their hods were empty, 
the next two came up from down below without 
wasting any time, and the first two went down again. 
Then they thawed out their hod by the stove to get 
the frozen mortar off it and try to get as warm as 
they could themselves. 

Two hods came up together, one for Kilgas’wall 
and the other for Shukhov’s. The mortar was steam- 
ing in the freezing cold, though there wasn’t much 


100 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“You don’t think I’d mind, do you? Trouble is, 
the book-keeping section wouldn’t pass it.” 

“You and your damn bookkeepers! I’ve got the 
whole gang working here just to keep four bricklayers 
busy. What’s it going to look like on the work sheet?” 
He didn’t stop laying bricks for a second while he 
was saying all this. “Mortar!” he shouted down. 

“Mortar!” Shukhov shouted right after him. 

They’d finished [up the third row of bricks and 
they could really get going on the fourth. He ought 
to raise the level of the string, but he didn’t want 
to waste time and he’d manage as it was and do the 
next row without it. 

Der went off across the compound. He was shiver- 
ing and was going to the office to get warm. He 
hadn’t felt too good up at the power plant. He 
should’ve thought twice before taking on a tough 
customer like Tyurin. He could’ve gotten along fine 
with the gang bosses — he didn’t have to kill himself 
working, he had a big ration and a room to himself, 
so what more did he want? He just couldn’t help 
throwing his weight around and acting smart. 

Somebody came up and said the electrician and 
the work-supervisor had gone away and hadn’t man- 
aged to fix up the hoist. 

So they just had to go on doing the work of 
mules. 

Shukhov had been on lots of different jobs and it 
was always the same story. Machines either broke 
down themselves or they were broken by the pris- 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


■oners. He remembered how they’d broken the con- 
veyor belt in the lumber camp. They put a stick in 
the works and pressed on it. They wanted a rest. You 
had to keep piling those logs on without a break. 

“More bricks, more bricks, more bricks!” the boss 
was yelling, and he told them to go screw their 
mothers, the whole damn bunch of them, the hod 
men and the fellows bringing the bricks. 

“Pavlo wants to know what to do about the mor- 
tar,” they shouted up from below. 

“How much more do you want?” 

“We’ve still got half a trough down there.” 

“Well, give us another one.” 

Things were really moving fast now — they were 
on the fifth row of bricks. They’d had to bend double 
for the first one and now the wall was up to their 
chests. It was easy enough with no windows and no 
doors— just two solid walls and all the bricks in the 
world. They should’ve put the string up higher, but 
it was too late. 

Gopchik spread the word that 82 had gone to 
hand in their tools. Tyurin looked murder at him. 
“Get on with the job, you little squirt. Keep those 
bricks moving.” 

Shukhov looked around. Yeah, the sun was going 
down. It was all red and there was a kind of gray 
haze around it. And just when they’d gotten into 
stride. They were on the fifth row now and that 
would be the last today. 

The fellows bringing the mortar were winded like 
horses. The Captain looked kind of gray in the face. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


He was forty, after all, or thereabout. 

It was getting colder all the time. Work or no 
work, your fingers felt numb already in these thin 
mittens. And the cold was coming into Shukhov’s 
left boot. He kept stamping it on the floor. 

He didn’t have to bend down to lay the wall any 
more, but he had the backbreaking business of ben- 
ding down for every brick and every scoop of mortar. 

“Hey, you guys, hey!” He started badgering the 
men bringing the bricks and mortar. “Can’t you get 
those bricks over here?” 

The Captain would have done it gladly, but he 
didn’t have the strength. He wasn’t used to this sort 
of work. But Alyoshka said, “Okay, Ivan Denisovich, 
whatever you say.” 

Alyoshka would never say no. He always did 
whatever you asked. If only everybody in the world 
was like that, Shukhov would be that way too. If 
someone asked you, why not help him out? They were 
right on that, these people. From way over on the 
other side of the compound — it came over loud and 
clear at the power plant — they could hear them 
pounding the rail. The signal to knock off! They’d 
made too much mortar. That’s what came of trying 
too hard. 

“Mortar! Mortar!” the boss shouted. 

They’d just mixed a lot more so they’d have to go 
on laying now. There was no other way. If they 
didn’t empty the mixer they’d have to smash it up 
the next morning because the mortar would be hard 
as iron and they’d never be able to hack it out. 


Ill 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Come on, keep at it, fellows !” Shukhov was 
shouting. 

Kilgas didn’t like this. He didn’t like rush jobs but 
he went on for all he was worth. He couldn’t do 
anything else. Pavlo came running upstairs with a 
hod on his back and a trowel in his hand. He wanted 
to help with the bricklaying too, so there were five 
trowels on the job now. 

There wasn’t much time to lay bricks in the tough 
spots. Shukhov always picked out the right brick 
beforehand. He pushed the gravel over to Alyoshka 
and told him, “Here, knock it into shape for me.” 

You can’t work well if you’re in too much of a 
hurry. Now that the others were going full blast, 
Shukhov slowed down and took a good look at the 
wall. He went to the main corner on the right and 
sent Senka over to the left-hand one. If there was 
any trouble with the corners they’d lose a lot of time 
the next morning. 

“Stop!” He grabbed a brick from Pavlo and laid 
it himself. Then he saw at the other end that Senka 
was doing the wrong thing at his corner. He dashed 
over and straightened things out with a couple of 
bricks. 

The Captain trudged up with another hod. He was 
as willing as an old carthorse. 

“Two more to come !” he shouted. 

He could barely stand on his feet any more, the 
Captain, but he kept on going. Shukhov had an old 
horse like that at home once. He took good care of 
that old horse, but he worked himself to death. And 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


who were always looking over your shoulder came 
up the ladder. This was the building foreman, Der. 
He was from Moscow. They said he’d once worked in 
a ministry there. 

Shukhov was standing close to Kilgas and he 
jerked his thumb over at Der. 

“Aha,” Kilgas just shrugged. “I don’t have any- 
thing to do with that sort, but if he falls off the 
ladder just call me.” 

Der would now sneak up behind them and watch 
them work. Shukhov just couldn’t stand these nosy 
guys. Der was trying to rise in the word and get 
himself made an engineer, the damn swine. He’d once 
tried to show them how to lay bricks and Shukhov 
just laughed himself sick. To his and everybody else’s 
way of thinking, you should build a house with your 
own hands before you started talking about being an 
engineer. 

In Shukhov’s home village there were no stone 
houses, only wooden shacks. And the school was built 
of logs too — they got as much wood as they liked 
from the forest. But now in the camp he had to do a 
bricklayer’s job. So okay, he did. Anybody who knew 
two trades could pick up a dozen more just like that. 

Der didn’t fall off the ladder, he only tripped a 
couple of times. He almost ran up. 

“Tyurin,” he yelled, and his eyes were popping 
out of his head. “Tyurin !” Pavlo ran up the ladder 
after him with his shovel in his hands. Der was wear- 


105 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


ing a quilted coat like everybody else in the camp* 
but it was new and clean He had a good leather cap 
on his head, but he had a number on it like every- 
body else — B-731. 

“What is it ?” Tyurin came up to him with his 
trowel. His cap had slipped to one side and covered 
his eye. 

Something was up. Shukhov didn’t want to miss 
it, but the mortar was freezing in his hod. He kept 
right on working while he listened. 

“What the hell is this ?” Der bawled. He was 
foaming at the mouth. “You’ll get more than a stretch 
in the can for this. This is a criminal matter, Tyurin. 
You’ll get another sentence for this on top of the 
two you already have.” 

Now it hit Shukhov what it was all about. He 
shot a glance at Kilgas — he’d already caught on. It 
was the roofing-felt ! Der had seen it on the windows. 

Shukhov wasn’t a bit worried about himself— his 
boss wouldn’t give him away — but he was scared for 
Tyurin. The boss was like a father to you, but to 
them he was nothing at all. Up here in the North they 
were always slapping on new sentences for things 
like this. 

God, the way the boss’s face twitched all over. 
The way he threw his trowel on the floor and went 
over to Der. Der looked around. Pavlo was standing, 
there with his shovel up. 

He hadn’t brought it up with him for nothing 

And Senka, deaf as he was, had seen what it was all 
about. And he came out with his hands on his hips. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


He was strong as an ox. Der started blinking. He was 
worried and he looked around for a way out. The 
boss leaned over close to Der and said kind of quiet, 
but so you could hear it up there : “Times have 
changed for scum like you handing out new sentences! 
If you say a word, you, bloodsucker, you won’t be 
alive much longer. Get it?” The boss was shaking 
all over and he couldn’t stop. 

And Pavlo was looking murder at Der. He had a 
face like a hawk. 

“Take it easy, boys. Take it easy,” Der said. He 
was all pale and he edged away from the ladder a 
little. 

The boss didn’t say another word. He straightened 
his cap, picked up his bent trowel, and went back to 
his wall. 

And Pavlo went slowly downstairs again with his 
shovel. Very slowly. . . . 

Der was scared to stay up here, and he was scared 
to go back down ladder too. He went and stood 
near Kilgas. 

Kilgas laid bricks like a druggist weighing out 
medicine. He had a face like a doctor and he was 
never in a rush. He stood with his back to Der like 
he hadn’t seen him. 

Der sidled up to the boss. He was singing a diffe- 
rent tune now. “What do I say to the work-super- 
visor, Tyurin ?” 

The boss went on laying bricks and didn’t turn his 
head : “Tell him - it was there before. Say it was here- 
when we came.” 


107 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Der hung around a little longer. He saw they 
wouldn’t kill him now. He walked up and down with 
his hands in his pockets. 

“Hey, S-854,” he growled at Shukhov. “Why you 
laying that mortar on so thin ?” 

He had to take it out on somebody. He couldn’t 
find fault with anything else so he picked on the 
mortar. 

“You might like to know, my dear sir,” Shukhov 
said through that gap in his teeth and leered at him, 
“if I lay this stuff on thick now, this power plant’ll 
just melt away in the spring.” 

Der scowled. 

“You’re a bricklayer and you have to do what your 
foreman tells you.” And he puffed up his cheeks the 
way he always did. Well, maybe Shukhov was laying 
it on a little thin in places and it could be a little 
thicker, but only if you worked in the right weather, 
not in this freezing cold. They should have a heart, 
but all they think about is output. But how could 
you get this across to people who didn’t have any 
brains? Der took his time going down the ladder. 

“You fix up that hoist for me,” Tyurin shouted 
after him. “What do you think we are, mules or 
something, hauling bricks up here by hand?” 

“You get a rate for haulage,” Der answered from 
the ladder, but he wasn’t shouting any more. 

“You mean that crap in the rules and regulations 
about ‘Wheelbarrows, For the Use of’ ? I’d like to see 
you running a wheelbarrow up that ladder. Give us a 
rate ‘Hods, For the Use of’.” 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


then they skinned the hide off him. 

The sun was really going down now. They didn’t 
need Gopchik to tell them — they could see all the 
other gangs had handed in their tools and were 
crowding over to the guardroom. (Nobody ever went 
over right away after they’d pounded the rail — they 
weren’t crazy enough to stand around there freezing. 
They stayed put in their shelters. But then after a 
while the gang bosses would agree among themselves 
on the right moment for all the gangs to come out 
together. The prisoners were so pigheaded that other- 
wise they’d just hang around till midnight, waiting 
for the others.) 

Tyurin got some sense now. He could see how 
late they were. The fellow in the tool shed must be 
cursing him like crazy. 

“Hey !” he shouted. “Don’t worry about all that 
shit. Who cares about it ? Get downstairs and empty 
out that mixer. Take the stuff and put it in that hole 
over there and cover it over with snow so nobody 
can see it. And you, Pavlo, get a couple of other 
guys, collect all the tools, and turn them in. I’ll send 
the last three trowels over with Gopchik. We’ll just 
finish off these two hods here.” 

They rushed over and grabbed Shukhov’s gravel 
out of his hand and took his string down. Then the 
hod men and the brick carriers beat it down the 
ladder. There was nothing more for them to do up 
here. There were just the three bricklayers left — 
Kilgas, Klevshin, and Shukhov. Tyurin went around 
and looked at what they’d done. He was pleased. Not 


113 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


bad, eh, for one afternoon’s work ? And without that 
fucking hoist too. 

Shuhkov saw Kilgas still had a little mortar left. 
He was worried about Tyurin getting hell in the tool 
shed for not bringing the trowels back on time. 

“Listen boys.” Shukhov had a bright idea. “You 
give yours to Gopchik so he can take ’em over and 
I’ll finish off the job with mine. They don’t know 
I’ve got it so they won’t have to check it in.” 

The boss laughed. “What the hell are we going to 
do without you when you’ve served your time ? We’U 
all be crying our hearts out for you.” Shukhov 
laughed too and then went on with the job. Kilgas 
went off with the trowels. Senka started passing 
bricks to Shukhov and put Kilgas’ mortar into his 
hod. 

Gopchik ran to the tool shed to try and catchup 
with Pavlo. And the rest of 104 started off for the 
guardroom without the boss. True, the boss’s word 
went a long way, but what the escort guards said 
was law. If they booked you for being late, you 
could land in the cooler. There was a great crowd 
around the guardroom. Everybody was there. From 
the looks of it the escort had begun counting them. 

They counted you twice on the way out — once 
with the gates still shut, so they knew if they could 
open them, and then a second time when you were 
going through the gates. And if they thought there 
was something wrong, they did a recount outside. 


114 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


To hell with that mortar. The boss waved his 
arm. “Dump it over the wall and clear out.” 

“You better beat it, boss. You’re needed over 
there.” And just as a joke, as the boss clumped down 
the ladder, he said: “Why do the sonsofbitches give 
us such a short working day? You’ve just about gotten 
into the job and they pull you off it!’ 

Shukhov was on his own with the deaf fellow now. 
You couldn’t talk with him very much, but you 
didn’t have to either. He was smarter than every- 
body and caught on to everything without having to 
be told. 

Slap on the mortar! Slap on the bricks! Press ’em 
down and look ’em over ! Mortar, brick, mortar, 
brick . . . 

The boss had said not to worry about the mortar. 
(“Dump it over the wall and clear out.”) , But 
Shukhov was kind of funny about these things. t 
he couldn’t help it even after eight years of 
He still worried about every little thing and about att- 
kinds of work. He couldn’t stand seeing things 
wasted. 

Mortar, brick, mortar, brick 

“That does it,” Senka shouted. “Let’s get the hell 
out of here.” 

He grabbed the hod and went down the ladder. 
But Shukhov — the guards could set the dogs on him 
for all he cared now — ran back to have a last look. 
Not bad. He went up and looked over the wall from 
left to right. His eye was true as a level. The wall 
was straight as a die. His hands were still good for 


115 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


something ! 

He ran down the ladder. Senka was already 
halfway down the rise. 

“Come on, come on,” Senka said over his 
shoulder. 

“You go ahead. I’m coming,” Shukhov said and 
waved his hand. Ahd he went back inside. He 
couldn’t leave his trowel just like that. Maybe he 
wouldn’t be on the job tomorrow. Or maybe they’d 
put the gang on the Socialist Community Develop- 
ment and they wouldn’t be here for another six 
months. He’d never see his trowel again. So he 
had to stash it away. Both stoves had gone out. It 
was dark and he felt sort of scared. He wasn’t 
scared about the dark itself but because he was here 
alone. And he’d be missed at the checkout and the 
guards might beat him up. 

All the same he took a close look around till he 
found a rock in the corner. He rolled it back, put 
the trowel under it, and covered it up. Now every- 
thing was okay ! 

All he had left to do was catch up with Senka 
fast as he could. But Senka’d only gone a few yards 
and was waiting for him. He wasn’t the kind to leave 
you in the lurch. If you were in trouble, he was 
always there to take the rap with you. 

The two of them ran off together. Senka was 
taller than Shukhov by half a head, and he had a 
great big head at that. 

There are some people with nothing better to do 


116 



'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

than race each other around a track just for sport 
and of their own free will. How would they like it, 
the bastards, if they had to do it after a real day’s 
work, without a chance to straighten their backs, with 
their mittens soaked in sweet, and their boots worn 
-all thin — and in freezing cold like this ? 

They were painting like hell. 

But the boss was over there at the guardroom and 
he’d think of something to tell them. 

Now they were almost back with the others, and 
•it frightened them. 

A hundred voices bawled at them: “Scum! 
Bastards ! Motherfuckers . . . !” It’s a terrible thing 
when hundreds of men start shouting at you all at 
once. What really bothered them was what would 
the escort guards do to them ? 

But it looked like the guards didn’t give a damn. 
Tyurin was here at the back of the crowd. He’d told 
them and taken the blame on himself. 

The men were still screaming murder. They were 
screaming so even Senka, deaf as he was, could hear 
it. And he got so mad he started shouting back. He 
was a quiet sort of fellow but now he laced into 
them. He shook his fist and he looked like he’d go 
for them. And then the men quieted down and 
some of them laughed. 

“Hey, 104,” somebody shouted. “We thought 
that guy of yours was deaf. We were only checking 
.up.” They all laughed, even the escorts. 

“Line up by fives !” 

They didn’t open the gates. They weren’t sure 


117 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


everything was all right yet. And they shoved the 
crowd back (they’d all pushed up to the gate, the 
dopes, as if that’d get ’em out sooner). 

“Line up by fi-i-ves !” 

And they started moving forward by fives, a few 
yards at a time, as they were called. 

Shukhov had gotten his breath back now and he 
looked up at the sky. The moon had come up full 
and it looked all purple, and may be it was on the 
Wane already. It had been much higher up this time 
the day before. 

Shukhov was glad they’d gotten off so easy, and 
he poked the Captain in the ribs, sort of kidding 
him. “Captain, tell me what it says in those books 
you’ve studied about what happens to the old moon 
when it goes down.’’ 

“What d’you mean? Where does it go ? You’re 
just ignorant. It’s simply you can’t see it !” 

Shukhov shook his head and laughed. “But if 
you can’t see it, how do you know it’s there ?” 

“So you think” — the Captain just looked at 
him — “so you think we get a brand-new moon every 
month ?” 

“Well, don’t we ? If people are born every day, 
why shouldn’t there be a brand-new moon every four 
weeks?” 

“Come off it.” The Captain spat. “I’ve never met 
such a dumb sailor in my life. Where d’you think 
the old one goes to ?” 

“Well, that’s what I’m asking you*” Shukhov 


118 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


said, and you could see the gap in his teeth. 

“Well, you tell me.” 

Shukhov sighed and said with that funny lisp of 
his : “The old people at home used to say God 
breaks the old moon up into stars.” 

“What ignorance,” the Captain said and laughed. 
“Never heard that one before. Do you believe in 
God then, Shukhov?” 

. “And why not?” Shukhov said. “When he 
thunders up there in the sky, how can you help 
believe in Him?” 

“And why does God do that?” 

“Do what ?” 

“Break the moon up into stars,” the Captain 
said. 

“Don’t you see ?” And Shukhov shrugged his 
shoulders. “The stars keep falling down, so you’ve 
got to have new ones in their place.” 

“Get a move on there, you motherfuckers !” the 
guards yelled. “Line up !” 

They were being counted now. The Captain and 
Shukhov were the last in line. 

The escort guards got worried and looked at the 
board they were checking off from. Somebody missing! 
It wasn’t the first time. If they could only count ! 

By their count it was four hundred and sixty-two, 
but they had an idea there ought to be four hundred 
and sixty-three. They pushed the men back from the 
gates (they’d crowded up to them again). And now 
it started all over : “Line up by fives ! One, two...!” 


119 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The worst thing about these recounts was it cut into 
your time, not theirs. And you still had to walk 
those two miles back to the camp and line up in front 
of the friskers before they let you in. So everybody 
from all the sites was in one hell of a hurry to get 
back and make it inside the camp before anybody else. 
The first ones inside had a head start— they were first 
in the mess hall, first to get their packages if they 
bad any, first into the kitchen to get the stuff they’d 
asked to have cooked in the morning, first to the 
CES to pick up letters from home, first to the censors 
to hand in a letter for mailing, first to the barbers, 
the medics, and the bathhouse— in fact, first every- 
where. 

And the escorts weren’t sorry to see the last of 
them and hand them over at the camp. It was no 
fun for them either. They had a lot to do and not 
much time for themselves. 

They’d gotten mixed up in the count again. 
Shukhov thought when they started letting them 
through by fives there’d be three in the last row, but 
no, it was two again. The fellows keeping count went 
up to the chief of the escort with their boards and 
talked it over. 

The chief shouted : “Boss of 104 !” 

Tyurin moved up half a step : “Here !” 

“Do you have anybody on at the power plant 
still ? Think !” 

“No.” 


120 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Use your brains or I’ll beat ’em out.” 

“No, I say.” 

But he looked sideways at Pavlo. Maybe some- 
body’d fallen asleep in the power plant. 

“Line up by gangs !” the chief of the escort 
shouted. But they were standing by fives, all mixed 
up and not by gangs. Now they started shoving into 
each other and shouting : “Over here, 76 !” “Here 
I am, 13 !” “This way, 32 !” 

Gang 104 was right at the end of the line and they 
formed up there. Shukhov saw most of them had 
nothing in their hands. They’d been so busy they 
hadn’t picked up any piece of wood, the crazy bastards. 
Only two of them had small bundles. 

It was the same game every day. Before the signal 
to knock off the men picked up scraps of wood, 
sticks, and broken laths and tied them up with a piece 
of rag or worn-out rope to take back to camp. First 
they frisked you for it by the guardroom coming out 
— either the work-supervisor or a foreman. If one of 
them was standing there they told you to throw it on 
the ground (they’d already sent millions of rubles up 
the chimney and they thought they could make up 
for it with these splinters of wood). 

But what the prisoners figured was if every man 
from every gang brought just one little piece back 
with him, it’d be that much warmer in the barracks. 
Because the orderlies only brought in ten pounds of 
coal dust for each stove and you didn’t get much 
• warmth from that. So what they did was break these 
pieces up or saw them short as they could and stick 


121 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

them under their coats. To get past the work- 
supervisor. 

The escort guards never told you to throw this 
firewood down out here on the site. They needed 
firewood too, but they couldn’t carry it themselves. 
For one thing, they weren’t supposed to in uniform, 
and for another, they were holding their tommy guns 
with both hands to shoot at the prisoners if they had 
to. But once they got them back to camp it was 
a different story and they gave the order : “Row 
Such-and-Such to Row Such-and-Such, drop your 
wood here !” But they had a heart. They had to 
leave some for the warders and even some for the 
prisoners or there’d be none at all for anybody. 

So what happened was every prisoner carried 
wood every day but you never knew if you’d get it 
through or when they’d take it away from you. 

At the same time Shukhov was looking around 
the place to see if there was anything to pick up, the 
boss counted them all and said to the chief escort : 
“104 all here.” 

Caesar’d left the fellows in the office too and come 
over. You could see the red light from the pipe he 
was puffing away at and his mustache was all white 
with frost. He asked the Captain : “Well, how’re 
things. Captain ?” 

A guy who’s warm doesn’t know what it’s like to 
be frozen or he wouldn’t ask stupid questions like 
that. 

The Captain shrugged his shoulders and said : 
“How’re things, you say ? Well, I’ve broken my 


122 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


back with work and I can hardly stand up straight.’* 

What he wanted to say was : “Don’t you see I 
want a smoke?” 

And Caesar gave him some tobacco. The Captain 
was the only man in the gang he tried to stay friends 
with. There was nobody else around he could have 
a heart-to-heart talk with now and then. 

Now everybody started shouting : “Man missing 
in 32! In 32!” 

The assistant gang boss from 32 and another fellow 
shot off to look in the repair shop. The men in the 
crowd were asking who it was and what it was all 
about. Shukhov heard it was that short dark Molda- 
vian. Which one of them did they mean? The one 
they said was a Romanian spy, a real one ? 

There were five spies in every gang. But it was 
all phony. It said they were spies in their records 
but it was just they’d been POW’s. Shukhov was 
that kind of spy. 

But the Moldavian was a real one. The chief of 
the escort looked at his list and his face turned black. 
If a spy’d gotten away he’d really be in for it. 
Shukhov and the whole crowd got mad too. Who 
did he think he was, this goddamn skunk, the son- 
ofabitch, the fucking bastard ! It was dark already 
and the moon was up, the stars were out, and the 
night cold was getting fiercer, and now this sonofa- 
bitch had to go and get lost. Was the working day 
too short for him, the fucker, with only eleven hours 
from dawn to sundown? Maybe the judge’d give him 


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a little more ! 

Even Shukhov thought it was funny for somebody 
to go on working like that and not hear the signal to 
knock off. 

He’d clean forgot how he’d kept on W'orking 
himself a little while back and gotten mad because 
people were going over to the guardroom too early, 
but now he was standing there freezing and bitching 
along with the others. And if that Moldavian kept 
them hanging around here another half-hour, he 
thought, and the escorts handed him over to the 
crowd, they’d tear the goddamn bastard to pieces 
like wolves. 

The cold was getting into them now. Nobody 
could stand still. They stomped their feet on the 
ground or edged back and forth. 

Some guys were asking if the Moldavian could’ve 
gotten away. If he’d beat it in the daytime it was 
one thing, but if he was hiding out now and waiting 
for the guards to leave the watchtowers he had an- 
other guess coming— they’d never leave without him. 
If there was no mark under the wires to show where 
he’d gotten away they’d search the compound for 
three days and keep the fellows up there on the 
watchtowers till they found him. For a whole week if 
need be. That was the rule and every old camp 
hand knew it. If anybody got out it was hell on the 
guards and they were kept on the go without food or 
sleep. It made ’em so mad they often didn’t bring 
the fellow back alive. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Caesar was telling the Captain : “Well, yoir 
remember that scene with those eyeglasses hanging up 
there on the rigging,* don’t you ?” 

“Mmmm ye-es,” the Captain said — he was smok- 
ing Caesar’s tobacco. 

“Or the scene with that baby carriage coming 
slowly, slowly down the steps ?” 

“But it gives you a cockeyed idea of life in the 
navy.” 

“But the trouble is we’re rather spoiled by modern 
close-up techniques.” 

“Yes, those maggots crawling in the meat were as 
big as earthworms. They couldn’t really have been 
that size, could they ?” 

“But you can’t do that sort of thing small-scale 
on film.” 

“If they brought that kind of meat to the camp, 
I can tell you, and put it in the caldron instead of 
that rotten fish we get, I bet we’d ...” 

The prisoners started screaming : “Yaaaaah !” 

They saw three shapes coming out of the repair 
shop. So they’d gotten the Moldavian. 

“Uuuuuh !” The crowd at the gates booed. 

And when they got a little closer : 

“Bastard, crock, shit-head, no-good sonofabitch !” 
And Shukhov joined in too. 

It was no joke robbing five hundred men of half 
an hour. 

•Translators’ note: The discussion that follows is about 
Eisenstein’s classic film Potemkin. 


Il5 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The Moldavian came out with his head hanging 
down and he looked smaller than a mouse. 

“Halt !” one of the guards shouted and started 
writing in his book. “K-406, where’ve you been?” 

The sergeant came over to him and he was twist- 
ing the butt of his rifle. Some of the crowd went on 
yelling : “Crapbead, son of a whore, stinking bastard!” 
But some shut up when they saw the sergeant toying 
with his rifle. 

% The Moldavian stood there with his head down 
and said nothing. He sort of backed away from the 
guard. 

The assistant boss of 32 camp up front and said : 
“The bastard was up there on the scaffold for the 
plasterers. He went up there to get away from me 
and he got warm and fell asleep.” And he rammed 
his first into the back of the fellow’s neck. He let him 
have it real good. That was just to get him clear of 
the guard. 

The Moldavian staggered and a Hungarian from 
32 shot over and kicked him in the ass. 

This was a lot tougher than spying. Any fool could 
be a spy. Spying was all right. It was a nice clean 
game and real fun, not like slaving away in a penal 
camp for ten years. 

The guard lowered his rifle and the chief of the 
escort bawled out : “Get away from those gates. Line 
up by fi-i-ves !” 

So they were going to do another count, the dirty 
dogs What was the point of making another count ? 
Everything was clear as it was. The prisoners groaned. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


They forgot about the Moldavian now and all their 
hate turned on the escorts. They wouldn’t back away 
from the gates. 

“What’s all this about?” the chief escort screamed. 
“D’you want to sit on your asses in the snow? That’s 
where 1*11 put you if you like and that’s where I’ll 
keep you till morning !” And he sure would. He 
wouldn’t think twice about it if he wanted. It’d happen- 
ed plenty of times before and sometimes they had to 
go down on their knees with the guards pointing their 
guns at the ready. The prisoners knew all about that 
sort of thing so they started backing away from the 
gates. “Get back ! Get back !” the guard shouted to 
get them moving quicker. 

“Yeah! Why’re you bunching up at the gates like 
that, bastards?” the fellows at the back shouted. They 
were sore at the ones up front. So what else could 
they do ? 

“Line up by fi-i-ves !” 

The moon was really shining bright. It wasn’t 
purple any more and it was way up by now. They’d 
lost their evening! That damn Moldavian, those 
damn guards. What a rotten lousy life ! 

The fellows up front were standing on their toes 
and looking back to see who’d been missed in the 
count and if the last row had two or three. Right 
; now their lives depended on it. 

‘ > It looked to Shukhov like there were four fellows 
in the back row. He got limp all over he was so 
scared. Now there was one too many so they’d start 
the count from scratch again. It was that scavenger 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Fetyukov who’d gotten out of his own line of five to 
scrounge the butt of the Captain’s cigarette and didn’t 
get back in time. So that’s why he was there looking 
sort of out of place. 

The second-in-charge of the escort gave him a 
clout on the neck. It was the best thing he ever did 
in his life. And now there were only three men back 
there. The number was right now, thank God. 

“Get away from the gates!” the guards yelled again. 

But the men didn’t grumble this time. They could 
see the soldiers coming out of the guardroom on the 
other side of the gate and ringing off the ground 
outside. 

Which meant they were getting ready to let them 
through. 

There was no sign of the work-supervisor or his 
foremen — they were “free” workers. So they might 
get their firewood through this check. 

They opened the gates wide and the chief escort 
was standing outside by the wooden railings with 
another fellow who had to doublecheck. 

“First, second, third ... !” he yelled. 

If the count came out right this time they’d take 
the sentries off the watchtowers. 

They had a hell of a long way to walk back over 
the compound from those towers. And they didn’t 
phone and tell them to come down till the last pris- 
oner was out. If you got an escort chief with any 
brains he’d start marching you back to the camp 
right away because he knew the prisoners couldn’t 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


make a run for it now and the fellows from the 
watchtowers would catch up with them. But if the 
chief on duty was a [dope he always waited because 
he was scared he wouldn’t have enough men to deal 
with the prisoners. Today’s guy was that kind of 
blockhead, and he waited. 

The prisoners had been out in the cold all day 
and they were so frozen they were ready to drop. 

They’d been waiting around like this a whole hour 
now but it wasn’t so much the cold that got ’em. 
What really made them sore was the t hought of that 
lost evening. There’d be no time for all those things 
they w'anted to do back in camp. 

Somebody was asking the Captain in the row next 
to Shukhov : “How come you know so much about 
life in the British Navy?” 

“Well, you see, I spent a whole month almost on 
a British cruiser, had a cabin to myself there I was 
on convoys as a liaison officer. Then after the war 
some British admiral who should’ve had more sense 
sent me a little souvenir with an inscription that 
said : ‘In gratitude.’ I was really shocked and I 
cursed like hell, so now I’m inside with all the others. 
It is not much fun sitting here with this Bendera 
bunch.” 

It looked sort of eerie all over, with the bare plain, 
the empty compound, and the moon gleaming on the 
snow. The guards had already gotten in place — ten 
paces away from .each other and their guns at the 
ready. There was this black herd of prisoners, and in 


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among them, in a black coat like everybody else, was 
that man, S-311, who’d worn golden shoulder straps 
in his time and been pals with a British admiral. And 
now he had to carry hods with Fetyukov. 

There’s nothing you can’t do to a man. . . . 

The escort was all ready and they skipped the 
“sermon” this time. 

“Forward march — and make it snappy !” 

The hell they’d make it snappy! They didn’t stand 
a chance of beating the other columns to camp, so 
they sure weren’t in any hurry. They all had the 
same idea and they didn’t have to tell each other. 
(“You’ve kept us waiting around all this time, so now 
let’s see how you like it. But you’re in a hurry to get 
warm too !”) 

“Get a move on,” the chief escort shouted. “Get 
a move on, front rank !” 

The hell they’d get a move on ! They trailed along 
with their eyes on the ground like they were on their 
way to a funeral. They didn’t have a thing to lose 
now. They’d be the last back in camp anyway. The 
guards hadn’t given them a square deal, so let ’em 
yell their heads off as much as they liked. 

The escort chief went on shouting at them for a 
while but he saw it was no use — they wouldn’t go 
any faster. But he couldn’t tell the guards to shoot 
at them for this — the prisoners were sticking to the 
law and marching in their column by lines of five. 
The escort chief didn’t have the right to make them 
go any faster. (In the mofaings that’s what saved 
their lives. They went out to the job real slow. Any- 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


body who went fast didn’t stand a chance to live out 
his time in the camp. That way you got too hot 
before you even started on the job and you wouldn’t 
last long.) 

So they took their own sweet time and all you 
could hear was the snow crunching under their boots. 
Some of them talked a little, but others didn't bother. 
Shukhov tried to think what it was had gone wrong 
in camp this morning. Then it came to him. The 
sick list ! Funny he’d forgot all about it at work. 

The medics would be seeing people about now. 
He could still make it if he skipped supper. But that 
pain was pretty much gone. He wasn’t even sure 
they’d bother to see if he had a fever. He’d just be 
wasting his time. He’d gotten over it without the 
quacks. Those guys could be the death of you. 

He forgot all about the medics now and started 
thinking how to get a little more for supper. What 
he hoped was Caesar might’ve gotten a new package 
from home. There hadn’t been one for quite a while 
and it was high time. 

But now all at once something happened in the 
column, like a wave going through it, and they all 
got out of step. The column sort of jerked forward 
and buzzed like a swarm of bees. The fellows in the 
back — that’s where Shukhov was — had to run now 
to keep up with the men out front. 

Shukhov could see what it was all about when the 
column cleared a rise they’d been passing. Way over 
on the plain there was another column heading for 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the camp, right across their path. These fellows 
must’ve spotted them too and put a spurt on. 

This must be the fellows from the tool factory. 
There were about three hundred of them. So they’d 
had lousy luck too and been kept waiting around ! 
What had happened with them ? Sometimes they 
had to stay on to finish work on some machine or 
other. But it wasn’t so tough for them. They were 
inside all day and kept warm at least. 

Now they’d have to see who’d make it first. They 
started to run, and the guards ran with them. The 
escort chief was yelling: “No straggling back there ! 
Bunch up at the back !” 

Why the hell was he yelling? Didn’t he see they 
were doing just that ? 

Everybody forgot what they’d been talking or 
thinking about. There was only one thing they had 
their minds on now — get ahead of those other guys 
and beat ’em to it ! 

So everything was turned upside down. Every- 
thing was all mixed up now — bitter was sweet and 
sweet was bitter. Even the guards were with them. 
They were all in it together. The people they hated 
now were the guys over in that other column. 

They all felt better and they weren’t half as mad. 

“Come on, get going up there !” the fellows in 
back were shouting. 

Their column was now on one of the streets that 
led into the camp and they’d lost sight of the guys 
from the tool works behind a housing block on an- 
other street. But they were still racing each other. 


132 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Now they were in the street. The going was easier 
and it wasn’t so rough underfoot for the guards 
either. They were bound to beat those others to it ! 

Another reason they had to get in ahead of that 
bunch from the tool works — those guys got a real 
going-over from the friskers and took up the longest 
time at the guardroom of anybody. It all started with 
the killing of those stool pigeons — the higher-ups had 
gotten the idea it was the fellows in the tool works 
who’d made the knives and brought them in. That’s 
why they frisked them like they did before they let 
them through. Way back last fall the ground was 
getting cold by then — they started yelling at them 
every time : “Take your boots off, tool works ! Hold 
them up in your hands !” 

So they had to stand there in their bare feet for 
the frisk. And now, in the freezing cold, the guards 
made ’em take off just one of their boots and they 
pointed at the one they wanted. “Come on, take off 
your right boot! And you there, take off the left one !” 
So they bad to hop around on one leg and turn ’em 
upside down and shake out their foot-cloths to show 
they didn’t have a knife. Shukhov had heard — he 
didn’t know if it was true or not — these fellows from 
the tool works had brought in a couple of volley-ball 
posts in the summer and they’d hid all the knives in 
those posts— ten in each — and knives were still turn- 
ing up all over the place. 

They went past the new recreation hall on the 
double, past some houses and the carpentry shop. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


and turned a corner on the stretch that went up to 
the guardroom. The column let out a great roar like 
it was one man. This was just the spot they wanted 
to be, where the two streets came together. The 
fellows from the tool shop were way behind — five 
hundred yards down the road. They could let up 
now. Everybody in the column was on top of the 
world. It was like a bunch of scared rabbits gloating 
over another bunch of scared rabbits. 

Now they were back at the camp. It was the 
same as they’d left it in the morning — it was night 
then and it was night now. There were plenty of 
lights around the fence but it was nothing to what 
they had around the guardroom. The place the 
friskers were waiting for them was light as day. 

But before they could get there the second-in- 
charge of the escort yelled: “Halt !” He handed his 
gun to a soldier and ran up close to the column 
(they weren’t supposed to come too near the men 
with their guns). “All those on the right with fire- 
wood, throw it over here !” 

The fellows on the outside weren’t trying to hide 
it. Little bundles of firewood started flying through 
the air. Some of them tried to pass the stuff to men 
in the middle of the column. But these other guys 
yelled at them : “They’ll take it away from every- 
body else and all because of you ! Throw it over 
there like he tells you !” 

Who is the prisoner’s worst enemy? The guy 
next to him. If they didn’t fight each other, it’d be 
another story. . . 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Forward march !’’ the second-in-charge shouted. 
So they went over to the guardroom. 

Five streets came together at the guardroom. An 
hour before they’d all been crowded with the men 
coming in from the ; other sites. When all these 
streets were finished, the main square in the town 
they were building would be right here by the guard- 
room where they were going to frisk them. And the 
people who’d be coming to live in this new town 
would parade here on the big days, just like the 
prisoners were pouring in now. 

The warders were already at the guardroom 
warming themselves. They came out and stood 
across from the prisoners : “Open up your coats and 
jackets !” And they put their arms out sort of getting 
ready for the frisk. Same as in the morning. 

It wasn’t so bad opening up their clothes now. 
They were nearly home. 

That’s just what they said — “home.” You didn’t 
have any other home to think about when you were 
out there working. 

They were frisking the guys the front of the 
column now, and Shukhov went over to Caesar and 
said : “Caesar Markovich, when we’re through, I’ll 
go to the package room right away and hold a place 
for you in line.” 

Caesar turned around. The ends of his neat black 
mustache were all white with frost. Then Caesar 
said to him : “What is the point in that, Ivan 


135 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Denisovich ? Suppose I don’t have any package?” 

“Maybe not, but what the hell ! I’ll hang around 
for ten minutes and if you don’t come I’ll go over 
to the barracks.” 

What Shukhov had at the back of his mind was — 
even it Caesar hadn’t gotten anything, he could sell 
his place in the line to some other guy 

It looked like Caesar wanted a package real bad. 
“Okay, Ivan Denisovich. Go over and get in line. 
But don’t wait more than ten minutes.” 

They were getting close to the friskers now. 
Shukhov had nothing to hid from them today and 
he didn’t worry. He took his time undoing his coat 
and the piece of rope around his jacket. 

And though he didn’t think he had anything on 
him he shouldn’t, his eight years in camps had made 
him careful. So he shoved his hand in the pocket on 
the knee of his pants to make sure it was empty. 

And there was the piece of steel he’d picked up 
on the site ! He’d only taken it so it wouldn’t go to 
waste and he didn’t mean to bring it back to the 
camp. 

He didn’t mean to bring it back — but he had, and 
it’d be a great pity to throw it away. He could 
grind it down into a small knife for mending boots 
or making clothes. 

If he’d meant to smuggle it in he’d have found a 
good way to hide it. But there were only two rows 
of men in front of him at the friskers and the first 
five were there already. 

He had to think fast. He could throw it out in 


136 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the snow while he was still covered by the backs of 
the men in front (they’d find it later, but they’d never 
know where it came from) or he could try and get it 
through. 

If they found it on him and said it was a knife, 
he could get ten days in the can. 

But a knife like that could bring something in. It 
could mean more bread. He couldn’t stand throwing 
it away so he slipped it in one of his mittens. 

Now the row of five in front was ordered up to 
the friskers, so there were just three of them left 
out there under the bright light — Senka, Shukhov, 
and the young fellow from 32 who’d helped bring the 
Moldavian in. 

There were only three of them to five warders so 
Shukhov could play it smart and choose between 
the two on the right. He picked the old one with 
gray whiskers instead of the young one with the red 
cheeks. Of course the old man knew his stuff and 
would have no trouble finding it if he wanted, but 
the thing was he was old, so he must be fed up 
with his job. Then Shukhov took off both mittens, 
the one with the piece of steel and the other, and 
held them in one hand (he stuck the empty mitten 
out a little in front). He put the piece of rope he 
used for a belt in the same hand, opened his jacket 
wide, and lifted up the sides of his coat (he’d never 
put himself out for the friskers like this before but 
now he wanted to make ’em feel he had nothing to 
hide). He went up to the old man with the gray 
whiskers. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The old man ran his hands over Shukhov’s back 
and sides and felt the pocket on his knee and the 
sides of his coat and jacket, but there was nothing 
there. To make sure before he let him go, he tried 
the mitten with nothing in it that Shukhov had stuck 
under his nose. Shukhov was in a sweat. If this 
warder did the same with the other one he’d wind 
up in the cooler with eight ounces of bread a day 
and hot food only every third day. He thought how 
weak and hungry he’d be there and how hard it 
would be to get back on his feet, lean and half-starved 
as he was. 

And he prayed hard as he could : “God in Heaven, 
help me and keep me out of the can !” All this went 
through his head when the warder felt the first mitten 
and then reached out for the one behind it (he’d 
have tried them both at once if Shukhov hadn’t held 
them in the same hand). But then the chief warder 
— he wanted to get the thing over with soon as he 
could — shouted to the guards : “Let’s have the fellows 
from the tool works.” 

So the old man with the gray whiskers didn’t 
bother with Shukhov’s other mitten and waved him 
through. 

Shukhov ran to catch up with the others. They 
were already lined up by fives between two long 
wooden rails — like the ones they hitch horses to in 
marketplaces. It made a kind of paddock. He felt 
like he was walking on air but he didn’t say a prayer 
of thanks because there wasn’t any time and there 


138 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


was no sense in it now. 

The guards who’d brought there column in got 
out of the way to make room for the escorts who 
were marching the tool works in. They were waiting 
for their chief. They’d picked up all the firewood the 
column had thrown down before the frisk. The fire- 
wood the warders took was piled up by the guard- 
room. 

The moon was going up higher all the t ; me and 
the night cold was getting stronger. 

On his way to the guardroom to sign in the four 
hundred and sixty-three men the escort chief stopped 
and had a wood with Pryakha — this was Volkovoy’s 
deputy — and he shouted : “K-460 !” 

The Moldavian, who'd tried to keep out of sight 
In the middle of the column, gave a sigh and came 
up to the rail on the right. He still had his head 
down and his shoulders were all hunched up. 

“Over here !” Pryakha wanted him to come 
around the other side. 

The Moldavian went around. They told him to 
put his hands behind his back and wait there. 

So he was going to get it in the neck for “at- 
tempted escape.” They’d put him in the can. 

Two guards stood on the left and right of the 
paddock just in front of the gate. These gates were 
high as three men. They opened them up and then 
the order came: “Lineup by fi-i-ves !” (They didn’t 
have to tell you to get away {from the gate here be- 
cause the gates to the camp [always opened in so the 
prisoners couldn’t rush them and break them down.) 


139 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 
“One, two, three...!*’ 

The prisoners were at their coldest and hungriest 
when they checked in through these gates in the even- 
ing, and their bow) of hot and watery soup without 
any fat was like rain in a drought. They gulped it 
down. They cared more for this bowlful than free- 
dom, or for their life in years gone by and years to 
come. They came back through the gates like soldiers 
from the wars with a lot of noise and cocky as hell. 
It was best to keep out of their way. 

The orderly from HQ got scared when he saw 
them come in. Now for the first time since roll call 
at six-thirty that morning the men were on their own. 
They went through the big outside gates, through 
the smaller one inside, across the yard through an- 
other pair of rails, and broke loose all over the 
compound. 

All except the gang bosses, who were stopped by 
a work-controller : “Gang bosses, go to the PPS !” 

Shukhov raced past the punishment block and the 
barracks over to the package room and Caesar 
strolled over the other way where people were swarm- 
ing around a post with a plywood board nailed to it. 
The names of all the people with packages wert 
written up there with a pencil. 

They didn’t use much paper in the camps. They 
wrote mostly on these boards. Plywood lasted longer. 
The work-controllers and the screws used it when 
they counted heads. They could wipe it clean and 


140 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


write on it again the next day. It was a great saving. 
There was always some scrounging to be done around 
this post by people who hadn’t been working outside. 
They’d find out from this board who'd gotten a 
package, go and meet the fellow at the gate, and tell 
him the number. You could pick up a cigarette or 
two like that. 

Shukhov ran up to the package room. It was a 
sort of lean-to with an entryway. The entryway had 
no door and the cold went right through it, but you 
were under cover so it wasn’t too bleak. 

Men were standing in a line all around the wall. 
Shukhov got in it too. There were fifteen fellows 
ahead of him so there’d be an hour’s wait and that’d 
take him up to lights out. If anybody else from his 
bunch had a package — he’d have to go and look at 
the list first — he’d be way behind Shukhov. So would 
all the fellows from the tool works. They might have 
to come back again early in the morning. They stood 
in line with little bags and sacks and things. Over 
inside, behind the door (Shukhov hadn’t gotten a 
package since he’d been in this camp, but he knew 
from what people said), a warder pried open the 
wooden box with your stuff in it, took it all out and 
went through it real careful. He cut things up, broke 
them in pieces, and gave them a good going-over. If 
it was anything liquid in a glass jar or a can they 
opened it and poured it out for you. AH you could 
do to try and catch it was cup your hands or get a 
bag under it. They didn’t hand cans or jars over to 
you. It made ’em kind of jumpy. If there was any 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


pastry or candy or something fancy like that, or any 
sausage or fish, the warder always bit off a hunk. 
(And it wasn’t worth while kicking up a fuss because 
then he’d say it was forbidden and you weren’t sup- 
posed to have it.) Anybody who got a package had 
to give handouts all along the line, starting with the 
warder. And when they were through poking around 
in your package they wouldn’t let you have the box 
— you had to stuff it all into a bag or into the lining 
of your coat. Then they kicked you out and called 
the next fellow. They sometimes hustled you so much 
you left something behind on the counter. And it 
was no use coming back for it. It wouldn’t be there 
any more. 

Back in the Ust-Izhma days Shukhov had gotten 
packages a couple of times. But he wrote to his wife 
and told her not to send any more because there 
wasn’t much left by the time it reached him. Better 
keep it for the kids. Though it was easier for Shukhov 
to feed his whole family back home than it was just 
to keep himself alive in the camp, he knew the price 
they paid for these packages and he knew he couldn’t 
go on taking the bread out of their mouth for ten 
years. So he’d rather do without. 

All the same every time anybody in his gang or 
in his part of the barracks got a package— and this 
was nearly every day — he felt a kind of pang inside 
because it wasn’t him. And though he told his wife 
she must never send him anything, even for Easter, 
and he never went to that post with the list on it — 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


unless it was to take a look for some other guy who 
was well off — still he sometimes had the crazy idea 
somebody might run up to him one day and say : 
“Shukhov, what are you waiting for? You’ve got a 
package !” 

But nobody ever did, and he thought about his 
home village of Temgenyovo and the wooden shack 
where they lived. Here he was on the go from rev- 
eille to lights out and there was no time for day- 
dreaming. He was standing in line with these people 
who were keeping their bellies happy with the hope 
they’d soon be sinking their teeth into a chunk of 
fatback, eating their bread with butter, and sweetening 
their tea with sugar. But Shukhov had only one thing 
to hope for — he might still make it to the mess hall 
with the rest of his gang in time to eat his gruel 
before it got cold. It didn’t do you half as much 
good if it was cold. He figured if Caesar’s name 
wasn’t on the list he’d be back in the barracks by 
now and getting cleaned up. But if Caesar’s name 
was on it he’d now be getting together bags and 
plastic mugs to put the stuff in. That’s why Shukhov 
said he’d wait ten minutes — just to give him time. 

Shukhov picked up some news from the fellows 
in the line. There wasn’t going to be any Sunday 
again this week. They were going to be swindled out 
of it. That was nothing new, they’d known it all 
along — if there were five Sundays in the month, they 
let you off on three and chased you out to work on. 
the other two. He knew this — but when he heard it. 


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he felt sick all over and it turned his stomach. You 
couldn’t help feeling bad about losing your Sunday. 
Though it was right what the fellows were saying 
in the line. Even if you got Sunday off, they still 
found jobs for you to do around the camp — putting 
up a new bathhouse or building a new wall to keep 
you from getting through somewhere, or clearing up 
the yard. Then there was always airing the mattresses 
and shaking them out or delousing the bunks. Or 
they’d have an “identity parade” to check your pass 
against your picture. Or they’d say it was time for 
stock-taking and you had to spread all your junk out 
in the yard and they kept you hanging around there 
half the day. 

The thing that really got’em was if the prisoners 
slept after breakfast. 

The line wasn’t moving very fast. Three fellows 
— a camp barber, a bookkeeper, and one of the guys 
from the CES — pushed up front, and they weren’t 
too polite about it either. These weren’t just poor 
slobs like the rest but high and mighty trusties and 
the biggest bastards in the camp. To the men’s way 
of thinking they were worse than shit, and they didn’t 
have much use for the men either. There was no 
sense talking back to them. They all stuck together 
and they were in good with the warders. 

There were ten fellows ahead of Shukhov and 
seven more in back of him. Now Caesar came along. 
He had to duck down to get in through the doorway 
in the new fur cap he’d gotten from home. (That was 


144 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


another thing, these hats. Caesar had given a bribe to 
somebody in the right place so they let him keep this 
fancy new cap, the sort they wore in the big cities. 
But others who’d been brought in with their service 
caps, straight from the front, had them taken away 
and got the plain pigskin caps they gave you in the 
camp.) 

Caesar shot a smile at Shukhov and started 
talking right away with some crazy guy in glasses 
who was reading a newspaper in the line. “Glad to 
see you, Pyotr Mikhailovich, old man”. And they 
glowed at each other like a couple of poppies. 

The nut with the glasses said : “Look, I’ve just 
gotten an Evening News fresh from Moscow. It came 
in the mail.” 

“You don’t say !” And Caesar stuck his nose in 
the newspaper too. (There wasn’t much light from 
the bulb on the ceiling. How the hell could they read 
those tiny letters!) “There is a most interesting arti- 
cle here on the opening night of the new Zavadsky.”* 

These fellows from Moscow can smell each other 
a long way off and when they get together they kind 
of sniff at each other like dogs. And they jabber away 
real fast to see who can say the most words. You 
didn’t hear many real Russian words in all this talk. 
They might just as well have been Latvians or 
Romanians. 

But Caesar hadn’t forgot all his little bags and 
sacks. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“Caesar Markovich, is it all right if I go now ?” 
Shukhov asked through that gap in his teeth. 

“Of course, of course.” Caesar lifted his black 
mustache up from the paper. “But tell me now, 
who’s in front of me and who’s behind me in the 
line?” Shukhov told him where his place was. 

And he didn’t wait for Caesar to think of it 
himself but asked him about his supper. “Want me to 
bring you your supper ?” (This meant he’d have to 
carry it from the mess hall to the barracks in a can. 
You weren’t supposed to. They were very strict about 
this and kept bringing out rules against it. If they 
caught you they poured the stuff out on the ground 
and dragged you off to the cooler. The men went 
on doing it all the same because anybody who had 
something to do before supper could never make it 
on time to the mess hall with his gang.) 

When he asked about bringing Caesar’s supper 
over, he was thinking : “You’re not going to be 
stingy now, are you, and not let me have your sup- 
per ?” They didn’t get any mush for supper but only 
thin gruel. 

“No, no,” Caesar smiled. “You eat it yourself.” 

That was all Shukhov was waiting for. He tore 
out of the package room like a bat out of hell and 
chased across the compound. There were prisoners 
wandering around all over the place. One time the 
Commandant had given an order that prisoners 
couldn’t walk around by themselves but had to be 
marched everywhere by gangs — except to the medics 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


or the latrines, where they couldn’t take them all to- 
gether. They made up squads of four or five men and 
put one of them in charge to march them wherever 
they had to go, wait for them there, and march them 
back. 

There’d been a Commandant who was strict as 
hell about this order and nobody liked to cross him 
The warders jumped on anybody going around by 
himself and put 'em in the cells. But the whole thing 
broke down. It didn’t happen all at once, it sort of 
faded out little by little like a lot of these high-sound- 
ing orders. Suppose the screws called you out, well, 
you couldn’t go along with a whole bunch. Or you 
had to go and pick something up in the stores, well, 
there wasn’t much in it for the other fellows to come 
along with, you. Or some guy who got it in his head 
to go over to the CES and read the newspapers, who 
the hell did he think’d go along with him ? And then 
there were fellows going over to get their felt boots 
repaired or their things dried out. And then those who 
just wanted to go from their own barracks to the next 
one^(this was the thing they were real tough on but 
it wasn’t so easy to stop it). 

That pot-bellied bastard of a Commandant had 
made this order to take their last bit of freedom 
away, but it didn’t work out like that. 

On his way back Shukhov ran into a warder, 
took his cap off just to be on the safe side, and ducked 
into his barracks. There was one hell of a racket inside 
— somebody’s bread ration had been pinched while 
they were all out at work and everybody was shout- 


147 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


ing at the orderlies, and the orderlies were shouting 
back. There was nobody from 104 there. 

Shukhov always figured they were in luck if they 
got back to camp and the mattresses hadn’t been 
turned inside out while they were gone. 

He ran to his bunk and started taking his coat off 
on the way. He threw it up on top and his mittens 
with the piece of steel too and felt inside his mattress. 
That hunk of bread was still there ! Good thing he’d 
sewed it in. 

So he dashed out again and went to the mess hall. 

He slipped across and didn’t run into a single 
warder — -just men coming back and quarreling about 
the rations. 

The moonlight in the yard was getting more and 
more bright. The lights in the camp looked dim and 
there were black shadows from the barracks. There 
were four big steps up to the mess hall and they were 
in the shadow too. There was a little bulb over the 
door and it was swinging and creaking in the freezing 
cold. And there was a kind of rainbow around all 
the lights but it was hard to say if this was from the 
frost or because they were so dirty. 

And the Commandant had another strict rule — 
each gang had to march up to the mess hall two by 
two. Then the order was — when they got to the steps 
they had to line up again by fives and stand there till 
the mess-hall orderly let them up. 

This was Clubfoot’s job and he wouldn’t let go of 
it for anything in the world. With that limp of his 
he’d gotten himself classed as an invalid, the bastard. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


but there really wasn’t a thing wrong with him. He 
had a stick cut from a birch tree and he lashed out 
with it from the top of the steps if anybody tried to 
go up before he gave the word. But he was careful 
who he hit. Clubfoot was sharp-eyed as they come 
and he could spot you in the dark from behind. He 
never went for anybody who could hit back and let 
him have it in the puss. He only beat a fellow when 
he was down. He’d let Shukhov have it once. 

And this was the kind they called “orderlies,” but 
if you thought about it they didn’t take orders from 
anybody. And they were in cahoots with the cook. 

Today a lot of gangs must have crowded up at 
the same time or maybe they were having trouble 
keeping order. The men were all over the steps. 
There were three of them up there — Clubfoot, the 
trusty who worked under him, and even the fellow in 
charge of the mess hall, big as life — and they were 
trying to handle things on their own, the crapheads. 

The manager of the mess hall was a fat bastard 
with a head like a pumpkin and shoulders a yard 
wide. He had so much strength he didn’t know what 
to do with it and he bounced up and down like on 
springs and his hands and legs jerked all the time. 
His cap was made of white fur soft as down and he 
didn’t have a number on it. There weren’t many 
people “outside” with a cap like that. He had a 
lamb’s-wool jacket and there was a number on it the 
size of a postage stamp — just big enough to keep Vol- 
kovoy happy — but he didn’t have a number on his 
back. He didn’t give a damn for anybody and all the 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


men were scared of him. He had a thousand lives in 
the palm of his hand. Once they’d tried to beat him 
up but the cooks all rushed out to help him. And a 
choice bunch of ugly fat-faced bastards they were 
too. 

Shukhov would be in trouble if 104 had gone in 
already. Clubfoot knew everybody in camp by sight, 
and when the manager was there he never let any- 
body through if he wasn’t with his own gang. Just 
for the hell of it. The fellows sometimes climbed the 
rails going up the steps and got in behind Clubfoot’s 
back. Shukhov had done this too. But you couldn’t 
get away with it when the manager was there. He’d 
knock you all the way from here to the hospital block. 

Shukhov had to get over to the steps fast as he 
could and see if 104 was still here — everybody looked 
the same at night in their black coats. But there were 
so many of them milling around now like they were 
storming a fortress (what could they do, it was 
getting close to lights out ?) and they pushed their 
way up those four steps and crowded at the top. 

“Stop, you fucking sonsofbitches !” Clubfoot 
yelled, and hit out at them with his stick. “Get back, 
or I’ll bash your heads in !” 

“What can we do ?” those up front yelled. 
“They’re pushing from the back !” 

And it was true, the pushing came from the back 
but the fellows in front weren’t really trying to hold 
them back. They wanted to break through to the- 
mess hall. Then Clubfoot held his stick across his 
chest to make a kind of barrier. And he threw all 


150 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


his weight behind it. His trusty got his hand on the 
stick too and helped him push. Even the manager 
didn’t worry about getting his precious hands dirty 
and took hold of the stick. 

They shoved real hard. They had plenty of strength 
with all that meat they ate. Those up front were 
pushed back and fell on the men behind. They went 
down like tenpins. 

“Fuck you, Clubfoot !” some of the guys in the 
crowd shouted. But they made sure they weren’t seen. 
The others kept their mouth shut and just scrambled 
to their feet fastso’s not to get trampled on. And they 
got the steps cleared. 

The manager went back inside and Clubfoot stood 
on the top step and shouted: “How many times do I 
have to tell you to line up by fives, you block-heads ! 
I’ll let you in when we’re good and ready.” 

Shukhov thought he saw Senka Klevshin’s head 
way up front. He was real glad and started pushing 
his way through fast. But the men were jammed 
tight and he couldn’t make it. 

“Hey, 27!” Clubfoot shouted. “Get moving!” 
Gang 27 ran up the steps and inside on the double. 
The rest rushed the steps again and the men in back 
pushed hard. Shukhov pushed for all he was worth 
too. The steps were shaking and the bulb over the 
doorway was making a sort of creaking noise. 

“Won’t you ever learn, you scum?” Clubfoot was 
mad as hell. He hit a couple of the fellows on the 
back and shoulders with his stick and pushed them 
over on the others. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


He cleared the steps again. 

Shukhov could see Pavlo go up the steps to 
Clubfoot. Pavlo’d taken charge of the gang because 
Tyurin didn’t like to get mixed up in this kind of 
mob. 

“Line up by fives, 104!” Pavlo shouted from up 
there. “Let ’em through, you guys up front !” 

The hell they’d let ’em through! 

“Hey there, let me through ! That’s my gang !” 
Shukhov grabbed hold of the man in front of him. 
The fellow would have been glad to get out of the 
way but he was wedged in there too. 

The crowd weaved from side to side. They were 
really killing themselves to get that gruel they had 
coming. 

So Shukhov tried another tack. He clutched the 
rail going up the steps on the left, pulled himself up 
by his arms, and swung through to the other side. 
He hit somebody on the knee with his feet. They 
kicked back at him and called him every name they 
could think of. But he’d made it. He stood on the 
top step and waited there. The other fellows from his 
gang saw him and stuck out their hands. 

The manager looked out from the door and Said 
to Clubfoot: “Let’s have another two gangs.” 

“104!” Clubfoot yelled. “And where d’you think 
you’re going, you bastard!” he said to a fellow from 
another gang and hit him on the neck with his stick. 

“104!” Pavlo shouted after him and started let- 
ting his own men through. 

Shukhov ran in the mess hall and — he didn’t wait 


152 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

for Pavlo to tell him — started to pick up empty trays. 
The mess hall looked the same as ever— great clouds 
-of steam, and men jammed tight at the tables like corn 
on a cob or wandering around and trying to push 
through with trays full of bowls. But Shukhov had 
gotten used to this in all his years in the camps. He 
had a sharp eye and right away spotted S-208 carry- 
ing a tray with only five bowls on it for one of the 
other gangs. The tray wasn’t full so it meant this 
was the last time he’d need it. 

Shukhov got over to him and said in his ear from 
behind: “Gimme that tray when you’re through, 
pal.” 

“But there’s another guy over at the hatch waiting 
for it.” 

“Let the bastard wait. He should have been shar- 
per.” 

So they made a deal — S-208 put his bowls on the 
table and Shukhov snatched the tray. But the other 
guy ran over and grabbed it by the end. He was 
smaller than Shukhov. So Shukhov shoved it at him 
and sent him flying against one of the posts holding 
up the roof. He put the tray under his arm and 
^dashed over to the hatch. Pavlo was standing in line 
and he was sore because there were no trays. He 
was glad to see Shukhov. The assistant gang boss of 
27 was just in front of Pavlo at the head of the line. 
Pavlo gave him a shove. 

“Get outa the way ! Don’t hold things up ! I’ve 
.got trays!” Gopchik the little rascal was lugging one 
over too. He was laughing. 


153 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


“I grabbed it while some other guys weren’t look- 
ing.” 

Gopchik would go a’ long way in the camp and 
make a real old hand. He needed a couple more years 
to learn all the tricks and grow up and then he’d 
have it made — like cutting the bread rations in the 
stores. Or even a bigger job. 

Pavlo told Yermolayev to take the other tray — 
Yermolayev was a big Siberian and he’d gotten 
ten years for being a POW too— and sent Gopchik 
to lookout for places. Shukhov pushed his tray side- 
ways through a hatch and waited. 

“104!” Pavlo called into the hatch. There were 
five of these hatches — three for dishing out the 
food, one for men on the sick list (there were ten 
men with ulcers who got special food, and all the 
bookkeepers had wangled this diet for themselves 
too), and the fifth for handing back the bowls. Here 
the men fought to see who’d get to lick ’em out. 
These hatches weren’t very high up — a little above 
your waist. All you could see through them was 
hands with ladles. 

The cook had soft white hands but they were 
damn big and had hair all over them, more like a 
boxer’s than a cook’s. He picked up a pencil and 
checked off from his list on the wall: “104 — twenty- 
four!” Panteleyev was here too. Like hell he’d been 
sick, that sonofabitch! 

The cook picked up a great big ladle and stirred 
the stuff in the caldron — it’d just been filled nearly 
up to the top. There were clouds of steam coming 




154 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


out of it. Then he picked up another ladle that held 
one and a half pints— enough for four bowls — and 
began to dish out. But he didn’t dip down very deep. 
“One, two, three, four . . Shukhov watched to see 
which bowls he filled before the good part settled 
back on the bottom of the caldron and which had 
only the watery stuff off the top. He put ten bowls 
on the tray and went away. Gopchik was waving at 
him from a place by the second pair of posts. “This 
way, Ivan Denisovich, over here!” 

You had to be careful carrying these bowls. Shu- 
khov watched his step, sort of gliding along so as not 
to jolt them, and kept shouting all the time: “Hey 
you, K-920, look where you’re going . . . ! Get out of 
the way, fellow . . . !” 

It was tough enough carrying one bowl in that 
crowd without spilling it, never mind ten. But he got 
them over to the end of the table Gopchik had cleared 
off, put the tray down on it real gentle, and didn’t 
spill a drop. And he managed to place it so the two 
best bowls would be on the side he was going to sit 
at. 

Yermolayev brought over another ten. And then 
Gopchik ran back to the hatch and came back with 
Pavlo. They were carrying the last four in their 
hands. 

Kilgas brought their bread ration on another tray. 
Today the ration was according to output. Some got 
six ounces, others eight. Shukhov got ten. He took 
his ten (it had a lot of good crust on it) and Caesar’s 
six— from the middle of the loaf. Now the men in 


155 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


their gang were coming from all over the mess hall 
to get their supper. It was up to them to find a place 
to sit down and eat it. Shukhov handed out the bowls 
and kept an eye on who’d gotten one, and guarded 
his corner of the tray. He put his spoon in one of the 
two good bowls to stake a claim. Fetyukov took his 
bowl — he was one of the first — and went off. He 
figured there wouldn’t be good pickings in his own 
gang and it’d be better to snoop around the mess 
hall and scavenge — there might be somebody who’d 
left something. Anytime a guy didn’t finish his gruel 
and pushed the bowls away, others swooped down on 
it like vultures and tried to grab it — a whole bunch 
of them sometimes. 

Shukhov checked over the helpings with Pavlo 
and everything looked all right. He pushed one of 
the good bowls to Pavlo for Tyurin. Pavlo poured it 
in a flat German army canteen — it was easy to carry 
it pressed close to his chest under his coat. 

They gave up their trays to some other fellows. 
Pavlo sat down to his double helping, and so did 
Shukhov. They didn’t say another word to each 
other. These minutes were holy. 

Shukhov took off his cap and put it on his knee. 
He dipped his spoon in both his bowls to see what 
they were like. It wasn’t bad. He found a little bit 
of fish even. The gruel was always thinner than in 
the morning — they had to feed you in the morning 
so you’d work, but in the evening they knew you just 
flopped down and went to sleep. 

He began to eat. He started with the watery 


156 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


stuff on the top and drank it right down. The 
warmth went through his body and his insides were 
sort of quivering waiting for that gruel to come 
down. It was great ! This was what a prisoner 
lived for, this one little moment. 

Shukhov didn’t have a grudge in the world now — 
about how long his sentence was, about how long 
their day was, about that Sunday they wouldn’t get. 
All he thought now was : “Well get through ! We’ll 
get through it all ! And God grant it’ll all come to 
an end.” 

He drank the watery stuff on the top of the other 
bowl, poured what was left into the first bowl and 
scraped it clean with his spoon. It made things easier. 
He didn’t have to worry about the second bowl or 
keep an eye on it and guard it with his hands. 

So he could let his eyes wander a little and look 
at other bowls around him. The fellow on the left 
had nothing but water. The way these bastards in 
the kitchen treated a man ! You’d never think they 
were just prisoners too ! 

Shukhov started to pick out the cabbage in his 
bowl. There was only one piece of potato and that 
turned up in the bowl he got from Caesar. It 
wasn’t much of a potato. It was frostbitten of 
course, a little hard and on the sweet side. And there 
was hardly any fish, just a piece of bone here and 
there without any flesh, on it. But every little fish- 
bone and every piece of fin had to be sucked to get 
all the juice out of it — it was good for you. All this- 
took time but Shukhov was in no burry now. £ He’d 


157 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


had a real good day — -he’d managed to get an extra 
helping at noon and for supper too. So he could 
skip everything else he wanted to do that evening. 
Nothing else mattered now. 

The only thing was he ought to go see the 
Latvian to get some tobacco. There might not be 
any left by morning. 

Shukhov ate his supper without bread — a double 
portion and bread on top of it would be too rich. 
So he’d save the bread. You get no thanks from 
your belly — it always forgets what you've just done 
for it and comes begging again the next day. 

Shukhov was finishing his gruel and hadn’t really 
bothered to take in who was sitting around him. He 
didn’t have to because he’d eaten his own good share 
of gruel and wasn’t on the lookout for anybody 
else’s. 

But all the same he couldn’t help seeing a tall old 
man, Y-81, sit down on the other side of the table 
when somebody got up. Shukhov knew he was from 
Gang 64, and in the line at the package room he’d 
heard it was 64 that had gone to the Socialist 
Community Development today in place of 104. 
They’d been there all day out in the cold putting up 
barbed wire to make a compound for themselves. 

Shukhov had been told that this old man’d been 
in camps and prisons more years than you could 
count and had never come under any amnesty. 
When one ten-year stretch was over they slapped on 
another. Shukhov took a good look at him close up. 


158 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


In the camp you could pick him out among all the 
men with their bent backs because he was straight as 
a ramrod. When he sat at the table it looked like 
he was sitting on something to raise himself up 
higher. There hadn’t been anything to shave off his 
head for a long time — he’d lost all his hair because 
of the good life. His eyes didn’t shift around the 
mess hall all the time to see what was going on, and 
he was staring over Shukhov’s head and looking at 
something nobody else could see. He ate his thin 
gruel with a worn old wooden spoon, and he took 
his time. He didn’t bend down low over the bowl 
like all the others did, but brought the spoon up to 
his mouth. He didn’t have a single tooth either top 
or bottom — he chewed the bread with his hard gums 
like they were teeth. His face was all worn-out but 
not like a “goner’s” — it was dark and looked like 
it had been hewed out of stone. And you could tell 
from his big rough hands with the dirt worked in 
them he hadn’t spent many of his Jong years doing 
any of the soft jobs. You could see his mind was set 
on one thing— never to give in. He didn’t put his 
eight ounces in all the filth on the table like every- 
body else but laid it on a clean little piece of rag 
that’d been washed over and over again. 

But Shukhov couldn’t spend any more time look- 
ing at the old man. When he finished eating he 
licked his spoon and pushed it in the top of his 
boot. He jammed his cap on his head, got up, took 
his own bread ration and Caesar’s, and went out. 


159 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

You had to leave through another door. There were 
a couple of orderlies standing there. They had noth-, 
ing else to do but unlock the door to let people out 
and then close it after them. 

Shukhov came out with a full belly and he felt 
good. He thought he might look in on the Latvian, 
though there wasn’t much time to go before lights 
out. So he headed for Barracks 7 and didn’t stop off 
at his own barracks to leave the bread there. 

The moon was way up now. It was all white and 
clear and looked like it had been cut out of ? the sky. 
And the sky was clear too and the stars were as 
bright as could be. The last thing he had time for 
now was looking at the sky. But he saw one thing — 
the [cold wasn’t letting up. Some of the fellows had 
heard from the .“free” workers outside that it’d go 
down to twenty in the night and forty by morning. 

From somewhere outside the camp he could hear 
the noise of a tractor, and a bulldozer was grinding 
away on the new road they were building. And every 
time anybody walked or ran through the camp you 
could hear the crunch of their felt boots in the snow. 

There was no wind. 

Shukhov would have to pay the same as always 
for the tobacco — one ruble a mug, though “outside” 
it cost three rubles, and even more for the better 
stuff. Prices in the camp were not like anywhere else 
because you couldn’t have money here. Not many 
people had any and it was very expensive. In the 
“Special” camps they didn’t pay you a penny (but in 

160 





One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Ust-Izhma Shukhov got thirty rubles a month). And 
if you got any money from home they didn’t hand it 
over to you but put it in an account in your own 
name, and once a month you could spend something 
out of this account in the stores for fancy soap, 
moldy cookies, and “Prima” cigarettes. And you had 
to write to the Commandant beforehand and tell him 
what you wanted to buy, and if you didn’t like the 
stuff you could either take it or leave it, and if you 
didn’t take it you could say good-by to your money 
anyway — they’d already taken it out of your account. 
Shukhov got his money by doing odd jobs— making 
slippers (for two rubles) out of the rags the customer 
gave you or patching up a jacket (you named the 
price for the job). 

Barracks 7 was not like 9, where he was. His had 
two big halves, but 7 had a long passageway with 
ten doors off it, and each gang had a room to itself, 
seven bunks to a room. And each gang had its own 
latrine and the guy in charge of the barracks had his 
own cubicle. The artists lived here in their own cubi- 
cles too. 

Shukhov went into the part where the Latvian 
was. He was lying on a lower bunk with his feet up 
on the ledge and he was jabbering in Latvian with 
the fellow next to him. Shukhov sat down on the 
edge of the bunk and said hello, and the Latvian said 
hello but didn’t take his legs down. In small rooms 
like these the men pricked up their ears to see who’d 
come and what he was after. They both knew this. 


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That’s why Shukhov sat there talking about nothing 
very much. (How’re things?” “Not bad.” “Very 
cold today.” “Yes”.) 

Shukhov waited till the others got back to their 
talk — about the war in Korea. They were arguing 
whether their’d be a world war or not now the Chinese 
had come in. 

And then he leaned close to the Latvian : “Got 
any tobacco?” 

“Sure.” 

“Lemme see.” 

The Latvian took his feet off the ledge, dropped 
them on the floor, and sat up. He was real tightfisted, 
this Latvian, and when he put the stuff in the plastic 
mug he was always scared he’d give you one smoke 
more than you paid for. 

He showed Shukhov his pouch and opened it up. 

Shukhov took a little tobacco and put it on his 
hand. He saw it was the same as last time, the same 
brownish colour and the same cut. He held it to his 
nose and smelled it. Yes, it was the same stuff, but 
what he said to the Latvian was : “Don’t look the 
same to me.” 

“Yes it is.” The Latvian got mad. “I always have 
the same. It is always the same.” 

“Okay,” Shukhov said. “Pack that mug for me 
and I’ll have a smoke out of it, and then maybe I’ll 
take another mug.” 

He said “pack” because this fellow always 
sprinkled it in sort of loose. 

The Latvian got another pouch from under his 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


pillow — it was fatter than the other one. And he took 
his mug out of the locker. This mug was made of 
plastic but Shukhov knew just how much it’d hold 
and that it was as good as something made of glass. 
And the Latvian started filling it. 

“Press it down now, press it down !” And Shukhov 
poked his finger in to show him how 

“I know how, I know how.” The Latvian got mad 
again and pulled the mug away and pressed down 
himself — but not so hard. Then be went on filling it 

Meantime Shukhov opened his jacket and found 
the place in the wadded lining where he kept his two- 
ruble bill. He eased it along through the wadding till 
he got to a little hole he’d made in another place and 
sewed up with two stitches. He pushed the bill this 
far, pulled out the stitches with his nails, folded the 
bill lengthways, and took it out of the hole. It was 
old and limp and didn’t rustle any more. 

Somebody in the room was yelling : “You think 
that old bastard in Moscow with the mustache is 
going to have mercy on you ? He wouldn’t give a 
damn about his own brother, never mind slobs like 
you !” 

The great thing about a penal camp was you had 
a hell of a lot of freedom. Back in Ust-Izhma if you 
said they couldn’t get matches “outside” they put you 
in the can and slapped on another ten years. But 
here you could yell your head off about anything 
you liked and the squealers didn’t even bother to 
tell on you. The security fellows couldn’t care less. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


The only trouble was you didn’t have much time? 
to talk about anything. 

“Hey, you’re putting it in loose,” Shukhov grum- 
bled. 

“All right, all right.” And the Latvian put a little 
more on top. 

Shukhov took his own pouch out of the inside 
pocket he'd sewed himself and emptied the mugful 
of tobacco into it. 

“Okay,” he said. “Give me another mugful.” He 
didn’t bother about trying it out beforehand because 
he didn’t want to have his first sweet smoke in a 
hurry. 

He haggled a little more with the Latvian and 
emptied another mugful into his pouch. He handed 
over his two rubles, nodded to the Latvian, and left. 
Then he chased back to his own barracks so he 
wouldn’t miss Casear when he came back with that 
package. 

But Caesar was already sitting in his lower bunk 
and gapping at the stuff. He’d spread it all out on his 
bed and on the locker, but it was a little dark because 
the light from the bulb on the ceiling was cut off by 
Shukhov’s bunk. Shukhov bent down, got between 
the Captain’s bunk and Caesar’s, and handed over 
the bread ration. “Your bread, Caesar Markovich.” 

He didn’t say, “So you got it,” because this 
would’ve been hinting about how he stood in line 
for him and that he had a right to a cut. He know 
he had, but even after eight years of hard labor her 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


~was still no scavenger and the more time went on, 
the more he stuck to his guns. 

But he wasn’t master of his eyes. Like all the 
others he had the eyes of a hawk, and in a flash 
they ran over the things Caesar had laid out on the 
bed and the locker. But though he still hadn’t taken 
the paper off them or opened the bags, Shukhov 
couldn’t help telling by this quick look — and a sniff 
of the nose— that Caesar had gotten sausage, canned 
milk, a large smoked fish, fatback, crackers with one 
kind of smell and cookies with another, and about 
four pounds of lump [sugar. And then there was 
butter, cigarettes, and pipe tobacco. And that wasn’t 
the end of it. 

Shukhov saw all this in the time it took him to 
say “Your bread, Caesar Markovich.” 

Caesar was in a real state like he was drunk’ 
{people who got packages were always like this) 
and he waved the bread away. “You keep it, Ivan 
Denisovich.” Caesar’s gruel and now his six ounces 
of bread — that was a whole extra supper — and this 
•of course, was as much as he could hope to make on 
that package. And he stopped thinking right away 
that he might get any of this fancy stuff and he shut 
it out of his mind. It was no good aggravating your 
■belly for nothing. He had his own ten ounces of 
bread and now this ration of Caesar’s and then there 
’was that hunk of bread in the mattress. That was 
more than enough ! He’d eat Caesar’s right away, get 
another pound in the morning, and he’d take some 
off to work with him. That was the way to live ! And 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


he’d leave that old ration where it was in the mattress 
for the time being. Good thing he’d sewed it in— look 
how that fellow from 75 had his stolen out of the 
locker, and there wasn’t a thing you could do about 
it. 

Some people thought anybody who got packages 
was well off and fair game, but when you really 
got down to it, it was gone in no time. And just 
before a new package came in they were only too 
glad to pick up an extra bowl of mush and they 
went around cadging butts. The guy with the pack- 
age had to give something to his warder, his gang 
boss, and the trusty in his barracks. They often lost 
your package and it didn’t come up in the list for 
weeks. When you took it to the storeroom for safe- 
keeping against thieves and on the Commandant’s 
orders — Caesar would be taking his there before roll 
call in the morning — you had to give the guy in charge 
there a good cut or he’d nibble his way through it. 
How could you keep a check on that rat sitting there 
all day with other people’s food ? Then you had to 
pay off people who’d helped you get it, like Shuk- 
khov. And if you wanted the guy in the wash house 
to give you back your own underwear from the 
wash, you had to let him have a little something 
too. Then there were those two or three cigarettes 
for the barber so he’d wipe the razor on a piece of 
paper and not on your bare knee. And what about 
the guys in the CES so they’d put your letters aside 
for you and not lose ’em ? Suppose you wanted to- 
wangle a day off and lie around in bed? You 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


couldn’t go to the doctor with empty hands. And you 
had to give something to the fellow next to you in 
the bunk who shared your locker, like the Captain 
shared Caesar’s. He’d count every little piece 'you 
put in your mouth, and even the biggest heel couldn’t 
get out of giving him something. 

Some fellows always thought the grass was greener 
on the other side of the fence. Let them envy other 
people if they wanted to, but Shukhov knew what 
life was about. And he was not the kind who 
thought anybody owed him a living. 

He took his boots off and climbed up to his bunk. 
He got that piece of steel out of his mitten and had 
a good look at it. He figured he’d look for. the right 
kind of stone tomorrow to grind it down for a knife 
he could use to mend shoes. And in four or five days, 
if he worked at it a little mornings and nights, he’d 
make himself a pretty good knife with a sharp curved 
blade. But meantime he’d have to hide it. He’d push 
it between the crosspiece and the boards of his bunk. 
And while the Captain wasn’t in his bunk down be- 
low — he wouldn't have wanted any dirt to fall on the 
Captain’s face — he pulled the heavy mattress back 
(it was stuffed with sawdust, not shavings), and then 
he hid the thing there. Alyoshka the Baptist and the 
two Estonians could see him doing it from their 
bunks. But he didn’t have to worry about them. 

Fetyukov came through the barracks and he was 
crying. He was all hunched up and there was blood 
on his lips. So he must’ve gotten beat up again for 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


trying to scrounge somebody’s bowl. He went past 
the whole gang, didn’t look at anybody, and didn’t 
bother hiding his tears. He climbed up to his bunk 
and dug his face in his mattress. 

You couldn’t help feeling sorry for him if you 
thought about it. He’d never live out his time in the 
camp. He just didn’t know how to do things right. 

And now the Captain came along in a good mood 
with a potful of tea. But it wasn’t the kind they got 
in the camp. They had two tubs with tea in the 
barracks, but who’d call that tea ? It was lukewarm 
and had the right color, but it was really just slops 
and it smelled of rotten wood from the tub. But this 
tea was only for poor suckers. Well, the Captain had 
gotten a fistful of real tea from Caesar and run off 
to get some boiling water. He looked pleased with 
himself and set it up on the locker. “I nearly scalded 
my fingers under the faucet.” he said as if he was 
proud of it. 

Caesar was spreading his stuff out on sheets of 
paper in the bottom bunk. Shukhov could see this 
through the cracks in the boards, and he put the 
mattress down again so he wouldn’t get upset at the 
sight of it. But Caesar couldn’t do without him. 

He stood up and peered over at Shukhov and 
winked at him. “I say, Shukhov ... be a good fellow 
and loan me that ‘ten days' of yours, will you ?” What 
he wanted was Shukhov’s little penknife (you could 
get ten days in the cooler if they found something 
like this on you). Shukhov kept it in the boards 
under his bunk too. It wasn’t half as big as his little 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


finger, but it could cut up a piece of fatback ten 
inches thick like nobody’s business. Shukhov had 
made this knife himself and always kept it sharp. He 
stuck his hand under the board again and got it out. 
Caesar gave him a nod and ducked down out of 
sight. 

You could make something on a knife like that, 
but it meant the cooler if they found it on you. And 
if anybody borrowed it from you to cut off some 
sausage or something he’d have to have a heart of 
stone if all you got out of it was a kick in the ass. 

So now Caesar owed him for this too. After all 
the business with the bread and the knives, Shukhov 
pulled out his pouch. He took out as much tobacco 
as he’d borrowed earlier that day, reached it over to 
the Estonian in the top bunk across from him, and 
said “Thanks.” 

The Estonian spread his lips and sort of smiled 
at the other Estonian and jabbered something to him. 
Then they rolled themselves a cigarette out of it just 
to see what kind of tobacco Shukhov had. It was no 
worse than theirs, so why not ! Shukhov would have 
lit up himself to try the stuff out, but he could feel 
from that timekeeper he had inside of him it was 
getting very near the night check. Before long the 
warders would be snooping around the barracks. He’d 
have to go out in the passageway for a smoke, but it 
was warmer where be was in his bunk. The barracks 
was pretty cold and that ice was still up there on the 
roof. It wasn’t so bad right now but he’d get frozen 
through in the night. 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Shukhov started breaking off pieces from one of 
his hunks of bread, but he couldn’t help hearing what 
the Captain and Caesar were saying while they drank 
their tea. 

“Help yourself, Captain, don’t wait to be asked 1 
Have some of the smoked fish, and there’s some 
sausage here too !” 

“Thank you, I don’t mind if I do.” 

“And put some butter on your bread. Real French 
bread from Moscow, you know.” 

“I must say it’s hard to believe they still make 
this sort of bread anywhere. All this luxury reminds 
me when I was in Archangel once....” 

There was a hell of a racket in their part of the 
barracks — two hundred fellows talking at once— but 
all the same Shukhov could hear them pound the rail 
outside. And he was the only one who did. He saw 
Snubnose, one of the warders, coming in the barracks. 
He was a stocky little fellow with a red face. He had 
a piece of paper in his hand and you could see from 
this and from the way he walked that he hadn’t come 
to catch smokers or to chase everybody out for the 
check. He was after somebody. He took a look at 
his piece of paper and asked: “Where’s 104?” 

“Right here,” they told him. 

The Estonians hid their cigarettes and waved their 
hands to get rid of the smoke. 

“And where’s your boss ?” 

“What d’you want ?” Tyurin said from his bunk 
and just put one foot down on the floor. 

“What’s happening about the reports those two* 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


guys of yours were supposed to hand in about their 
extra clothing?” 

“They’re writing them,” Tyurin said and he didn’t 
bat an eye. 

“They should’ve been handed in already.” 

“The trouble is they can’t hardly read or write, 
so it’s not easy.” (It was Caesar and the Captain he 
was talking about ! He was a great guy, the boss, he 
was never at a loss what to say.) “And they’ve got 
nothing to write with. There’s no pens and no ink 
either.” 

“There should be.” 

“They always take ’em away from us !” 

“You better watch what you say or I’ll put you 
in the can,” Snubnose said, but he wasn’t too mad. 
“But see you get those reports to the warders’ room 
tomorrow morning! And they should say they’ve 
turned in those things they’re not supposed to have 
to the Personal Property Stores. Got it ?” 

“I get you.” 

(“Looks like the Captain made it,” Shukhov said 
to himself. The Captain hadn’t heard what was 
going on. He was too busy telling his story and eating 
that sausage.) 

“One more thing,” the warder said. “Is S-311 
here ? Is that one of yours ?” 

“Let me take a look at the list,” Tyurin said, just 
to stall. “How can anybody remember all these damn 
numbers ?” He was playing for time, trying to drag 
things out till they called the men for the night check, 
and maybe then the Captain wouldn’t have to go to 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


the cooler that night. 

But Snubnose shouted out: “Is Buynovsky here ?” 

“What’s that? Yes, I’m here,” the Captain called 
out from his bunk. (Some people move too fast for 
their own good.) 

“Buynovsky? Yeah, that’s you all right, S-311. 
Let’s go !” 

“Where ?” 

“You know.” 

The Captain just gave a sigh and grunted. It 
must’ve been easier for him to sail his destroyer on 
a dark night in Ihe stormy sea than it was to break off 
talking with his friend now and go to that freezing 
cell. 

“How many days?” he asked and his voice was 
kind of low. 

“Ten ! Come on, make it snappy !” 

Just then the orderlies started yelling: “All out 
for the night check ! All out for the night check !” 

So it meant the warder they’d sent to make the 
check was in the barracks already. The Captain 
looked back at his bunk — should he take his coat? 
But they’d only strip it off in the cells and leave him 
nothing but his jacket. So he had to go there just as 
he was. The Captain thought Volkovoy might have 
let him off, but Volkovoy never let anybody off. So 
he wasn’t ready for this and hadn’t managed to hide 
any tobacco in his jacket. And there was no sense 
taking it with him in his hands because that’s the 
first thing they’d find when they frisked him. 

All the same, Caesar slipped him a couple of 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


cigarettes while he was putting his cap on. 

“Well, good-by, fellows.” The Captain gave a kind 
of sheepish look at 104 and he went off with the 
warder. 

Some of them shouted after him : “Keep your 
chin up ! Don’t let ’em get you down !” What could 
you say? 

The fellows from 104 had built the place themselves 
and they knew how it looked— stone walls, a concrete 
floor, and no window. There was a stove, but that 
was only enough to melt the ice off the walls and 
make puddles on the floor. You slept on bare boards 
and your teeth chattered all night. You got six 
ounces of bread a day and they only gave you hot 
gruel every third day. 

Ten days ! If you had ten days in the cells here 
and sat them out to the end, it meant you’d be a 
wreck for the rest of your life. You got TB and you’d 
never be out of hospitals long as you lived. 

And the fellows who did fifteen days were dead 
and hurried. 

Long as you were in the barracks you thanked 
your lucky stars and tried to keep out of the cells. 

“Come on, get out !” the trusty in charge of the 
barracks shouted. “If you’re not all out by the time 
I count to three I’ll take your number and report 
you to the Comrade Warder !” 

This guy was the biggest bastard of them all. He 
was shut up with them at night in the same barracks 


173 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


but acted like a higher-up and he wasn’t scared of 
anybody. It was the other way around — everybody 
was scared of him. He could turn you in to the 
screws or let you have it in the puss. He counted 
as an invalid because he’d lost one finger in a fight. 
You could tell from his mug he was a real hood. 
And that’s just what he was. They pulled him in for a 
real crime, but they hung Article 58/14 on him too. 
That’s why he was in this camp. 

And it was no joke. He’d take your number soon 
as look at you, and give it to the warder. Then you’d 
land in the cooler for two days with work “as usual.” 

So people started moving and crowding up to the 
door, and they jumped off the top bunks looking 
like bears. Everybody was making for that narrow 
door. 

Shukhov hopped down from his bunk and stuck 
his feet in his felt boots. He was holding the cigarette 
he’d just made — he wanted it real bad. But he didn’t 
go right away, because he was sorry for Caesar. It 
wasn’t that he wanted to get something out of Caesar 
again but he was just sorry for him. He thought a 
lot of himself, Caesar did, and he didn’t know a thing 
about life — he shouldn’t have spent all that time 
fussing with his package and should’ve gotten it to 
the storeroom before night check. He could’ve eaten 
the stuff later, but what could he do with it now ? 
If he took that damn bag out with him to the check 
he’d just make a laughing stock of himself in front of 
five hundred men, but if he left it here it might be 
pinched by the first man back. (In Ust-Izhma things 


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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


■were even tougher — the crooks always got back from 
work first and cleaned out all the lockers.) 

Shukhov saw Caesar was all in a sweat, but it 
was too late. He was stuffing the sausage and fatback 
in his jacket. He thought maybe he’d carry that along 
with him even if he couldn’t save anything else. 

So Shukhov was sorry for him and told him what 
to do: “Stay here till the last man leaves, Caesar 
Markovich, and get back in your bunk where it’s 
dark, and don’t budge till the warder and the order- 
lies come through. And then you tell ’em you’re 
sick. I’ll go out now and get in the front of the crowd 
and I’il be the first back. . . .” And he ran off. 

He had a hard time shoving his way through the 
crowd at first (and he had to guard that cigarette in 
his hand so it wouldn’t be crushed). But in the passage- 
way that led off both halfs of the barracks nobody 
was in a hurry — they were shrewd as hell — and they 
stuck to the walls like grim death, two deep on both 
sides, and all they left clear was the outside door. 
You could only get out of it one at a time and they 
didn’t mind if any dope wanted to. But most of them 
liked it better inside. They’d been in the cold all day 
long and nobody was that eager to freeze out there 
for another ten minutes. If anybody wanted to die, 
okay, but the rest of them could wait a little. 

Most times Shukhov stuck to the wall too, but 
now he made straight for the door and turned around 
and smirked at them: “What’re you so scared of, you 
nitwits? Never been out in the cold in Siberia before? 
Come and warm up under the moon like the wolves 


175 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


.... Hey, give me a light, fellow.” 

He took a light from somebody and went out on 
the steps. The “wolves’ sun,” that’s what they some- 
times called the moon where Shukhov came from. 

The moon was real high up now. A little more 
and it’d be all the way up. The sky was pale — and 
sort of greenish. The stars were bright and there 
weren’t many of them. The white snow was glisten- 
ing and the walls of the barracks looked all white 
too, and the lights in the camp didn’t seem very 
strong now. 

There was a great black crowd of men over by 
another barracks. They were coming out and lining 
up. And the same outside that other one too. And 
there wasn’t much talk between barracks. All you 
could hear was snow crunching under people’s boots. 

Five men came down the steps of Barracks 9, and 
then another three. Shukhov went in with these three 
to make up the next row of five. It wasn’t so bad 
standing here when you’d eaten a little bread and had 
a cigarette in your mouth. The tobacco was all right. 
The Latvian hadn’t lied. It had the right strength and 
it smelled good. 

More men came straggling out the door and there 
were a couple of rows of fives behind Shukhov now. 
The fellows coming out were mad as hell at the guys 
still hugging the walls in the passageway. They had to 
stand here and freeze till those bastards came out. 

The prisoners never got to see a watch or a clocks 


176 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


And what good would it do anyway? They just went 
by reveille, roll call, the noon meal break, and lights 
out. 

But the night check was around nine o’clock, so it 
was said. Only it never finished at nine. They always 
kept you hanging around while they doublechecked, 
and sometimes it was more than twice. You never got 
to bed before ten. And reveille, they said, was at 
five in the morning. No wonder that Moldavian had 
gone to sleep before the signal to knock off work. If 
a prisoner found a warm spot any place, he fell 
asleep right away. They lost so much sleep in the 
week, they slept like logs in their barracks Sundays. 
If they weren’t chased out to work, that is. 

They were all pouring out down the steps now. 
That trusty and the warder, the motherfuckers, were 
kicking them in the ass. 

The fellows who’d been first in line outside shouted 
at them: ‘Thought you were being smart, didn’t you, 
you bastards ? Trying to make cream out of shit or 
something? If you’d gotten out here before, we’d be 
through already.” 

They were all outside now. There were four 
hundred men in a barracks, and that made eighty 
rows of five lined up one after the other. The rows 
right in front of the barracks kept their lines of five, 
but the fellows in back were just bunched up any old 
way. 

“Line up by fives, you at the back!” the trusty 
yelled down from the steps. But the hell they would. 


1 


177 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 
the bastards! 

Caesar came out of the door all hunched up and 
doing his best to look sick. There were two orderlies 
from the other half of the barracks behind him, and 
two from their half with some lame fellow. They 
chased Caesar to the back and lined up in front of 
all the others. So Shukhov was now in the third row 
of five. 

The warder came out on the steps. 

“Line up by fi-i-ves!” he shouted to the men at 
the back and he had a strong voice. 

“Line up by fi-i-ves!” the trusty bawled too. And 
his voice was even stronger. 

But they still didn’t line up, the bastards. 

The trusty shot down the steps, went to the back, 
and bawled them out real good. And he punched 
some of the guys. But he was careful who he did it 
to. He only hit fellows he knew wouldn’t stick up 
for themselves. They all lined up now and he went 
back to the steps. And he and the Warder started 
yelling together. 

“One, two, three . . .” 

Every row of five shot into the barracks when it 
was called. They were through now for the day ! 

If they didn’t do another check, that is. Any 
sheep-herder could count better than these dopes. 
Maybe he didn’t have any book learning, but he 
could herd his sheep and keep count of them. But 
these bastards couldn’t do it even though they’d been, 
taught how. 


178 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Last winter there hadn’t been any drying room 
for their felt boots in this camp and they had to keep 
them in the barracks all night. They were chased 
outside anywhere up to four times for a recount. 
So they didn’t bother getting dressed even — they 
went out with their blankets around them. This year 
they’d put up drying rooms but they weren’t big 
enough for everybody, so each gang could dry out 
their boots only two nights out of three. And now 
when they had recounts they let you stay inside and 
just chased you from one half of the barracks to the 
other. 

Shukhov wasn’t the first to get back to the 
barracks, but he didn’t take his eyes off the fellow 
who was. He ran right over to Caesar’s bunk and sat 
on it. He pulled off his boots, climbed up on another 
bunk near the stove, and put them on top of it to 
dry. It was first come, first served here. Then he 
went back to Caesar’s bunk. He sat there with his 
legs under him and kept one eye on Caesar’s package 
so no one could pinch it from under the mattress, 
and his other eye was on that stove so nobody’d 
push his boots off in the rush to put their own 
there. 

“Hey, you there with the red hair !” he shouted 
to one fellow. “D’you want that boot in your mug? 
Put your own boots up there if you like but don’t 
touch other people’s !” 

The prisoners were pouring back in the barracks. 
Some fellows in Gang 20 were shouting : “Hand over 


179 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


your boots for the dryer !” 

They let these fellows go out of the barracks with 
the boots and then locked it. And then they’d come 
running back and hammer on the door : Comrade 
Warder, let us in !” But by then the warders would 
be over in HQ doing their bookkeeping on those 
plywood boards to see if anybody’d run away. 

But Shukhov didn’t give a damn about all that 
today. Caesar was coming back now. “Thank you, 
Ivan Denisovich,” he said. 

Shukhov nodded at him and jumped up on his 
own bunk like a squirrel. He could finish off that 
bread now or smoke another cigarette or go to sleep 
if he wanted. 

But Shukhov’d had such a good day — he didn’t 
even feel like sleeping, he felt so great. 

Making his bed wasn’t much trouble — he only 
had to pull that dark blanket off and flop down on 
the mattress (he hadn’t slept on a sheet since forty- 
one, it must’ve been, when he left home, and he 
wondered why the women bothered so much about 
sheets — it only meant more washing), put his 
head on the pillow stuffed with shavings, tuck his 
feet in the arm of the jacket, and spread his coat on 
top of the blanket. And that was that, the end of 
another day ! “Thank God,” he said. 

It wasn’t so bad sleeping here and he was glad 
not to be in the cells. 

Shukhov lay down with his head to the window, 
and Alyoshka was on the other side of the bunk 


180 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

with his head the other way so he got the light 
from the bulb. He was reading the Gospels again. 

Alyoshka’d heard Shukhov thank the Lord and 
he turned to him. ‘‘Look here, Ivan Denisovich, 
your soul wants to pray to God, so why don’t you 
let it have its way ?” 

Shukhov looked at Alyoshka and his eyes were 
narrow. They had a light in them and they were 
like two candles. And he sighed. “I’ll tell you why, 
Alyoshka. Because all these prayers are like the 
complaints we send in to the bigher-ups-either they 
don’t get there or they come back to you marked 
‘Rejected.’ ” 

In front of HQ barracks there were four boxes 
with seals and one of the security guys came along 
every month to empty them. A lot of fellows put 
slips in those boxes and they counted the days — a 
month or two months — waiting to hear. 

Either there was nothing or it was “Rejected.” 

“The trouble is Ivan Denisovich, you don’t pray 
hard enough and that’s why your prayers don’t work 
out. You must pray unceasing ! And if you have 
faith and tell the mountain to move, it will move.” 

Shukhov grinned and made himself another 
cigarette. He got a light from one of the Estonians. 

“Don’t give me that, Alyoshka. I’ve never seen 
a mountain move. But come to think of it. I’ve 
never seen a mountain either. And when you and 
all your Baptists prayed down there in the Caucasus 
did you ever see a mountain move ?” 

The poor fellows. All they did was pray to God. 


181 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


And were they in anybody’s way ? They all got 
twenty-five years, because that’s how it was now — 
twenty-five years for everybody. 

“But me didn’t pray for that, Ivan Denisovich,” 
Alyoshka said, and he came up close to Shukhov 
with his Gospels, right up to his face. “The only thing 
of this earth the Lord has ordered us to pray for is 
our daily bread — ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’” 

“You mean that ration we get ?” Shukhov said. 

But Alyoshka went on and his eyes said more than 
his words and he put his hand on Ivan’s hand. 

“Ivan Denisovich, you mustn’t pray for somebody 
to send you a package or for an extra helping of 
gruel. Things that people set store by are base in the 
sight of the Lord. You must pray for the things of 
the spirit so the Lord will take evil things from our 
hearts....” 

“But listen. The priest in our church in Polom- 
nya....” 

“Don’t tell me about that,” Alyoshka begged and 
he winced with pain. 

“No. But just listen.” And Shukhov bent over to 
him on his elbow. “The priest is the richest man in 
our parish in Polomnya. Suppose they ask you to 
build a roof on a house, your price is thirthy rubles 
for plain people. For the priest it’s a hundred. That 
priest of ours is paying alimony to three women in 
three towns, and he’s living with a fourth. And he’s 
got the bishop under his thumb. You should see the 
way he holds that fat greasy hand of his out to the 
bishop. And it doesn’t matter how many other priests 


182 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovicu 

they send. He always gets rid of ’em. He doesn’t 
■want to share the pickings.” 

“Why are you telling me about this priest ? The 
Orthodox Church has gotten away from the Gospel. 
And the reason they don’t put them in prison is be- 
cause they have no true faith.” 

Shukhov looked straight and hard, and went on 
smoking. “Alyoshka,” he said, and he moved the 
Baptist’s hand away and the smoke from his cigarette 
went in Alyoshka’s face. “I’m not against God, under- 
stand. I believe in God, all right. But what I don’t 
believe in is Heaven and Hell. Who d’you think we 
are, giving us all that stuff about Heaven and Hell ? 
That’s the thing I can’t take.” 

Shukhov lay back again and dropped the ash off 
his cigarette between the bunk and the window, care- 
full so’s not to burn the Captain’s stuff. He was think- 
ing his own thoughts and didn’t hear Alyoshka any 
more, and he said out loud : “The thing is, you can 
pray as much as you like but they won’t take anything 
off your sentence and you’ll just have to sit it out 
every day of it, from reveille to lights out.” 

“You mustn’t pray for that.” Alyoshka was 
horror-struck. “What d’you want your freedom for? 
What faith you have left will be choked in thorns. 
Rejoice that you are in prison. Here you can think of 
your soul. Paul the Apostle said : ‘What mean you to 
weep and to break my heat ? for I am ready not to 
be bound only, but also to die* for the name of the 

♦TRANSLATORS* NOTE : The word* "at Jerusalem,” which 
should appear here, are omitted in the Russian text of the novel 
•(Acts 21 : 13). 


183 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


Lord Jesus.’ ” 

Shukhov looked up at the ceiling and said nothing. 
He didn’t know any longer himself whether he 
wanted freedom or not. At first he’d wanted it very 
much and every day he added up how long he still 
had to go. But then he got fed up with this. And as 
time went on he understood that they might let you 
out but they never let you home. And he didn’t really 
know where he’d be better off. At home or in here. 

But they wouldn’t let him home anyway. . . . 

Alyoshka was talking the truth. You could tell by 
his voice and his eyes he was glad to be in prison. 

“Look Alyoshka,” Shukhov said, “its all right for 
you. It was Christ told you to come here, and you are 
here because of Him. But why am I here ? Because 
they didn’t get ready for the war like they should’ve 
in forty-one ? Was that my fault ?” 

“Looks like they’re not going to check us over 
again.” Kilgas shouted from his bunk. 

“Yeah,” Shukhov said. “We ought to chalk that 
up on the chimney. Doesn’t happen every day.” And 
he yawned. “Time we got some sleep.” 

The barracks was quiet and there wasn’t a sound. 
Then they heard the grinding of the bolt on the 
outside door. The two fellows who’d taken the boots 
to the drying room ran in from the passageway and 
shouted : “Second check !” 

The warder was right behind them and he yelled: 
“Get out on the other side of the barracks !” 

Some of them were sleeping already. They 


184 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 


grumbled and started to move and put their feet in 
their boots (they never took their pants off, it was 
too cold under the blanket and you got all stiff with- 
out them). 

“The bastards !” Shukhov said, but he wasn’t too 
angry because he wasn’t sleeping yet. 

Caesar reached up and gave him two cookies 
two lumps of sugar, and a slice of sausage. 

“Thank you, Caesar Markovich ” Shukhov leaned 
over his bunk. “Now you give me that bag and I’ll 
put it under my pillow here.” (It wasn’t so easy to 
pinch something from a top bunk. And who’d think 
of looking in Shukhov’s anyway ?) 

Caesar handed up to him his white bag tied with 
string, Shukhov put it under his mattress and waited 
a little till they chased most of the fellows out in the 
passageway — so he wouldn’t have to stand there in 
his bare feet any longer than he had to. 

But the warder snarled at him and said : “Hey, 
you over there in the corner !” 

So Shukhov jumped down on the floor in his bare 
feet (his boots and foot-cloths were on the stove 
and they’d gotten nice and warm, and it’d be a 
shame to take them down). All those slippers he’d 
made for other people ! But never for himself. He 
didn’t mind. He was used to this sort of business 
and it would soon be over. 

And they took these slippers away from you too 
if they caught you with them in the day. 

The gangs who had their boots in the drying room 


185 



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

— they didn’t mind much either. Some of them had 
slippers or they went out in their foot-cloths or in 
their bare feet. 

“Get a move on !” the warder yelled. 

“Would you like a taste of the stick, you filthy 
scum ?” the trusty said. He was there too. 

They were all driven over to the other side of the 
barracks and the ones who came last had to go out 
in the passageway. Shukhov stood out there by the 
wall near the latrine. The floor under his feet was 
wet and there was a freezing draft from outside. 

When they’d gotten them all out from the bunks 
the warder and the trusty went around, and had 
another look, just to make sure nobody was sleeping 
in some corner. They were in trouble if they had a 
man missing, and they were in trouble if they had 
one too many — it meant they’d have to start check- 
ing all over again. They went all around and came 
back. 

“One, two, three, four...” They let people back 
one at a time and it went real fast now. Shukhov 
was the eighteenth. He shot over to his bunk, put 
his leg on the ledge, and he was up there in a flash. 

It was great ! He tucked his legs in the arm of 
his jacket again and put the blanket and then his coat 
on top. He’d sleep now. They’d be bringing the guys 
from the other side of the barracks over here to 
check them. But that wouldn’t worry him. 

Caesar came back and Shukhov gave him his 

bag. 


186 



One Day iti the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Alyoshka came back too. He was always trying- 
to please people but he never got anything out of it. 

“Here, Alyoshka.” Shukhov gave him one of the 
cookies. 

Alyoshka smiled. “Thank you, but you haven’t 
got very much yourself.” 

“Go ahead. Eat it.” It was true he didn’t have 
very much but he could always earn something. And 
he put the piece af sausage in his mouth and chewed 
it and chewed it. The taste of that meat, and the 
juice that came out of it ! He’d eat the rest of the 
things before roll call, he thought. And he pulled 
the thin dirty blanket over his face and didn’t hear 
the guys from the other half of the barracks who 
were crowding ;«tound the bunks waiting to be 
checked. 

Shukhov went to sleep, and he was very happy. 
He’d had a lot of luck today. They hadn’t put him in 
the cooler. The gang hadn’t been chased out to work 
in the Socialist Community Development. He’d fina- 
gled an extra bowl of much at noon. The boss had 
gotten them good rates for their work. He’d felt 
good making that wall. They hadn’t found that piece 
of steel in the frisk. Caesar had paid him off in the 
evening. He’d bought some tobacco. e’d gotten 
over that sicknessi, 

Nothing had spoiled the %jr'and^ n had been, 
almost happy. ^ 


187 

Copyright Salman Rushdie, 1988 All rights reserved 

VIKING 



Published by the Penguin Group 

Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. 
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England 
Penguin Books Australia Ltd. Ringwood, Victoria, Australia 

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4 
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190, Wairau Road, Auckland ro, New Zealand 
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England 
Published in 1989 by Viking Penguin Inc. 
For Marianne 



Contents 

I The Angel Gibreel 

II Mahound 

III Ellowen Deeowen 

IV Ayesha 

V A City Visible but Unseen 

VI Return to Jahilia 

VII The Angel Azraeel 

VIII The Parting of the Arabian Seas 

IX A Wonderful Lamp 



Satan, being thus confined to a vagabond, wandering, unsettled condition, is 
without any certain abode; for though he has, in consequence of his angelic 
nature, a kind of empire in the liquid waste or air, yet this is certainly part of 
his punishment, that he is . . . without any fixed place, or space, allowed 
him to rest the sole of his foot upon. 
Daniel Defoe, _The History of the Devil_ 



I The Angel Gibreel 



"To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first 
you have to die. Hoji! Hoji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs 
to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? 
How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to 
get born again . . ." Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day 
or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, 
twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without 
benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky. 

"I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you," and thusly and so beneath a 
moon of alabaster until a loud cry crossed the night, "To the devil with your 
tunes," the words hanging crystalline in the iced white night, "in the movies 
you only mimed to playback singers, so spare me these infernal noises 
now." 

Gibreel, the tuneless soloist, had been cavorting in moonlight as he sang his 
impromptu gazal, swimming in air, butterfly-stroke, breast-stroke, bunching 
himself into a ball, spreadeagling himself against the almost-infinity of the 
almost-dawn, adopting heraldic postures, rampant, couchant, pitting levity 
against gravity. Now he rolled happily towards the sardonic voice. "Ohe, 
Salad baba, it's you, too good. What-ho, old Chumch." At which the other, a 
fastidious shadow falling headfirst in a grey suit with all the jacket buttons 
done up, arms by his sides, taking for granted the improbability of the 
bowler hat on his head, pulled a nickname-hater's face. "Hey, Spoono," 
Gibreel yelled, eliciting a second inverted wince, "Proper London, bhai! Here 
we come! Those bastards down there won't know what hit them. Meteor or 
lightning or vengeance of God. Out of thin air, baby. _Dharrraaammm!_ 
Wham, na? What an entrance, yaar. I swear: splat." 

Out of thin air: a big bang, followed by falling stars. A universal beginning, a 
miniature echo of the birth of time . . . the jumbo jet _Bostan_, Flight AI- 
420, blew apart without any warning, high above the great, rotting, beautiful, 
snow-white, illuminated city, Mahagonny, Babylon, Alphaville. But Gibreel 
has already named it, I mustn't interfere: Proper London, capital of Vilayet, 
winked blinked nodded in the night. While at Himalayan height a brief and 
premature sun burst into the powdery January air, a blip vanished from 
radar screens, and the thin air was full of bodies, descending from the 
Everest of the catastrophe to the milky paleness of the sea. 
Who am I? 
Who else is there? 

The aircraft cracked in half, a seed-pod giving up its spores, an egg yielding 
its mystery. Two actors, prancing Gibreel and buttony, pursed Mr. Saladin 
Chamcha, fell like titbits of tobacco from a broken old cigar. Above, behind, 
below them in the void there hung reclining seats, stereophonic headsets, 
drinks trolleys, motion discomfort receptacles, disembarkation cards, duty- 



free video games, braided caps, paper cups, blankets, oxygen masks. Also -- 
for there had been more than a few migrants aboard, yes, quite a quantity 
of wives who had been grilled by reasonable, doing-their-job officials about 
the length of and distinguishing moles upon their husbands' genitalia, a 
sufficiency of children upon whose legitimacy the British Government had 
cast its everreasonable doubts -- mingling with the remnants of the plane, 
equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, 
broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mothertongues, violated 
privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the 
forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, _land_, _belonging_, _home_. 
Knocked a little silly by the blast, Gibreel and Saladin plummeted like 
bundles dropped by some carelessly open-beaked stork, and because 
Chamcha was going down head first, in the recommended position for babies 
entering the birth canal, he commenced to feel a low irritation at the other's 
refusal to fall in plain fashion. Saladin nosedived while Farishta embraced air, 
hugging it with his arms and legs, a flailing, overwrought actor without 
techniques of restraint. Below, cloud-covered, awaiting their entrance, the 
slow congealed currents of the English Sleeve, the appointed zone of their 
watery reincarnation. 

"O, my shoes are Japanese," Gibreel sang, translating the old song into 
English in semi-conscious deference to the uprushing host-nation, "These 
trousers English, if you please. On my head, red Russian hat; my heart's 
Indian for all that." The clouds were bubbling up towards them, and perhaps 
it was on account of that great mystification of cumulus and cumulo-nimbus, 
the mighty rolling thunderheads standing like hammers in the dawn, or 
perhaps it was the singing (the one busy performing, the other booing the 
performance), or their blast—delirium that spared them full foreknowledge of 
the imminent . . . but for whatever reason, the two men, Gibreelsaladin 
Farishtachamcha, condemned to this endless but also ending angelicdevilish 
fall, did not become aware of the moment at which the processes of their 
transmutation began. 
Mutation? 

Yessir, but not random. Up there in air-space, in that soft, imperceptible 
field which had been made possible by the century and which, thereafter, 
made the century possible, becoming one of its defining locations, the place 
of movement and of war, the planet-shrinker and power-vacuum, most 
insecure and transitory of zones, illusory, discontinuous, metamorphic, -- 
because when you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible 
— wayupthere, at any rate, changes took place in delirious actors that would 
have gladdened the heart of old Mr. Lamarck: under extreme environmental 
pressure, characteristics were acquired. 

What characteristics which? Slow down; you think Creation happens in a 
rush? So then, neither does revelation . . . take a look at the pair of them. 
Notice anything unusual? Just two brown men, falling hard, nothing so new 



about that, you may think; climbed too high, got above themselves, flew too 
close to the sun, is that it? 
That's not it. Listen: 

Mr. Saladin Chamcha, appalled by the noises emanating from Gibreel 
Farishta's mouth, fought back with verses of his own. What Farishta heard 
wafting across the improbable night sky was an old song, too, lyrics by Mr. 
James Thomson, seventeenhundred to seventeen-forty-eight. ". . . at 
Heaven's command," Chamcha carolled through lips turned jingoistically 
redwhiteblue by the cold, "arooooose from out the aaaazure main." Farishta, 
horrified, sang louder and louder of Japanese shoes, Russian hats, inviolately 
subcontinental hearts, but could not still Saladin's wild recital: "And guardian 
aaaaangels sung the strain." 

Let's face it: it was impossible for them to have heard one another, much 
less conversed and also competed thus in song. Accelerating towards the 
planet, atmosphere roaring around them, how could they? But let's face this, 
too: they did. 

Downdown they hurtled, and the winter cold frosting their eyelashes and 
threatening to freeze their hearts was on the point of waking them from 
their delirious daydream, they were about to become aware of the miracle of 
the singing, the rain of limbs and babies of which they were a part, and the 
terror of the destiny rushing at them from below, when they hit, were 
drenched and instantly iced by, the degree-zero boiling of the clouds. 
They were in what appeared to be a long, vertical tunnel. Chamcha, prim, 
rigid, and still upside-down, saw Gibreel Farishta in his purple bush-shirt 
come swimming towards him across that cloud-walled funnel, and would 
have shouted, "Keep away, get away from me," except that something 
prevented him, the beginning of a little fluttery screamy thing in his 
intestines, so instead of uttering words of rejection he opened his arms and 
Farishta swam into them until they were embracing head-to-tail, and the 
force of their collision sent them tumbling end over end, performing their 
geminate cartwheels all the way down and along the hole that went to 
Wonderland; while pushing their way out of the white came a succession of 
cloudforms, ceaselessly metamorphosing, gods into bulls, women into 
spiders, men into wolves. Hybrid cloud-creatures pressed in upon them, 
gigantic flowers with human breasts dangling from fleshy stalks, winged cats, 
centaurs, and Chamcha in his semi-consciousness was seized by the notion 
that he, too, had acquired the quality of cloudiness, becoming metamorphic, 
hybrid, as if he were growing into the person whose head nestled now 
between his legs and whose legs were wrapped around his long, patrician 
neck. 

This person had, however, no time for such "high falutions"; was, indeed, 
incapable of faluting at all; having just seen, emerging from the swirl of 
cloud, the figure of a glamorous woman of a certain age, wearing a brocade 
sari in green and gold, with a diamond in her nose and lacquer defending her 



high-coiled hair against the pressure of the wind at these altitudes, as she 
sat, equably, upon a flying carpet. "Rekha Merchant," Gibreel greeted her. 
"You couldn't find your way to heaven or what?" Insensitive words to speak 
to a dead woman! But his concussed, plummeting condition may be offered 
in mitigation 

. . . Chamcha, clutching his legs, made an uncomprehending query: "What 
the hell?" 

"You don't see her?" Gibreel shouted. "You don't see her goddamn Bokhara 
rug?" 

No, no, Gibbo, her voice whispered in his ears, don't expect him to confirm. 
I am strictly for your eyes only, maybe you are going crazy, what do you 
think, you namaqool, you piece of pig excrement, my love. With death 
comes honesty, my beloved, so I can call you by your true names. 
Cloudy Rekha murmured sour nothings, but Gibreel cried again to Chamcha: 
"Spoono? You see her or you don't?" 

Saladin Chamcha saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing. Gibreel faced 
her alone. "You shouldn't have done it," he admonished her. "No, sir. A sin. 
A suchmuch thing." 

O, you can lecture me now, she laughed. You are the one with the high 
moral tone, that's a good one. It was you who left me, her voice reminded 
his ear, seeming to nibble at the lobe. It was you, O moon of my delight, 
who hid behind a cloud. And I in darkness, blinded, lost, for love. 
He became afraid. "What do you want? No, don't tell, just go." 
When you were sick I could not see you, in case of scandal, you knew I 
could not, that I stayed away for your sake, but afterwards you punished, 
you used it as your excuse to leave, your cloud to hide behind. That, and 
also her, the icewoman. Bastard. Now that I am dead I have forgotten how 
to forgive. I curse you, my Gibreel, may your life be hell. Hell, because 
that's where you sent me, damn you, where you came from, devil, where 
you're going, sucker, enjoy the bloody dip. Rekha's curse; and after that, 
verses in a language he did not understand, all harshnesses and sibilance, in 
which he thought he made out, but maybe not, the repeated name _AI-Lat_. 
He clutched at Chamcha; they burst through the bottom of the clouds. 
Speed, the sensation of speed, returned, whistling its fearful note. The roof 
of cloud fled upwards, the water-floor zoomed closer, their eyes opened. A 
scream, that same scream that had fluttered in his guts when Gibreel swam 
across the sky, burst from Chamcha's lips; a shaft of sunlight pierced his 
open mouth and set it free. But they had fallen through the transformations 
of the clouds, Chamcha and Farishta, and there was a fluidity, an 
indistinctness, at the edges of them, and as the sunlight hit Chamcha it 
released more than noise: 

"Fly," Chamcha shrieked at Gibreel. "Start flying, now." And added, without 
knowing its source, the second command: "And sing." 
How does newness come into the world? How is it born? 



Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? 

How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, 

what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the 

wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? 

Is birth always a fall? 

Do angels have wings? Can men fly? 

When Mr. Saladin Chamcha fell out of the clouds over the English Channel 
he felt his heart being gripped by a force so implacable that he understood it 
was impossible for him to die. Afterwards, when his feet were once more 
firmly planted on the ground, he would begin to doubt this, to ascribe the 
implausibilities of his transit to the scrambling of his perceptions by the blast, 
and to attribute his survival, his and Gibreel's, to blind, dumb luck. But at 
the time he had no doubt; what had taken him over was the will to live, 
unadulterated, irresistible, pure, and the first thing it did was to inform him 
that it wanted nothing to do with his pathetic personality, that half- 
reconstructed affair of mimicry and voices, it intended to bypass all that, and 
he found himself surrendering to it, yes, go on, as if he were a bystander in 
his own mind, in his own body, because it began in the very centre of his 
body and spread outwards, turning his blood to iron, changing his flesh to 
steel, except that it also felt like a fist that enveloped him from outside, 
holding him in a way that was both unbearably tight and intolerably gentle; 
until finally it had conquered him totally and could work his mouth, his 
fingers, whatever it chose, and once it was sure of its dominion it spread 
outward from his body and grabbed Gibreel Farishta by the balls. 
"Fly," it commanded Gibreel. "Sing." 

Chamcha held on to Gibreel while the other began, slowly at first and then 
with increasing rapidity and force, to flap his arms. Harder and harder he 
flapped, and as he flapped a song burst out of him, and like the song of the 
spectre of Rekha Merchant it was sung in a language he did not know to a 
tune he had never heard. Gibreel never repudiated the miracle; unlike 
Chamcha, who tried to reason it out of existence, he never stopped saying 
that the gazal had been celestial, that without the song the flapping would 
have been for nothing, and without the flapping it was a sure thing that they 
would have hit the waves like rocks or what and simply burst into pieces on 
making contact with the taut drum of the sea. Whereas instead they began 
to slow down. The more emphatically Gibreel flapped and sang, sang and 
flapped, the more pronounced the deceleration, until finally the two of them 
were floating down to the Channel like scraps of paper in a breeze. 
They were the only survivors of the wreck, the only ones who fell from 
_Bostan_ and lived. They were found washed up on a beach. The more 
voluble of the two, the one in the purple shirt, swore in his wild ramblings 
that they had walked upon the water, that the waves had borne them gently 
in to shore; but the other, to whose head a soggy bowler hat clung as if by 
magic, denied this. "God, we were lucky," he said. "How lucky can you get?" 



I know the truth, obviously. I watched the whole thing. As to omnipresence 
and -potence, I'm making no claims at present, but I can manage this much, 
I hope. Chamcha willed it and Farishta did what was willed. 
Which was the miracle worker? 

Of what type -- angelic, satanic -- was Farishta's song? 
Who am I? 

Let's put it this way: who has the best tunes? 

These were the first words Gibreel Farishta said when he awoke on the 
snowbound English beach with the improbability of a starfish by his ear: 
"Born again, Spoono, you and me. Happy birthday, mister; happy birthday 
to you." 

Whereupon Saladin Chamcha coughed, spluttered, opened his eyes, and, as 
befitted a new-born babe, burst into foolish tears. 

2 

Reincarnation was always a big topic with Gibreel, for fifteen years the 
biggest star in the history of the Indian movies, even before he 
"miraculously" defeated the Phantom Bug that everyone had begun to 
believe would terminate his contracts. So maybe someone should have been 
able to forecast, only nobody did, that when he was up and about again he 
would sotospeak succeed where the germs had failed and walk out of his old 
life forever within a week of his fortieth birthday, vanishing, poof!, like a 
trick, _into thin air_. 

The first people to notice his absence were the four members of his film- 
studio wheelchair-team. Long before his illness he had formed the habit of 
being transported from set to set on the great D. W. Rama lot by this group 
of speedy, trusted athletes, because a man who makes up to eleven movies 
"sy-multaneous" needs to conserve his energies. Guided by a complex 
coding system of slashes, circles and dots which Gibreel remembered from 
his childhood among the fabled lunch-runners of Bombay (of which more 
later), the chair-men zoomed him from role to role, delivering him as 
punctually and unerringly as once his father had delivered lunch. And after 
each take Gibreel would skip back into the chair and be navigated at high 
speed towards the next set, to be re-costumed, made up and handed his 
lines. "A career in the Bombay talkies," he told his loyal crew, "is more like a 
wheelchair race with one-two pit stops along the route." 
After the illness, the Ghostly Germ, the Mystery Malaise, the Bug, he had 
returned to work, easing himself in, only seven pictures at a time . . . and 
then, justlikethat, he wasn't there. The wheelchair stood empty among the 
silenced sound-stages; his absence revealed the tawdry shamming of the 
sets. Wheelchairmen, one to four, made excuses for the missing star when 
movie executives descended upon them in wrath: Ji, he must be sick, he has 
always been famous for his punctual, no, why to criticize, maharaj, great 
artists must from time to time be permitted their temperament, na, and for 



their protestations they became the first casualties of Farishta's unexplained 
hey-presto, being fired, four three two one, ekdumjaldi, ejected from studio 
gates so that a wheelchair lay abandoned and gathering dust beneath the 
painted coco-palms around a sawdust beach. 

Where was Gibreel? Movie producers, left in seven lurches, panicked 
expensively. See, there, at the Willingdon Club golf links -- only nine holes 
nowadays, skyscrapers having sprouted out of the other nine like giant 
weeds, or, let's say, like tombstones marking the sites where the torn corpse 
of the old city lay -- there, right there, upper-echelon executives, missing 
the simplest putts; and, look above, tufts of anguished hair, torn from senior 
heads, wafting down from high-level windows. The agitation of the producers 
was easy to understand, because in those days of declining audiences and 
the creation of historical soap operas and contemporary crusading 
housewives by the television network, there was but a single name which, 
when set above a picture's title, could still offer a sure-fire, cent-per-cent 
guarantee of an Ultrahit, a Smashation, and the owner of said name had 
departed, up, down or sideways, but certainly and unarguably vamoosed . . . 
All over the city, after telephones, motorcyclists, cops, frogmen and trawlers 
dragging the harbour for his body had laboured mightily but to no avail, 
epitaphs began to be spoken in memory of the darkened star. On one of 
Rama Studios' seven impotent stages, Miss Pimple Billimoria, the latest 
chilli-and-spices bombshell -- _she's no flibberti-gibberti mamzel!, but a 
whir-stir-get-lost-sir bundla dynamite_ -- clad in temple—dancer veiled 
undress and positioned beneath writhing cardboard representations of 
copulating Tantric figures from the Chandela period, -- and perceiving that 
her major scene was not to be, her big break lay in pieces -- offered up a 
spiteful farewell before an audience of sound recordists and electricians 
smoking their cynical beedis. Attended by a dumbly distressed ayah, all 
elbows, Pimple attempted scorn. "God, what a stroke of luck, for Pete's 
sake," she cried. "I mean today it was the love scene, chhi chhi, I was just 
dying inside, thinking how to go near to that fatmouth with his breath of 
rotting cockroach dung." Bell-heavy anklets jingled as she stamped. "Damn 
good for him the movies don't smell, or he wouldn't get one job as a leper 
even." Here Pimple's soliloquy climaxed in such a torrent of obscenities that 
the beedi-smokers sat up for the first time and commenced animatedly to 
compare Pimple's vocabulary with that of the infamous bandit queen Phoolan 
Devi whose oaths could melt rifle barrels and turn journalists' pencils to 
rubber in a trice. 

Exit Pimple, weeping, censored, a scrap on a cutting-room floor. Rhinestones 
fell from her navel as she went, mirroring her tears. . . in the matter of 
Farishta's halitosis she was not, however, altogether wrong; if anything, she 
had a little understated the case. Gibreel's exhalations, those ochre clouds of 
sulphur and brimstone, had always given him -- when taken together with 
his pronounced widow's peak and crowblack hair -- an air more saturnine 



than haloed, in spite of his archangelic name. It was said after he 
disappeared that he ought to have been easy to find, all it took was a 
halfway decent nose . . . and one week after he took off, an exit more tragic 
than Pimple Billimoria's did much to intensify the devilish odour that was 
beginning to attach itself to that forsolong sweet-smelling name. You 
could .say that he had stepped out of the screen into the world, and in life, 
unlike the cinema, people know it if you stink. 

_We are creatures of air, Our roots in dreams And clouds, reborn In flight. 
Goodbye_. The enigmatic note discovered by the police in Gibreel Farishta's 
penthouse, located on the top floor of the Everest Vilas skyscraper on 
Malabar Hill, the highest home in the highest building on the highest ground 
in the city, one of those double-vista apartments from which you could look 
this way across the evening necklace of Marine Drive or that way out to 
Scandal Point and the sea, permitted the newspaper headlines to prolong 
their cacophonies. FARISHTA DIVES UNDERGROUND, opined _Blitz_ in 
somewhat macabre fashion, while Busybee in _The Daily_ preferred 
GIBREEL FLIES coop. Many photographs were published of that fabled 
residence in which French interior decorators bearing letters of 
commendation from Reza Pahlevi for the work they had done at Persepolis 
had spent a million dollars recreating at this exalted altitude the effect of a 
Bedouin tent. Another illusion unmade by his absence; GIBREEL STRIKES 
CAMP, the headlines yelled, but had he gone up or down or sideways? No 
one knew. In that metropolis of tongues and whispers, not even the 
sharpest ears heard anything reliable. But Mrs. Rekha Merchant, reading all 
the papers, listening to all the radio broadcasts, staying glued to the 
Doordarshan TV programmes, gleaned something from Farishta's message, 
heard a note that eluded everyone else, and took her two daughters and one 
son for a walk on the roof of her high-rise home. Its name was Everest Vilas. 
His neighbour; as a matter of fact, from the apartment directly beneath his 
own. His neighbour and his friend; why should I say any more? Of course 
the scandal-pointed malice-magazines of the city filled their columns with 
hint innuendo and nudge, but that's no reason for sinking to their level. Why 
tarnish her reputation now? 

Who was she? Rich, certainly, but then Everest Vilas was not exactly a 
tenement in Kurla, eh? Married, yessir, thirteen years, with a husband big in 
ball-bearings. Independent, her carpet and antique showrooms thriving at 
their prime Colaba sites. She called her carpets _klims_ and _kleens_ and 
the ancient artefacts were _anti-queues_. Yes, and she was beautiful, 
beautiful in the hard, glossy manner of those rarefied occupants of the city's 
sky-homes, her bones skin posture all bearing witness to her long divorce 
from the impoverished, heavy, pullulating earth. Everyone agreed she had a 
strong personality, drank Jike a fish_ from Lalique crystal and hung her hat 
_shameless_ on a Chola Natraj and knew what she wanted and how to get it, 
fast. The husband was a mouse with money and a good squash wrist. Rekha 



Merchant read Gibreel Farishta's farewell note in the newspapers, wrote a 
letter of her own, gathered her children, summoned the elevator, and rose 
heavenward (one storey) to meet her chosen fate. 

"Many years ago," her letter read, "I married out of cowardice. Now, finally, 
I'm doing something brave." She left a newspaper on her bed with Gibreel's 
message circled in red and heavily underscored -- three harsh lines, one of 
them ripping the page in fury. So naturally the bitch-journals went to town 
and it was all LOVELV'S LOVELORN LEAP, and BROKEN-HEARTED BEAUTY 
TAKES LAST DIVE. But: 

Perhaps she, too, had the rebirth bug, and Gibreel, not understanding the 
terrible power of metaphor, had recommended flight. _To be born again, first 
you have to_ and she was a creature of the sky, she drank Lalique 
champagne, she lived on Everest, and one of her fellow-Olympians had 
flown; and if he could, then she, too, could be winged, and rooted in dreams. 
She didn't make it. The lala who was employed as gatekeeper of the Everest 
Vilas compound offered the world his blunt testimony. "I was walking, here 
here, in the compound only, when there came a thud, _tharaap_. I turned. 
It was the body of the oldest daughter. Her skull was completely crushed. I 
looked up and saw the boy falling, and after him the younger girl. What to 
say, they almost hit me where I stood. I put my hand on my mouth and 
came to them. The young girl was whining softly. Then I looked up a further 
time and the Begum was coming. Her sari was floating out like a big balloon 
and all her hair was loose. I took my eyes away from her because she was 
falling and it was not respectful to look up inside her clothes." 
Rekha and her children fell from Everest; no survivors. The whispers blamed 
Gibreel. Let's leave it at that for the oment. Oh: don't forget: he saw her 
after she died. He saw her several times. It was a long time before people 
understood how sick the great man was. Gibreel, the star. Gibreel, who 
vanquished the Nameless Ailment. Gibreel, who feared sleep. 
After he departed the ubiquitous images of his face began to rot. On the 
gigantic, luridly coloured hoardings from which he had watched over the 
populace, his lazy eyelids started flaking and crumbling, drooping further 
and further until his irises looked like two moons sliced by clouds, or by the 
soft knives of his long lashes. Finally the eyelids fell off, giving a wild, 
bulging look to his painted eyes. Outside the picture palaces of Bombay, 
mammoth cardboard effigies of Gibreel were seen to decay and list. 
Dangling limply on their sustaining scaffolds, they lost arms, withered, 
snapped at the neck. His portraits on the covers of movie magazines 
acquired the pallor of death, a nullity about the eye, a hollowness. At last his 
images simply faded off the printed page, so that the shiny covers of 
_Celebrity_ and _Society_ and _Illustrated Weekly_ went blank at the 
bookstalls and their publishers fired the printers and blamed the quality of 
the ink. Even on the silver screen itself, high above his worshippers in the 
dark, that supposedly immortal physiognomy began to putrefy, blister and 



bleach; projectors jammed unaccountably every time he passed through the 
gate, his films ground to a halt, and the lamp-heat of the malfunctioning 
projectors burned his celluloid memory away: a star gone supernova, with 
the consuming fire spreading outwards, as was fitting, from his lips. 
It was the death of God. Or something very like it; for had not that outsize 
face, suspended over its devotees in the artificial cinematic night, shone like 
that of some supernal Entity that had its being at least halfway between the 
mortal and the divine? More than halfway, many would have argued, for 
Gibreel had spent the greater part of his unique career incarnating, with 
absolute conviction, the countless deities of the subcontinent in the popular 
genre movies known as "theologicals". It was part of the magic of his 
persona that he succeeded in crossing religious boundaries without giving 
offence. Blue-skinned as Krishna he danced, flute in hand, amongst the 
beauteous gopis and their udder-heavy cows; with upturned palms, serene, 
he meditated (as Gautama) upon humanity's suffering beneath a studio- 
rickety bodhi-tree. On those infrequent occasions when he descended from 
the heavens he never went too far, playing, for example, both the Grand 
Mughal and his famously wily minister in the classic _Akbar and Birbal_. For 
over a decade and a half he had represented, to hundreds of millions of 
believers in that country in which, to this day, the human population 
outnumbers the divine by less than three to one, the most acceptable, and 
instantly recognizable, face of the Supreme. For many of his fans, the 
boundary separating the performer and his roles had longago ceased to exist. 
The fans, yes, and? How about Gibreel? 

That face. In real life, reduced to life-size, set amongst ordinary mortals, it 
stood revealed as oddly un-starry. Those low-slung eyelids could give him an 
exhausted look. There was, too, something coarse about the nose, the 
mouth was too well fleshed to be strong, the ears were long-lobed like 
young, knurled jackfruit. The most profane of faces, the most sensual of 
faces. In which, of late, it had been possible to make out the seams mined 
by his recent, near-fatal illness. And yet, in spite of profanity and debilitation, 
this was a face inextricably mixed up with holiness, perfection, grace: God 
stuff. No accounting for tastes, that's all. At any rate, you'll agree that for 
such an actor (for any actor, maybe, even for Chamcha, but most of all for 
him) to have a bee in his bonnet about avatars, like much-metamorphosed 
Vishnu, was not so very surprising. Rebirth: that's God stuff, too. 
Or, but, then again . . . not always. There are secular reincarnations, too. 
Gibreel Farishta had been born Ismail Najmuddin in Poona, British Poona at 
the empire's fag-end, long before the Pune of Rajneesh etc. (Pune, Vadodara, 
Mumbai; even towns can take stage names nowadays.) Ismail after the child 
involved in the sacrifice of Ibrahim, and Najmuddin, _star of the faith_; he'd 
given up quite a name when he took the angel's. 

Afterwards, when the aircraft _Bostan_ was in the grip of the hijackers, and 
the passengers, fearing for their futures, were regressing into their pasts, 



Gibreel confided to Saladin Chamcha that his choice of pseudonym had been 
his way of making a homage to the memory of his dead mother, "my 
mummyji, Spoono, my one and only Mamo, because who else was it who 
started the whole angel business, her personal angel, she called me, 
_farishta_, because apparently I was too damn sweet, believe it or not, I 
was good as goddamn gold." 

Poona couldn't hold him; he was taken in his infancy to the bitch-city, his 
first migration; his father got a job amongst the fleet-footed inspirers of 
future wheelchair quartets, the lunch-porters or dabbawallas of Bombay. 
And Ismail the farishta followed, at thirteen, in his father's footsteps. 
Gibreel, captive aboard AI-420, sank into forgivable rhapsodies, fixing 
Chamcha with his glittering eye, explicating the mysteries of the runners' 
coding system, black swastika red circle yellow slash dot, running in his 
mind's eye the entire relay from home to office desk, that improbable 
system by which two thousand dabbawallas delivered, each day, over one 
hundred thousand lunch-pails, and on a bad day, Spoono, maybe fifteen got 
mislaid, we were illiterate, mostly, but the signs were our secret tongue. 
_Bostan_ circled London, gunmen patrolling the gangways, and the lights in 
the passenger cabins had been switched off, but Gibreel's energy illuminated 
the gloom. On the grubby movie screen on which, earlier in the journey, the 
inflight inevitability of Walter Matthau had stumbled lugubriously into the 
aerial ubiquity of Goldie Hawn, there were shadows moving, projected by the 
nostalgia of the hostages, and the most sharply defined of them was this 
spindly adolescent, Ismail Najmuddin, mummy's angel in a Gandhi cap, 
running tiffins across the town. The young dabbawalla skipped nimbly 
through the shadow-crowd, because he was used to such conditions, think, 
Spoono, picture, thirty-forty tiffins in a long wooden tray on your head, and 
when the local train stops you have maybe one minute to push on or off, 
and then running in the streets, flat out, yaar, with the trucks buses scooters 
cycles and what-all, one-two, one-two, lunch, lunch, the dabbas must get 
through, and in the monsoon running down the railway line when the train 
broke down, or waist-deep in water in some flooded street, and there were 
gangs, Salad baba, truly, organized gangs of dabba-stealers, it's a hungry 
city, baby, what to tell you, but we could handle them, we were everywhere, 
knew everything, what thieves could escape our eyes and ears, we never 
went to any policia, we looked after our own. 

At night father and son would return exhausted to their shack by the airport 
runway at Santacruz and when Ismail's mother saw him approaching, 
illuminated by the green red yellow of the departing jet-planes, she would 
say that simply to lay eyes on him made all her dreams come true, which 
was the first indication that there was something peculiar about Gibreel, 
because from the beginning, it seemed, he could fulfil people's most secret 
desires without having any idea of how he did it. His father Najmuddin 
Senior never seemed to mind that his wife had eyes only for her son, that 



the boy's feet received nightly pressings while the father's went unstroked. A 
son is a blessing and a blessing requires the gratitude of the blest. 
Naima Najmuddin died. A bus hit her and that was that, Gibreel wasn't 
around to answer her prayers for life. Neither father nor son ever spoke of 
grief. Silently, as though it were customary and expected, they buried their 
sadness beneath extra work, engaging in an inarticulate contest, who could 
carry the most dabbas on his head, who could acquire the most new 
contracts per month, who could run faster, as though the greater labour 
would indicate the greater love. When he saw his father at night, the knotted 
veins bulging in his neck and at his temples, Ismail Najmuddin would 
understand how much the older man had resented him, and how important 
it was for the father to defeat the son and regain, thereby, his usurped 
primacy in the affections of his dead wife. Once he realized this, the youth 
eased off, but his father's zeal remained unrelenting, and pretty soon he was 
getting promotion, no longer a mere runner but one of the organizing 
muqaddams. When Gibreel was nineteen, Najmuddin Senior became a 
member of the lunch-runners' guild, the Bombay Tiffin Carriers' Association, 
and when Gibreel was twenty, his father was dead, stopped in his tracks by 
a stroke that almost blew him apart. "He just ran himself into the ground," 
said the guild's General Secretary, Babasaheb Mhatre himself. "That poor 
bastard, he just ran out of steam." But the orphan knew better. He knew 
that his father had finally run hard enough and long enough to wear down 
the frontiers between the worlds, he had run clear out of his skin and into 
the arms of his wife, to whom he had proved, once and for all, the 
superiority of his love. Some migrants are happy to depart. 
Babasaheb Mhatre sat in a blue office behind a green door above a 
labyrinthine bazaar, an awesome figure, buddha-fat, one of the great 
moving forces of the metropolis, possessing the occult gift of remaining 
absolutely still, never shifting from his room, and yet being everywhere 
important and meeting everyone who mattered in Bombay. The day after 
young Ismail's father ran across the border to see Naima, the Babasaheb 
summoned the young man into his presence. "So? Upset or what?" The reply, 
with downcast eyes: ji, thank you, Babaji, I am okay. "Shut your face," said 
Babasaheb Mhatre. "From today you live with me." Butbut, Babaji ... "But 
me no buts. Already I have informed my goodwife. I have spoken." Please 
excuse Babaji but how what why? "I have _spoken_." 
Gibreel Farishta was never told why the Babasaheb had decided to take pity 
on him and pluck him from the futurelessness of the streets, but after a 
while he began to have an idea. Mrs. Mhatre was a thin woman, like a pencil 
beside the rubbery Babasaheb, but she was filled so full of mother-love that 
she should have been fat like a potato. When the Baba came home she put 
sweets into his mouth with her own hands, and at nights the newcomer to 
the household could hear the great General Secretary of the B T C A 
protesting, Let me go, wife, I can undress myself. At breakfast she spoon- 



fed Mhatre with large helpings of malt, and before he went to work she 
brushed his hair. They were a childless couple, and young Najmuddin 
understood that the Babasaheb wanted him to share the load. Oddly enough, 
however, the Begum did not treat the young man as a child. "You see, he is 
a grown fellow," she told her husband when poor Mhatre pleaded, "Give the 
boy the blasted spoon of malt." Yes, a grown fellow, "we must make a man 
of him, husband, no babying for him." "Then damn it to hell," the Babasaheb 
exploded, "why do you do it to me?" Mrs. Mhatre burst into tears. "But you 
are everything to me," she wept, "you are my father, my lover, my baby too. 
You are my lord and my suckling child. If I displease you then I have no 
life." 

Babasaheb Mhatre, accepting defeat, swallowed the tablespoon of malt. 
He was a kindly man, which he disguised with insults and noise. To console 
the orphaned youth he would speak to him, in the blue office, about the 
philosophy of rebirth, convincing him that his parents were already being 
scheduled for re-entry somewhere, unless of course their lives had been so 
holy that they had attained the final grace. So it was Mhatre who started 
Farishta off on the whole reincarnation business, and not just reincarnation. 
The Babasaheb was an amateur psychic, a tapper of table-legs and a bringer 
of spirits into glasses. "But I gave that up," he told his protege, with many 
suitably melodramatic inflections, gestures, frowns, "after I got the fright of 
my bloody life." 

Once (Mhatre recounted) the glass had been visited by the most co- 
operative of spirits, such a too-friendly fellow, see, so I thought to ask him 
some big questions. _Is there a God_, and that glass which had been 
running round like a mouse or so just stopped dead, middle of table, not a 
twitch, completely phutt, kaput. So, then, okay, I said, if you won't answer 
that try this one instead, and I came right out with it, _Is there a Devil_. 
After that the glass -- baprebap! -- began to shake -- catch your ears! -- 
slowslow at first, then faster- -faster, like a jelly, until it jumped! -- ai-hai! -- 
up from the table, into the air, fell down on its side, and -- o-ho! -- into a 
thousand and one pieces, smashed. Believe don't believe, Babasaheb Mhatre 
told his charge, but thenandthere I learned my lesson: don't meddle, Mhatre, 
in what you do not comprehend. 

This story had a profound effect on the consciousness of the young listener, 
because even before his mother's death he had become convinced of the 
existence of the supernatural world. Sometimes when he looked around him, 
especially in the afternoon heat when the air turned glutinous, the visible 
world, its features and inhabitants and things, seemed to be sticking up 
through the atmosphere like a profusion of hot icebergs, and he had the idea 
that everything continued down below the surface of the soupy air: people, 
motor-cars, dogs, movie billboards, trees, nine-tenths of their reality 
concealed from his eyes. He would blink, and the illusion would fade, but the 
sense of it never left him. He grew up believing in God, angels, demons, 



afreets, djinns, as matter-of-factly as if they were bullock-carts or lamp- 
posts, and it struck him as a failure in his own sight that he had never seen 
a ghost. He would dream of discovering a magic optometrist from whom he 
would purchase a pair of greentinged spectacles which would correct his 
regrettable myopia, and after that he would be able to see through the 
dense, blinding air to the fabulous world beneath. 

From his mother Naima Najmuddin he heard a great many stories of the 
Prophet, and if inaccuracies had crept into her versions he wasn't interested 
in knowing what they were. "What a man!" he thought. "What angel would 
not wish to speak to him?" Sometimes, though, he caught himself in the act 
of forming blasphemous thoughts, for example when without meaning to, as 
he drifted off to sleep in his cot at the Mhatre residence, his somnolent fancy 
began to compare his own condition with that of the Prophet at the time 
when, having been orphaned and short of funds, he made a great success of 
his job as the business manager of the wealthy widow Khadija, and ended 
up marrying her as well. As he slipped into sleep he saw himself sitting on a 
rose-strewn dais, simpering shyly beneath the sari-pallu which he had 
placed demurely over his face, while his new husband, Babasaheb Mhatre, 
reached lovingly towards him to remove the fabric, and gaze at his features 
in a mirror placed in his lap. This dream of marrying the Babasaheb brought 
him awake, flushing hotly for shame, and after that he began to worry about 
the impurity in his make-up that could create such terrible visions. 
Mostly, however, his religious faith was a low-key thing, a part of him that 
required no more special attention than any other. When Babasaheb Mhatre 
took him into his home it confirmed to the young man that he was not alone 
in the world, that something was taking care of him, so he was not entirely 
surprised when the Babasaheb called him into the blue office on the morning 
of his twenty-first birthday and sacked him without even being prepared to 
listen to an appeal. 

"You're fired," Mhatre emphasized, beaming. "Cashiered, had your chips. 
Dis-_miss_." 
"But, uncle," 
"Shut your face." 

Then the Babasaheb gave the orphan the greatest present of his life, 
informing him that a meeting had been arranged for him at the studios of 
the legendary film magnate Mr. D. W. Rama; an audition. "It is for 
appearance only," the Babasaheb said. "Rama is my good friend and we 
have discussed. A small part to begin, then it is up to you. Now get out of 
my sight and stop pulling such humble faces, it does not suit." 
"But, uncle," 

"Boy like you is too damn goodlooking to carry tiffins on his head all his life. 
Get gone now, go, be a homosexual movie actor. I fired you five minutes 
back." 

"But, uncle," 



"I have spoken. Thank your lucky stars." 

He became Gibreel Farishta, but for four years he did not become a star, 
serving his apprenticeship in a succession of minor knockabout comic parts. 
He remained calm, unhurried, as though he could see the future, and his 
apparent lack of ambition made him something of an outsider in that most 
self-seeking of industries. He was thought to be stupid or arrogant or both. 
And throughout the four wilderness years he failed to kiss a single woman 
on the mouth. 

On-screen, he played the fall guy, the idiot who loves the beauty and can't 
see that she wouldn't go for him in a thousand years, the funny uncle, the 
poor relation, the village idiot, the servant, the incompetent crook, none of 
them the type of part that ever rates a love scene. Women kicked him, 
slapped him, teased him, laughed at him, but never, on celluloid, looked at 
him or sang to him or danced around him with cinematic love in their eyes. 
Off-screen, he lived alone in two empty rooms near the studios and tried to 
imagine what women looked like without clothes on. To get his mind off the 
subject of love and desire, he studied, becoming an omnivorous autodidact, 
devouring the metamorphic myths of Greece and Rome, the avatars of 
Jupiter, the boy who became a flower, the spider-woman, Circe, everything; 
and the theosophy of Annie Besant, and unified field theory, and the incident 
of the Satanic verses in the early career of the Prophet, and the politics of 
uhammad's harem after his return to Mecca in triumph; and the surrealism 
of the newspapers, in which butterflies could fly into young girls' mouths, 
asking to be consumed, and children were born with no faces, and young 
boys dreamed in impossible detail of earlier incarnations, for instance in a 
golden fortress filled with precious stones. He filled himself up with God 
knows what, but he could not deny, in the small hours of his insomniac 
nights, that he was full of something that had never been used, that he did 
not know how to begin to use, that is, love. In his dreams he was tormented 
by women of unbearable sweetness and beauty, so he preferred to stay 
awake and force himself to rehearse some part of his general knowledge in 
order to blot out the tragic feeling of being endowed with a larger-than-usual 
capacity for love, without a single person on earth to offer it to. 
His big break arrived with the coming of the theological movies. Once the 
formula of making films based on the puranas, and adding the usual mixture 
of songs, dances, funny uncles etc., had paid off, every god in the pantheon 
got his or her chance to be a star. When D. W. Rama scheduled a production 
based on the story of Ganesh, none of the leading box-office names of the 
time were willing to spend an entire movie concealed inside an elephant's 
head. Gibreel jumped at the chance. That was his first hit, _Ganpati Baba_, 
and suddenly he was a superstar, but only with the trunk and ears on. After 
six movies playing the elephantheaded god he was permitted to remove the 
thick, pendulous, grey mask and put on, instead, a long, hairy tail, in order 
to play Hanuman the monkey king in a sequence of adventure movies that 



owed more to a certain cheap television series emanating from Hong Kong 
than it did to the Ramayana. This series proved so popular that monkey-tails 
became de rigueur for the city's young bucks at the kind of parties 
frequented by convent girls known as "firecrackers" because of their 
readiness to go off with a bang. 

After Hanuman there was no stopping Gibreel, and his phenomenal success 
deepened his belief in a guardian angel. But it also led to a more regrettable 
development. 

(I see that I must, after all, spill poor Rekha's beans.) 
Even before he replaced false head with fake tail he had become irresistibly 
attractive to women. The seductions of his fame had grown so great that 
several of these young ladies asked him if he would keep the Ganesh-mask 
on while they made love, but he refused out of respect for the dignity of the 
god. Owing to the innocence of his upbringing he could not at that time 
differentiate between quantity and quality and accordingly felt the need to 
make up for lost time. He had so many sexual partners that it was not 
uncommon for him to forget their names even before they had left his room. 
Not only did he become a philanderer of the worst type, but he also learned 
the arts of dissimulation, because a man who plays gods must be above 
reproach. So skilfully did he conceal his life of scandal and debauch that his 
old patron, Babasaheb Mhatre, lying on his deathbed a decade after he sent 
a young dabbawalla out into the world of illusion, black-money and lust, 
begged him to get married to prove he was a man. "God-sake, mister," the 
Babasaheb pleaded, "when I told you back then to go and be a homo I never 
thought you would take me seriously, there is a limit to respecting one's 
elders, after all." Gibreel threw up his hands and swore that he was no such 
disgraceful thing, and that when the right girl came along he would of course 
undergo nuptials with a will. "What you waiting? Some goddess from heaven? 
Greta Garbo, Gracekali, who?" cried the old man, coughing blood, but 
Gibreel left him with the enigma of a smile that allowed him to die without 
having his mind set entirely at rest. 

The avalanche of sex in which Gibreel Farishta was trapped managed to bury 
his greatest talent so deep that it might easily have been lost forever, his 
talent, that is, for loving genuinely, deeply and without holding back, the 
rare and delicate gift which he had never been able to employ. By the time 
of his illness he had all but forgotten the anguish he used to experience 
owing to his longing for love, which had twisted and turned in him like a 
sorcerer's knife. Now, at the end of each gymnastic night, he slept easily 
and long, as if he had never been plagued by dream-women, as if he had 
never hoped to lose his heart. 

"Your trouble," Rekha Merchant told him when she materialized out of the 
clouds, "is everybody always forgave you, God knows why, you always got 
let off, you got away with murder. Nobody ever held you responsible for 
what you did." He couldn't argue. "God's gift," she screamed at him, "God 



knows where you thought you were from, jumped-up type from the gutter, 
God knows what diseases you brought." 

But that was what women did, he thought in those days, they were the 
vessels into which he could pour himself, and when he moved on, they 
would understand that it was his nature, and forgive. And it was true that 
nobody blamed him for leaving, for his thousand and one pieces of 
thoughtlessness, how many abortions, Rekha demanded in the cloud-hole, 
how many broken hearts. In all those years he was the beneficiary of the 
infinite generosity of women, but he was its victim, too, because their 
forgiveness made possible the deepest and sweetest corruption of all, 
namely the idea that he was doing nothing wrong. 

Rekha: she entered his life when he bought the penthouse at Everest Vilas 
and she offered, as a neighbour and businesswoman, to show him her 
carpets and antiques. Her husband was at a world-wide congress of ball- 
bearings manufacturers in Gothenburg, Sweden, and in his absence she 
invited Gibreel into her apartment of stone lattices from Jaisalmer and 
carved wooden handrails from Kcralan palaces and a stone Mughal chhatri or 
cupola turned into a whirlpool bath; while she poured him French 
champagne she leaned against marbled walls and felt the cool veins of the 
stone against her back. When he sipped the champagne she teased him, 
surely gods should not partake of alcohol, and he answered with a line he 
had once read in an interview with the Aga Khan, O, you know, this 
champagne is only for outward show, the moment it touches my lips it turns 
to water. After that it didn't take long for her to touch his lips and deliquesce 
into his arms. By the time her children returned from school with the ayah 
she was immaculately dressed and coiffed, and sat with him in the drawing- 
room, revealing the secrets of the carpet business, confessing that art silk 
stood for artificial not artistic, telling him not to be fooled by her brochure in 
which a rug was seductively described as being made of wool plucked from 
the throats of baby lambs, which means, you see, only _low-grade wool_, 
advertising, what to do, this is how it is. 

He did not love her, was not faithful to her, forgot her birthdays, failed to 
return her phone calls, turned up when it was most inconvenient owing to 
the presence in her home of dinner guests from the world of the ball-bearing, 
and like everyone else she forgave him. But her forgiveness was not the 
silent, mousy let-off he got from the others. Rekha complained like crazy, 
she gave him hell, she bawled him out and cursed him for a useless lafanga 
and haramzada and salah and even, in extremis, for being guilty of the 
impossible feat of fucking the sister he did not have. She spared him nothing, 
accusing him of being a creature of surfaces, like a movie screen, and then 
she went ahead and forgave him anyway and allowed him to unhook her 
blouse. Gibreel could not resist the operatic forgiveness of Rekha Merchant, 
which was all the more moving on account of the flaw in her own position, 
her infidelity to the ball-bearing king, which Gibreel forbore to mention, 



taking his verbal beatings like a man. So that whereas the pardons he got 
from the rest of his women left him cold and he forgot them the moment 
they were uttered, he kept coming back to Rekha, so that she could abuse 
him and then console him as only she knew how. 
Then he almost died. 

He was filming at Kanya Kumari, standing on the very tip of Asia, taking part 
in a fight scene set at the point on Cape Comorin where it seems that three 
oceans are truly smashing into one another. Three sets of waves rolled in 
from the west east south and collided in a mighty clapping of watery hands 
just as Gibreel took a punch on the jaw, perfect timing, and he passed out 
on the spot, falling backwards into tri-oceanic spume. He did not get up. To 
begin with everybody blamed the giant English stunt-man Eustace Brown, 
who had delivered the punch. He protested vehemently. Was he not the 
same fellow who had performed opposite Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao in 
his many theological movie roles? Had he not perfected the art of making 
the old man look good in combat without hurting him? Had he ever 
complained that NTR never pulled his punches, so that he, Eustace, 
invariably ended up black and blue, having been beaten stupid by a little old 
guy whom he could've eaten for breakfast, on _toast_, and had he ever, 
even once, lost his temper? Well, then? How could anyone think he would 
hurt the immortal Gibreel? -- They fired him anyway and the police put him 
in the lock-up, just in case. 

But it was not the punch that had flattened Gibreel. After the star had been 
flown into Bombay's Breach Candy Hospital in an Air Force jet made 
available for the purpose; after exhaustive tests had come up with almost 
nothing; and while he lay unconscious, dying, with a blood-count that had 
fallen from his normal fifteen to a murderous four point two, a hospital 
spokesman faced the national press on Breach Candy's wide white steps. "It 
is a freak mystery," he gave out. "Call it, if you so please, an act of God." 
Gibreel Farishta had begun to haemorrhage all over his insides for no 
apparent reason, and was quite simply bleeding to death inside his skin. At 
the worst moment the blood began to seep out through his rectum and penis, 
and it seemed that at any moment it might burst torrentially through his 
nose and ears and out of the corners of his eyes. For seven days he bled, 
and received transfusions, and every clotting agent known to medical 
science, including a concentrated form of rat poison, and although the 
treatment resulted in a marginal improvement the doctors gave him up for 
lost. 

The whole of India was at Gibreel's bedside. His condition was the lead item 
on every radio bulletin, it was the subject of hourly news-flashes on the 
national television network, and the crowd that gathered in Warden Road 
was so large that the police had to disperse it with lathi-charges and tear- 
gas, which they used even though every one of the half-million mourners 
was already tearful and wailing. The Prime Minister cancelled her 



appointments and flew to visit him. Her son the airline pilot sat in Farishta's 
bedroom, holding the actor's hand. A mood of apprehension settled over the 
nation, because if God had unleashed such an act of retribution against his 
most celebrated incarnation, what did he have in store for the rest of the 
country? If Gibreel died, could India be far behind? In the mosques and 
temples of the nation, packed congregations prayed, not only for the life of 
the dying actor, but for the future, for themselves. 

Who did not visit Gibreel in hospital? Who never wrote, made no telephone 
call, despatched no flowers, sent in no tiffins of delicious home cooking? 
While many lovers shamelessly sent him get-well cards and lamb pasandas, 
who, loving him most of all, kept herself to herself, unsuspected by her ball- 
-bearing of a husband? Rekha Merchant placed iron around her heart, and 
went through the motions of her daily life, playing with her children, chit- 
chatting with her husband, acting as his hostess when required, and never, 
not once, revealed the bleak devastation of her soul. 
He recovered. 

The recovery was as mysterious as the illness, and as rapid. It, too, was 
called (by hospital, journalists, friends) an act of the Supreme. A national 
holiday was declared; fireworks were set off up and down the land. But 
when Gibreel regained his strength, it became clear that he had changed, 
and to a startling degree, because he had lost his faith. 
On the day he was discharged from hospital he went under police escort 
through the immense crowd that had gathered to celebrate its own 
deliverance as well as his, climbed into his Mercedes and told the driver to 
give all the pursuing vehicles the slip, which took seven hours and fifty-one 
minutes, and by the end of the manoeuvre he had worked out what had to 
be done. He got out of the limousine at the Taj hotel and without looking left 
or right went directly into the great dining-room with its buffet table 
groaning under the weight of forbidden foods, and he loaded his plate with 
all of it, the pork sausages from Wiltshire and the cured York hams and the 
rashers of bacon from godknowswhere; with the gammon steaks of his 
unbelief and the pig's trotters of secularism; and then, standing there in the 
middle of the hall, while photographers popped up from nowhere, he began 
to eat as fast as possible, stuffing the dead pigs into his face so rapidly that 
bacon rashers hung out of the sides of his mouth. 

During his illness he had spent every minute of consciousness calling upon 
God, every second of every minute. Ya Allah whose servant lies bleeding do 
not abandon me now after watching oven me so long. Ya Allah show me 
some sign, some small mark of your favour, that I may find in myself the 
strength to cure my ills. O God most beneficent most merciful, be with me in 
this my time of need, my most grievous need. Then it occurred to him that 
he was being punished, and for a time that made it possible to suffer the 
pain, but after a time he got angry. Enough, God, his unspoken words 



demanded, why must I die when I have not killed, are you vengeance or are 
you love? The anger with God carried him through another day, but then it 
faded, and in its place there came a terrible emptiness, an isolation, as he 
realized he was talking to _thin air_, that there was nobody there at all, and 
then he felt more foolish than ever in his life, and he began to plead into the 
emptiness, ya Allah, just be there, damn it, just be. But he felt nothing, 
nothing nothing, and then one day he found that he no longer needed there 
to be anything to feel. On that day of metamorphosis the illness changed 
and his recovery began. And to prove to himself the non-existence of God, 
he now stood in the dining-hall of the city's most famous hotel, with pigs 
falling out of his face. 

He looked up from his plate to find a woman watching him. Her hair was so 
fair that it was almost white, and her skin possessed the colour and 
translucency of mountain ice. She laughed at him and turned away. 
"Don't you get it?" he shouted after her, spewing sausage fragments from 
the corners of his mouth. "No thunderbolt. That's the point." 
She came back to stand in front of him. "You're alive," she told him. "You 
got your life back. _That's_ the point." 

He told Rekha: the moment she turned around and started walking back I 
fell in love with her. Alleluia Cone, climber of mountains, vanquisher of 
Everest, blonde yahudan, ice queen. Her challenge, _change your life, or did 
you get it back for nothing_, I couldn't resist. 

"You and your reincarnation junk," Rekha cajoled him. "Such a nonsense 
head. You come out of hospital, back through death's door, and it goes to 
your head, crazy boy, at once you must have some escapade thing, and 
there she is, hey presto, the blonde mame. Don't think I don't know what 
you're like, Gibbo, so what now, you want me to forgive you or what?" 
No need, he said. He left Rekha's apartment (its mistress wept, face-down, 
on the floor); and never entered it again. 

Three days after he met her with his mouth full of unclean meat Allie got 
into an aeroplane and left. Three days out of time behind a do-not-disturb 
sign, but in the end they agreed that the world was real, what was possible 
was possible and what was impossible was im--, brief encounter, ships that 
pass, love in a transit lounge. After she left, Gibreel rested, tried to shut his 
ears to her challenge, resolved to get his life back to normal. Just because 
he'd lost his belief it didn't mean he couldn't do his job, and in spite of the 
scandal of the ham-eating photographs, the first scandal ever to attach itself 
to his name, he signed movie contracts and went back to work. 
And then, one morning, a wheelchair stood empty and he had gone. A 
bearded passenger, one Ismail Najmuddin, boarded Flight AI-420 to London. 
The 747 was named after one of the gardens of Paradise, not Gulistan but 
_Bostan_. "To be born again," Gibreel Farishta said to Saladin Chamcha 
much later, "first you have to die. Me, I only half-expired, but I did it on two 
occasions, hospital and plane, so it adds up, it counts. And now, Spoono my 



friend, here I stand before you in Proper London, Vilayet, regenerated, a 
new man with a new life. Spoono, is this not a bloody fine thing?" 
Why did he leave? 

Because of her, the challenge of her, the newness, the fierceness of the two 
of them together, the inexorability of an impossible thing that was insisting 
on its right to become. 

And, or, maybe: because after he ate the pigs the retribution began, a 

nocturnal retribution, a punishment of dreams. 

3 

Once the flight to London had taken off, thanks to his magic trick of crossing 
two pairs of fingers on each hand and rotating his thumbs, the narrow, 
fortyish fellow who sat in a non-smoking window seat watching the city of 
his birth fall away from him like old snakeskin allowed a relieved expression 
to pass briefly across his face. This face was handsome in a somewhat sour, 
patrician fashion, with long, thick, downturned lips like those of a disgusted 
turbot, and thin eyebrows arching sharply over eyes that watched the world 
with a kind of alert contempt. Mr. Saladin Chamcha had constructed this 
face with care -- it had taken him several years to get it just right — and for 
many more years now he had thought of it simply as _his own_ -- indeed, 
he had forgotten what he had looked like before it. Furthermore, he had 
shaped himself a voice to go with the face, a voice whose languid, almost 
lazy vowels contrasted disconcertingly with the sawn--off abruptness of the 
consonants. The combination of face and voice was a potent one; but, 
during his recent visit to his home town, his first such visit in fifteen years 
(the exact period, I should observe, of Gibreel Farishta's film stardom), 
there had been strange and worrying developments. It was unfortunately 
the case that his voice (the first to go) and, subsequently, his face itself, had 
begun to let him down. 

It started — Chamcha, allowing fingers and thumbs to relax and hoping, in 
some embarrassment, that his last remaining superstition had gone 
unobserved by his fellow-passengers, closed his eyes and remembered with 
a delicate shudder of horror — on his flight east some weeks ago. He had 
fallen into a torpid sleep, high above the desert sands of the Persian Gulf, 
and been visited in a dream by a bizarre stranger, a man with a glass skin, 
who rapped his knuckles mournfully against the thin, brittle membrane 
covering his entire body and begged Saladin to help him, to release him 
from the prison of his skin. Chamcha picked up a stone and began to batter 
at the glass. At once a latticework of blood oozed up through the cracked 
surface of the stranger's body, and when Chamcha tried to pick off the 
broken shards the other began to scream, because chunks of his flesh were 
coming away with the glass. At this point an air stewardess bent over the 
sleeping Chamcha and demanded, with the pitiless hospitality of her tribe: 
_Something to drink, sir? A drink?_, and Saladin, emerging from the dream, 
found his speech unaccountably metamorphosed into the Bombay lilt he had 



so diligently (and so long ago!) unmade. "Achha, means what?" he mumbled. 
"Alcoholic beverage or what?" And, when the stewardess reassured him, 
whatever you wish, sir, all beverages are gratis, he heard, once again, his 
traitor voice: "So, okay, bibi, give one whiskysoda only." 
What a nasty surprise! He had come awake with a jolt, and sat stiffly in his 
chair, ignoring alcohol and peanuts. How had the past bubbled up, in 
transmogrified vowels and vocab? What next? Would he take to putting 
coconut-oil in his hair? Would he take to squeezing his nostrils between 
thumb and forefinger, blowing noisily and drawing forth a glutinous silver arc 
of muck? Would he become a devotee of professional wrestling? What 
further, diabolic humiliations were in store? He should have known it was a 
mistake to _go home_, after so long, how could it be other than a regression; 
it was an unnatural journey; a denial of time; a revolt against history; the 
whole thing was bound to be a disaster. 

_I'm not myself_, he thought as a faint fluttering feeling began in the 
vicinity of his heart. But what does that mean, anyway, he added bitterly. 
After all, "les acteurs ne sont pas des gens", as the great ham Frederick had 
explained in _Les Enfants du Paradis_. Masks beneath masks until suddenly 
the bare bloodless skull. 

The seatbelt light came on, the captain's voice warned of air turbulence, 
they dropped in and out of air pockets. The desert lurched about beneath 
them and the migrant labourer who had boarded at Qatar clutched at his 
giant transistor radio and began to retch. Chamcha noticed that the man had 
not fastened his belt, and pulled himself together, bringing his voice back to 
its haughtiest English pitch. "Look here, why don't you. . ." he indicated, but 
the sick man, between bursts of heaving into the paper bag which Saladin 
had handed him just in time, shook his head, shrugged, replied: "Sahib, for 
what? If Allah wishes me to die, I shall die. If he does not, I shall not. Then 
of what use is the safety?" 

Damn you, India, Saladin Chamcha cursed silently, sinking back into his seat. 
To hell with you, I escaped your clutches long ago, you won't get your hooks 
into me again, you cannot drag me back. 

Once upon a time -- _it was and it was not so_, as the old stories used to 
say, _it happened and it never did_ -- maybe, then, or maybe not, a ten- 
year-old boy from Scandal Point in Bombay found a wallet lying in the Street 
outside his home. He was on the way home from school, having just 
descended from the school bus on which he had been obliged to sit 
squashed between the adhesive sweatiness of boys in shorts and be 
deafened by their noise, and because even in those days he was a person 
who recoiled from raucousness, jostling and the perspiration of strangers he 
was feeling faintly nauseated by the long, bumpy ride home. However, when 
he saw the black leather billfold lying at his feet, the nausea vanished, and 
he bent down excitedly and grabbed, -- opened, -- and found, to his delight, 
that it was full of cash, -- and not merely rupees, but real money, negotiable 



on black markets and international exchanges, -- pounds! Pounds sterling, 
from Proper London in the fabled country of Vilayet across the black water 
and far away. Dazzled by the thick wad of foreign currency, the boy raised 
his eyes to make sure he had not been observed, and for a moment it 
seemed to him that a rainbow had arched down to him from the heavens, a 
rainbow like an angel's breath, like an answered prayer, coming to an end in 
the very spot on which he stood. His fingers trembled as they reached into 
the wallet, towards the fabulous hoard. 

"Give it." It seemed to him in later life that his father had been spying on 
him throughout his childhood, and even though Changez Chamchawala was 
a big man, a giant even, to say nothing of his wealth and public standing, he 
still always had the lightness of foot and also the inclination to sneak up 
behind his son and spoil whatever he was doing, whipping the young 
Salahuddin's bedsheet off at night to reveal the shameful penis in the 
clutching, red hand. And he could smell money from a hundred and one 
miles away, even through the stink of chemicals and fertilizer that always 
hung around him owing to his being the country's largest manufacturer of 
agricultural sprays and fluids and artificial dung. Changez Chamchawala, 
philanthropist, philanderer, living legend, leading light of the nationalist 
movement, sprang from the gateway of his home to pluck a bulging wallet 
from his son's frustrated hand. "Tch tch," he admonished, pocketing the 
pounds sterling, "you should not pick things up from the street. The ground 
is dirty, and money is dirtier, anyway." 

On a shelf of Changez Chamchawala's teak-lined study, beside a ten-volume 
set of the Richard Burton translation of the Arabian Nights, which was being 
slowly devoured by mildew and bookworm owing to the deep-seated 
prejudice against books which led Changez to own thousands of the 
pernicious things in order to humiliate them by leaving them to rot unread, 
there stood a magic lamp, a brightly polished copper--and— brass avatar of 
Aladdin's very own genie-container: a lamp begging to be rubbed. But 
Changez neither rubbed it nor permitted it to be rubbed by, for example, his 
son. "One day," he assured the boy, "you'll have it for yourself. Then rub 
and rub as much as you like and see what doesn't come to you. Just now, 
but, it is mine." The promise of the magic lamp infected Master Salahuddin 
with the notion that one day his troubles would end and his innermost 
desires would be gratified, and all he had to do was wait it out; but then 
there was the incident of the wallet, when the magic of a rainbow had 
worked for him, not for his father but for him, and Changez Chamchawala 
had stolen the crock of gold. After that the son became convinced that his 
father would smother all his hopes unless he got away, and from that 
moment he became desperate to leave, to escape, to place oceans between 
the great man and himself. 

Salahuddin Chamchawala had understood by his thirteenth year that he was 
destined for that cool Vilayet full of the crisp promises of pounds sterling at 



which the magic billfold had hinted, and he grew increasingly impatient of 
that Bombay of dust, vulgarity, policemen in shorts, transvestites, movie 
fanzines, pavement sleepers and the rumoured singing whores of Grant 
Road who had begun as devotees of the Yellamma cult in Karnataka but 
ended up here as dancers in the more prosaic temples of the flesh. He was 
fed up of textile factories and local trains and all the confusion and 
superabundance of the place, and longed for that dream-Vilayet of poise and 
moderation that had come to obsess him by night and day. His favourite 
playground rhymes were those that yearned for foreign cities: kitchy--con 
kitchy-ki kitchy-con stanty-eye kitchy-ople kitchy-cople kitchyCon-stanti- 
nople. And his favourite game was the version ofgrandmother's footsteps in 
which, when he was it, he would turn his back on upcreeping playmates to 
gabble out, like a mantra, like a spell, the six letters of his dream--city, 
_ellowen deeowen_. In his secret heart, he crept silently up on London, 
letter by letter, just as his friends crept up to him. _Ellowen deeowen 
London_. 

The mutation of Salahuddin Chamchawala into Saladin Chamcha began, it 
will be seen, in old Bombay, long before he got close enough to hear the 
lions of Trafalgar roar. When the England cricket team played India at the 
Brabourne Stadium, he prayed for an England victory, for the game's 
creators to defeat the local upstarts, for the proper order of things to be 
maintained. (But the games were invariably drawn, owing to the featherbed 
somnolence of the Brabourne Stadium wicket; the great issue, creator 
versus imitator, colonizer against colonized, had perforce to remain 
unresolved.) 

In his thirteenth year he was old enough to play on the rocks at Scandal 
Point without having to be watched over by his ayah, Kasturba. And one day 
(it was so, it was not so), he strolled out of the house, that ample, crumbling, 
salt-caked building in the Parsi style, all columns and shutters and little 
balconies, and through the garden that was his father's pride and joy and 
which in a certain evening light could give the impression of being infinite 
(and which was also enigmatic, an unsolved riddle, because nobody, not his 
father, not the gardener, could tell him the names of most of the plants and 
trees), and out through the main gateway, a grandiose folly, a reproduction 
of the Roman triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, and across the wild 
insanity of the street, and over the sea wall, and so at last on to the broad 
expanse of shiny black rocks with their little shrimpy pools. Christian girls 
giggled in frocks, men with furled umbrellas stood silent and fixed upon the 
blue horizon. In a hollow of black stone Salahuddin saw a man in a dhoti 
bending over a pool. Their eyes met, and the man beckoned him with a 
single finger which he then laid across his lips. _Shh_, and the mystery of 
rock-pools drew the boy towards the stranger. He was a creature of bone. 
Spectacles framed in what might have been ivory. His finger curling, curling, 
like a baited hook, come. When Salahuddin came down the other grasped 



him, put a hand around his mouth and forced his young hand between old 
and fleshless legs, to feel the fleshbone there. The dhoti open to the winds. 
Salahuddin had never known how to fight; he did what he was forced to do, 
and then the other simply turned away from him and let him go. 
After that Salahuddin never went to the rocks at Scandal Point; nor did he 
tell anyone what had happened, knowing the neurasthenic crises it would 
unleash in his mother and suspecting that his father would say it was his 
own fault. It seemed to him that everything loathsome, everything he had 
come to revile about his home town, had come together in the stranger's 
bony embrace, and now that he had escaped that evil skeleton he must also 
escape Bombay, or die. He began to concentrate fiercely upon this idea, to 
fix his will upon it at all times, eating shitting sleeping, convincing himself 
that he could make the miracle happen even without his father's lamp to 
help him out. He dreamed of flying out of his bedroom window to discover 
that there, below him, was -- not Bombay -- but Proper London itself, 
Bigben Nelsonscolumn Lordstavern Bloodytower Queen. But as he floated 
out over the great metropolis he felt himself beginning to lose height, and no 
matter how hard he struggled kicked swam-in-air he continued to spiral 
slowly downwards to earth, then faster, then faster still, until he was 
screaming headfirst down towards the city, Saintpauls, Puddinglane, 
Threadneedlestreet, zeroing in on London like a bomb, 
ooo 

When the impossible happened, and his father, out of the blue, offered him 
an English education, _to get me out of the way_, he thought, _otherwise 
why, it's obvious, but don't look a gift horse andsoforth_, his mother 
Nasreen Chamchawala refused to cry, and volunteered, instead, the benefit 
of her advice. "Don't go dirty like those English," she warned him. "They 
wipe their bee tee ems with paper only. Also, they get into each other's dirty 
bathwater." These vile slanders proved to Salahuddin that his mother was 
doing her damnedest to prevent him from leaving, and in spite of their 
mutual love he replied, "It is inconceivable, Ammi, what you say. England is 
a great civilization, what are you talking, bunk." 

She smiled her little nervy smile and did not argue. And, later, stood dry- 
eyed beneath the triumphal arch of a gateway and would not go to 
Santacruz airport to see him off. Her only child. She heaped garlands around 
his neck until he grew dizzy with the cloying perfumes of mother-love. 
Nasreen Chamchawala was the slightest, most fragile of women, her bones 
like tinkas, like minute slivers of wood. To make up for her physical 
insignificance she took at an early age to dressing with a certain outrageous, 
excessive verve. Her sari-- patterns were dazzling, even garish: lemon silk 
adorned with huge brocade diamonds, dizzy black-and-white Op Art swirls, 
gigantic lipstick kisses on a bright white ground. People forgave her her lurid 
taste because she wore the blinding garments with such innocence; because 



the voice emanating from that textile cacophony was so tiny and hesitant 
and proper. And because of her soirees. 

Each Friday of her married life, Nasreen would fill the halls of the 
Chamchawala residence, those usually tenebrous chambers like great hollow 
burial vaults, with bright light and brittle friends. When Salahuddin was a 
little boy he had insisted on playing doorman, and would greet the jewelled 
and lacquered guests with great gravity, permitting them to pat him on the 
head and call him _cuteso_ and _chweetie-pie_. On Fridays the house was 
full of noise; there were musicians, singers, dancers, the latest Western hits 
as heard on Radio Ceylon, raucous puppet-shows in which painted clay 
rajahs rode puppet-stallions, decapitating enemy marionettes with 
imprecations and wooden swords. During the rest of the week, however, 
Nasreen would stalk the house warily, a pigeon of a woman walking on 
tiptoed feet through the gloom, as if she were afraid to disturb the shadowed 
silence; and her son, walking in her footsteps, also learned to lighten his 
footfall lest he rouse whatever goblin or afreet might be lying in wait. 
But: Nasreen Chamchawala's caution failed to save her life. The horror 
seized and murdered her when she believed herself most safe, clad in a sari 
covered in cheap newspaper photos and headlines, bathed in chandelier- 
light, surrounded by her friends, 
ooo 

By then five and a half years had passed since young Salahuddin, garlanded 
and warned, boarded a Douglas D C-8 and journeyed into the west. Ahead of 
him, England; beside him, his father, Changez Chamchawala; below him, 
home and beauty. Like Nasreen, the future Saladin had never found it easy 
to cry. 

On that first aeroplane he read science fiction tales of interplanetary 
migration: Asimov's _Foundation_, Ray Bradbury's _Martian Chronicles_. He 
imagined the DC--8 was the mother ship, bearing the Chosen, the Elect of 
God and man, across unthinkable distances, travelling for generations, 
breeding eugenically, that their seed might one day take root somewhere in 
a brave new world beneath a yellow sun. He corrected himself: not the 
mother but the father ship, because there he was, after all, the great man, 
Abbu, Dad. Thirteen-year-old Salahuddin, setting aside recent doubts and 
grievances, entered once again his childish adoration of his father, because 
he had, had, had worshipped him, he was a great father until you started 
growing a mind of your own, and then to argue with him was called a 
betrayal of his love, but never mind that now, _I accuse him of becoming my 
supreme being, so that what happened was like a loss of faith_ . . . yes, the 
father ship, an aircraft was not a flying womb but a metal phallus, and the 
passengers were spermatozoa waiting to be spilt. 

Five and a half hours of time zones; turn your watch upside down in Bombay 
and you see the time in London. _My father_, Chamcha would think, years 
later, in the midst of his bitterness. _I accuse him of inverting Time_. 



How far did they fly? Five and a half thousand as the crow. Or: from 
Indianness to Englishness, an immeasurable distance. Or, not very far at all, 
because they rose from one great city, fell to another. The distance between 
cities is always small; a villager, travelling a hundred miles to town, 
traverses emptier, darker, more terrifying space. 

What Changez Chamchawala did when the aeroplane took off: trying not to 
let his son see him doing it, he crossed two pairs of fingers on each hand, 
and rotated both his thumbs. 

And when they were installed in a hotel within a few feet of the ancient 
location of the Tyburn tree, Changez said to his son: "Take. This belongs to 
you." And held out, at arm's length, a black billfold about whose identity 
there could be no mistake. "You are a man now. Take." 
The return of the confiscated wallet, complete with all its currency, proved to 
be one of Changez Chamchawala's little traps. Salahuddin had been 
deceived by these all his life. Whenever his father wanted to punish him, he 
would offer him a present, a bar of imported chocolate or a tin of Kraft 
cheese, and would then grab him when he came to get it. "Donkey," 
Changez scorned his infant son. "Always, always, the carrot leads you to my 
stick." 

Salahuddin in London took the proffered wallet, accepting the gift of 
manhood; whereupon his father said: "Now that you are a man, it is for you 
to look after your old father while we are in London town. You pay all the 
bills." 

January, 1961. A year you could turn upside down and it would still, unlike 
your watch, tell the same time. It was winter; but when Salahuddin 
Chamchawala began to shiver in his hotel room, it was because he was 
scared halfway out of his wits; his crock of gold had turned, suddenly, into a 
sorcerer's curse. 

Those two weeks in London before he went to his boarding school turned 
into a nightmare of cash — tills and calculations, because Changez had meant 
exactly what he said and never put his hand into his own pocket once. 
Salahuddin had to buy his own clothes, such as a double-breasted blue 
serge mackintosh and seven blue-and-white striped Van Heusen shirts with 
detachable semi--stiff collars which Changez made him wear every day, to 
get used to the studs, and Salahuddin felt as if a blunt knife were being 
pushed in just beneath his newly broken Adam"s-apple; and he had to make 
sure there would be enough for the hotel room, and everything, so that he 
was too nervous to ask his father if they could go to a movie, not even one, 
not even _The Pure Hell of St Trinians_, or to eat out, not a single Chinese 
meal, and in later years he would remember nothing of his first fortnight in 
his beloved Ellowen Deeowen except pounds shillings pence, like the disciple 
of the philosopher—king Chanakya who asked the great man what he meant 
by saying one could live in the world and also not live in it, and who was told 
to carry a brim-full pitcher of water through a holiday crowd without spilling 



a drop, on pain of death, so that when he returned he was unable to 
describe the day's festivities, having been like a blind man, seeing only the 
jug on his head. 

Changez Chamchawala became very still in those days, seeming not to care 
if he ate or drank or did any damn thing, he was happy sitting in the hotel 
room watching television, especially when the Flintstones were on, because, 
he told his son, that Wilma bibi reminded him of Nasreen. Salahuddin tried 
to prove he was a man by fasting right along with his father, trying to 
outlast him, but he never managed it, and when the pangs got too strong he 
went out of the hotel to the cheap joint nearby where you could buy take- 
away roast chickens that hung greasily in the window, turning slowly on 
their spits. When he brought the chicken into the hotel lobby he became 
embarrassed, not wanting the staff to see, so he stuffed it inside 
doublebreasted serge and went up in the lift reeking of spit—roast, his 
mackintosh bulging, his face turning red. Chicken-breasted beneath the gaze 
of dowagers and liftwallahs he felt the birth of that implacable rage which 
would burn within him, undiminished, for over a quarter of a century; which 
would boil away his childhood father-worship and make him a secular man, 
who would do his best, thereafter, to live without a god of any type; which 
would fuel, perhaps, his determination to become the thing his father was- 
not-could-never-be, that is, a goodandproper Englishman. Yes, an English, 
even if his mother had been right all along, even if there was only paper in 
the toilets and tepid, used water full of mud and soap to step into after 
taking exercise, even if it meant a lifetime spent amongst winter—naked 
trees whose fingers clutched despairingly at the few, pale hours of watery, 
filtered light. On winter nights he, who had never slept beneath more than a 
sheet, lay beneath mountains of wool and felt like a figure in an ancient 
myth, condemned by the gods to have a boulder pressing down upon his 
chest; but never mind, he would be English, even if his classmates giggled 
at his voice and excluded him from their secrets, because these exclusions 
only increased his determination, and that was when he began to act, to find 
masks that these fellows would recognize, paleface masks, clown-masks, 
until he fooled them into thinking he was _okay_, he was _people-like-us_. 
He fooled them the way a sensitive human being can persuade gorillas to 
accept him into their family, to fondle and caress and stuff bananas in his 
mouth. 

(After he had settled up the last bill, and the wallet he had once found at a 
rainbow's end was empty, his father said to him: "See now. You pay your 
way. I've made a man of you." But what man? That's what fathers never 
know. Not in advance; not until it's too late.) 

One day soon after he started at the school he came down to breakfast to 
find a kipper on his plate. He sat there staring at it, not knowing where to 
begin. Then he cut into it, and got a mouthful of tiny bones. And after 
extracting them all, another mouthful, more bones. His fellow-pupils 



watched him suffer in silence; not one of them said, here, let me show you, 
you eat it in this way. It took him ninety minutes to eat the fish and he was 
not permitted to rise from the table until it was done. By that time he was 
shaking, and if he had been able to cry he would have done so. Then the 
thought occurred to him that he had been taught an important lesson. 
England was a peculiar-tasting smoked fish full of spikes and bones, and 
nobody would ever tell him how to eat it. He discovered that he was a 
bloody-minded person. "I'll show them all," he swore. "You see if I don't." 
The eaten kipper was his first victory, the first step in his conquest of 
England. 

William the Conqueror, it is said, began by eating a mouthful of English sand, 
ooo 

Five years later he was back home after leaving school, waiting until the 
English university term began, and his transmutation into a Vilayeti was well 
advanced. "See how well he complains," Nasreen teased him in front of his 
father. "About everything he has such big-big criticisms, the fans are fixed 
too. loosely to the roof and will fall to slice our heads off in our sleep, he 
says, and the food is too fattening, why we don't cook some things without 
frying, he wants to know, the top-floor balconies are unsafe and the paint is 
peeled, why can't we take pride in our surroundings, isn't it, and the garden 
is overgrown, we are just junglee people, he thinks so, and look how coarse 
our movies are, now he doesn't enjoy, and so much disease you can't even 
drink water from the tap, my god, he really got an education, husband, our 
little Sallu, England—returned, and talking so fine and all." 
They were walking on the lawn in the evening, watching the sun dive into 
the sea, wandering in the shade of those great spreading trees, some snaky 
some bearded, which Salahuddin (who now called himself Saladin after the 
fashion of the English school, but would remain Chamchawala for a while yet, 
until a theatrical agent shortened his name for commercial reasons) had 
begun to be able to name, jackfruit, banyan, jacaranda, flame of the forest, 
plane. Small chhooi-mooi touch-me-not plants grew at the foot of the tree of 
his own life, the walnut-tree that Changez had planted with his own hands 
on the day of the coming of the son. Father and son at the birth-tree were 
both awkward, unable to respond properly to Nasreen's gentle fun. Saladin 
had been seized by the melancholy notion that the garden had been a better 
place before he knew its names, that something had been lost which he 
would never be able to regain. And Changez Chamchawala found that he 
could no longer look his son in the eye, because the bitterness he saw came 
close to freezing his heart. When he spoke, turning roughly away from the 
eighteen-year-old walnut in which, at times during their long separations, he 
had imagined his only son's soul to reside, the words came out incorrectly 
and made him sound like the rigid, cold figure he had hoped he would never 
become, and feared he could not avoid. 



"Tell your son," Changez boomed at Nasreen, "that if he went abroad to 
learn contempt for his own kind, then his own kind can feel nothing but 
scorn for him. What is he? A fauntleroy, a grand panjandrum? Is this my 
fate: to lose a son and find a freak?" 

"Whatever I am, father dear," Saladin told the older man, "I owe it all to 
you." 

It was their last family chat. All that summer feelings continued to run high, 
for all Nasreen's attempts at mediation, _you must apologize to your father, 
darling, poor man is suffering like the devil but his pride won't let him hug 
you_. Even the ayah Kasturba and the old bearer Vallabh, her husband, 
attempted to mediate but neither father nor son would bend. "Same material 
is the problem," Kasturba told Nasreen. "Daddy and sonny, same material, 
same to same." 

When the war with Pakistan began that September Nasreen decided, with a 
kind of defiance, that she would not cancel her Friday parties, "to show that 
Hindus—Muslims can love as well as hate," she pointed out. Changez saw a 
look in her eyes and did not attempt to argue, but set the servants to 
putting blackout curtains over all the windows instead. That night, for the 
last time, Saladin Chamchawala played his old role of doorman, dressed up 
in an English dinner-jacket, and when the guests came -- the same old 
guests, dusted with the grey powders of age but otherwise the same — they 
bestowed upon him the same old pats and kisses, the nostalgic benedictions 
of his youth. "Look how grown," they were saying. "Just a darling, what to 
say." They were all trying to hide their fear of the war, _danger of air-raids_, 
the radio said, and when they ruffled Saladin's hair their hands were a little 
too shaky, or alternatively a little too rough. 

Late that evening the sirens sang and the guests ran for cover, hiding under 
beds, in cupboards, anywhere. Nasreen Chamchawala found herself alone by 
a food-laden table, and attempted to reassure the company by standing 
there in her newsprint sari, munching a piece of fish as if nothing were the 
matter. So it was that when she started choking on the fishbone of her 
death there was nobody to help her, they were all crouching in corners with 
their eyes shut; even Saladin, conqueror of kippers, Saladin of the England- 
returned upper lip, had lost his nerve. Nasreen Chamchawala fell, twitched, 
gasped, died, and when the all-clear sounded the guests emerged 
sheepishly to find their hostess extinct in the middle of the dining-room, 
stolen away by the exterminating angel, khali— pili khalaas, as Bombay— talk 
has it, finished off for no reason, gone for good. 

Less than a year after the death of Nasreen Chamchawala from her inability 
to triumph over fishbones in the manner of her foreign-educated son, 
Changez married again without a word of warning to anyone. Saladin in his 
English college received a letter from his father commanding him, in the 
irritatingly orotund and obsolescent phraseology that Changez always used 



in correspondence, to be happy. "Rejoice," the letter said, "for what is lost is 
reborn." The explanation for this somewhat cryptic sentence came lower 
down in the aerogramme, and when Saladin learned that his new 
stepmother was also called Nasreen, something went wrong in his head, and 
he wrote his father a letter full of cruelty and anger, whose violence was of 
the type that exists only between fathers and sons, and which differs from 
that between daughters and mothers in that there lurks behind it the 
possibility of actual, jaw— breaking fisticuffs. Changez wrote back by return 
of post; a brief letter, four lines of archaic abuse, cad rotter bounder 
scoundrel varlet whoreson rogue. "Kindly consider all family connections 
irreparably sundered," it concluded. "Consequences your responsibility." 
After a year of silence, Saladin received a further communication, a letter of 
forgiveness that was in all particulars harder to take than the earlier, 
excommunicatory thunderbolt. "When you become a father, O my son," 
Changez Chamchawala confided, "then shall you know those moments -- ah! 
Too sweet! -- when, for love, one dandies the bonny babe upon one's knee; 
whereupon, without warning or provocation, the blessed creature -- may I 
be frank? — it _wets_ one. Perhaps for a moment one feels the gorge rising, 
a tide of anger swells within the blood — but then it dies away, as quickly as 
it came. For do we not, as adults, understand that the little one is not to 
blame? He knows not what he does." 

Deeply offended at being compared to a urinating baby, Saladin maintained 
what he hoped was a dignified silence. By the time of his graduation he had 
acquired a British passport, because he had arrived in the country just 
before the laws tightened up, so he was able to inform Changez in a brief 
note that he intended to settle down in London and look for work as an actor. 
Changez Chamchawala's reply came by express mail. "Might as well be a 
confounded gigolo. It's my belief some devil has got into you and turned 
your wits. You who have been given so much: do you not feel you owe 
anything to anyone? To your country? To the memory of your dear mother? 
To your own mind? Will you spend your life jiggling and preening under 
bright lights, kissing blonde women under the gaze of strangers who have 
paid to watch your shame? You are no son of mine, but a _ghoul_, a 
_hoosh_, a demon up from hell. An actor! Answer me this: what am I to tell 
my friends?" 

And beneath a signature, the pathetic, petulant postscript. "Now that you 
have your own bad djinni, do not think you will inherit the magic lamp." 
ooo 

After that, Changez Chamchawala wrote to his son at irregular intervals, and 
in every letter he returned to the theme of demons and possession: "A man 
untrue to himself becomes a two-legged lie, and such beasts are Shaitan's 
best work," he wrote, and also, in more sentimental vein: "I have your soul 
kept safe, my son, here in this walnut-tree. The devil has only your body. 



When you are free of him, return and claim your immortal spirit. It flourishes 
in the garden." 

The handwriting in these letters altered over the years, changing from the 
florid confidence that had made it instantly identifiable and becoming 
narrower, undecorated, purified. Eventually the letters stopped, but Saladin 
heard from other sources that his father's preoccupation with the 
supernatural had continued to deepen, until finally he had become a recluse, 
perhaps in order to escape this world in which demons could steal his own 
son's body, a world unsafe for a man of true religious faith. 
His father's transformation disconcerted Saladin, even at such a great 
distance. His parents had been Muslims in the lackadaisical, light manner of 
Bombayites; Changez Chamchawala had seemed far more godlike to his 
infant son than any Allah. That this father, this profane deity (albeit now 
discredited), had dropped to his knees in his old age and started bowing 
towards Mecca was hard for his godless son to accept. 
"I blame that witch," he told himself, falling for rhetorical purposes into the 
same language of spells and goblins that his father had commenced to 
employ. "That Nasreen Two. Is it I who have been the subject of devilment, 
am I the one possessed? It's not my handwriting that changed." 
The letters didn't come any more. Years passed; and then Saladin Chamcha, 
actor, self-made man, returned to Bombay with the Prospero Players, to 
interpret the role of the Indian doctor in _The Millionairess_ by George 
Bernard Shaw. On stage, he tailored his voice to the requirements of the 
part, but those long-suppressed locutions, those discarded vowels and 
consonants, began to leak out of his mouth out of the theatre as well. His 
voice was betraying him; and he discovered his component parts to be 
capable of other treasons, too. 

ooo 

A man who sets out to make himself up is taking on the Creator's role, 
according to one way of seeing things; he's unnatural, a blasphemer, an 
abomination of abominations. From another angle, you could see pathos in 
him, heroism in his struggle, in his willingness to risk: not all mutants 
survive. Or, consider him sociopolitically: most migrants learn, and can 
become disguises. Our own false descriptions to counter the falsehoods 
invented about us, concealing for reasons of security our secret selves. 
A man who Invents himself needs someone to believe in him, to prove he's 
managed it. Playing God again, you could say. Or you could come down a 
few notches, and think of Tinkerbell; fairies don't exist if children don't clap 
their hands. Or you might simply say: it's just like being a man. 
Not only the need to be believed in, but to believe in another. You've got it: 
Love. 

Saladin Chamcha met Pamela Lovelace five and a half days before the end of 
the 1960s, when women still wore bandannas in their hair. She stood at the 
centre of a room full of Trotskyist actresses and fixed him with eyes so 



bright, so bright. He monopolized her all evening and she never stopped 
smiling and she left with another man. He went home to dream of her eyes 
and smile, the slenderness of her, her skin. He pursued her for two years. 
England yields her treasures with reluctance. He was astonished by his own 
perseverance, and understood that she had become the custodian of his 
destiny, that if she did not relent then his entire attempt at metamorphosis 
would fail. "Let me," he begged her, wrestling politely on her white rug that 
left him, at his midnight bus stops, covered in guilty fluff. "Believe me. I'm 
the one." 

One night, _out of the blue_, she let him, she said she believed. He married 
her before she could change her mind, but never learned to read her 
thoughts. When she was unhappy she would lock herself in the bedroom 
until she felt better. "It's none of your business," she told him. "I don't want 
anybody to see me when I'm like that." He used to call her a clam. "Open 
up," he hammered on all the locked doors of their lives together, basement 
first, then maisonette, then mansion. "I love you, let me in." He needed her 
so badly, to reassure himself of his own existence, that he never 
comprehended the desperation in her dazzling, permanent smile, the terror 
in the brightness with which she faced the world, or the reasons why she hid 
when she couldn't manage to beam. Only when it was too late did she tell 
him that her parents had committed suicide together when she had just 
begun to menstruate, over their heads in gambling debts, leaving her with 
the aristocratic bellow of a voice that marked her out as a golden girl, a 
woman to envy, whereas in fact she was abandoned, lost, her parents 
couldn't even be bothered to wait and watch her grow up, that's how much 
_she_ was loved, so of course she had no confidence at all, and every 
moment she spent in the world was full of panic, so she smiled and smiled 
and maybe once a week she locked the door and shook and felt like a husk, 
like an empty peanut-shell, a monkey without a nut. 
They never managed to have children; she blamed herself. After ten years 
Saladin discovered that there was something the matter with some of his 
own chromosomes, two sticks too long, or too short, he couldn't remember. 
His genetic inheritance; apparently he was lucky to exist, lucky not to be 
some sort of deformed freak. Was it his mother or his father from whom? 
The doctors couldn't say; he blamed, it's easy to guess which one, after all, 
it wouldn't do to think badly of the dead. 
They hadn't been getting along lately. 
He told himself that afterwards, but not during. 

Afterwards, he told himself, we were on the rocks, maybe it was the missing 
babies, maybe we just grew away from each other, maybe this, maybe that. 
During, he looked away from all the strain, all the scratchiness, all the fights 
that never got going, he closed his eyes and waited until her smile came 
back. He allowed himself to believe in that smile, that brilliant counterfeit of 
joy. 



He tried to invent a happy future for them, to make it come true by making 
it up and then believing in it. On his way to India he was thinking how lucky 
he was to have her, I'm lucky yes I am don't argue I'm the luckiest bastard 
in the world. And: how wonderful it was to have before him the stretching, 
shady avenue of years, the prospect of growing old in the presence of her 
gentleness. 

He had worked so hard and come so close to convincing himself of the truth 
of these paltry fictions that when he went to bed with Zeeny Vakil within 
forty-eight hours of arriving in Bombay, the first thing he did, even before 
they made love, was to faint, to pass out cold, because the messages 
reaching his brain were in such serious disagreement with one another, as if 
his right eye saw the world moving to the left while his left eye saw it sliding 
to the right. 

ooo 

Zeeny was the first Indian woman he had ever made love to. She barged 
into his dressing-room after the first night of _The Millionairess_, with her 
operatic arms and her gravel voice, as if it hadn't been years. _Years_. "Yaar, 
what a disappointment, I swear, I sat through the whole thing just to hear 
you singing "Goodness Gracious Me" like Peter Sellers or what, I thought, 
let's find out if the guy learned to hit a note, you remember when you did 
Elvis impersonations with your squash racket, darling, too hilarious, 
completely cracked. But what is this? Song is not in drama. The hell. Listen, 
can you escape from all these palefaces and come out with us wogs? Maybe 
you forgot what that is like." 

He remembered her as a stick-figure of a teenager in a lopsided Quant 
hairstyle and an equal-but-oppositely lopsided smile. A rash, bad girl. Once 
for the hell of it she walked into a notorious adda, a dive, on Falkland Road, 
and sat there smoking a cigarette and drinking Coke until the pimps who ran 
the joint threatened to cut her face, no freelances permitted. She stared 
them down, finished her cigarette, left. Fearless. Maybe crazy. Now in her 
middle thirties she was a qualified doctor with a consultancy at Breach 
Candy Hospital, who worked with the city's homeless, who had gone to 
Bhopal the moment the news broke of the invisible American cloud that ate 
people's eyes and lungs. She was an art critic whose book on the confining 
myth of authenticity, that folkloristic straitjacket which she sought to replace 
by an ethic of historically validated eclecticism, for was not the entire 
national culture based on the principle of borrowing whatever clothes 
seemed to fit, Aryan, Mughal, British, take--the-best-and--leave-the-rest? — 
had created a predictable stink, especially because of its title. She had called 
it _The Only Good Indian_. "Meaning, is a dead," she told Chamcha when 
she gave him a copy. "Why should there be a good, right way of being a wog? 
That's Hindu fundamentalism. Actually, we're all bad Indians. Some worse 
than others." 



She had come into the fullness of her beauty, long hair left loose, and she 
was no stick— figure these days. Five hours after she entered his dressing- 
room they were in bed, and he passed out. When he awoke she explained "I 
slipped you a mickey finn." He never worked out whether or not she had 
been telling the truth. 

Zeenat Vakil made Saladin her project. "The reclamation of," she explained. 
"Mister, we're going to get you back." At times he thought she intended to 
achieve this by eating him alive. She made love like a cannibal and he was 
her long pork. "Did you know," he asked her, "of the well-established 
connection between vegetarianism and the man-eating impulse?" Zeeny, 
lunching on his naked thigh, shook her head. "In certain extreme cases," he 
went on, "too much vegetable consumption can release into the system 
biochemicals that induce cannibal fantasies." She looked up and smiled her 
slanting smile. Zeeny, the beautiful vampire. "Come off it," she said. "We 
are a nation of vegetarians, and ours is a peaceful, mystical culture, 
everybody knows." 

He, for his part, was required to handle with care. The first time he touched 
her breasts she spouted hot astounding tears the colour and consistency of 
buffalo milk. She had watched her mother die like a bird being carved for 
dinner, first the left breast then the right, and still the cancer had spread. 
Her fear of repeating her mother's death placed her chest off limits. Fearless 
Zeeny's secret terror. She had never had a child but her eyes wept milk. 
After their first lovemaking she started right in on him, the tears forgotten 
now. "You know what you are, I'll tell you. A deserter is what, more English 
than, your Angrez accent wrapped around you like a flag, and don't think it's 
so perfect, it slips, baba, like a false moustache." 

"There's something strange going on," he wanted to say, "my voice," but he 
didn't know how to put it, and held his tongue. 

"People like you," she snorted, kissing his shoulder. "You come back after so 
long and think godknowswhat of yourselves. Well, baby, we got a lower 
opinion of you." Her smile was brighter than Pamela's. "I see," he said to her, 
"Zeeny, you didn't lose your Binaca smile." 

_Binaca_. Where had that come from, the long forgotten toothpaste 
advertisement? And the vowel sounds, distinctly unreliable. Watch out, 
Chamcha, look out for your shadow. That black fellow creeping up behind. 
On the second night she arrived at the theatre with two friends in tow, a 
young Marxist film-maker called George Miranda, a shambling whale of a 
man with rolled-up kurta sleeves, a flapping waistcoat bearing ancient stains, 
and a surprisingly military moustache with waxed points; and Bhupen 
Gandhi, poet and journalist, who had gone prematurely grey but whose face 
was baby-innocent until he unleashed his sly, giggling laugh. "Come on, 
Salad baba," Zeeny announced. "We're going to show you the town." She 
turned to her companions. "These _Asians_ from foreign got no shame," she 
declared. "Saladin, like a bloody lettuce, I ask you." 



"There was a TV reporter here some days back," George Miranda said. "Pink 
hair. She said her name was Kerleeda. I couldn't work it out." 
"Listen, George is too unworldly," Zeeny interrupted. "He doesn't know what 
freaks you guys turn into. That Miss Singh, outrageous. I told her, the 
name's Khalida, dearie, rhymes with Dalda, that's a cooking medium. But 
she couldn't say it. Her own name. Take me to your kerleader. You types got 
no culture. Just wogs now. Ain't it the truth?" she added, suddenly gay and 
round-eyed, afraid she'd gone too far. "Stop bullying him, Zeenat," Bhupen 
Gandhi said in his quiet voice. And George, awkwardly, mumbled: "No 
offence, man. Joke-shoke." 

Chamcha decided to grin and then fight back. "Zeeny," he said, "the earth is 
full of Indians, you know that, we get everywhere, we become tinkers in 
Australia and our heads end up in Idi Amin's fridge. Columbus was right, 
maybe; the world's made up of Indies, East, West, North. Damn it, you 
should be proud of us, our enterprise, the way we push against frontiers. 
Only thing is, we're not Indian like you. You better get used to us. What was 
the name of that book you wrote?" 

"Listen," Zeeny put her arm through his. "Listen to my Salad. Suddenly he 
wants to be Indian after spending his life trying to turn white. All is not lost, 
you see. Something in there still alive." And Chamcha felt himself flushing, 
felt the confusion mounting. India; it jumbled things up. 
"For Pete's sake," she added, knifing him with a kiss. "_Chamcha_. I mean, 
fuck it. You name yourself Mister Toady and you expect us not to laugh." 

ooo 

In Zeeny's beaten--up Hindustan, a car built for a servant culture, the back 
seat better upholstered than the front, he felt the night closing in on him like 
a crowd. India, measuring him against her forgotten immensity, her sheer 
presence, the old despised disorder. An Amazonic hijra got up like an Indian 
Wonder Woman, complete with silver trident, held up the traffic with one 
imperious arm, sauntered in front of them. Chamcha stared into herhis 
glaring eyes. Gibreel Farishta, the movie star who had unaccountably 
vanished from view, rotted on the hoardings. Rubble, litter, noise. Cigarette 
advertisements smoking past: SCISSORS -- FOR THE MAN OF ACTION, 
SATISFACTION. And, more improbably: PANAMA -- PART OF THE GREAT 
INDIAN SCENE. 

"Where are we going?" The night had acquired the quality of green neon 
strip— lighting. Zeeny parked the car. "You're lost," she accused him. "What 
do you know about Bombay? Your own city, only it never was. To you, it's a 
dream of childhood. Growing up on Scandal Point is like living on the moon. 
No bustees there, no sirree, only servants' quarters. Did Shiv Sena elements 
come there to make communal trouble? Were your neighbours starving in 
the textile strike? Did Datta Samant stage a rally in front of your bungalows? 
How old were you when you met a trade unionist? How old the first time you 



got on a local train instead of a car with driver? That wasn't Bombay, darling, 
excuse me. That was Wonderland, Peristan, NeverNever, Oz." 
"And you?" Saladin reminded her. "Where were you back then?" 
"Same place," she said fiercely. "With all the other bloody Munchkins." 
Back streets. A Jain temple was being re--painted and all the saints were in 
plastic bags to protect them from the drips. A pavement magazine vendor 
displayed newspapers full of horror: a railway disaster. Bhupcn Gandhi 
began to speak in his mild whisper. After the accident, he said, the surviving 
passengers swam to the shore (the train had plunged off a bridge) and were 
met by local villagers, who pushed them under the water until they drowned 
and then looted their bodies. 

"Shut your face," Zeeny shouted at him. "Why are you telling him such 
things? Already he thinks we're savages, a lower form." 
A shop was selling sandalwood to burn in a nearby Krishna temple and sets 
of enamelled pink-and-white Krishna--eyes that saw everything. "Too damn 
much to see," Bhupen said. "That is fact of matter." 

ooo 

In a crowded dhaba that George had started frequenting when he was 
making contact, for movie purposes, with the dadas or bosses who ran the 
city's flesh trade, dark rum was consumed at aluminium tables and George 
and Bhupen started, a little boozily, to quarrel. Zeeny drank Thums Up Cola 
and denounced her friends to Chamcha. "Drinking problems, both of them, 
broke as old pots, they both mistreat their wives, sit in dives, waste their 
stinking lives. No wonder I fell for you, sugar, when the local product is so 
low grade you get to like goods from foreign." 

George had gone with Zeeny to Bhopal and was becoming noisy on the 
subject of the catastrophe, interpreting it ideologically. "What is Amrika for 
us?" he demanded. "It's not a real place. Power in its purest form, 
disembodied, invisible. We can't see it but it screws us totally, no escape." 
He compared the Union Carbide company to the Trojan Horse. "We invited 
the bastards in." It was like the story of the forty thieves, he said. Hiding in 
their amphoras and waiting for the night. "We had no AN Baba, 
misfortunately," he cried. "Who did we have? Mr. Rajiv G." 
At this point Bhupen Gandhi stood up abruptly, unsteadily, and began, as 
though possessed, as though a spirit were upon him, to testify. "For me," he 
said, "the issue cannot be foreign intervention. We always forgive ourselves 
by blaming outsiders, America, Pakistan, any damn place. Excuse me, 
George, but for me it all goes back to Assam, we have to start with that." 
The massacre of the innocents. Photographs of children's corpses, arranged 
neatly in lines like soldiers on parade. They had been clubbed to death, 
pelted with stones, their necks cut in half by knives. Those neat ranks of 
death, Chamcha remembered. As if only horror could sting India into 
orderliness. 



Bhupen spoke for twenty-nine minutes without hesitations or pauses. "We 
are all guilty of Assam," he said. "Each person of us. Unless and until we 
face it, that the children's deaths were our fault, we cannot call ourselves a 
civilized people." He drank rum quickly as he spoke, and his voice got louder, 
and his body began to lean dangerously, but although the room fell silent 
nobody moved towards him, nobody tried to stop him talking, nobody called 
him a drunk. In the middle of a sentence, _everyday blindings, or shootings, 
or corruptions, who do we think we_, he sat down heavily and stared into his 
glass. 

Now a young man stood up in a far corner of the joint and argued back. 
Assam had to be understood politically, he cried, there were economic 
reasons, and yet another fellow came to his feet to reply, cash matters do 
not explain why a grown man clubs a little girl to death, and then another 
fellow said, if you think that, you have never been hungry, salah, how 
bloody romantic to suppose economics cannot make men into beasts. 
Chamcha clutched at his glass as the noise level rose, and the air seemed to 
thicken, gold teeth flashed in his face, shoulders rubbed against his, elbows 
nudged, the air was turning into soup, and in his chest the irregular 
palpitations had begun. George grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him 
out into the street. "You okay, man? You were turning green." Saladin 
nodded his thanks, gasped in lungfuls of the night, calmed down. "Rum and 
exhaustion," he said. "I have the peculiar habit of getting my nerves after 
the show. Quite often I get wobbly. Should have known." Zeeny was looking 
at him, and there was more in her eyes than sympathy. A glittering look, 
triumphant, hard. _Something got through to you_, her expression gloated. 
_About bloody time_. 

After you recover from typhoid, Chamcha reflected, you remain immune to 
the disease for ten years or so. But nothing is forever; eventually the 
antibodies vanish from your blood. He had to accept the fact that his blood 
no longer contained the immunizing agents that would have enabled him to 
suffer India's reality. Rum, heart palpitations, a sickness of the spirit. Time 
for bed. 

She wouldn't take him to her place. Always and only the hotel, with the 
gold-medallioned young Arabs strutting in the midnight corridors holding 
bottles of contraband whisky. He lay on the bed with his shoes on, his collar 
and tie loose, his right arm flung across his eyes; she, in the hotel's white 
bathrobe, bent over him and kissed his chin. "I'll tell you what happened to 
you tonight," she said. "You could say we cracked your shell." 
He sat up, angry. "Well, this is what's inside," he blazed at her. "An Indian 
translated into English-medium. When I attempt Hindustani these days, 
people look polite. This is me." Caught in the aspic of his adopted language, 
he had begun to hear, in India's Babel, an ominous warning: don't come 
back again. When you have stepped through the looking-glass you step back 
at your peril. The mirror may cut you to shreds. 



"I was so proud of Bhupen tonight," Zeeny said, getting into bed. "In how 
many countries could you go into some bar and start up a debate like that? 
The passion, the seriousness, the respect. You keep your civilization, Toadji; 
I like this one plenty fine." 

"Give up on me," he begged her. "I don't like people dropping in to see me 
without warning, I have forgotten the rules of seven—tiles and kabaddi, I 
can't recite my prayers, I don't know what should happen at a nikah 
ceremony, and in this city where I grew up I get lost if I'm on my own. This 
isn't home. It makes me giddy because it feels like home and is not. It 
makes my heart tremble and my head spin." 

"You're a stupid," she shouted at him. "A stupid. Change back! Damn fool! 
Of course you can." She was a vortex, a siren, tempting him back to his old 
self. But it was a dead self, a shadow, a ghost, and he would not become a 
phantom. There was a return ticket to London in his wallet, and he was 
going to use it. 

ooo 

"You never married," he said when they both lay sleepless in the small hours. 
Zeeny snorted. "You've really been gone too long. Can't you see me? I'm a 

blackie." Arching her back and throwing off the sheet to show off her 
lavishness. When the bandit queen Phoolan Devi came out of the ravines to 
surrender and be photographed, the newspapers at once uncreated their 

own myth of her Jegendary beauty_. She became _plain, a common 
creature, unappetizing_ where she had been _toothsome_. Dark skin in 
north India. "I don't buy it," Saladin said. "You don't expect me to believe 

that." 

She laughed. "Good, you're not a complete idiot yet. Who needs to marry? I 
had work to do." 

And after a pause, she threw his question back at him. _So, then. And you?_ 
Not only married, but rich. "So tell, na. How you live, you and the mame." In 
a five-storey mansion in Notting Hill. He had started feeling insecure there of 
late, because the most recent batch of burglars had taken not only the usual 
video and stereo but also the wolfhound guard dog. It was not possible, he 
had begun to feel, to live in a place where the criminal elements kidnapped 
the animals. Pamela told him it was an old local custom. In the Olden Days, 
she said (history, for Pamela, was divided into the Ancient Era, the Dark 
Ages, the Olden Days, the British Empire, the Modern Age and the Present), 
petnapping was good business. The poor would steal the canines of the rich, 
train them to forget their names, and sell them back to their grieving, 
helpless owners in shops on Portobello Road. Pamela's local history was 
always detailed and frequently unreliable. "But, my God," Zeeny Vakil said, 
"you must sell up pronto and move. I know those English, all the same, riff- 
raff and nawabs. You can't fight their bloody traditions." 



_My wife, Pamela Lovelace, frail as porcelain, graceful as gazelles_, he 
remembered. _I put down roots in the women I love_. The banalities of 
infidelity. He put them away and talked about his work. 
When Zeeny Vakil found out how Saladin Chamcha made his money, she let 
fly a series of shrieks that made one of the medallioned Arabs knock at the 
door to make sure everything was all right. He saw a beautiful woman sitting 
up in bed with what looked like buffalo milk running down her face and 
dripping off the point of her chin, and, apologizing to Chamcha for the 
intrusion, he withdrew hastily, _sorry, sport, hey, you're some lucky guy_. 
"You poor potato," Zeeny gasped between peals of laughter. "Those Angrez 
bastards. They really screwed you up." 

So now his work was funny. "I have a gift for accents," he said haughtily. 
"Why I shouldn't employ?" 

'"Why I should not employ ?_"' she mimicked him, kicking her legs in the air. 
"Mister actor, your moustache just slipped again." 
Oh my God. 

What's happening to me? 

What the devil? 

Help. 

Because he did have that gift, truly he did, he was the Man of a Thousand 
Voices and a Voice. If you wanted to know how your ketchup bottle should 
talk in its television commercial, if you were unsure as to the ideal voice for 
your packet of garlicflavoured crisps, he was your very man. He made 
carpets speak in warehouse advertisements, he did celebrity impersonations, 
baked beans, frozen peas. On the radio he could convince an audience that 
he was Russian, Chinese, Sicilian, the President of the United States. Once, 
in a radio play for thirty—seven voices, he interpreted every single part 
under a variety of pseudonyms and nobody ever worked it out. With his 
female equivalent, Mimi Mamoulian, he ruled the airwaves of Britain. They 
had such a large slice of the voiceover racket that, as Mimi said, "People 
better not mention the Monopolies Commission around us, not even in fun." 
Her range was astonishing; she could do any age, anywhere in the world, 
any point on the vocal register, angelic Juliet to fiendish Mae West. "We 
should get married sometime, when you're free," Mimi once suggested to 
him. "You and me, we could be the United Nations." 

"You're Jewish," he pointed out. "I was brought up to have views on Jews." 
"So I'm Jewish," she shrugged. "You're the one who's circumcised. Nobody's 
perfect." 

Mimi was tiny with tight dark curls and looked like a Michelin poster. In 
Bombay, Zeenat Vakil stretched and yawned and drove other women from 
his thoughts. "Too much," she laughed at him. "They pay you to imitate 
them, as long as they don't have to look at you. Your voice becomes famous 
but they hide your face. Got any ideas why? Warts on your nose, cross-- 



eyes, what? Anything come to mind, baby? You goddamn lettuce brain, I 
swear." 

It was true, he thought. Saladin and Mimi were legends of a sort, but 
crippled legends, dark stars. The gravitational field of their abilities drew 
work towards them, but they remained invisible, shedding bodies to put on 
voices. On the radio, Mimi could become the Botticelli Venus, she could be 
Olympia, Monroe, any damn woman she pleased. She didn't give a damn 
about the way she looked; she had become her voice, she was worth a mint, 
and three young women were hopelessly in love with her. Also, she bought 
property. "Neurotic behaviour," she would confess unashamedly. "Excessive 
need for rooting owing to upheavals of Armenian—Jewish history. Some 
desperation owing to advancing years and small polyps detected in the 
throat. Property is so soothing, I do recommend it." She owned a Norfolk 
vicarage, a farmhouse in Normandy, a Tuscan belltower, a sea--coast in 
Bohemia. "All haunted," she explained. "Clanks, howls, blood on the rugs, 
women in nighties, the works. Nobody gives up land without a fight." 
Nobody except me, Chamcha thought, a melancholy clutching at him as he 
lay beside Zeenat Vakil. Maybe I'm a ghost already. But at least a ghost with 
an airline ticket, success, money, wife. A shade, but living in the tangible, 
material world. With _assets_. Yes, sir. 

Zeeny stroked the hairs curling over his ears. "Sometimes, when you're 
quiet," she murmured, "when you aren't doing funny voices or acting grand, 
and when you forget people are watching, you look just like a blank. You 
know? An empty slate, nobody home. It makes me mad, sometimes, I want 
to slap you. To sting you back into life. But I also get sad about it. Such a 
fool, you, the big star whose face is the wrong colour for their colour T Vs, 
who has to travel to wogland with some two-bit company, playing the babu 
part on top of it, just to get into a play. They kick you around and still you 
stay, you love them, bloody slave mentality, I swear. Chamcha," she 
grabbed his shoulders and shook him, sitting astride him with her forbidden 
breasts a few inches from his face, "Salad baba, whatever you call yourself, 
for Pete's sake _come home_." 

His big break, the one that could soon make money lose its meaning, had 
started small: children's television, a thing called _The Aliens Show_, by 
_The Munsters_ out of _Star Wars_ by way of _Sesame Street_. It was a 
situation comedy about a group of extraterrestrials ranging from cute to 
psycho, from animal to vegetable, and also mineral, because it featured an 
artistic space-- rock that could quarry itself for its raw material, and then 
regenerate itself in time for the next week's episode; this rock was named 
Pygmalien, and owing to the stunted sense of humour of the show's 
producers there was also a coarse, belching creature like a puking cactus 
that came from a desert planet at the end of time: this was Matilda, the 
Australien, and there were the three grotesquely pneumatic, singing space 
sirens known as the Alien Korns, maybe because you could lie down among 



them, and there was a team of Venusian hip-hoppers and subway 
spraypainters and soul-brothers who called themselves the Alien Nation, and 
under a bed in the spaceship that was the programme's main location there 
lived Bugsy the giant dung-beetle from the Crab Nebula who had run away 
from his father, and in a fish-tank you could find Brains the super-intelligent 
giant abalone who liked eating Chinese, and then there was Ridley, the most 
terrifying of the regular cast, who looked like a Francis Bacon painting" of a 
mouthful of teeth waving at the end of a sightless pod, and who had an 
obsession with the actress Sigourney Weaver. The stars of the show, its 
Kermit and Miss Piggy, were the very fashionable, slinkily attired, stunningly 
hairstyled duo, Maxim and Mamma Alien, who yearned to be -- what else? -- 
television personalities. They were played by Saladin Chamcha and Mimi 
Mamoulian, and they changed their voices along with their clothes, to say 
nothing of their hair, which could go from purple to vermilion between shots, 
which could stand diagonally three feet up from their heads or vanish 
altogether; or their features and limbs, because they were capable of 
changing all of them, switching legs, arms, noses, ears, eyes, and every 
switch conjured up a different accent from their legendary, protean gullets. 
What made the show a hit was its use of the latest computer-generated 
imagery. The backgrounds were all simulated: spaceship, other—world 
landscapes, intergalactic game-show studios; and the actors, too, were 
processed through machines, obliged to spend four hours every day being 
buried under the latest in prosthetic make-up which -- once the 
videocomputers had gone to work -- made them look just like simulations, 
too. Maxim Alien, space playboy, and Mamma, undefeated galactic wrestling 
champion and universal all—corners pasta queen, were overnight sensations. 
Prime-time beckoned; America, Eurovision, the world. 
As _The Aliens Show_ got bigger it began to attract political criticism. 
Conservatives attacked it for being too frightening, too sexually explicit 
(Ridley could become positively erect when he thought too hard about Miss 
Weaver), too _weird_. Radical commentators began to attack its 
stereotyping, its reinforcement of the idea of aliens-as-freaks, its lack of 
positive images. Charncha came under pressure to quit the show; refused; 
became a target. "Trouble waiting when I go home," he told Zeeny. "The 
damn show isn't an allegory. It's an entertainment. It aims to please." 
"To please whom?" she wanted to know. "Besides, even now they only let 
you on the air after they cover your face with rubber and give you a red wig. 
Big deal deluxe, say I." 

"The point is," she said when they awoke the next morning, "Salad darling, 
you really are good looking, no quesch. Skin like milk, England returned. 
Now that Gibreel has done a bunk, you could be next in line. I'm serious, 
yaar. They need a new face. Come home and you could be the next, bigger 
than Bachchan was, bigger than Farishta. Your face isn't as funny as theirs." 



When he was young, he told her, each phase of his life, each self he tried on, 
had seemed reassuringly temporary. Its imperfections didn't matter, 
because he could easily replace one moment by the next, one Saladin by 
another. Now, however, change had begun to feel painful; the arteries of the 
possible had begun to harden. "It isn't easy to tell you this, but I'm married 
now, and not just to wife but life." _The accent slippage again_. "I really 
came to Bombay for one reason, and it wasn't the play. He's in his late 
seventies now, and I won't have many more chances. He hasn't been to the 
show; Muhammad must go to the mountain." 

My father, Changez Chamchawala, owner of a magic lamp_. "Changez 
Chamchawala, are you kidding, don't think you can leave me behind," she 
clapped her hands. "I want to check out the hair and toenails." His father, 
the famous recluse. Bombay was a culture of re--makes. Its architecture 
mimicked the skyscraper, its cinema endlessly re-invented _The Magnificent 
Seven_ and _Love Story_, obliging all its heroes to save at least one village 
from murderous dacoits and all its heroines to die of leukaemia at least once 
in their careers, preferably at the start. Its millionaires, too, had taken to 
importing their lives. Changez's invisibility was an Indian dream of the 
crorepati penthoused wretch of Las Vegas; but a dream was not a 
photograph, after all, and Zeeny wanted to see with her own eyes. "He 
makes faces at people if he's in a bad mood," Saladin warned her. "Nobody 
believes it till it happens, but it's true. Such faces! Gargoyles. Also, he's a 
prude and he'll call you a tart and anyway I'll probably have a fight with him, 
it's on the cards." 

What Saladin Chamcha had come to India for: forgiveness. That was his 
business in his old home town. But whether to give or to receive, he was not 
able to say. 
ooo 

Bizarre aspects of the present circumstances of Mr. Changez Chamchawala: 
with his new wife, Nasreen the Second, he lived for five days every week in 
a high-walled compound nicknamed the Red Fort in the Pali Hill district 
beloved of movie stars; but every weekend he returned without his wife to 
the old house at Scandal Point, to spend his days of rest in the lost world of 
the past, in the company of the first, and dead, Nasreen. Furthermore: it 
was said that his second wife refused to set foot in the old place. "Or isn't 
allowed to," Zeeny hypothesized in the back of the black-glass-windowed 
Mercedes limousine which Changez had sent to collect his son. As Saladin 
finished filling in the background, Zeenat Vakil whistled appreciatively. 
"Crazee." 

The Chamchawala fertilizer business, Changez's empire ofdung, was to be 
investigated for tax fraud and import duty evasion by a Government 
commission, but Zeeny wasn't interested in that. "Now," she said, "I'll get to 
find out what you're really like." 



Scandal Point unfurled before them. Saladin felt the past rush in like a tide, 
drowning him, filling his lungs with its revenant saltiness. J'rn not myself 
today_, he thought. The heart flutters. Life damages the living. None of us 
are ourselves. None of us are Jike this_. 

These days there were steel gates, operated by remote control from within, 
sealing the crumbling triumphal arch. They opened with a slow whirring 
sound to admit Saladin into that place of lost time. When he saw the walnut- 
tree in which his father had claimed that his soul was kept, his hands began 
to shake. He hid behind the neutrality of facts. "In Kashmir," he told Zeeny, 
"your birth-tree is a financial investment of a sort. When a child comes of 
age, the grown walnut is comparable to a matured insurance policy; it's a 
valuable tree, it can be sold, to pay for weddings, or a start in life. The adult 
chops down his childhood to help his grown-up self. The unsentimentality is 
appealing, don't you think?" 

The car had stopped under the entrance porch. Zeeny fell silent as the two 
of them climbed the six stairs to the front door, where they were greeted by 
a composed and ancient bearer in white, brass-buttoned livery, whose shock 
of white hair Chamcha suddenly recognized, by translating it back into black, 
as the mane of that same Vallabh who had presided over the house as its 
major-domo in the Olden Days. "My God, Vallabhbhai," he managed, and 
embraced the old man. The servant smiled a difficult smile. "I grow so old, 
baba, I was thinking you would not recognize." He led them down the 
crystal-heavy corridors of the mansion and Saladin realized that the lack of 
change was excessive, and plainly deliberate. It was true, Vallabh explained 
to him, that when the Begum died Changez Sahib had sworn that the house 
would be her memorial. As a result nothing had changed since the day she 
died, paintings, furniture, soap--dishes, the red-glass figures of fighting bulls 
and china ballerinas from Dresden, all left in their exact positions, the same 
magazines on the same tables, the same crumpled balls of paper in the 
wastebaskets, as though the house had died, too, and been embalmed. 
"Mummified," Zeeny said, voicing the unspeakable as usual. "God, but it's 
spooky, no?" It was at this point, while Vallabh the bearer was opening the 
double doors leading into the blue drawingroom, that Saladin Chamcha saw 
his mother's ghost. 

He let out a loud cry and Zeeny whirled on her heel. "There," he pointed 
towards the far, darkened end of the hallway, "no question, that blasted 
newsprint sari, the big headlines, the one she wore the day she, she," but 
now Vallabh had begun to flap his arms like a weak, flightless bird, you see, 
baba, it was only Kasturba, you have not forgotten, my wife, only my wife. 
_My ayah Kasturba with whom I played in rock-pools. Until I grew up and 
went without her and in a hollow a man with ivory glasses_. "Please, baba, 
nothing to be cross, only when the Begum died Changez Sahib donated to 
my wife some few garments, you do not object? Your mother was a so- 
generous woman, when alive she always gave with an open hand." Chamcha, 



recovering his equilibrium, was feeling foolish. "For God's sake, Vallabh," he 
muttered. "For God's sake. Obviously I don't object." An old stiffness re- 
entered Vallabh; the right to free speech of the old retainer permitted him to 
reprove, "Excuse, baba, but you should not blaspheme." 
"See how he's sweating," Zeeny stage-whispered. "He looks scared stiff." 
Kasturba entered the room, and although her reunion with Chamcha was 
warm enough there was still a wrongness in the air. Vallabh left to bring 
beer and Thums Up, and when Kasturba also excused herself, Zeeny at once 
said: "Something fishy. She walks like she owns the dump. The way she 
holds herself. And the old man was afraid. Those two are up to something, I 
bet." Chamcha tried to be reasonable. "They stay here alone most of the 
time, probably sleep in the master bedroom and eat off the good plates, it 
must get to feeling like their place." But he was thinking how strikingly, in 
that old sari, his ayah Kasturba had come to resemble his mother. 
"Stayed away so long," his father's voice spoke behind him, "that now you 
can't tell a living ayah from your departed ma." 

Saladin turned around to take in the melancholy sight of a father who had 
shrivelled like an old apple, but who insisted nevertheless on wearing the 
expensive Italian suits of his opulently fleshy years. Now that he had lost 
both Popeye-forearms and Bluto-belly, he seemed to be roaming about 
inside his clothes like a man in search of something he had not quite 
managed to identify. He stood in the doorway looking at his son, his nose 
and lips curled, by the withering sorcery of the years, into a feeble 
simulacrum of his former ogre--face. Chamcha had barely begun to 
understand that his father was no longer capable of frightening anybody, 
that his spell had been broken and he was just an old geezer heading for the 
grave; while Zeeny had noted with some disappointment that Changez 
Chamchawala's hair was conservatively short, and since he was wearing 
highly polished Oxford lace-ups it didn't seem likely that the eleveninch 
toenail story was true either; when the ayah Kasturba returned, smoking a 
cigarette, and strolled past the three of them, father son mistress, towards a 
blue velour-covered button-backed Chesterfield sofa, upon which she 
arranged her body as sensually as any movie starlet, even though she was a 
woman well advanced in years. 

No sooner had Kasturba completed her shocking entrance than Changez 
skipped past his son and planted himself beside the erstwhile ayah. Zeeny 
Vakil, her eyes sparkling with scandalpoints of light, hissed at Chamcha: 
"Close your mouth, dear. It looks bad." And in the doorway, the bearer 
Vallabh, pushing a drinks trolley, watched unemotionally while his employer 
of many long years placed an arm around his uncomplaining wife. 
When the progenitor, the creator is revealed as satanic, the child will 
frequently grow prim. Chamcha heard himself inquire: "And my stepmother, 
father dear? She is keeping well?" 



The old man addressed Zeeny. "He is not such a goody with you, I hope so. 
Or what a sad time you must have." Then to his son in harsher tones. "You 
have an interest in my wife these days? But she has none in you. She won't 
meet you now. Why should she forgive? You are no son to her. Or, maybe, 
by now, to me." 

_I did not come to fight him. Look, the old goat. I mustn't fight. But this, 
this is intolerable_. "In my mother's house," Chamcha cried 
melodramatically, losing his battle with himself. "The state thinks your 
business is corrupt, and here is the corruption of your soul. Look what 
you've done to them. Vallabh and Kasturba. With your money. How much 
did it take? To poison their lives. You're a sick man." He stood before his 
father, blazing with righteous rage. 

Vallabh the bearer, unexpectedly, intervened. "Baba, with respect, excuse 
me but what do you know? You have left and gone and now you come to 
judge us." Saladin felt the floor giving way beneath his feet; he was staring 
into the inferno. "It is true he pays us," Vallabh went on. "For our work, and 
also for what you see. For this." Changez Chamchawala tightened his grip on 
the ayah's unresisting shoulders. "How much?" Chamcha shouted. "Vallabh, 
how much did you two men decide upon? How much to prostitute your 
wife?" 

"What a fool," Kasturba said contemptuously. "Englandeducated and what-all, 
but still with a head full of hay. You come talking so big--big, _in your 
mother's house_ etcetera, but maybe you didn't love her so much. But we 
loved her, we all. We three. And in this manner we may keep her spirit 
alive." 

"It is pooja, you could say," came Vallabh's quiet voice. "An act of worship." 
"And you," Changez Chamchawala spoke as softly as his servant, "you come 
here to this temple. With your unbelief. Mister, you've got a nerve." 
And finally, the treason of Zeenat Vakil. "Come off it, Salad," she said, 
moving to sit on the arm of the Chesterfield next to the old man. "Why be 
such a sourpuss? You're no angel, baby, and these people seem to have 
worked things out okay." 

Saladin's mouth opened and shut. Changez patted Zeeny on the knee. "He 
came to accuse, dear. He came to avenge his youth, but we have turned the 
tables and he is confused. Now we must let him have his chance, and you 
must referee. I will not be sentenced by him, but I will accept the worst from 
you." 

_The bastard. Old bastard. He wanted me off-balance, and here I am, 
knocked sideways. I won't speak, why should I, not like this, the 
humiliation_. "There was," said Saladin Chamcha, "a wallet of pounds, and 
there was a roasted chicken." 
ooo 

Of what did the son accuse the father? Of everything: espionage on child- 
self, rainbow-pot-stealing, exile. Of turning him into what he might not have 



become. Of making-a-man of. Of whatwill-I-tell-my-friends. Of irreparable 
sunderings and offensive forgiveness. Of succumbing to Allah-worship with 
new wife and also to blasphemous worship of late spouse. Above all, of 
magic-lampism, of being an open-sesamist. Everything had come easily to 
him, charm, women, wealth, power, position. Rub, poof, genie, wish, at once 
master, hey presto. He was a father who had promised, and then withheld, a 
magic lamp, 
ooo 

Changez, Zeeny, Vallabh, Kasturba remained motionless and silent until 
Saladin Chamcha came to a flushed, embarrassed halt. "Such violence of the 
spirit after so long," Changez said after a silence. "So sad. A quarter of a 
century and still the son begrudges the peccadilloes of the past. O my son. 
You must stop carrying me around like a parrot on your shoulder. What am I? 
Finished. I'm not your Old Man of the Sea. Face it, mister: I don't explain 
you any more." 

Through a window Saladin Chamcha caught sight of a fortyyear-old walnut- 
tree. "Cut it down," he said to his father. "Cut it, sell it, send me the cash." 
Chamchawala rose to his feet, and extended his right hand. Zeeny, also 
rising, took it like a dancer accepting a bouquet; at once, Vallabh and 
Kasturba diminished into servants, as if a clock had silently chimed 
pumpkin-time. "Your book," he said to Zeeny. "I have something you'd like 
to see." 

The two of them left the room; impotent Saladin, after a moment's 
floundering, stamped petulantly in their wake. "Sourpuss," Zeeny called 
gaily over her shoulder. "Come on, snap out of it, grow up." 
The Chamchawala art collection, housed here at Scandal Point, included a 
large group of the legendary _Hamza-nama_ cloths, members of that 
sixteenth-century sequence depicting scenes from the life of a hero who may 
or may not have been the same Hamza as the famous one, Muhammad's 
uncle whose liver was eaten by the Meccan woman Hind as he lay dead on 
the battlefield of Uhud. "I like these pictures," Changez Chamchawala told 
Zeeny, "because the hero is permitted to fail. See how often he has to be 
rescued from his troubles." The pictures also provided eloquent proof of 
Zeeny Vakil's thesis about the eclectic, hybridized nature of the Indian 
artistic tradition. The Mughals had brought artists from every part of India to 
work on the paintings; individual identity was submerged to create a many- 
headed, many-brushed Overartist who, literally, _was_ Indian painting. One 
hand would draw the mosaic floors, a second the figures, a third would paint 
the Chinese-looking cloudy skies. On the backs of the cloths were the stories 
that accompanied the scenes. The pictures would be shown like a movie: 
held up while someone read out the hero's tale. In the _Hamza-nama_ you 
could see the Persian miniature fusing with Kannada and Keralan painting 
styles, you could see Hindu and Muslim philosophy forming their 
characteristically late--Mughal synthesis. 



A giant was trapped in a pit and his human tormentors were spearing him in 
the forehead. A man sliced vertically from the top of his head to his groin 
still held his sword as he fell. Everywhere, bubbling spillages of blood. 
Saladin Chamcha took a grip on himself. "The savagery," he said loudly in 
his English voice. "The sheer barbaric love of pain." 

Changez Chamchawala ignored his son, had eyes only for Zeeny; who gazed 
straight back into his own. "Ours is a government of philistines, young lady, 
don't you agree? I have offered this whole collection free gratis, did you 
know? Let them only house it properly, let them build a place. Condition of 
cloths is not A-l, you see . . . they won't do it. No interest. Meanwhile I get 
offers every month from Amrika. Offers of what-what size! You wouldn't 
believe. I don't sell. Our heritage, my dear, every day the U S A is taking it 
away. Ravi Varma paintings, Chandela bronzes, Jaisalmer lattices. We sell 
ourselves, isn't it? They drop their wallets on the ground and we kneel at 
their feet. Our Nandi bulls end up in some gazebo in Texas. But you know all 
this. You know India is a free country today." He stopped, but Zeeny waited; 
there was more to come. It came: "One day I will also take the dollars. Not 
for the money. For the pleasure of being a whore. Of becoming nothing. Less 
than nothing." And now, at last, the real storm, the words behind the words, 
Jess than nothing_. "When I die," Changez Chamchawala said to Zeeny, 
"what will I be? A pair of emptied shoes. That is my fate, that he has made 
for me. This actor. This pretender. He has made himself into an imitator of 
non-existing men. I have nobody to follow me, to give what I have made. 
This is his revenge: he steals from me my posterity." He smiled, patted her 
hand, released her into the care of his son. "I have told her," he said to 
Saladin. "You are still carrying your take-away chicken. I have told her my 
complaint. Now she must judge. That was the arrangement." 
Zeenat Vakil walked up to the old man in his outsize suit, put her hands on 
his cheeks, and kissed him on the lips. 

ooo 

After Zeenat betrayed him in the house of his father's perversions, Saladin 
Chamcha refused to see her or answer the messages she left at the hotel 
desk. _The Millionairess_ came to the end of its run; the tour was over. Time 
to go home. After the closing-night party Chamcha headed for bed. In the 
elevator a young and clearly honeymooning couple were listening to music 
on headphones. The young man murmured to his wife: "Listen, tell me. Do I 
still seem a stranger to you sometimes?" The girl, smiling fondly, shook her 
head, _can't hear_, removed the headphones. He repeated, gravely: "A 
stranger, to you, don't I still sometimes seem?" She, with unfaltering smile, 
laid her cheek for an instant on his high scrawny shoulder. "Yes, once or 
twice," she said, and put the headphones on again. He did the same, 
seeming fully satisfied by her answer. Their bodies took on, once again, the 
rhythms of the playback music. Chamcha got out of the lift. Zeeny was 
sitting on the floor with her back against his door. 



0 0 0 

Inside the room, she poured herself a large whisky and soda. "Behaving like 
a baby," she said. "You should be ashamed." 

That afternoon he had received a package from his father. Inside it was a 
small piece of wood and a large number of notes, not rupees but sterling 
pounds: the ashes, so to speak, of a walnut-tree. He was full of inchoate 
feeling and because Zeenat had turned up she became the target. "You think 
I love you?" he said, speaking with deliberate viciousness. "You think I'll stay 
with you? I'm a married man." 

"I didn't want you to stay for me," she said. "For some reason, I wanted it 
for you." 

A few days earlier, he had been to see an Indian dramatization of a story by 
Sartre on the subject of shame. In the original, a husband suspects his wife 
of infidelity and sets a trap to catch her out. He pretends to leave on a 
business trip, but returns a few hours later to spy on her. He is kneeling to 
look through the keyhole of their front door. Then he feels a presence behind 
him, turns without rising, and there she is, looking down at him with 
revulsion and disgust. This tableau, he kneeling, she looking down, is the 
Sartrean archetype. But in the Indian version the kneeling husband felt no 
presence behind him; was surprised by the wife; stood to face her on equal 
terms; blustered and shouted; until she wept, he embraced her, and they 
were reconciled. 

"You say I should be ashamed," Chamcha said bitterly to Zeenat. "You, who 
are without shame. As a matter of fact, this may be a national characteristic. 
I begin to suspect that Indians lack the necessary moral refinement for a 
true sense of tragedy, and therefore cannot really understand the idea of 
shame." 

Zeenat Vakil finished her whisky. "Okay, you don't have to say any more." 
She held up her hands. "I surrender. I'm going. Mr. Saladin Chamcha. I 
thought you were still alive, only just, but still breathing, but I was wrong. 
Turns out you were dead all the time." 

And one more thing before going milk-eyed through the door. "Don't let 
people get too close to you, Mr. Saladin. Let people through your defences 
and the bastards go and knife you in the heart." 

After that there had been nothing to stay for. The aeroplane lifted and 
banked over the city. Somewhere below him, his father was dressing up a 
servant as his dead wife. The new traffic scheme had jammed the city centre 
solid. Politicians were trying to build careers by going on padyatras, 
pilgrimages on foot across the country. There were graffiti that read: 
_Advice to politicos. Only step to take: padyatra to hell_. Or, sometimes: 
_to Assam_. 

Actors were getting mixed up in politics: MGR, N.T. Rama Rao, Bachchan. 
Durga Khote complained that an actors' association was a "red front". 
Saladin Chamcha, on Flight 420, closed his eyes; and felt, with deep relief, 



the tell--tale shiftings and settlings in his throat which indicated that his 
voice had begun of its own accord to revert to its reliable, English self. 
The first disturbing thing that happened to Mr. Chamcha on that flight was 
that he recognized, among his fellow-passengers, the woman of his dreams. 

4 

The dream-woman had been shorter and less graceful than the real one, but 
the instant Chamcha saw her walking calmly up and down the aisles of 
_Bostan_ he remembered the nightmare. After Zeenat Vakil's departure he 
had fallen into a troubled sleep, and the premonition had come to him: the 
vision of a woman bomber with an almost inaudibly soft, Canadian-accented 
voice whose depth and melody made it sound like an ocean heard from a 
long way away. The dream-woman had been so loaded down with explosives 
that she was not so much the bomber as the bomb; the woman walking the 
aisles held a baby that seemed to be sleeping noiselessly, a baby so skilfully 
swaddled and held so close to the breast that Chamcha could not see so 
much as a lock of new-born hair. Under the influence of the remembered 
dream he conceived the notion that the baby was in fact a bundle of 
dynamite sticks, or some sort of ticking device, and he was on the verge of 
crying out when he came to his senses and admonished himself severely. 
This was precisely the type of superstitious flummery he was leaving behind. 
He was a neat man in a buttoned suit heading for London and an ordered, 
contented life. He was a member of the real world. 
He travelled alone, shunning the company of the other members of the 
Prospero Players troupe, who had scattered around the economy class cabin 
wearing Fancy-a-Donald T-shirts and trying to wiggle their necks in the 
manner of natyam dancers and looking absurd in Benarsi saris and drinking 
too much cheap airline champagne and importuning the scorn—laden 
stewardesses who, being Indian, understood that actors were cheap-type 
persons; and behaving, in short, with normal thespian impropriety. The 
woman holding the baby had a way of looking through the paleface players, 
of turning them into wisps of smoke, heat-mirages, ghosts. For a man like 
Saladin Chamcha the debasing of Englishness by the English was a thing too 
painful to contemplate. He turned to his newspaper in which a Bombay "rail 
roko" demonstration was being broken up by police lathicharges. The 
newspaper's reporter suffered a broken arm; his camera, too, was smashed. 
The police had issued a "note". _Neither the reporter nor any other person 
was assaulted intentionally_. Chamcha drifted into airline sleep. The city of 
lost histories, felled trees and unintentional assaults faded from his thoughts. 
When he opened his eyes a little later he had his second, surprise of that 
macabre journey. A man was passing him on the way to the toilet. He was 
bearded and wore cheap tinted spectacles, but Chamcha recognized him 
anyway: here, travelling incognito in the economy class of Flight A 1--420, 
was the vanished superstar, the living legend, Gibreel Farishta himself. 



"Sleep okay?" He realized the question was addressed to him, and turned 
away from the apparition of the great movie actor to stare at the equally 
extraordinary sight sitting next to him, an improbable American in baseball 
cap, metal--rim spectacles and a neon--green bush--shirt across which there 
writhed the intertwined and luminous golden forms of a pair of Chinese 
dragons. Chamcha had edited this entity out of his field of vision in an 
attempt to wrap himself in a cocoon of privacy, but privacy was no longer 
possible. 

"Eugene Dumsday at your service," the dragon man stuck out a huge red 
hand. "At yours, and at that of the Christian guard." 
Sleep-fuddled Chamcha shook his head. "You are a military man?" 
"Ha! Ha! Yes, sir, you could say. A humble foot soldier, sir, in the army of 
Guard Almighty." Oh, _almighty_ guard, why didn't you say. "I am a man of 
science, sir, and it has been my mission, my mission and let me add my 
privilege, to visit your great nation to do battle with the most pernicious 
devilment ever got folks' brains by the balls." 
"I don't follow." 

Dumsday lowered his voice. "I'm talking monkey-crap here, sir. Darwinism. 
The evolutionary heresy of Mr. Charles Darwin." His tones made it plain that 
the name of anguished, God-ridden Darwin was as distasteful as that of any 
other forktail fiend, Beelzebub, Asmodeus or Lucifer himself. "I have been 
warning your fellow-men," Dumsday confided, "against Mr. Darwin and his 
works. With the assistance of my personal fifty-seven-slide presentation. I 
spoke most recently, sir, at the World Understanding Day banquet of the 
Rotary Club, Cochin, Kerala. I spoke of my own country, of its young people. 
I see them lost, sir. The young people of America: I see them in their 
despair, turning to narcotics, even, for I'm a plain—speaking man, to pre- 
marital sexual relations. And I said this then and I say it now to you. If I 
believed my great-granddaddy was a chimpanzee, why, I'd be pretty 
depressed myself." 

Gibreel Farishta was seated across the way, staring out of the window. The 
inflight movie was starting up, and the aircraft lights were being dimmed. 
The woman with the baby was still on her feet, walking up and down, 
perhaps to keep the baby quiet. "How did it go down?" Chamcha asked, 
sensing that some contribution from him was being required. 
A hesitancy came over his neighbour. "I believe there was a glitch in the 
sound system," he said finally. "That would be my best guess. I can't see 
how those good people would've set to talking amongst themselves if they 
hadn't've thought I was through." 

Chamcha felt a little abashed. He had been thinking that in a country of 
fervent believers the notion that science was the enemy of God would have 
an easy appeal; but the boredom of the Rotarians of Cochin had shown him 
up. In the flickering light of the inflight movie, Dumsday continued, in his 
voice of an innocent ox, to tell stories against himself without the faintest 



indication of knowing what he was doing. He had been accosted, at the end 
of a cruise around the magnificent natural harbour of Cochin, to which Vasco 
da Gama had come in search of spices and so set in motion the whole 
ambiguous history of east-and-west, by an urchin full of pssts and hey- 
mister— okays. "Hi there, yes! You want hashish, sahib? Hey, misteramerica. 
Yes, unclesam, you want opium, best quality, top price? Okay, you want 
_cocaine?_" 

Saladin began, helplessly, to giggle. The incident struck him as Darwin's 
revenge: if Dumsday held poor, Victorian, starchy Charles responsible for 
American drug culture, how delicious that he should himself be seen, across 
the globe, as representing the very ethic he battled so fervently against. 
Dumsday fixed him with a look of pained reproof. It was a hard fate to be an 
American abroad, and not to suspect why you were so disliked. 
After the involuntary giggle had escaped Saladin's lips, Dumsday sank into a 
sullen, injured drowse, leaving Chamcha to his own thoughts. Should the 
inflight movie be thought of as a particularly vile, random mutation of the 
form, one that would eventually be extinguished by natural selection, or 
were they the future of the cinema? A future of screwball caper movies 
eternally starring Shelley Long and Chevy Chase was too hideous to 
contemplate; it was a vision of Hell . . . Chamcha was drifting back into 
sleep when the cabin lights came on; the movie stopped; and the illusion of 
the cinema was replaced by one of watching the television news, as four 
armed, shouting figures came running down the aisles. 

ooo 

The passengers were held on the hijacked aircraft for one hundred and 
eleven days, marooned on a shimmering runway around which there 
crashed the great sand-waves of the desert, because once the four hijackers, 
three men one woman, had forced the pilot to land nobody could make up 
their minds what to do with them. They had come down not at an 
international airport but at the absurd folly of a jumbo-sized landing strip 
which had been built for the pleasure of the local sheikh at his favourite 
desert oasis, to which there now also led a six-lane highway very popular 
among single young men and women, who would cruise along its vast 
emptiness in slow cars ogling one another through the windows . . . once 
420 had landed here, however, the highway was full of armoured cars, troop 
transports, limousines waving flags. And while diplomats haggled over the 
airliner's fate, to storm or not to storm, while they tried to decide whether to 
concede or to stand firm at the expense of other people's lives, a great 
stillness settled around the airliner and it wasn't long before the mirages 
began. 

In the beginning there had been a constant flow of event, the hijacking 
quartet full of electricity, jumpy, trigger-happy. These are the worst 
moments, Chamcha thought while children screamed and fear spread like a 
stain, here's where we could all go west. Then they were in control, three 



men one woman, all tall, none of them masked, all handsome, they were 
actors, too, they were stars now, shootingstars or falling, and they had their 
own stage-names. Dara Singh Buta Singh Man Singh. The woman was 
Tavleen. The woman in the dream had been anonymous, as if Chamcha's 
sleeping fancy had no time for pseudonyms; but, like her, Tavleen spoke 
with a Canadian accent, smooth-edged, with those give-away rounded O's. 
After the plane landed at the oasis of Al-Zamzam it became plain to the 
passengers, who were observing their captors with the obsessive attention 
paid to a cobra by a transfixed mongoose, that there was something 
posturing in the beauty of the three men, some amateurish love of risk and 
death in them that made them appear frequently at the open doors of the 
airplane and flaunt their bodies at the professional snipers who must have 
been hiding amid the palm-trees of the oasis. The woman held herself aloof 
from such silliness and seemed to be restraining herself from scolding her 
three colleagues. She seemed insensible to her own beauty, which made her 
the most dangerous of the four. It struck Saladin Chamcha that the young 
men were too squeamish, too narcissistic, to want blood on their hands. 
They would find it difficult to kill; they were here to be on television. But 
Tavleen was here on business. He kept his eyes on her. The men do not 
know, he thought. They want to behave the way they have seen hijackers 
behaving in the movies and on TV; they arc reality aping a crude image of 
itself, they are worms swallowing their tails. But she, the woman, 
_knows_ . . . while Dara, Buta, Man Singh strutted and pranced, she became 
quiet, her eyes turned inwards, and she scared the passengers stiff. 
What did they want? Nothing new. An independent homeland, religious 
freedom, release of political detainees, justice, ransom money, a safe- 
conduct to a country of their choice. Many of the passengers came to 
sympathize with them, even though they were under constant threat of 
execution. If you live in the twentieth century you do not find it hard to see 
yourself in those, more desperate than yourself, who seek to shape it to 
their will. 

After they landed the hijackers released all but fifty of the passengers, 
having decided that fifty was the largest number they could comfortably 
supervise. Women, children, Sikhs were all released. It turned out that 
Saladin Chamcha was the only member of Prospero Players who was not 
given his freedom; he found himself succumbing to the perverse logic of the 
situation, and instead of feeling upset at having been retained he was glad 
to have seen the back of his badly behaved colleagues; good riddance to bad 
rubbish, he thought. 

The creationist scientist Eugene Dumsday was unable to bear the realization 
that the hijackers did not intend to release him. He rose to his feet, swaying 
at his great height like a skyscraper in a hurricane, and began shouting 
hysterical incoherences. A stream of dribble ran out of the corner of his 
mouth; he licked at it feverishly with his tongue. _Now just hold hard here, 



busters, now goddamn it enough is ENO UGH, whaddya wheredya get the 
idea you can_ and so forth, in the grip of his waking nightmare he drivelled 
on and on until one of the four, obviously it was the woman, came up, 
swung her rifle butt and broke his flapping jaw. And worse: because 
slobbering Dumsday had been licking his lips as his jaw slammed shut, the 
tip of his tongue sheared off and landed in Saladin Chamcha's lap; followed 
in quick time by its former owner. Eugene Dumsday fell tongueless and 
insensate into the actor's arms. 

Eugene Dumsday gained his freedom by losing his tongue; the persuader 
succeeded in persuading his captors by surrendering his instrument of 
persuasion. They didn't want to look after a wounded man, risk of gangrene 
and so on, and so he joined the exodus from the plane. In those first wild 
hours Saladin Chamcha's mind kept throwing up questions of detail, are 
those automatic rifles or sub-machine guns, how did they smuggle all that 
metal on board, in which parts of the body is it possible to be shot and still 
survive, how scared they must be, the four of them, how full of their own 
deaths. . . once Dumsday had gone, he had expected to sit alone, but a man 
came and sat in the creationist's old seat, saying you don't mind, yaar, in 
such circs a guy needs company. It was the movie star, Gibreel. 
ooo 

After the first nervous days on the ground, during which the three turbaned 
young hijackers went perilously close to the edges of insanity, screaming 
into the desert night _you bastards, come and get us_, or, alternatively, _o 
god o god they're going to send in the fucking commandos, the 
motherfucking Americans, yaar, the sisterfucking British_, -- moments 
during which the remaining hostages closed their eyes and prayed, because 
they were always most afraid when the hijackers showed signs of weakness, 
-- everything settled down into what began to feel like normality. Twice a 
day a solitary vehicle carried food and drink to _Bostan_ and left it on the 
tarmac. The hostages had to bring in the cartons while the hijackers 
watched them from the safety of the plane. Apart from this daily visit there 
was no contact with the outside world. The radio had gone dead. It was as if 
the incident had been forgotten, as if it were so embarrassing that it had 
simply been erased from the record. "The bastards are leaving us to rot," 
screamed Man Singh, and the hostages joined in with a will. "Hijras! 
Chootias! Shits!" 

They were wrapped in heat and silence and now the spectres began to 
shimmer out of the corners of their eyes. The most highly strung of the 
hostages, a young man with a goatee beard and close-cropped curly hair, 
awoke at dawn, shrieking with fear because he had seen a skeleton riding a 
camel across the dunes. Other hostages saw coloured globes hanging in the 
sky, or heard the beating of gigantic wings. The three male hijackers fell into 
a deep, fatalistic gloom. One day Tavleen summoned them to a conference 
at the far end of the plane; the hostages heard angry voices. "She's telling 



them they have to issue an ultimatum," Gibreel Farishta said to Chamcha. 
"One of us has to die, or such." But when the men returned Tavleen wasn't 
with them and the dejection in their eyes was tinged, now, with shame. 
"They lost their guts," Gibreel whispered. "No can do. Now what is left for 
our Tavleen bibi? Zero. Story funtoosh." 
What she did: 

In order to prove to her captives, and also to her fellow-captors, that the 
idea of failure, or surrender, would never weaken her resolve, she emerged 
from her momentary retreat in the first—class cocktail lounge to stand 
before them like a stewardess demonstrating safety procedures. But instead 
of putting on a lifejacket and holding up blow—tube whistle etcetera, she 
quickly lifted the loose black djellabah that was her only garment and stood 
before them stark naked, so that they could all see the arsenal of her body, 
the grenades like extra breasts nestling in her cleavage, the gelignite taped 
around her thighs, just the way it had been in Chamcha's dream. Then she 
slipped her robe back on and spoke in her faint oceanic voice. "When a great 
idea comes into the world, a great cause, certain crucial questions are asked 
of it," she murmured. "History asks us: what manner of cause are we? Are 
we uncompromising, absolute, strong, or will we show ourselves to be 
timeservers, who compromise, trim and yield?" Her body had provided her 
answer. 

The days continued to pass. The enclosed, boiling circumstances of his 
captivity, at once intimate and distant, made Saladin Chamcha want to 
argue with the woman, unbendingness can also be monomania, he wanted 
to say, it can be tyranny, and also it can be brittle, whereas what is flexible 
can also be humane, and strong enough to last. But he didn't say anything, 
of course, he fell into the torpor of the days. Gibreel Farishta discovered in 
the seat pocket in front of him a pamphlet written by the departed Dumsday. 
By this time Chamcha had noticed the determination with which the movie 
star resisted the onset of sleep, so it wasn't surprising to see him reciting 
and memorizing the lines of the creationist's leaflet, while his already heavy 
eyelids drooped lower and lower until he forced them to open wide again. 
The leaflet argued that even the scientists were busily re— inventing God, 
that once they had proved the existence of a single unified force of which 
electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak forces of the new 
physics were all merely aspects, avatars, one might say, or angels, then 
what would we have but the oldest thing of all, a supreme entity controlling 
all creation . . . "You see, what our friend says is, if you have to choose 
between some type of disembodied force-field and the actual living God, 
which one would you go for? Good point, na? You can't pray to an electric 
current. No point asking a wave-form for the key to Paradise." He closed his 
eyes, then snapped them open again. "All bloody bunk," he said fiercely. 
"Makes me sick." 



After the first days Chamcha no longer noticed Gibreel's bad breath, because 
nobody in that world of sweat and apprehension was smelling any better. 
But his face was impossible to ignore, as the great purple welts of his 
wakefulness spread outwards like oil--slicks from his eyes. Then at last his 
resistance ended and he collapsed on to Saladin's shoulder and slept for four 
days without waking once. 

When he returned to his senses he found that Chamcha, with the help of the 
mouse-like, goateed hostage, a certain Jalandri, had moved him to an empty 
row of seats in the centre block. He went to the toilet to urinate for eleven 
minutes and returned with a look of real terror in his eyes. He sat down by 
Chamcha again, but wouldn't say a word. Two nights later, Chamcha heard 
him fighting, once again, against the onset of sleep. Or, as it turned out: of 
dreams. 

"Tenth highest peak in the world," Chamcha heard him mutter, "is 
Xixabangma Feng, eight oh one three metres. Annapurna ninth, eighty 
seventy-eight." Or he would begin at the other end: "One, Chomolungma, 
eight eight four eight. Two, K2, eighty-six eleven. Kanchenjunga, eighty-five 
ninety-eight, Makalu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu. Nanga Parbat, metres eight 
thousand one hundred and twenty-six." 

"You count eight thousand metre peaks to fall asleep?" Chamcha asked him. 
Bigger than sheep, but not so numerous. Gibreel Farishta glared at him; 
then bowed his head; came to a decision. "Not to sleep, my friend. To stay 
awake." 

That was when Saladin Chamcha found out why Gibreel Farishta had begun 
to fear sleep. Everybody needs somebody to talk to and Gibreel had spoken 
to nobody about what had happened after he ate the unclean pigs. The 
dreams had begun that very night. In these visions he was always present, 
not as himself but as his namesake, and I don't mean interpreting a role, 
Spoono, I am him, he is me, I am the bloody archangel, Gibreel himself, 
large as bloody life. 

_Spoono_. Like Zeenat Vakil, Gibreel had reacted with mirth to Saladin's 
abbreviated name. "Bhai, wow. I'm tickled, truly. Tickled pink. So if you are 
an English chamcha these days, let it be. Mr. Sally Spoon. It will be our little 
joke." Gibreel Farishta had a way of failing to notice when he made people 
angry. _Spoon, Spoono, my old Chumch_: Saladin hated them all. But could 
do nothing. Except hate. 

Maybe it was because of the nicknames, maybe not, but Saladin .found 
Gibreel's revelations pathetic, anticlimactic, what was so strange if his 
dreams characterized him as the angel, dreams do every damn thing, did it 
really display more than a banal kind of egomania? But Gibreel was sweating 
from fear: "Point is, Spoono," he pleaded, "every time I go to sleep the 
dream starts up from where it stopped. Same dream in the same place. As if 
somebody just paused the video while I went out of the room. Or, or. As if 
he's the guy who's awake and this is the bloody nightmare. His bloody 



dream: us. Here. All of it." Chamcha stared at him. "Crazy, right," he said. 
"Who knows if angels even sleep, never mind dream. I sound crazy. Am I 
right or what?" 
"Yes. You sound crazy." 

"Then what the hell," he wailed, "is going on in my head?" 
ooo 

The longer he spent without going to sleep the more talkative he became, he 
began to regale the hostages, the hijackers, as well as the dilapidated crew 
of Flight 420, those formerly scornful stewardesses and shining flight-deck 
personnel who were now looking mournfully moth-eaten in a corner of the 
plane and even losing their earlier enthusiasm for endless games of rummy, 
-- with his increasingly eccentric reincarnation theories, comparing their 
sojourn on that airstrip by the oasis of Al-Zamzam to a second period of 
gestation, telling everybody that they were all dead to the world and in the 
process of being regenerated, made anew. This idea seemed to cheer him up 
somewhat, even though it made many of the hostages want to string him up, 
and he leapt up on to a seat to explain that the day of their release would be 
the day of their rebirth, a piece of optimism that calmed his audience down. 
"Strange but true!" he cried. "That will be day zero, and because we will all 
share the birthday we will all be exactly the same age from that day on, for 
the rest of our lives. How do you call it when fifty kids come out of the same 
mother? God knows. Fiftuplets. Damn!" 

Reincarnation, for frenzied Gibreel, was a term beneath whose shield many 
notions gathered a-babeling: phoenix-from-ashes, the resurrection of Christ, 
the transmigration, at the instant of death, of the soul of the Dalai Lama into 
the body of a new-born child . . . such matters got mixed up with the 
avatars of Vishnu, the metamorphoses of Jupiter, who had imitated Vishnu 
by adopting the form of a bull; and so on, including of course the progress of 
human beings through successive cycles of life, now as cockroaches, now as 
kings, towards the bliss of no-morereturns. _To be born again, first you have 
to die_. Chamcha did not bother to protest that in most of the examples 
Gibreel provided in his soliloquies, metamorphosis had not required a death; 
the new flesh had been entered into through other gates. Gibreel in full flight, 
his arms waving like imperious wings, brooked no interruptions. "The old 
must die, you get my message, or the new cannot be whatnot." 
Sometimes these tirades would end in tears. Farishta in his exhaustion- 
beyond-exhaustion would lose control and place his sobbing head on 
Chamcha's shoulder, while Saladin -- prolonged captivity erodes certain 
reluctances among the captives -- would stroke his face and kiss the top of 
his head, _There, there, there_. On other occasions Chamcha's irritation 
would get the better of him. The seventh time that Farishta quoted the old 
Gramsci chestnut, Saladin shouted out in frustration, maybe that's what's 
happening to you, loudmouth, your old self is dying and that dream-angel of 
yours is trying to be born into your flesh. 



0 0 0 

"You want to hear something really crazy?" Gibreel after a hundred and one 
days offered Chamcha more confidences. "You want to know why I'm here?" 
And told him anyway: "For a woman. Yes, boss. For the bloody love of my 
bloody life. With whom I have spent a sum total of days three point five. 
Doesn't that prove I really am cracked? QED, Spoono, old Chumch." 
And: "How to explain it to you? Three and a half days of it, how long do you 
need to know that the best thing has happened, the deepest thing, the has- 
to--be-it? I swear: when I kissed her there were mother—fucking sparks, 
yaar, believe don't believe, she said it was static electricity in the carpet but 
I've kissed chicks in hotel rooms before and this was a definite first, a 
definite one-and-only. Bloody electric shocks, man, I had to jump back with 
pain." 

He had no words to express her, his woman of mountain ice, to express how 
it had been in that moment when his life had been in pieces at his feet and 
she had become its meaning. "You don't see," he gave up. "Maybe you never 
met a person for whom you'd cross the world, for whom you'd leave 
everything, walk out and take a plane. She climbed Everest, man. Twenty- 
nine thousand and two feet, or maybe twenty-nine one four one. Straight to 
the top. You think I can't get on a jumbo-jet for a woman like that?" 
The harder Gibreel Farishta tried to explain his obsession with the mountain- 
-climber Alleluia Cone, the more Saladin tried to conjure up the memory of 
Pamela, but she wouldn't come. At first it would be Zeeny who visited him, 
her shade, and then after a time there was nobody at all. Gibreel's passion 
began to drive Chamcha wild with anger and frustration, but Farishta didn't 
notice it, slapped him on the back, _cheer up, Spoono, won't be long now_. 

ooo 

On the hundred and tenth day Tavleen walked up to the little goateed 
hostage, Jalandri, and motioned with her finger. Our patience has been 
exhausted, she announced, we have sent repeated ultimatums with no 
response, it is time for the first sacrifice. She used that word: sacrifice. She 
looked straight into Jalandri's eyes and pronounced his death sentence. "You 
first. Apostate traitor bastard." She ordered the crew to prepare for take-off, 
she wasn't going to risk a storming of the plane after the execution, and 
with the point of her gun she pushed Jalandri towards the open door at the 
front, while he screamed and begged for mercy. "She's got sharp eyes," 
Gibreel said to Chamcha. "He's a cut-sird." Jalandri had become the first 
target because of his decision to give up the turban and cut his hair, which 
made him a traitor to his faith, a shorn Sirdarji. _Cut-Sird_. A seven—letter 
condemnation; no appeal. 

Jalandri had fallen to his knees, stains were spreading on the seat of his 
trousers, she was dragging him to the door by his hair. Nobody moved. Dara 
Buta Man Singh turned away from the tableau. He was kneeling with his 



back to the open door; she made him turn round, shot him in the back of 
the head, and he toppled out on to the tarmac. Tavleen shut the door. 
Man Singh, youngest and jumpiest of the quartet, screamed at her: "Now 
where do we go? In any damn place they'll send the commandos in for sure. 
We're gone geese now." 

"Martyrdom is a privilege," she said softly. "We shall be like stars; like the 
sun." 

ooo 

Sand gave way to snow. Europe in winter, beneath its white, transforming 
carpet, its ghost-white shining up through the night. The Alps, France, the 
coastline of England, white cliffs rising to whitened meadowlands. Mr. 
Saladin Chamcha jammed on an anticipatory bowler hat. The world had 
rediscovered Flight A 1-420, the Boeing 747 _Bostan_. Radar tracked it; 
radio messages crackled. _Do you want permission to land?_ But no 
permission was requested. _Bostan_ circled over England's shore like a 
gigantic sea-bird. Gull. Albatross. Fuel indicators dipped: towards zero. 
When the fight broke out, it took all the passengers by surprise, because this 
time the three male hijackers didn't argue with Tavleen, there were no fierce 
whispers about the _fuel_ about _what the fuck you're doing_ but just a 
mute stand-off, they wouldn't even talk to one another, as if they had given 
up hope, and then it was Man Singh who cracked and went for her. The 
hostages watched the fight to the death, unable to feel involved, because a 
curious detachment from reality had come over the aircraft, a kind of 
inconsequential casualness, a fatalism, one might say. They fell to the floor 
and her knife went up through his stomach. That was all, the brevity of it 
adding to its seeming unimportance. Then in the instant when she rose up it 
was as if everybody awoke, it became clear to them all that she really meant 
business, she was going through with it, all the way, she was holding in her 
hand the wire that connected all the pins of all the grenades beneath her 
gown, all those fatal breasts, and although at that moment Buta and Dara 
rushed at her she pulled the wire anyway, and the walls came tumbling 
down. 

No, not death: birth. 



II Mahound 



1 



Gibreel when he submits to the inevitable, when he slides heavy-lidded 
towards visions of his angeling, passes his loving mother who has a different 
name for him, Shaitan, she calls him, just like Shaitan, same to same, 
because he has been fooling around with the tiffins to be carried into the city 
for the office workers' lunch, mischeevious imp, she slices the air with her 
hand, rascal has been putting Muslim meat compartments into Hindu non- 
veg tiffin-carriers, customers are up in arms. Little devil, she scolds, but 
then folds him in her arms, my little farishta, boys will be boys, and he falls 
past her into sleep, growing bigger as he falls and the falling begins to feel 
like flight, his mother's voice wafts distantly up to him, baba, look how you 
grew, enor_mouse_, wah-wah, applause. He is gigantic, wingless, standing 
with his feet upon the horizon and his arms around the sun. In the early 
dreams he sees beginnings, Shaitan cast down from the sky, making a grab 
for a branch of the highest Thing, the lote-tree of the uttermost end that 
stands beneath the Throne, Shaitan missing, plummeting, splat. But he lived 
on, was not couldn't be dead, sang from heilbelow his soft seductive verses. 
O the sweet songs that he knew. With his daughters as his fiendish backing 
group, yes, the three of them, Lat Manat Uzza, motherless girls laughing 
with their Abba, giggling behind their hands at Gibreel, what a trick we got 
in store for you, they giggle, for you and for that businessman on the hill. 
But before the businessman there are other stories, here he is, Archangel 
Gibreel, revealing the spring of Zamzam to Hagar the Egyptian so that, 
abandoned by the prophet Ibrahim with their child in the desert, she might 
drink the cool spring waters and so live. And later, after the Jurhum filled up 
Zamzam with mud and golden gazelles, so that it was lost for a time, here 
he is again, pointing it out to that one, Muttalib of the scarlet tents, father of 
the child with the silver hair who fathered, in turn, the businessman. The 
businessman: here he comes. 

Sometimes when he sleeps Gibreel becomes aware, without the dream, of 
himself sleeping, of himself dreaming his own awareness of his dream, and 
then a panic begins, O God, he cries out, O allgood allahgod, I've had my 
bloody chips, me. Got bugs in the brain, full mad, a looney tune and a gone 
baboon. Just as he, the businessman, felt when he first saw the archangel: 
thought he was cracked, wanted to throw himself down from a rock, from a 
high rock, from a rock on which there grew a stunted lote-tree, a rock as 
high as the roof of the world. 



He's coming: making his way up Cone Mountain to the cave. Happy birthday: 

he's forty-four today. But though the city behind and below him throngs with 

festival, up he climbs, alone. No new birthday suit for him, neatly pressed 

and folded at the foot of his bed. A man of ascetic tastes. (What strange 

manner of businessman is this?) 

Question: What is the opposite of faith? 

Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief. 

Doubt. 

The human condition, but what of the angelic? Halfway between Allahgod 
and homosap, did they ever doubt? They did: challenging God's will one day 
they hid muttering beneath the Throne, daring to ask forbidden things: 
antiquestions. Is it right that. Could it not be argued. Freedom, the old 
antiquest. He calmed them down, naturally, employing management skills a 
la god. Flattered them: you will be the instruments of my will on earth, of 
the salvationdamnation of man, all the usual etcetera. And hey presto, end 
of protest, on with the haloes, back to work. Angels are easily pacified; turn 
them into instruments and they'll play your harpy tune. Human beings are 
tougher nuts, can doubt anything, even the evidence of their own eyes. Of 
behind-their-own eyes. Of what, as they sink heavy-lidded, transpires 
behind closed peepers. . . angels, they don't have much in the way of a will. 
To will is to disagree; not to submit; to dissent. 
I know; devil talk. Shaitan interrupting Gibreel. 
Me? 

The businessman: looks as he should, high forehead, eaglenose, broad in 
the shoulders, narrow in the hip. Average height, brooding, dressed in two 
pieces of plain cloth, each four ells in length, one draped around his body, 
the other over his shoulder. Large eyes; long lashes like a girl's. His strides 
can seem too long for his legs, but he's a light-footed man. Orphans learn to 
be moving targets, develop a rapid walk, quick reactions, hold-yourtongue 
caution. Up through the thorn-bushes and opobalsam trees he comes, 
scrabbling on boulders, this is a fit man, no softbellied usurer he. And yes, to 
state it again: takes an odd sort of business wallah to cut off into the wilds, 
up Mount Cone, sometimes for a month at a stretch, just to be alone. 
His name: a dream-name, changed by the vision. Pronounced correctly, it 
means he-for-whom-thanks-should-be-given, but he won't answer to that 
here; nor, though he's well aware of what they call him, to his nickname in 
Jahilia down below -- _he-who-goes-up-and-down-old-Coney_. Here he is 
neither Mahomet nor MocHammered; has adopted, instead, the demon-tag 
the farangis hung around his neck. To turn insults into strengths, whigs, 
tories, Blacks all chose to wear with pride the names they were given in 
scorn; likewise, our mountain-climbing, prophetmotivated solitary is to be 
the medieval baby— frightener, the Devil's synonym: Mahound. 
That's him. Mahound the businessman, climbing his hot mountain in the 
Hijaz. The mirage of a city shines below him in the sun. 



0 0 0 

The city of Jahilia is built entirely of sand, its structures formed of the desert 
whence it rises. It is a sight to wonder at: walled, four-gated, the whole of it 
a miracle worked by its citizens, who have learned the trick of transforming 
the fine white dune-sand of those forsaken parts, — the very stuff of 
inconstancy, -- the quintessence of unsettlement, shifting, treachery, lack— 
of— form, -- and have turned it, by alchemy, into the fabric of their newly 
invented permanence. These people are a mere three or four generations 
removed from their nomadic past, when they were as rootless as the dunes, 
or rather rooted in the knowledge that the journeying itself was home. 
-- Whereas the migrant can do without the journey altogether; it's no more 
than a necessary evil; the point is to arrive. --. 
Quite recently, then, and like the shrewd businessmen they were, the 
Jahilians settled down at the intersection— point of the routes of the great 
caravans, and yoked the dunes to their will. Now the sand serves the mighty 
urban merchants. Beaten into cobbles, it paves Jahilia's tortuous streets; by 
night, golden flames blaze out from braziers of burnished sand. There is 
glass in the windows, in the long, slitlike windows set in the infinitely high 
sand-walls of the merchant palaces; in the alleys of Jahilia, donkey-carts roll 
forward on smooth silicon wheels. I, in my wickedness, sometimes imagine 
the coming of a great wave, a high wall of foaming water roaring across the 
desert, a liquid catastrophe full of snapping boats and drowning arms, a tidal 
wave that would reduce these vain sandcastles to the nothingness, to the 
grains from which they came. But there are no waves here. Water is the 
enemy in Jahilia. Carried in earthen pots, it must never be spilled (the penal 
code deals fiercely with offenders), for where it drops the city erodes 
alarmingly. Holes appear in roads, houses tilt and sway. The watercarriers of 
Jahilia are loathed necessities, pariahs who cannot be ignored and therefore 
can never be forgiven. It never rains in Jahilia; there are no fountains in the 
silicon gardens. A few palms stand in enclosed courtyards, their roots 
travelling far and wide below the earth in search of moisture. The city's 
water comes from underground streams and springs, one such being the 
fabled Zamzam, at the heart of the concentric sand— city, next to the House 
of the Black Stone. Here, at Zamzam, is a beheshti, a despised water- 
carrier, drawing up the vital, dangerous fluid. He has a name: Khalid. 
A city of businessmen, Jahilia. The name of the tribe is _Shark_. In this city, 
the businessman-turned-prophet, Mahound, is founding one of the world's 
great religions; and has arrived, on this day, his birthday, at the crisis of his 
life. There is a voice whispering in his ear: _What kind of idea are you? Man- 
or-mouse?_ 

We know that voice. We've heard it once before. 

ooo 

While Mahound climbs Coney, Jahilia celebrates a different anniversary. In 
ancient time the patriarch Ibrahim came into this valley with Hagar and 



Ismail, their son. Here, in this waterless wilderness, he abandoned her. She 
asked him, can this be God's will? He replied, it is. And left, the bastard. 
From the beginning men" used God to justify the unjustifiable. He moves in 
mysterious ways: men say. Small wonder, then, that women have turned to 
me. -- But I'll keep to the point; Hagar wasn't a witch. She was trusting: 
_then surely He will not let me perish_. After Ibrahim left her, she fed the 
baby at her breast until her milk ran out. Then she climbed two hills, first 
Safa then Marwah, running from one to the other in her desperation, trying 
to sight a tent, a camel, a human being. She saw nothing. That was when he 
came to her, Gibreel, and showed her the waters of Zamzam. So Hagar 
survived; but why now do the pilgrims congregate? To celebrate her survival? 
No, no. They are celebrating the honour done the valley by the visit of, 
you've guessed it, Ibrahim. In that loving consort's name, they gather, 
worship and, above all, spend. 

Jahilia today is all perfume. The scents of Araby, of _Arabia Odorifera_, hang 
in the air: balsam, cassia, cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh. The pilgrims drink 
the wine of the date-palm and wander in the great fair of the feast of 
Ibrahim. And, among them, one wanders whose furrowed brow sets him 
apart from the cheerful crowd: a tall man in loose white robes, he'd stand 
almost a full head higher than Mahound. His beard is shaped close to his 
slanting, high--boned face; his gait contains the lilt, the deadly elegance of 
power. What's he called? — The vision yields his name eventually; it, too, is 
changed by the dream. Here he is, Karim Abu Simbel, Grandee of Jahilia, 
husband to the ferocious, beautiful Hind. Head of the ruling council of the 
city, rich beyond numbering, owner of the lucrative temples at the city gates, 
wealthy in camels, comptroller of caravans, his wife the greatest beauty in 
the land: what could shake the certainties of such a man? And yet, for Abu 
Simbel, too, a crisis is approaching. A name gnaws at him, and you can 
guess what it is, Mahound Mahound Mahound. 

O the splendour of the fairgrounds of Jahilia! Here in vast scented tents are 
arrays of spices, of senna leaves, of fragrant woods; here the perfume 
vendors can be found, competing for the pilgrims' noses, and for their 
wallets, too. Abu Simbel pushes his way through the crowds. Merchants, 
Jewish, Monophysite, Nabataean, buy and sell pieces of silver and gold, 
weighing them, biting coins with knowing teeth. There is linen from Egypt 
and silk from China; from Basra, arms and grain. There is gambling, and 
drinking, and dance. There are slaves for sale, Nubian, Anatolian, Aethiop. 
The four factions of the tribe of Shark control separate zones of the fair, the 
scents and spices in the Scarlet Tents, while in the Black Tents the cloth and 
leather. The SilverHaired grouping is in charge of precious metals and 
swords. Entertainment -- dice, belly-dancers, palm-wine, the smoking of 
hashish and afeem -- is the prerogative of the fourth quarter of the tribe, 
the Owners of the Dappled Camels, who also run the slave trade. Abu 
Simbel looks into a dance tent. Pilgrims sit clutching money-bags in their left 



hands; every so often a coin is moved from bag to right-hand palm. The 
dancers shake and sweat, and their eyes never leave the pilgrims' fingertips; 
when the coin transfer ceases, the dance also ends. The great man makes a 
face and lets the tent-flap fall. 

Jahilia has been built in a series of rough circles, its houses spreading 
outwards from the House of the Black Stone, approximately in order of 
wealth and rank. Abu Simbel's palace is in the first circle, the innermost ring; 
he makes his way down one of the rambling, windy radial roads, past the 
city's many seers who, in return for pilgrim money, are chirping, cooing, 
hissing, possessed variously by djinnis of birds, beasts, snakes. A sorceress, 
failing for a moment to look up, squats in his path: "Want to capture a 
girlie's heart, my dear? Want an enemy under your thumb? Try me out; try 
my little knots!" And raises, dangles a knotty rope, ensnarer of human lives 
-- but, seeing now to whom she speaks, lets fall her disappointed arm and 
slinks away, mumbling, into sand. 

Everywhere, noise and elbows. Poets stand on boxes and declaim while 
pilgrims throw coins at their feet. Some bards speak rajaz verses, their four- 
-syllable metre suggested, according to legend, by the walking pace of the 
camel; others speak the qasidah, poems of wayward mistresses, desert 
adventure, the hunting of the onager. In a day or so it will be time for the 
annual poetry competition, after which the seven best verses will be nailed 
up on the walls of the House of the Black Stone. The poets are getting into 
shape for their big day; Abu Simbel laughs at minstrels singing vicious 
satires, vitriolic odes commissioned by one chief against another, by one 
tribe against its neighbour. And nods in recognition as one of the poets falls 
into step beside him, a sharp narrow youth with frenzied fingers. This young 
lampoonist already has the most feared tongue in all Jahilia, but to Abu 
Simbel he is almost deferential. "Why so preoccupied, Grandee? If you were 
not losing your hair I'd tell you to let it down." Abu Simbel grins his sloping 
grin. "Such a reputation," he muses. "Such fame, even before your milk- 
teeth have fallen out. Look out or we'll have to draw those teeth for you." He 
is teasing, speaking lightly, but even this lightness is laced with menace, 
because of the extent of his power. The boy is unabashed. Matching Abu 
Simbel stride for stride, he replies: "For every one you pull out, a stronger 
one will grow, biting deeper, drawing hotter spurts of blood." The Grandee, 
vaguely, nods. "You like the taste of blood," he says. The boy shrugs. "A 
poet's work," he answers. "To name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to 
take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to 
sleep." And if rivers of blood flow from the cuts his verses inflict, then they 
will nourish him. He is the satirist, Baal. 

A curtained litter passes by; some fine lady of the city, out to see the fair, 
borne on the shoulders of eight Anatolian slaves. Abu Simbel takes the 
young Baal by the elbow, under the pretext of steering him out of the road; 
murmurs, "I hoped to find you; if you will, a word." Baa! marvels at the skill 



of the Grandee. Searching for a man, he can make his quarry think he has 
hunted the hunter. Abu Simbel's grip tightens; by the elbow, he steers his 
companion towards the holy of holies at the centre of the town. 
"I have a commission for you," the Grandee says. "A literary matter. I know 
my limitations; the skills of rhymed malice, the arts of metrical slander, are 
quite beyond my powers. You understand." 

But Baal, the proud, arrogant fellow, stiffens, stands on his dignity. "It isn't 
right for the artist to become the servant of the state." Simbel's voice falls 
lower, acquires silkier rhythms. "Ah, yes. Whereas to place yourself at the 
disposal of assassins is an entirely honourable thing." A cult of the dead has 
been raging in J ahilia. When a man dies, paid mourners beat themselves, 
scratch their breasts, tear hair. A hamstrung camel is left on the grave to die. 
And if the man has been murdered his closest relative takes ascetic vows 
and pursues the murderer until the blood has been avenged by blood; 
whereupon it is customary to compose a poem of celebration, but few 
revengers are gifted in rhyme. Many poets make a living by writing 
assassination songs, and there is general agreement that the finest of these 
blood—praising versifiers is the precocious polemicist, Baal. Whose 
professional pride prevents him from being bruised, now, by the Grandee's 
little taunt. "That is a cultural matter," he replies. Abu Simbel sinks deeper 
still into silkiness. "Maybe so," he whispers at the gates of the House of the 
Black Stone, "but, Baal, concede: don't I have some small claim upon you? 
We both serve, or so I thought, the same mistress." 
Now the blood leaves Baal's cheeks; his confidence cracks, falls from him 
like a shell. The Grandee, seemingly oblivious to the alteration, sweeps the 
satirist forward into the House. 

They say in Jahilia that this valley is the navel of the earth; that the planet, 
when it was being made, went spinning round this point. Adam came here 
and saw a miracle: four emerald pillars bearing aloft a giant glowing ruby, 
and beneath this canopy a huge white stone, also glowing with its own light, 
like a vision of his soul. He built strong walls around the vision to bind it 
forever to the earth. This was the first House. It was rebuilt many times -- 
once by Ibrahim, after Hagar's and Ismail's angel-- assisted survival -- and 
gradually the countless touchings of the white stone by the pilgrims of the 
centuries darkened its colour to black. Then the time of the idols began; by 
the time of Mahound, three hundred and sixty stone gods clustered around 
God's own stone. 

What would old Adam have thought? His own sons are here now: the 
colossus of Hubal, sent by the Amalekites from Hit, stands above the 
treasury well, Hubal the shepherd, the waxing crescent moon; also, 
glowering, dangerous Kain. He is the waning crescent, blacksmith and 
musician; he, too, has his devotees. 

Hubal and Kain look down on Grandee and poet as they stroll. And the 
Nabataean proto-Dionysus, He-Of-Shara; the morning star, Astarte, and 



saturnine Nakruh. Here is the sun god, Manaf! Look, there flaps the giant 
Nasr, the god in eagleform! See Quzah, who holds the rainbow ... is this not 
a glut of gods, a stone flood, to feed the glutton hunger of the pilgrims, to 
quench their unholy thirst. The deities, to entice the travellers, come -- like 
the pilgrims -- from far and wide. The idols, too, are delegates to a kind of 
international fair. 

There is a god here called Allah (means simply, the god). Ask the Jahilians 
and they'll acknowledge that this fellow has some sort of overall authority, 
but he isn't very popular: an all— rounder in an age of specialist statues. 
Abu Simbel and newly perspiring Baal have arrived at the shrines, placed 
side by side, of the three best-beloved goddesses in Jahilia. They bow before 
all three: Uzza of the radiant visage, goddess of beauty and love; dark, 
obscure Manat, her face averted, her purposes mysterious, sifting sand 
between her fingers -- she's in charge of destiny -- she's Fate; and lastly the 
highest of the three, the mother-goddess, whom the Greeks called Lato. Hat, 
they call her here, or, more frequently, Al--Lat. _The goddess_. Even her 
name makes her Allah's opposite and equal. Lat the omnipotent. His face 
showing sudden relief, Baal flings himself to the ground and prostrates 
himself before her. Abu Simbel stays on his feet. 

The family of the Grandee, Abu Simbel -- or, to be more precise, of his wife 
Hind -- controls the famous temple of Lat at the city's southern gate. (They 
also draw the revenues from the Manat temple at the east gate, and the 
temple of Uzza in the north.) These concessions are the foundations of the 
Grandee's wealth, so he is of course, Baal understands, the servant of Lat. 
And the satirist's devotion to this goddess is well known throughout Jahilia. 
So that was all he meant! Trembling with relief, Baal remains prostrate, 
giving thanks to his patron Lady. Who looks upon him benignly; but a 
goddess's expresson is not to be relied upon. Baal has made a serious 
mistake. 

Without warning, the Grandee kicks the poet in the kidney. Attacked just 
when he has decided he's safe, Baa! squeals, rolls over, and Abu Simbel 
follows him, continuing to kick. There is the sound of a cracking rib. "Runt," 
the Grandee remarks, his voice remaining low and good natured. "High- 
voiced pimp with small testicles. Did you think that the master of Lat's 
temple would claim comradeship with you just because of your adolescent 
passion for her?" And more kicks, regular, methodical. Baal weeps at Abu 
Simbel's feet. The House of the Black Stone is far from empty, but who 
would come between the Grandee and his wrath? Abruptly, Baal's tormentor 
squats down, grabs the poet by the hair, jerks his head up, whispers into his 
ear: "Baal, she wasn't the mistress I meant," and then Baal lets out a howl 
of hideous scif-pity, because he knows his life is about to end, to end when 
he has so much still to achieve, the poor guy. The Grandee's lips brush his 
ear. "Shit of a frightened camel," Abu Simbel breathes, "I know you fuck my 



wife." He observes, with interest, that Baal has acquired a prominent 
erection, an ironic monument to his fear. 

Abu Simbel, the cuckolded Grandee, stands up, commands, "On your feet", 
and Baal, bewildered, follows him outside. 

The graves of Ismail and his mother Hagar the Egyptian lie by the north- 
west face of the House of the Black Stone, in an enclosure surrounded by a 
low wall. Abu Simbel approaches this area, halts a little way off. In the 
enclosure is a small group of men. The water-carrier Khalid is there, and 
some sort of bum from Persia by the outlandish name of Salman, and to 
complete this trinity of scum there is the slave Bilal, the one Mahound freed, 
an enormous black monster, this one, with a voice to match his size. The 
three idlers sit on the enclosure wall. "That bunch of riff-raff," Abu Simbel 
says. "Those are your targets. Write about them; and their leader, too." 
Baa!, for all his terror, cannot conceal his disbelief. "Grandee, those _goons_ 
-- those fucking _clowns?_ You don't have to worry about them. What do 
you think? That Mahound's one God will bankrupt your temples? Three-sixty 
versus one, and the one wins? Can't happen." He giggles, close to hysteria. 
Abu Simbel remains calm: "Keep your insults for your verses." Giggling Baa! 
can't stop. "A revolution of water-carriers, immigrants and slaves . . . wow, 
Grandee. I'm really scared." Abu Simbel looks carefully at the tittering poet. 
"Yes," he answers, "that's right, you should be afraid. Get writing, please, 
and I expect these verses to be your masterpieces." Baa! crumples, whines. 
"But they are a waste of my, my small talent . . ." He sees that he has said 
too much. 

"Do as you're told," are Abu Simbel's last words to him. "You have no 
choice." 

ooo 

The Grandee lolls in his bedroom while concubines attend to his needs. 
Coconut— oil for his thinning hair, wine for his palate, tongues for his delight. 
_The boy was right. Why do I fear Mahound?_ He begins, idly, to count the 
concubines, gives up at fifteen with a flap of his hand. _The boy. Hind will go 
on seeing him, obviously; what chance does he have against her will ?_ It is 
a weakness in him, he knows, that he sees too much, tolerates too much. 
He has his appetites, why should she not have hers? As long as she is 
discreet; and as long as he knows. He must know; knowledge is his narcotic, 
his addiction. He cannot tolerate what he does not know and for that reason, 
if for no other, Mahound is his enemy, Mahound with his raggle-taggle gang, 
the boy was right to laugh. He, the Grandee, laughs less easily. Like his 
opponent he is a cautious man, he walks on the balls of his feet. He 
remembers the big one, the slave, Bilal: how his master asked him, outside 
the Lat temple, to enumerate the gods. "One," he answered in that huge 
musical voice. Blasphemy, punishable by death. They stretched him out in 
the fairground with a boulder on his chest. _How many did you say?_ One, 



he repeated, one. A second boulder was added to the first. _One one one_. 

Mahound paid his owner a large price and set him free. 
No, Abu Simbel reflects, the boy Baal was wrong, these men are worth our 
time. Why do I fear Mahound? For that: one one one, his terrifying 
singularity. Whereas I am always divided, always two or three or fifteen. I 
can even see his point of view; he is as wealthy and successful as any of us, 
as any of the councillors, but because he lacks the right sort of family 
connections, we haven't offered him a place amongst our group. Excluded by 
his orphaning from the mercantile elite, he feels he has been cheated, he 
has not had his due. He always was an ambitious fellow. Ambitious, but also 
solitary. You don't rise to the top by climbing up a hill all by yourself. Unless, 
maybe, you meet an angel there . . . yes, that's it. I see what he's up to. He 
wouldn't understand me, though. _What kind of idea am I?_ I bend. I sway. 
I calculate the odds, trim my sails, manipulate, survive. That is why I won't 
accuse Hind of adultery. We are a good pair, ice and fire. Her family shield, 
the fabled red lion, the many-toothed manticore. Let her play with her 
satirist; between us it was never sex. I'll finish him when she's finished with. 
Here's a great lie, thinks the Grandee of Jahilia drifting into sleep: the pen is 
mightier than the sword. 

ooo 

The fortunes of the city of Jahilia were built on the supremacy of sand over 
water. In the old days it had been thought safer to transport goods across 
the desert than over the seas, where monsoons could strike at any time. In 
those days before meteorology such matters were impossible to predict. For 
this reason the cara-- vanserais prospered. The produce of the world came 
up from Zafar to Sheba, and thence toJahilia and the oasis of Yathrib and on 
to Midian where Moses lived; thence to Aqabah and Egypt. From Jahilia 
other trails began: to the east and north-east, towards Mesopotamia and 
the great Persian empire. To Petra and to Palmyra, where once Solomon 
loved the Queen of Sheba. Those were fatted days. But now the fleets plying 
the waters around the peninsula have grown hardier, their crews more skilful, 

their navigational instruments more accurate. The camel trains are losing 
business to the boats. Desert-ship and sea-ship, the old rivalry, sees a tilt in 
the balance of power. Jahilia's rulers fret, but there is little they can do. 
Sometimes Abu Simbel suspects that only the pilgrimage stands between 
the city and its ruin. The council searches the world for statues of alien gods, 

to attract new pilgrims to the city of sand; but in this, too, they have 
competitors. Down in Sheba a great temple has been built, a shrine to rival 
the House of the Black Stone. Many pilgrims have been tempted south, and 

the numbers at the Jahilia fairgrounds are falling. 
At the recommendation of Abu Simbel, the rulers of Jahilia have added to 
their religious practices the tempting spices of profanity. The city has 
become famous for its licentiousness, as a gambling den, a whorehouse, a 
place of bawdy songs and wild, loud music. On one occasion some members 



of the tribe of Shark went too far in their greed for pilgrim money. The 
gatekeepers at the House began demanding bribes from weary voyagers; 
four of them, piqued at receiving no more than a pittance, pushed two 
travellers to their deaths down the great, steep flight of stairs. This practice 
backfired, discouraging return visits. . . Today, female pilgrims are often 
kidnapped for ransom, or sold into concubinage. Gangs of young Sharks 
patrol the city, keeping their own kind of law. It is said that Abu Simbel 
meets secretly with the gangleaders and organizes them all. This is the 
world into which Mahound has brought his message: one one one, Amid 
such multiplicity, it sounds like a dangerous word. 

The Grandee sits up and at once concubines approach to resume their oilings 
and smoothings. He waves them away, claps his hands. The eunuch enters. 
"Send a messenger to the house of the kahin Mahound," Abu Simbel 
commands. _We will set him a little test. A fair contest: three against one_. 

ooo 

Water-carrier immigrant slave: Mahound's three disciples are washing at the 
well of Zamzam. In the sand--city, their obsession with water makes them 
freakish. Ablutions, always ablutions, the legs up to the knees, the arms 
down to the elbows, the head down to the neck. Dry-torsoed, wet-limbed 
and damp-headed, what eccentrics they look! Splish, splosh, washing and 
praying. On their knees, pushing arms, legs, heads back into the ubiquitous 
sand, and then beginning again the cycle of water and prayer. These are 
easy targets for Baal's pen. Their water--loving is a treason of a sort; the 
people of Jahilia accept the omnipotence of sand. It lodges between their 
fingers and toes, cakes their lashes and hair, clogs their pores. They open 
themselves to the desert: come, sand, wash us in aridity. That is the Jahilian 
way from the highest citizen to the lowest of the low. They are people of 
silicon, and water-lovers have come among them. 

Baal circles them from a safe distance -- Bilal is not a man to trifle with — 
and yells gibes. "If Mahound's ideas were worth anything, do you think 
they'd only be popular with trash like you?" Salman restrains Bilal: "We 
should be honoured that the mighty Baal has chosen to attack us," he smiles, 
and Bilal relaxes, subsides. Khalid the water-carrier is jumpy, and when he 
sees the heavy figure of Mahound's uncle Hamza approaching he runs 
towards him anxiously. Hamza at sixty is still the city's most renowned 
fighter and lion-hunter. Though the truth is less glorious than the eulogies: 
Hamza has many times been defeated in combat, saved by friends or lucky 
chances, rescued from lions' jaws. He has the money to keep such items out 
of the news. And age, and survival, bestow a sort of validation upon a 
martial legend. Bilal and Salman, forgetting Baal, follow Khalid. All three are 
nervous, young. 

He's still not home, Hamza reports. And Khalid, worried: But it's been hours, 
what is that bastard doing to him, torture, thumbscrews, whips? Salman, 
once again, is the calmest: That isn't Simbel's style, he says, it's something 



sneaky, depend upon it. And Bilal bellows loyally: Sneaky or not, I have faith 
in him, in the Prophet. He won't break. Hamza offers only a gentle rebuke: 
Oh, Bilal, how many times must he tell you? Keep your faith for God. The 
Messenger is only a man. The tension bursts out of Khalid: he squares up to 
old Hamza, demands, Are you saying that the Messenger is weak? You may 
be his uncle . . . Hamza clouts the water-carrier on the side of the head. 
Don't let him see your fear, he says, not even when you're scared half to 
death. 

The four of them are washing once more when Mahound arrives; they 
cluster around him, whowhatwhy. Hamza stands back. "Nephew, this is no 
damn good," he snaps in his soldier's bark. "When you come down from 
Coney there's a brightness on you. Today it's something dark." 
Mahound sits on the edge of the well and grins. "I've been offered a deal." 
_By Abu Simbel?_ Khalid shouts. JJnthinkable. Refuse_. Faithful Bilal 
admonishes him: Do not lecture the Messenger. Of course, he has refused. 
Salman the Persian asks: What sort of deal. Mahound smiles again. "At least 
one of you wants to know." 

"It's a small matter," he begins again. "A grain of sand. Abu Simbel asks 
Allah to grant him one little favour." Hamza sees the exhaustion in him. As if 
he had been wrestling with a demon. The water—carrier is shouting: 
"Nothing! Not a jot!" Hamza shuts him up. 

"If our great God could find it in his heart to concede -- he used that word, 
_concede_ -- that three, only three of the three hundred and sixty idols in 
the house are worthy of worship . . ." 

"There is no god but God!" Bilal shouts. And his fellows join in: "Ya Allah!" 
Mahound looks angry. "Will the faithful hear the Messenger?" They fall silent, 
scuffing their feet in the dust. 

"He asks for Allah's approval of Lat, Uzza and Manat. In return, he gives his 
guarantee that we will be tolerated, even officially recognized; as a mark of 
which, I am to be elected to the council of Jahilia. That's the offer." 
Salman the Persian says: "It's a trap. If you go up Coney and come down 
with such a Message, he'll ask, how could you make Gibreel provide just the 
right revelation? He'll be able to call you a charlatan, a fake." Mahound 
shakes his head. "You know, Salman, that I have learned how to listen. This 
_listening_ is not of the ordinary kind; it's also a kind of asking. Often, when 
Gibreel comes, it's as if he knows what's in my heart. It feels to me, most 
times, as if he comes from within my heart: from within my deepest places, 
from my soul." 

"Or it's a different trap," Salman persists. "How long have we been reciting 
the creed you brought us? There is no god but God. What are we if we 
abandon it now? This weakens us, renders us absurd. We cease to be 
dangerous. Nobody will ever take us seriously again." 
Mahound laughs, genuinely amused. "Maybe you haven't been here long 
enough," he says kindly. "Haven't you noticed? The people do not take us 



seriously. Never more than fifty in the audience when I speak, and half of 

those are tourists. Don't you read the lampoons that Baal pins up all over 

town?" He recites: 

_Messenger, do please lend a_ 

_careful ear. Your monophilia_, 

_your one one one, ain't for Jahilia_. 

_Return to sender_. 

"They mock us everywhere, and you call us dangerous," he cried. 

Now Hamza looks worried. "You never worried about their opinions before. 

Why now? Why after speaking to Simbel?" 

Mahound shakes his head. "Sometimes I think I must make it easier for the 
people to believe." 

An uneasy silence covers the disciples; they exchange looks, shift their 
weight. Mahound cries out again. "You all know what has been happening. 
Our failure to win converts. The people will not give up their gods. They will 
not, not." He stands up, strides away from them, washes by himself on the 
far side of the Zamzam well, kneels to pray. 

"The people are sunk in darkness," says Bilal, unhappily. "But they will see. 
They will hear. God is one." Misery infects the four of them; even Hamza is 
brought low. Mahound has been shaken, and his followers quake. 
He stands, bows, sighs, comes round to rejoin them. "Listen to me, all of 
you," he says, putting one arm around Bilal's shoulders, the other around his 
uncle's. "Listen: it is an interesting offer." 

Unembraced Khalid interrupts bitterly: "It is a _tempting_ deal." The others 
look horrified. Hamza speaks very gently to the water—carrier. "Wasn't it 
you, Khalid, who wanted to fight me just now because you wrongly assumed 
that, when I called the Messenger a man, I was really calling him a weakling? 
Now what? Is it my turn to challenge you to a fight?" 
Mahound begs for peace. "If we quarrel, there's no hope." He tries to raise 
the discussion to the theological level. "It is not suggested that Allah accept 
the three as his equals. Not even Lat. Only that they be given some sort of 
intermediary, lesser status." 
"Like devils," Bilal bursts out. 

"No," Salman the Persian gets the point. "Like archangels. The Grandee's a 
clever man." 

"Angels and devils," Mahound says. "Shaitan and Gibreel. We all, already, 
accept their existence, halfway between God and man. Abu Simbel asks that 
we admit just three more to this great company. Just three, and, he 
indicates, all Jahilia's souls will be ours." 

"And the House will be cleansed of statues?" Salman asks. Mahound replies 
that this was not specified. Salman shakes his head. "This is being done to 
destroy you." And Bilal adds: "God cannot be four." And Khalid, close to 
tears: "Messenger, what are you saying? Lat, Manat, Uzza -- they're all 



_females!_ For pity's sake! Are we to have goddesses now? Those old cranes, 
herons, hags?" 

Misery strain fatigue, etched deeply into the Prophet's face. Which Hamza, 
like a soldier on a battlefield comforting a wounded friend, cups between his 
hands. "We can't sort this out for you, nephew," he says. "Climb the 
mountain. Go ask Gibreel." 

ooo 

Gibreel: the dreamer, whose point of view is sometimes that of the camera 
and at other moments, spectator. When he's a camera the pee oh vee is 
always on the move, he hates static shots, so he's floating up on a high 
crane looking down at the foreshortened figures of the actors, or he's 
swooping down to stand invisibly between them, turning slowly on his heel 
to achieve a threehundred-and-sixty-degree pan, or maybe he'll try a dolly 
shot, tracking along beside Baal and Abu Simbel as they walk, or hand—held 
with the help of a steadicam he'll probe the secrets of the Grandee's 
bedchamber. But mostly he sits up on Mount Cone like a paying customer in 
the dress circle, and Jahilia is his silver screen. He watches and weighs up 
the action like any movie fan, enjoys the fights infidelities moral crises, but 
there aren't enough girls for a real hit, man, and where are the goddamn 
songs? They should have built up that fairground scene, maybe a cameo role 
for Pimple Billimoria in a show-tent, wiggling her famous bazooms. 
And then, without warning, Hamza says to Mahound: "Go ask Gibreel," and 
he, the dreamer, feels his heart leaping in alarm, who, me? I'm supposed to 
know the answers here? I'm sitting here watching this picture and now this 
actor points his finger out at me, who ever heard the like, who asks the 
bloody audience of a "theological" to solve the bloody plot? -- But as the 
dream shifts, it's always changing form, he, Gibreel, is no longer a mere 
spectator but the central player, the star. With his old weakness for taking 
too many roles: yes, yes,, he's not just playing the archangel but also him, 
the businessman, the Messenger, Mahound, coming up the mountain when 
he comes. Nifty cutting is required to pull off this double role, the two of 
them can never be seen in the same shot, each must speak to empty air, to 
the imagined incarnation of the other, and trust to technology to create the 
missing vision, with scissors and Scotch tape or, more exotically, with the 
help of a travelling mat. Not to be confused ha ha with any magic carpet. 
He has understood: that he is afraid of the other, the business-man, isn't it 
crazy? The archangel quaking before the mortal man. It's true, but: the kind 
of fear you feel when you're on a film set for the very first time and there, 
about to make his entrance, is one of the living legends of the cinema; you 
think, I'll disgrace myself, I'll dry, I'll corpse, you want like mad to be 
_worthy_. You will be sucked along in the slipstream of his genius, he can 
make you look good, like a high flier, but you will know if you aren't pulling 
your weight and even worse so will he Gibreel's fear, the fear of the self his 



dream creates, makes him struggle against Mahound's arrival, to try and put 
it off, but he's coming now, no quesch, and the archangel holds his breath. 
Those dreams of being pushed out on stage when you've no business being 
there, you don't know the story haven't learned any lines, but there's a full 
house watching, watching: feels like that. Or the true story of the white 
actress playing a black woman in Shakespeare. She went on stage and then 
realized she still had her glasses on, eck, but she had forgotten to blacken 
her hands so she couldn't reach up to take the specs off, double eek: like 
that also. _Mahound comes to me for revelation, asking me to choose 
between monotheist and henotheist alternatives, and I'm just some idiot 
actor having a bhaenchud nightmare, what the fuck do I know, yaar, what to 
tell you, help. Help_. 
ooo 

To reach Mount Cone from Jahilia one must walk into dark ravines where the 
sand is not white, not the pure sand filtered long ago through the bodies of 
sea-cucumbers, but black and dour, sucking light from the sun. Coney 
crouches over you like an imaginary beast. You ascend along its spine. 
Leaving behind the last trees, white— flowered with thick, milky leaves, you 
climb among the boulders, which get larger as you get higher, until they 
resemble huge walls and start blotting out the sun. The lizards arc blue as 
shadows. Then you are on the peak, Jahilia behind you, the featureless 
desert ahead. You descend on the desert side, and about five hundred feet 
down you reach the cave, which is high enough to stand upright in, and 
whose floor is covered in miraculous albino sand. As you climb you hear the 
desert doves calling your name, and the rocks greet you, too, in your own 
language, crying Mahound, Mahound. When you reach the cave you are tired, 
you lie down, you fall asleep. 

ooo 

But when he has rested he enters a different sort of sleep, a sort of not— 
sleep, the condition that he calls his _listening_, and he feels a dragging 
pain in the gut, like something trying to be born, and now Gibreel, who has 
been hovering-above-looking-down, feels a confusion, _who am I_, in these 
moments it begins to seem that the archangel is actually _inside the 
Prophet_, I am the dragging in the gut, I am the angel being extruded from 
the sleeper's navel, I emerge, Gibreel Farishta, while my other self, 
Mahound, lies _listening_, entranced, I am bound to him, navel to navel, by 
a shining cord of light, not possible to say which of us is dreaming the other. 
We flow in both directions along the umbilical cord. 

Today, as well as the overwhelming intensity of Mahound, Gibreel feels his 
despair: his doubts. Also, that he is in great need, but Gibreel still doesn't 
know his lines ... he listens to the listening-which-is-also-an-asking. 
Mahound asks: They were shown miracles but they didn't believe. They saw 
you come to me, in full view of the city, and open my breast, they saw you 
wash my heart in the waters of Zamzam and replace it inside my body. 



Many of them saw this, but still they worship stones. And when you came at 
night and flew me to Jerusalem and I hovered above the holy city, didn't I 
return and describe it exactly as it is, accurate down to the last detail? So 
that there could be no doubting the miracle, and still they went to Lat. 
Haven't I already done my best to make things simple for them? When you 
carried me up to the Throne itself, and Allah laid upon the faithful the great 
burden of forty prayers a day. On the return journey I met Moses and he 
said, the burden is too heavy, go back and plead for less. Four times I went 
back, four times Moses said, still too many, go back again. But by the fourth 
time Allah had reduced the duty to five prayers and I refused to return. I felt 
ashamed to beg any more. In his bounty he asks for five instead of forty, 
and still they love Manat, they want Uzza. What can I do? What shall I recite? 
Gibreel remains silent, empty of answers, for Pete's sake, bhai, don't go 
asking me. Mahound's anguish is awful. He _asks_: is it possible that they 
_are_ angels? Lat, Manat, Uzza . . . can I call them angelic? Gibreel, have 
you got sisters? Are these the daughters of God? And he castigates himself, 
O my vanity, I am an arrogant man, is this weakness, is it just a dream of 
power? Must I betray myself for a seat on the council? Is this sensible and 
wise or is it hollow and self-loving? I don't even know if the Grandee is 
sincere. Does he know? Perhaps not even he. I am weak and he's strong, 
the offer gives him many ways of ruining me. But I, too, have much to gain. 
The souls of the city, of the world, surely they are worth three angels? Is 
Allah so unbending that he will not embrace three more to save the human 
race? -- I don't know anything. -- Should God be proud or humble, majestic 
or simple, yielding or un-? _What kind of idea is he? What kind am I?_ 
ooo 

Halfway into sleep, or halfway back to wakefulness, Gibreel Farishta is often 
filled with resentment by the non-appearance, in his persecuting visions, of 
the One who is supposed to have the answers, _He_ never turns up, the one 
who kept away when I was dying, when I needed needed him. The one it's 
all about, Allah Ishvar God. Absent as ever while we writhe and suffer in his 
name. 

The Supreme Being keeps away; what keeps returning is this scene, the 
entranced Prophet, the extrusion, the cord of light, and then Gibreel in his 
dual role is both above-looking-down and below-staring-up. And both of 
them scared out of their minds by the transcendence of it. Gibreel feels 
paralysed by the presence of the Prophet, by his greatness, thinks I can't 
make a sound I'd seem such a goddamn fool. Hamza's advice: never show 
your fear: archangels need such advice as well as water-carriers. An 
archangel must look composed, what would the Prophet think if God's 
Exalted began to gibber with stage fright? 

It happens: revelation. Like this: Mahound, still in his notsicep, becomes 
rigid, veins bulge in his neck, he clutches at his centre. No, no, nothing like 
an epileptic fit, it can't be explained away that easily; what epileptic fit ever 



caused day to turn to night, caused clouds to mass overhead, caused the air 
to thicken into soup while an angel hung, scared silly, in the sky above the 
sufferer, held up like a kite on a golden thread? The dragging again the 
dragging and now the miracle starts in his my our guts, he is straining with 
all his might at something, forcing something, and Gibreel begins to feel that 
strength that force, here it is _at my own jaw_ working it, opening shutting; 
and the power, starting within Mahound, reaching up to _my vocal cords_ 
and the voice comes. 

_Not my voice_ I'd never know such words I'm no classy speaker never was 
never will be but this isn't my voice it's a Voice. 

Mahound's eyes open wide, he's seeing some kind of vision, staring at it, oh, 
that's right, Gibreel remembers, me. He's seeing me. My lips moving, being 
moved by. What, whom? Don't know, can't say. Nevertheless, here they are, 
coming out of my mouth, up my throat, past my teeth: the Words. 
Being God's postman is no fun, yaar. 
Butbutbut: God isn't in this picture. 
God knows whose postman I've been, 
ooo 

In Jahilia they are waiting for Mahound by the well. Khalid the water-carrier, 
as ever the most impatient, runs off to the city gate to keep a look—out. 
Hamza, like all old soldiers accustomed to keeping his own company, squats 
down in the dust and plays a game with pebbles. There is no sense of 
urgency; sometimes he is away for days, even weeks. And today the city is 
all but deserted; everybody has gone to the great tents at the fairground to 
hear the poets compete. In the silence, there is only the noise of Hamza's 
pebbles, and the gurgles of a pair of rock-doves, visitors from Mount Cone. 
Then they hear the running feet. 

Khalid arrives, out of breath, looking unhappy. The Messenger has returned, 
but he isn't coming to Zamzam. Now they are all on their feet, perplexed by 
this departure from established practice. Those who have been waiting with 
palm-fronds and steles ask Hamza: Then there will be no Message? But 
Khalid, still catching his breath, shakes his head. "I think there will be. He 
looks the way he does when the Word has been given. But he didn't speak 
to me and walked towards the fairground instead." 
Hamza takes command, forestalling discussion, and leads the way. The 
disciples -- about twenty have gathered -- follow him to the fleshpots of the 
city, wearing expressions of pious disgust. Hamza alone seems to be looking 
forward to the fair. 

Outside the tents of the Owners of the Dappled Camels they find Mahound, 
standing with his eyes closed, steeling himself to the task. They ask anxious 
questions; he doesn't answer. After a few moments, he enters the poetry 
tent. 

ooo 



Inside the tent, the audience reacts to the arrival of the unpopular Prophet 
and his wretched followers with derision. But as Mahound walks forward, his 
eyes firmly closed, the boos and catcalls die away and a silence falls. 
Mahound does not open his eyes for an instant, but his steps are sure, and 
he reaches the stage without stumblings or collisions. He climbs the few 
steps up into the light; still his eyes stay shut. The assembled lyric poets, 
composers of assassination eulogies, narrative versifiers and satirists -- Baal 
is here, of course -- gaze with amusement, but also with a little unease, at 
the sleepwalking Mahound. In the crowd his disciples jostle for room. The 
scribes fight to be near him, to take down whatever he might say. 
The Grandee Abu Simbel rests against bolsters on a silken carpet positioned 
beside the stage. With him, resplendent in golden Egyptian neckwear, is his 
wife Hind, that famous Grecian profile with the black hair that is as long as 
her body. Abu Simbel rises and calls to Mahound, "Welcome." He is all 
urbanity. "Welcome, Mahound, the seer, the kahin." It's a public declaration 
of respect, and it impresses the assembled crowd. The Prophet's disciples 
are no longer shoved aside, but allowed to pass. Bewildered, half-pleased, 
they come to the front. Mahound speaks without opening his eyes. 
"This is a gathering of many poets," he says clearly, "and I cannot claim to 
be one of them. But I am the Messenger, and I bring verses from a greater 
One than any here assembled." 

The audience is losing patience. Religion is for the temple; J ahilians and 
pilgrims alike are here for entertainment. Silence the fellow! Throw him out! 
— But Abu Simbel speaks again. "If your God has really spoken to you," he 
says, "then all the world must hear it." And in an instant the silence in the 
great tent is complete. 

"_The Star_," Mahound cries out, and the scribes begin to write. 

"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful! 

"By the Pleiades when they set: Your companion is not in error; neither is he 

deviating. 

"Nor does he speak from his own desires. It is a revelation that has been 
revealed: one mighty in power has taught him. 

"He stood on the high horizon: the lord of strength. Then he came close, 
closer than the length of two bows, and revealed to his servant that which is 
revealed. 

"The servant's heart was true when seeing what he saw. Do you, then, dare 
to question what was seen? 

"I saw him also at the lote— tree of the uttermost end, near which lies the 
Garden of Repose. When that tree was covered by its covering, my eye was 
not averted, neither did my gaze wander; and I saw some of the greatest 
signs of the Lord." 

At this point, without any trace of hesitation or doubt, he recites two further 
verses. 



"Have you thought upon Lat and Uzza, and Manat, the third, the other?" — 
After the first verse, Hind gets to her feet; the Grandee of Jahilia is already 
standing very straight. And Mahound, with silenced eyes, recites: "They are 
the exalted birds, and their intercession is desired indeed." 
As the noise — shouts, cheers, scandal, cries of devotion to the goddess Al- 
Lat -- swells and bursts within the marquee, the already astonished 
congregation beholds the doubly sensational spectacle of the Grandee Abu 
Simbel placing his thumbs upon the lobes of his ears, fanning out the fingers 
of both hands and uttering in a loud voice the formula: "Allahu Akbar." After 
which he falls to his knees and presses a deliberate forehead to the ground. 
His wife, Hind, immediately follows his lead. 

The water-carrier Khalid has remained by the open tent-flap throughout 
these events. Now he stares in horror as everyone gathered there, both the 
crowd in the tent and the overflow of men and women outside it, begins to 
kneel, row by row, the movement rippling outwards from Hind and the 
Grandee as though they were pebbles thrown into a lake; until the entire 
gathering, outside the tent as well as in, kneels bottom— in — air before the 
shuteye Prophet who has recognized the patron deities of the town. The 
Messenger himself remains standing, as if loth to join the assembly in its 
devotions. Bursting into tears, the water-carrier flees into the empty heart 
of the city of the sands. His teardrops, as he runs, burn holes in the earth, 
as if they contain some harsh corrosive acid. 

Mahound remains motionless. No trace of moisture can be detected on the 

lashes of his unopened eyes. 

ooo 

On that night of the desolating triumph of the businessman in the tent of the 
unbelievers, there take place certain murders for which the first lady of 
Jahilia will wait years to take her terrible revenge. 

The Prophet's uncle Hamza has been walking home alone, his head bowed 
and grey in the twilight of that melancholy victory, when he hears a roar and 
looks up, to see a gigantic scarlet lion poised to leap at him from the high 
battlements of the city. He knows this beast, this fable. _The iridescence of 
its scarlet hide blends into the shimmering brightness of the desert sands. 
Through its nostrils it exhales the horror of the lonely places of the earth. It 
spits out pestilence, and when armies venture into the desert, it consumes 
them utterly_. Through the blue last light of evening he shouts at the beast, 
preparing, unarmed as he is, to meet his death. "Jump, you bastard, 
manticore. I've strangled big cats with my bare hands, in my time." When I 
was younger. When I was young. 

There is laughter behind him, and distant laughter echoing, or so it seems, 
from the battlements. He looks around him; the manticore has vanished 
from the ramparts. He is surrounded by a group of Jahilians in fancy dress, 
returning from the fair and giggling. "Now that these mystics have embraced 
our Lat, they are seeing new gods round every corner, no?" Hamza, 



understanding that the night will be full of terrors, returns home and calls for 
his battle sword. "More than anything in the world," he growls at the papery 
valet who has served him in war and peace for forty-four years, "I hate 
admitting that my enemies have a point. Damn sight better to kill the 
bastards, I've always thought. Neatest bloody solution." The sword has 
remained sheathed in its leather scabbard since the day of his conversion by 
his nephew, but tonight, he confides to the valet, "The lion is loose. Peace 
will have to wait." 

It is the last night of the festival of Ibrahim. Jahilia is masquerade and 
madness. The oiled fatty bodies of the wrestlers have completed their 
writhings and the seven poems have been nailed to the walls of the House of 
the Black Stone. Now singing whores replace the poets, and dancing whores, 
also with oiled bodies, are at work as well; night-wrestling replaces the 
daytime variety. The courtesans dance and sing in golden, bird-beaked 
masks, and the gold is reflected in their clients' shining eyes. Gold, gold 
everywhere, in the palms of the profiteering Jahilians and their libidinous 
guests, in the flaming sand--braziers, in the glowing walls of the night city. 
Hamza walks dolorously through the streets of gold, past pilgrims who lie 
unconscious while cutpurses earn their living. He hears the wine--blurred 
carousing through every golden-gleaming doorway, and feels the song and 
howling laughter and coin-chinkings hurting him like mortal insults. But he 
doesn't find what he's looking for, not here, so he moves away from the 
illuminated revelry of gold and begins to stalk the shadows, hunting the 
apparition of the lion. 

And finds, after hours of searching, what he knew would be waiting, in a 
dark corner of the city's outer walls, the thing of his vision, the red 
manticore with the triple row of teeth. The manticorc has blue eyes and a 
mannish face and its voice is half-- trumpet and half-flute. It is fast as the 
wind, its nails are corkscrew talons and its tail hurls poisone& quills. It loves 
to feed on human flesh ... a brawl is taking place. Knives hissing in the 
silence, at times the clash of metal against metal. Hamza recognizes the 
men under attack: Khalid, Salman, Bilal. A lion himself now, Hamza draws 
his sword, roars the silence into shreds, runs forward as fast as sixty— year- 
old legs will go. His friends' assailants are unrecognizable behind their masks. 
It has been a night of masks. Walking the debauched Jahilian streets, his 
heart full of bile, Hamza has seen men and women in the guise of eagles, 
jackals, horses, gryphons, salamanders, wart-- hogs, rocs; welling up from 
the murk of the alleys have come two-headed amphisbaenae and the winged 
bulls known as Assyrian sphinxes. Djinns, houris, demons populate the city 
on this night of phantasmagoria and lust. But only now, in this dark place, 
does he see the red masks he's been looking for. The manlion masks: he 
rushes towards his fate. 

ooo 



In the grip of a self-destructive unhappiness the three disciples had started 
drinking, and owing to their unfamiliarity with alcohol they were soon not 
just intoxicated but stupid-drunk. They stood in a small piazza and started 
abusing the passers--by, and after a while the water—carrier Khalid 
brandished his water-- skin, boasting. He could destroy the city, he carried 
the ultimate weapon. Water: it would cleanse Jahilia the filthy, wash it away, 
so that a new start could be made from the purified white sand. That was 
when the lion--men started chasing them, and after a long pursuit they were 
cornered, the booziness draining out of them on account of their fear, they 
were staring into the red masks of death when Hamza arrived just in time. 
. . . Gibreel floats above the city watching the fight. It's quickly over once 
Hamza gets to the scene. Two masked assailants run away, two lie dead. 
Bilal, Khalid and Salman have been cut, but not too badly. Graver than their 
wounds is the news behind the lion—masks of the dead. "Hind's brothers," 
Hamza recognizes. "Things are finishing for us now." 
Slayers of manticores, water-terrorists, the followers of Mahound sit and 
weep in the shadow of the city wall, 
ooo 

As for him, Prophet Messenger Businessman: his eyes are open now. He 
paces the inner courtyard of his house, his wife's house, and will not go in to 
her. She is almost seventy and feels these days more like a mother than a. 
She, the rich woman, who employed him to manage her caravans long ago. 
His management skills were the first things she liked about him. And after a 
time, they were in love. It isn't easy to be a brilliant, successful woman in a 
city where the gods are female but the females are merely goods. Men had 
either been afraid of her, or had thought her so strong that she didn't need 
their consideration. He hadn't been afraid, and had given her the feeling of 
constancy she needed. While he, the orphan, found in her many women in 
one: mother sister lover sibyl friend. When he thought himself crazy she was 
the one who believed in his visions. "It is the archangel," she told him, "not 
some fog out of your head. It is Gibreel, and you are the Messenger of God." 
He can't won't see her now. She watches him through a stonelatticed 
window. He can't stop walking, moves around the courtyard in a random 
sequence of unconscious geometries, his footsteps tracing out a series of 
ellipses, trapeziums, rhomboids, ovals, rings. While she remembers how he 
would return from the caravan trails full of stories heard at wayside oases. A 
prophet, Isa, born to a woman named Maryam, born of no man under a 
palm— tree in the desert. Stories that made his eyes shine, then fade into a 
distantness. She recalls his excitability: the passion with which he'd argue, 
all night if necessary, that the old nomadic times had been better than this 
city of gold where people exposed their baby daughters in the wilderness. In 
the old tribes even the poorest orphan would be cared for. God is in the 
desert, he'd say, not here in this miscarriage of a place. And she'd reply, 
Nobody's arguing, my love, it's late, and tomorrow there are the accounts. 



She has long ears; has already heard what he said about Lat, Uzza, Manat. 
So what? In the old days he wanted to protect the baby daughters of Jahilia; 
why shouldn't he take the daughters of Allah under his wing as well? But 
after asking herself this question she shakes her head and leans heavily on 
the cool wall beside her stone-screened window. While below her, her 
husband walks in pentagons, parallelograms, six—pointed stars, and then in 
abstract and increasingly labyrinthine patterns for which there are no names, 
as though unable to find a simple line. 

When she looks into the courtyard some moments later, however, he has 

gone. 

ooo 

The Prophet wakes between silk sheets, with a bursting headache, in a room 

he has never seen. Outside the window the sun is near its savage zenith, 

and silhouetted against the whiteness is a tall figure in a black hooded cloak, 

singing softly in a strong, low voice. The song is one that the women of 

Jahilia chorus as they drum the men to war. 

_Advance and we embrace you_, 

_embrace you, embrace you_, 

_advance and we embrace you_ 

_and soft carpets spread_. 

_Turn back and we desert you_, 

_we leave you, desert you_, 

_retreat and we'll not love you_, 

_not in love's bed_. 

He recognizes Hind's voice, sits up, and finds himself naked beneath the 
creamy sheet. He calls to her: "Was I attacked?" Hind turns to him, smiling 
her Hind smile. "Attacked?" she mimics him, and claps her hands for 
breakfast. Minions enter, bring, serve, remove, scurry off. Mahound is 
helped into a silken robe of black and gold; Hind, exaggeratedly, averts her 
eyes. "My head," he asks again. "Was I struck?" She stands at the window, 
her head hung low, playing the demure maid. "Oh, Messenger, Messenger," 
she mocks him. "What an ungallant Messenger it is. Couldn't you have come 
to my room consciously, of your own will? No, of course not, I repel you, I'm 
sure." He will not play her game. "Am I a prisoner?" he asks, and again she 
laughs at him. "Don't be a fool." And then, shrugging, relents: "I was 
walking the city streets last night, masked, to see the festivities, and what 
should I stumble over but your unconscious body? Like a drunk in the gutter, 
Mahound. I sent my servants for a litter and brought you home. Say thank 
you." 

"Thank you." 

"I don't think you were recognized," she says. "Or you'd be dead, maybe. 
You know how the city was last night. People overdo it. My own brothers 
haven't come home yet." 



It comes back to him now, his wild anguished walk in the corrupt city, 
staring at the souls he had supposedly saved, looking at the simurgh-effigies, 
the devil-masks, the behemoths and hippogriffs. The fatigue of that long day 
on which he climbed down from Mount Cone, walked to the town, underwent 
the strain of the events in the poetry marquee, -- and afterwards, the anger 
of the disciples, the doubt, -- the whole of it had overwhelmed him. "I 
fainted," he remembers. 

She comes and sits close to him on the bed, extends a finger, finds the gap 
in his robe, strokes his chest. "Fainted," she murmurs. "That's weakness, 
Mahound. Are you becoming weak?" 

She places the stroking finger over his lips before he can reply. "Don't say 
anything, Mahound. I am the Grandee's wife, and neither of us is your friend. 
My husband, however, is a weak man. In Jahilia they think he's cunning, but 
I know better. He knows I take lovers and he does nothing about it, because 
the temples are in my family's care. Lat's, Uzza's, Manat's. The -- shall I call 
them _mosques?_ -- of your new angels." She offers him melon cubes from 
a dish, tries to feed him with her fingers. He will not let her put the fruit into 
his mouth, takes the pieces with his own hand, eats. She goes on. "My last 
lover was the boy, Baal." She sees the rage on his face. "Yes," she says 
contentedly. "I heard he had got under your skin. But he doesn't matter. 
Neither he nor Abu Simbel is your equal. But I am." 

"I must go," he says. "Soon enough," she replies, returning to the window. 
At the perimeter of the city they are packing away the tents, the long camel- 
-trains are preparing to depart, convoys of carts are already heading away 
across the desert; the carnival is over. She turns to him again. 
"I am your equal," she repeats, "and also your opposite. I don't want you to 
become weak. You shouldn't have done what you did." 

"But you will profit," Mahound replies bitterly. "There's no threat now to your 
temple revenues." 

"You miss the point," she says softly, coming closer to him, bringing her face 
very close to his. "If you are for Allah, I am for Al-Lat. And she doesn't 
believe your God when he recognizes her. Her opposition to him is 
implacable, irrevocable, engulfing. The war between us cannot end in truce. 
And what a truce! Yours is a patronizing, condescending lord. Al-Lat hasn't 
the slightest wish to be his daughter. She is his equal, as I am yours. Ask 
Baal: he knows her. As he knows me." 
"So the Grandee will betray his pledge," Mahound says. 
"Who knows?" scoffs Hind. "He doesn't even know himself. He has to work 
out the odds. Weak, as I told you. But you know I'm telling the truth. 
Between Allah and the Three there can be no peace. I don't want it. I want 
the fight. To the death; that is the kind of idea I am. What kind are you?" 
"You are sand and I am water," Mahound says. "Water washes sand away." 
"And the desert soaks up water," Hind answers him. "Look around you." 



Soon after his departure the wounded men arrive at the Grandee's palace, 
having screwed up their courage to inform Hind that old Hamza has killed 
her brothers. But by then the Messenger is nowhere to be found; is heading, 
once again, slowly towards Mount Cone, 
ooo 

Gibreel, when he's tired, wants to murder his mother for giving him such a 
damn fool nickname, _angel_, what a word, he begs _what? whom?_ to be 
spared the dream--city of crumbling sandcastles and lions with three-tiered 
teeth, no more heart—washing of prophets or instructions to recite or 
promises of paradise, let there be an end to revelations, finito, khattam- 
shud. What he longs for: black, dreamless sleep. Mother-fucking dreams, 
cause of all the trouble in the human race, movies, too, if I was God I'd cut 
the imagination right out of people and then maybe poor bastards like me 
could get a good night's rest. Fighting against sleep, he forces his eyes to 
stay open, unblinking, until the visual purple fades off the retinas and sends 
him blind, but he's only human, in the end he falls down the rabbit-hole and 
there he is again, in Wonderland, up the mountain, and the businessman is 
waking up, and once again his wanting, his need, goes to work, not on my 
jaws and voice this time, but on my whole body; he diminishes me to his 
own size and pulls me in towards him, his gravitational field is unbelievable, 
as powerful as a goddamn megastar . . . and then Gibreel and the Prophet 
are wrestling, both naked, rolling over and over, in the cave of the fine white 
sand that rises around them like a veil. _As if he's learning me, searching 
me, as if I'm the one undergoing the test_. 

In a cave five hundred feet below the summit of Mount Cone, Mahound 
wrestles the archangel, hurling him from side to side, and let me tell you 
he's getting in _everywhere_, his tongue in my ear his fist around my balls, 
there was never a person with such a rage in him, he has to has to know he 
has to K N OW and I have nothing to tell him, he's twice as physically fit as I 
am and four times as knowledgeable, minimum, we may both have taught 
ourselves by listening a lot but as is plaintosee he's even a better listener 
than me; so we roll kick scratch, he's getting cut up quite a bit but of course 
my skin stays smooth as a baby, you can't snag an angel on a bloody thorn- 
bush, you can't bruise him on a rock. And they have an audience, there are 
djinns and afreets and all sorts of spooks sitting on the boulders to watch 
the fight, and in the sky are the three winged creatures, looking like herons 
or swans or just women depending on the tricks of the light . . . Mahound 
finishes it. He throws the fight. 

After they had wrestled for hours or even weeks Mahound was pinned down 
beneath the angel, it's what he wanted, it was his will filling me up and 
giving me the strength to hold him down, because archangels can't lose such 
fights, it wouldn't be right, it's only devils who get beaten in such circs, so 
the moment I got on top he started weeping for joy and then he did his old 



trick, forcing my mouth open and making the voice, the Voice, pour out of 

me once again, made it pour all over him, like sick. 

ooo 

At the end of his wrestling match with the Archangel Gibreel, the Prophet 
Mahound falls into his customary, exhausted, postrevelatory sleep, but on 
this occasion he revives more quickly than usual. When he comes to his 
senses in that high wilderness there is nobody to be seen, no winged 
creatures crouch on rocks, and hejumps to his feet, filled with the urgency of 
his news. "It was the Devil," he says aloud to the empty air, making it true 
by giving it voice. "The last time, it was Shaitan." This is what he has 
_heard_ in his _listening_, that he has been tricked, that the Devil came to 
him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized, the 
ones he recited in the poetry tent, were not the real thing but its diabolic 
opposite, not godly, but satanic. He returns to the city as quickly as he can, 
to expunge the foul verses that reek of brimstone and sulphur, to strike 
them from the record for ever and ever, so that they will survive in just one 
or two unreliable collections of old traditions and orthodox interpreters will 
try and unwrite their story, but Gibreel, hovering-watching from his highest 
camera angle, knows one small detail, just one tiny thing that's a bit of a 
problem here, namely that _it was me both times, baba, me first and second 
also me_. From my mouth, both the statement and the repudiation, verses 
and converses, universes and reverses, the whole thing, and we all know 
how my mouth got worked. 

"First it was the Devil," Mahound mutters as he rushes to Jahilia. "But this 
time, the angel, no question. He wrestled me to the ground." 

ooo 

The disciples stop him in the ravines near the foot of Mount Cone to warn 
him of the fury of Hind, who is wearing white mourning garments and has 
loosened her black hair, letting it fly about her like a storm, or trail in the 
dust, erasing her footsteps so that she seems like an incarnation of the spirit 
of vengeance itself. They have all fled the city, and Hamza, too, is lying low; 
but the word is that Abu Simbel has not, as yet, acceded to his wife's pleas 
for the blood that washes away blood. He is still calculating the odds in the 
matter of Mahound and the goddesses Mahound, against his followers' 
advice, returns to Jahilia, going straight to the House of the Black Stone. The 
disciples follow him in spite of their fear. A crowd gathers in the hope of 
further scandal or dismemberment or some such entertainment. Mahound 
does not disappoint them. 

He stands in front of the statues of the Three and announces the abrogation 
of the verses which Shaitan whispered in his ear. These verses are banished 
from the true recitation, _al-qur"an_. New verses are thundered in their 
place. 

"Shall He have daughters and you sons?" Mahound recites. "That would be a 
fine division! 



"These are but names you have dreamed of, you and your fathers. Allah 
vests no authority in them." 

He leaves the dumbfounded House before it occurs to anybody to pick up, or 
throw, the first stone. 

ooo 

After the repudiation of the Satanic verses, the Prophet Mahound returns 
home to find a kind of punishment awaiting him. A kind of vengeance -- 
whose? Light or dark? Goodguy badguy? -- wrought, as is not unusual, upon 
the innocent. The Prophet's wife, seventy years old, sits by the foot of a 
stone—latticed window, sits upright with her back to the wall, dead. 
Mahound in the grip of his misery keeps himself to himself, hardly says a 
word for weeks. The Grandee of Jahilia institutes a policy of persecution that 
advances too slowly for Hind. The name of the new religion is _Submission_; 
now Abu Simbel decrees that its adherents must submit to being 
sequestered in the most wretched, hovel-filled quarter of the city; to a 
curfew; to a ban on employment. And there are many physical assaults, 
women spat upon in shops, the manhandling of the faithful by the gangs of 
young turks whom the Grandee secretly controls, fire thrown at night 
through a window to land amongst unwary sleepers. And, by one of the 
familiar paradoxes of history, the numbers of the faithful multiply, like a crop 
that miraculously flourishes as conditions of soil and climate grow worse and 
worse. 

An offer is received, from the citizens of the oasis—settlement of Yathrib to 
the north: Yathrib will shelter those— who-submit, if they wish to leave 
Jahilia. Hamza is of the opinion that they must go. "You'll never finish your 
Message here, nephew, take my word. Hind won't be happy till she's ripped 
out your tongue, to say nothing of my balls, excuse me." Mahound, alone 
and full of echoes in the house of his bereavement, gives his consent, and 
the faithful depart to make their plans. Khalid the water-carrier hangs back 
and the hollow-eyed Prophet waits for him to speak. Awkwardly, he says: 
"Messenger, I doubted you. But you were wiser than we knew. First we said, 
Mahound will never compromise, and you compromised. Then we said, 
Mahound has betrayed us, but you were bringing us a deeper truth. You 
brought us the Devil himself, so that we could witness the workings of the 
Evil One, and his overthrow by the Right. You have enriched our faith. I am 
sorry for what I thought." 

Mahound moves away from the sunlight falling through the window. "Yes." 
Bitterness, cynicism. "It was a wonderful thing I did. Deeper truth. Bringing 
you the Devil. Yes, that sounds like me." 

ooo 

From the peak of Mount Cone, Gibreel watches the faithful escaping Jahilia, 
leaving the city of aridity for the place of cool palms and water, water, water. 
In small groups, almost empty-- handed, they move across the empire of 
the sun, on this first day of the first year at the new beginning of Time, 



which has itself been born again, as the old dies behind them and the new 

waits ahead. And one day Mahound himself slips away. When his escape is 

discovered, Baal composes a valedictory ode: 

_What kind of idea_ 

_does "Submission" seem today?_ 

_One full of fear_. 

_An idea that runs away_. 

Mahound has reached his oasis; Gibreel is not so lucky. Often, now, he finds 
himself alone on the summit of Mount Cone, washed by the cold, falling 
stars, and then they fall upon him from the night sky, the three winged 
creatures, Lat Uzza Manat, flapping around his head, clawing at his eyes, 
biting, whipping him with their hair, their wings. He puts up his hands to 
protect himself, but their revenge is tireless, continuing whenever he rests, 
whenever he drops his guard. He struggles against them, but they are faster, 
nimbler, winged. 

He has no devil to repudiate. Dreaming, he cannot wish them away. 



Ill Ellowen Deeowen 



1 

I know what a ghost is, the old woman affirmed silently. Her name was Rosa 
Diamond; she was eighty-eight years old; and she was squinting beakily 
through her salt-caked bedroom windows, watching the full moon's sea. And 
I know what it isn't, too, she nodded further, it isn't a scarification or a 
flapping sheet, so pooh and pish to all _that_ bunkum. What's a ghost? 
Unfinished business, is what. -- At which the old lady, six feet tall, straight-- 
backed, her hair hacked short as any man's, jerked the corners of her mouth 
downwards in a satisfied, tragedy-mask pout, pulled a knitted blue shawl 
tight around bony shoulders, -- and closed, for a moment, her sleepless eyes, 
to pray for the past's return. Come on, you Norman ships, she begged: let's 
have you, Willie-the-Conk. 

Nine hundred years ago all this was under water, this portioned shore, this 
private beach, its shingle rising steeply towards the little row of flaky-paint 
villas with their peeling boathouses crammed full of deckchairs, empty 
picture frames, ancient tuckboxes stuffed with bundles of letters tied up in 
ribbons, mothballed silk--and-lace lingerie, the tearstained reading matter of 
once--young girls, lacrosse sticks, stamp albums, and all the buried 
treasure—chests of memories and lost time. The coastline had changed, had 
moved a mile or more out to sea, leaving the first Norman castle stranded 
far from water, lapped now by marshy land that afflicted with all manner of 
dank and boggy agues the poor who lived there on their whatstheword 
_estates_. She, the old lady, saw the castle as the ruin of a fish betrayed by 
an antique ebbing tide, as a sea-monster petrified by time. Nine hundred 
years! Nine centuries past, the Norman fleet had sailed right through this 
Englishwoman's home. On clear nights when the moon was full, she waited 
for its shining, revenant ghost. 

Best place to see 'em come, she reassured herself, grandstand view. 
Repetition had become a comfort in her antiquity; the well-worn phrases, 
_unfinished business, grandstand view_, made her feel solid, unchanging, 
sempiternal, instead of the creature of cracks and absences she knew herself 
to be. -- When the full moon sets, the dark before the dawn, that's their 
moment. Billow of sail, flash of oars, and the Conqueror himself at the 
flagship's prow, sailing up the beach between the barnacled wooden 
breakwaters and a few inverted sculls. -- O, I've seen things in my time, 
always had the gift, the phantom-sight. -- The Conqueror in his pointy 
metal-nosed hat, passing through her front door, gliding betwixt the 
cakestands and antimacassared sofas, like an echo resounding faintly 
through that house of remembrances and yearnings; then falling silent; _as 
the grave_. 



-- Once as a girl on Battle Hill, she was fond of recounting, always in the 
same time--polished words, -- once as a solitary child, I found myself, quite 
suddenly and with no sense of strangeness, in the middle of a war. 
Longbows, maces, pikes. The flaxen-Saxon boys, cut down in their sweet 
youth. Harold Arroweye and William with his mouth full of sand. Yes, always 
the gift, the phantom-sight. -- The story of the day on which the child Rosa 
had seen a vision of the battle of Hastings had become, for the old woman, 
one of the defining landmarks of her being, though it had been told so often 
that nobody, not even the teller, could confidently swear that it was true. _I 
long for them sometimes_, ran Rosa's practised thoughts. _l_es beaux jours: 
the dear, dead days_. She closed, once more, her reminiscent eyes. When 
she opened them, she saw, down by the water's edge, no denying it, 
something beginning to move. 

What she said aloud in her excitement: "I don't believe it!" — "It isn't true!" 
-- "He's never _here!_" -- On unsteady feet, with bumping chest, Rosa went 
for her hat, cloak, stick. While, on the winter seashore, Gibreel Farishta 
awoke with a mouth full of, no, not sand. 
Snow. 

ooo 

Ptui! 

Gibreel spat; leapt up, as if propelled by expectorated slush; wished 
Chamcha -- as has been reported — many happy returns of the day; and 
commenced to beat the snow from sodden purple sleeves. "God, yaar," he 
shouted, hopping from foot to foot, "no wonder these people grow hearts of 
bloody ice." 

Then, however, the pure delight of being surrounded by such a quantity of 
snow quite overcame his first cynicism -- for he was a tropical man -- and he 
started capering about, saturnine and soggy, making snowballs and hurling 
them at his prone companion, envisioning a snowman, and singing a wild, 
swooping rendition of the carol "Jingle Bells". The first hint of light was in the 
sky, and on this cosy sea-coast danced Lucifer, the morning's star. 
His breath, it should be mentioned, had somehow or other wholly ceased to 
smell . . . 

"Come on, baby," cried invincible Gibreel, in whose behaviour the reader 
may, not unreasonably, perceive the delirious, dislocating effects of his 
recent fall. "Rise "n" shine! Let's take this place by storm." Turning his back 
on the sea, blotting out the bad memory in order to make room for the next 
things, passionate as always for newness, he would have planted (had he 
owned one) a flag, to claim in the name of whoknowswho this white country, 
his new-found land. "Spoono," he pleaded, "shift, baba, or are you bloody 
dead?" Which being uttered brought the speaker to (or at least towards) his 
senses. He bent over the other's prostrate form, did not dare to touch. "Not 
now, old Chumch," he urged. "Not when we came so far." 



Saladin: was not dead, but weeping. The tears of shock freezing on his face. 
And all his body cased in a fine skin of ice, smooth as glass, like a bad 
dream come true. In the miasmic semi—consciousness induced by his low 
body temperature he was possessed by the nightmare-fear of cracking, of 
seeing his blood bubbling up from the ice-breaks, of his flesh coming away 
with the shards. He was full of questions, did we truly, I mean, with your 
hands flapping, and then the waters, you don't mean to tell me they 
_actually_, like in the movies, when Charlton Heston stretched out his staff, 
so that we could, across the ocean—floor, it never happened, couldn't have, 
but if not then how, or did we in some way underwater, escorted by the 
mermaids, the sea passing through us as if we were fish or ghosts, was that 
the truth, yes or no, I need to have to.. . but when his eyes opened the 
questions acquired the indistinctness of dreams, so that he could no longer 
grasp them, their tails flicked before him and vanished like submarine fins. 
He was looking up at the sky, and noticed that it was the wrong colour 
entirely, blood-orange flecked with green, and the snow was blue as ink. He 
blinked hard but the colours refused to change, giving rise to the notion that 
he had fallen out of the sky into some wrongness, some other place, not 
England or perhaps not-England, some counterfeit zone, rotten borough, 
altered state. Maybe, he considered briefly: Hell? No, no, he reassured 
himself as unconsciousness threatened, that can't be it, not yet, you aren't 
dead yet; but dying. 
Well then: a transit lounge. 

He began to shiver; the vibration grew so intense that it occurred to him 
that he might break up under the stress, like a, like a, plane. 
Then nothing existed. He was in a void, and if he were to survive he would 
have to construct everything from scratch, would have to invent the ground 
beneath his feet before he could take a step, only there was no need now to 
worry about such matters, because here in front of him was the inevitable: 
the tall, bony figure of Death, in a wide-brimmed straw hat, with a dark 
cloak flapping in the breeze. Death, leaning on a silverheaded cane, wearing 
olive-green Wellington boots. 

"What do you imagine yourselves to be doing here?" Death wanted to know. 
"This is private property. There's a sign." Said in a woman's voice that was 
somewhat tremulous and more than somewhat thrilled. 
A few moments later, Death bent over him -- _to kiss me_, he panicked 
silently. _To suck the breath from my body_. He made small, futile 
movements of protest. 

"He's alive all right," Death remarked to, who was it, Gibreel. "But, my dear. 
His breath: what a pong. When did he last clean his teeth?" 

ooo 

One man's breath was sweetened, while another's, by an equal and opposite 
mystery, was soured. What did they expect? Falling like that out of the sky: 
did they imagine there would be no sideeffects? Higher Powers had taken an 



interest, it should have been obvious to them both, and such Powers (I am, 
of course, speaking of myself) have a mischievous, almost a wanton attitude 
to tumbling flies. And another thing, let's be clear: great falls change people. 
You think _they_ fell a long way? In the matter of tumbles, I yield pride of 
place to no personage, whether mortal or im--. From clouds to ashes, down 
the chimney you might say, from heavenlight to hellfire. . . under the stress 
of a long plunge, I was saying, mutations are to be expected, not all of them 
random. Unnatural selections. Not much of a price to pay for survival, for 
being reborn, for becoming new, and at their age at that. 
What? I should enumerate the changes? 
Good breath/bad breath. 

And around the edges of Gibreel Farishta's head, as he stood with his back 
to the dawn, it seemed to Rosa Diamond that she discerned a faint, but 
distinctly golden, _glow_. 

And were those bumps, at Chamcha's temples, under his sodden and still-in- 
place bowler hat? 
And, and, and. 

ooo 

When she laid eyes on the bizarre, satyrical figure of Gibreel Farishta 
prancing and dionysiac in the snow, Rosa Diamond did not think of _say it_ 
angels. Sighting him from her window, through salt--cloudy glass and age- 
clouded eyes, she felt her heart kick out, twice, so painfully that she feared 
it might stop; because in that indistinct form she seemed to discern the 
incarnation of her soul's most deeply buried desire. She forgot the Norman 
invaders as if they had never been, and struggled down a slope of 
treacherous pebbles, too quickly for the safety of her not-quitenonagenarian 
limbs, so that she could pretend to scold the impossible stranger for 
trespassing on her land. 

Usually she was implacable in defence of her beloved fragment of the coast, 
and when summer weekenders strayed above the high tide line she 

descended upon them I i ke a wolf on the fold_, her phrase for it, to explain 

and to demand: — This is my garden, do you see. — And if they grew brazen, 
-- getoutofitsillyoldmoo, itsthesoddingbeach, -- she would return home to 
bring out a long green garden hose and turn it remorselessly upon their 
tartan blankets and plastic cricket bats and bottles of sun--tan lotion, she 
would smash their children's sandcastles and soak their liver-- sausage 
sandwiches, smiling sweetly all the while: _You won't mind if I fust water my 
lawn?_ . . . O, she was a One, known in the village, they couldn't lock her 
away in any old folks' home, sent her whole family packing when they dared 
to suggest it, never darken her doorstep, she told them, cut the whole lot off 
without a penny or a by your leave. All on her own now, she was, never a 
visitor from week to blessed week, not even Dora Shufflebotham who went 
in and did for her all those years, Dora passed over September last, may she 
rest, still it's a wonder at her age how the old trout manages, all those stairs, 



she may be a bit of a bee but give the devil her due, there's many"s'd go 
barmy being that alone. 

For Gibreel there was neither a hosepipe nor the _sharp end_ of her tongue. 
Rosa uttered token words of reproof, held her nostrils while examining the 
fallen and newly sulphurous Saladin (who had not, at this point, removed his 
bowler hat), and then, with an access of shyness which she greeted with 
nostalgic astonishment, stammered an invitation, yyou bbetter bring your 
ffriend in out of the cccold, and stamped back up the shingle to put the 
kettle on, grateful to the bite of the winter air for reddening her cheeks and 
_saving_, in the old comforting phrase, _her blushes_. 

ooo 

As a young man Saladin Chamcha had possessed a face of quite exceptional 
innocence, a face that did not seem ever to have encountered disillusion or 
evil, with skin as soft and smooth as a princess's palm. It had served him 
well in his dealings with women, and had, in point of fact, been one of the 
first reasons his future wife Pamela Lovelace had given for falling in love 
with him. "So round and cherubic," she marvelled, cupping her hands under 
his chin. "Like a rubber ball." 

He was offended. "I've got bones," he protested. "Bone _structure_." 
"Somewhere in there," she conceded. "Everybody does." 
After that he was haunted for a time by the notion that he looked like a 
featureless jellyfish, and it was in large part to assuage this feeling that he 
set about developing the narrow, haughty demeanour that was now second 
nature to him. It was, therefore, a matter of some consequence when, on 
arising from a long slumber racked by a series of intolerable dreams, 
prominent among which were images of Zeeny Vakil, transformed into a 
mermaid, singing to him from an iceberg in tones of agonizing sweetness, 
lamenting her inability to join him on dry land, calling him, calling; — but 
when he went to her she shut him up fast in the heart of her ice-mountain, 
and her song changed to one of triumph and revenge. . . it was, I say, a 
serious matter when Saladin Chamcha woke up, looked into a mirror framed 
in blue-and-gold Japonaiserie lacquer, and found that old cherubic face 
staring out at him once again; while, at his temples, he observed a brace of 
fearfully discoloured swellings, indications that he must have suffered, at 
some point in his recent adventures, a couple of mighty blows. 
Looking into the mirror at his altered face, Chamcha attempted to remind 
himself of himself. I am a real man, he told the mirror, with a real history 
and a planned-out future. I am a man to whom certain things are of 
importance: rigour, self—discipline, reason, the pursuit of what is noble 
without recourse to that old crutch, God. The ideal of beauty, the possibility 
of exaltation, the mind. I am: a married man. But in spite of his litany, 
perverse thoughts insisted on visiting him. As for instance: that the world 
did not exist beyond that beach down there, and, now, this house. That if he 
weren't careful, if he rushed matters, he would fall off the edge, into clouds. 



Things had to be _made_. Or again: that if he were to telephone his home, 
right now, as he should, if he were to inform his loving wife that he was not 
dead, not blown to bits in mid-air but right here, on solid ground, if he were 
to do this eminently sensible thing, the person who answered the phone 
would not recognize his name. Or thirdly: that the sound of footsteps ringing 
in his ears, distant footsteps, but coming closer, was not some temporary 
tinnitus caused by his fall, but the noise of some approaching doom, drawing 
closer, letter by letter, ellowen, deeowen, London. _Here I am, in 
Grandmother's house. Her big eyes, hands, teeth_. 

There was a telephone extension on his bedside table. There, he admonished 
himself. Pick it up, dial, and your equilibrium will be restored. Such 
maunderings: they aren't like you, not worthy of you. Think of her grief; call 
her now. 

It was night-time. He didn't know the hour. There wasn't a clock in the room 
and his wristwatch had disappeared somewhere along the line. Should he 
shouldn't he? -- He dialled the nine numbers. A man's voice answered on the 
fourth ring. 

"What the hell?" Sleepy, unidentifiable, familiar. 
"Sorry," Saladin Chamcha said. "Excuse, please. Wrong number." 
Staring at the telephone, he found himself remembering a drama production 
seen in Bombay, based on an English original, a story by, by, he couldn't put 
his finger on the name, Tennyson? No, no. Somerset Maugham? -- To hell 
with it. — In the original and now authorless text, a man, long thought dead, 
returns after an absence of many years, like a living phantom, to his former 
haunts. He visits his former home at night, surreptitiously, and looks in 
through an open window. He finds that his wife, believing herself widowed, 
has re-married. On the window-sill he sees a child's toy. He spends a period 
of time standing in the darkness, wrestling with his feelings; then picks the 
toy off the ledge; and departs forever, without making his presence known. 
In the Indian version, the story had been rather different. The wife had 
married her husband's best friend. The returning husband arrived at the 
door and marched in, expecting nothing. Seeing his wife and his old friend 
sitting together, he failed to understand that they were married. He thanked 
his friend for comforting his wife; but he was home now, and so all was well. 
The married couple did not know how to tell him the truth; it was, finally, a 
servant who gave the game away. The husband, whose long absence was 
apparently due to a bout of amnesia, reacted to the news of the marriage by 
announcing that he, too, must surely have re-married at some point during 
his long absence from home; unfortunately, however, now that the memory 
of his former life had returned he had forgotten what had happened during 
the years of his disappearance. He went off to ask the police to trace his new 
wife, even though he could remember nothing about her, not her eyes, not 
the simple fact of her existence. 
The curtain fell. 



Saladin Chamcha, alone in an unknown bedroom in unfamiliar red-and-white 
striped pyjamas, lay face downwards on a narrow bed and wept. "Damn all 
Indians," he cried into the muffling bedclothes, his fists punching at f ri My — 
edged pillowcases from Harrods in Buenos Aires so fiercely that the fifty- 
year—old fabric was ripped to shreds. "_What the hell_. The vulgarity of it, 
the _sod it sod it_ indelicacy. _What the hell_. That bastard, those bastards, 
their lack of _bastard_ taste." 

It was at this moment that the police arrived to arrest him. 
ooo 

On the night after she had taken the two of them in from the beach, Rosa 
Diamond stood once again at the nocturnal window of her old woman's 
insomnia, contemplating the nine-hundredyear--old sea. The smelly one had 
been sleeping ever since they put him to bed, with hot-water bottles packed 
in tightly around him, best thing for him, let him get his strength. She had 
put them upstairs, Chamcha in the spare room and Gibreel in her late 
husband's old study, and as she watched the great shining plain of the sea 
she could hear him moving up there, amid the ornithological prints and bird- 
call whistles of the former Henry Diamond, the bolas and bullwhip and aerial 
photographs of the Los Alamos estancia far away and long ago, a man's 
footsteps in that room, how reassuring they felt. Farishta was pacing up and 
down, avoiding sleep, for reasons of his own. And below his footfall Rosa, 
looking up at the ceiling, called him in a whisper by a long-unspoken name. 
Martin she said. His last name the same as that of his country's deadliest 
snake, the viper. The vibora, _de la Cruz_. 

At once she saw the shapes moving on the beach, as if the forbidden name 
had conjured up the dead. Not again, she thought, and went for her opera- 
glasses. She returned to find the beach full of shadows, and this time she 
was afraid, because whereas the Norman fleet came sailing, when it came, 
proudly and openly and without recourse to subterfuge, these shades were 
sneaky, emitting stifled imprecations and alarming, muted yaps and barks, 
they seemed headless, crouching, arms and legs a--dangle like giant, 
unshelled crabs. Scuttling, sidelong, heavy boots crunching on shingle. Lots 
of them. She saw them reach her boathouse on which the fading image of 
an eyepatched pirate grinned and brandished a cutlass, and that was too 
much, _I'm not having it_, she decided, and, stumbling downstairs for warm 
clothing, she fetched the chosen weapon of her retribution: a long coil of 
green garden hose. At her front door she called out in a clear voice. "I can 
see you quite plainly. Come out, come out, whoever you are." 
They switched on seven suns and blinded her, and then she panicked, 
illuminated by the seven blue-white floodlights around which, like fireflies or 
satellites, there buzzed a host of smaller lights: lanterns torches cigarettes. 
Her head was spinning, and for a moment she lost her ability to distinguish 
between _then_ and _now_, in her consternation she began to say Put out 
that light, don't you know there's a blackout, you'll be having Jerry down on 



us if you carry on so. "I'm raving," she realized disgustedly, and banged the 
tip of her stick into her doormat. Whereupon, as if by magic, policemen 
materialized in the dazzling circle of light. 

It turned out that somebody had reported a suspicious person on the beach, 
remember when they used to come in fishingboats, the illegals, and thanks 
to that single anonymous telephone call there were now fifty-seven 
uniformed constables combing the beach, their flashlights swinging crazily in 
the dark, constables from as far away as Hastings Eastbourne Bexhill-upon- 
Sea, even a deputation from Brighton because nobody wanted to miss the 
fun, the thrill of the chase. Fifty-seven beachcombers were accompanied by 
thirteen dogs, all sniffing the sea air and lifting excited legs. While up at the 
house away from the great posse of men and dogs, Rosa Diamond found 
herself gazing at the five constables guarding the exits, front door, ground- 
floor windows, scullery door, in case the putative miscreant attempted an 
alleged escape; and at the three men in plain clothes, plain coats and plain 
hats with faces to match; and in front of the lot of them, not daring to look 
her in the eye, young Inspector Lime, shuffling his feet and rubbing his nose 
and looking older and more bloodshot than his forty years. She tapped him 
on the chest with the end of her stick, _at this time of night, Frank, u"hat's 
the meaning of_, but he wasn't going to allow her to boss him around, not 
tonight, not with the men from the immigration watching his every move, so 
he drew himself up and pulled in his chins. 

"Begging your pardon, Mrs. D. -- certain allegations, -- information laid 
before us, -- reason to believe, -- merit investigation, -- necessary to search 
your, -- a warrant has been obtained." 

"Don't be absurd, Frank dear," Rosa began to say, but just then the three 
men with the plain faces drew themselves up and seemed to stiffen, each of 
them with one leg slightly raised, like pointer dogs; the first began to emit 
an unusual hiss of what sounded like pleasure, while a soft moan escaped 
from the lips of the second, and the third commenced to roll his eyes in an 
oddly contented way. Then they all pointed past Rosa Diamond, into her 
floodlit hallway, where Mr. Saladin Chamcha stood, his left hand holding up 
his pyjamas because a button had come off when he hurled himself on to his 
bed. With his right hand he was rubbing at an eye. 

"Bingo," said the hissing man, while the moaner clasped .his hands beneath 
his chin to indicate that all his prayers had been answered, and the roller of 
eyes shouldered past Rosa Diamond, without standing on ceremony, except 
that he did mutter, "Madam, pardon _me_." 

Then there was a flood, and Rosa was jammed into a corner of her own 
sitting-room by that bobbing sea of police helmets, so that she could no 
longer make out Saladin Chamcha or hear what he was saying. She never 



heard him explain about the detonation of the _Bostan_ -- there's been a 
mistake, he cried, I'm not one of your fishing-boat sneakers-in, not one of 
your ugandokenyattas, me. The policemen began to grin, I see, sir, at thirty 
thousand feet, and then you swam ashore. You have the right to remain 
silent, they tittered, but quite soon they burst out into uproarious guffaws, 
we've got a right one here and no mistake. But Rosa couldn't make out 
Saladin's protests, the laughing policemen got in the way, you've got to 
believe me, I'm a British, he was saying, with right of abode, too, but when 
he couldn't produce a passport or any other identifying document they 
began to weep with mirth, the tears streaming down even the blank faces of 
the plain-clothes men from the immigration service. Of course, don't tell me, 
they giggled, they fell out of your jacket during your tumble, or did the 
mermaids pick your pocket in the sea? Rosa couldn't see, in that laughter- 
heaving surge of men and dogs, what uniformed arms might be doing to 
Chamcha's arms, or fists to his stomach, or boots to his shins; nor could she 
be sure if it was his voice crying out or just the howling of the dogs. But she 
did, finally, hear his voice rise in a last, despairing shout: "Don't any of you 
watch TV? Don't you see? I'm Maxim. Maxim Alien." 
"So you are," said the popeyed officer. "And I am Kermit the Frog." 
What Saladin Chamcha never said, not even when it was clear that 
something had gone badly wrong: "Here is a London number," he neglected 
to inform the arresting policemen. "At the other end of the line you will find, 
to vouch for me, for the truth of what I'm saying, my lovely, white, English 
wife." No, sir. _What the hell_. 

Rosa Diamond gathered her strength. "Just one moment, Frank Lime," she 
sang out. "You look here," but the three plain men had begun their bizarre 
routine of hiss moan roll--eye once again, and in the sudden silence of that 
room the eye-roller pointed a trembling finger at Chamcha and said, "Lady, 
if it's proof you're after, you couldn't do better than _those_." 
Saladin Chamcha, following the line of Popeye's pointing finger, raised his 
hands to his forehead, and then he knew that he had woken into the most 
fearsome of nightmares, a nightmare that had only just begun, because 
there at his temples, growing longer by the moment, and sharp enough to 
draw blood, were two new, goaty, unarguable horns. 

ooo 

Before the army of policemen took Saladin Chamcha away into his new life, 
there was one more unexpected occurrence. Gibreel Farishta, seeing the 
blaze of lights and hearing the delirious laughter of the law—enforcement 
officers, came downstairs in a maroon smoking jacket and jodhpurs, chosen 
from Henry Diamond's wardrobe. Smelling faintly of mothballs, he stood on 
the first-floor landing and observed the proceedings without comment. He 
stood there unnoticed until Chamcha, handcuffed and on his way out to the 
Black Maria, barefoot, still clutching his pyjamas, caught sight of him and 
cried out, "Gibreel, for the love of God tell them what's what." 



Hisser Moaner Popeye turned eagerly towards Gibreel. "And who might this 
be?" inquired Inspector Lime. "Another skydiver?" 

But the words died on his lips, because at that moment the floodlights were 
switched off, the order to do so having been given when Chamcha was 
handcuffed and taken in charge, and in the aftermath of the seven suns it 
became clear to everyone there that a pale, golden light was emanating 
from the direction of the man in the smoking jacket, was in fact streaming 
softly outwards from a point immediately behind his head. Inspector Lime 
never referred to that light again, and if he had been asked about it would 
have denied ever having seen such a thing, a halo, in the late twentieth 
century, pull the other one. 

But at any rate, when Gibreel asked, "What do these men want?", every 
man there was seized by the desire to answer his question in literal, detailed 
terms, to reveal their secrets, as if he were, as if, but no, ridiculous, they 
would shake their heads for weeks, until they had all persuaded themselves 
that they had done as they did for purely logical reasons, he was Mrs. 
Diamond's old friend, the two of them had found the rogue Chamcha 
halfdrowned on the beach and taken him in for humanitarian reasons, no call 
to harass either Rosa or Mr. Farishta any further, a more reputable looking 
gentleman you couldn't wish to see, in his smoking jacket and his, his, well, 
eccentricity never was a crime, anyhow. 
"Gibreel," said Saladin Chamcha, "help." 

But Gibreel's eye had been caught by Rosa Diamond. He looked at her, and 
could not look away. Then he nodded, and went back upstairs. No attempt 
was made to stop him. 

When Chamcha reached the Black Maria, he saw the traitor, Gibreel Farishta, 
looking down at him from the little balcony outside Rosa's bedroom, and 
there wasn't any light shining around the bastard's head. 

2 

_Kan an ma kan/Fi qadim azzaman_ ... It was so, it was not, in a time long 
forgot, that there lived in the silver-land of Argentina a certain Don Enrique 
Diamond, who knew much about birds and little about women, and his wife, 
Rosa, who knew nothing about men but a good deal about love. One day it 
so happened that when the sehora was out riding, sitting sidesaddle and 
wearing a hat with a feather in it, she arrived at the Diamond estancia's 
great stone gates, which stood insanely in the middle of the empty pampas, 
to find an ostrich running at her as hard as it could, running for its life, with 
all the tricks and variations it could think of; for the ostrich is a crafty bird, 
difficult to catch. A little way behind the ostrich was a cloud of dust full of 
the noises of hunting men, and when the ostrich was within six feet of her 
the cloud sent bolas to wrap around its legs and bring it crashing to the 
ground at her grey mare's feet. The man who dismounted to kill the bird 
never took his eyes off Rosa's face. He took a silver-hafted knife from a 



scabbard at his belt and plunged it into the bird's throat, all the way up to 
the hilt, and he did it without once looking at the dying ostrich, staring into 
Rosa Diamond's eyes while he knelt on the wide yellow earth. His name was 
Martin de la Cruz. 

After Chamcha had been taken away, Gibreel Farishta often wondered about 
his own behaviour. In that dreamlike moment when he had been trapped by 
the eyes of the old Englishwoman it had seemed to him that his will was no 
longer his own to command, that somebody else's needs were in charge. 
Owing to the bewildering nature of recent events, and also to his 
determination to stay awake as much as possjble, it was a few days before 
he connected what was going on to the world behind his eyelids, and only 
then did he understand that he had to get away, because the universe of his 
nightmares had begun to leak into his waking life, and if he was not careful 
he would never manage to begin again, to be reborn with her, through her, 
Alleluia, who had seen the roof of the world. 

He was shocked to realize that he had made no attempt to contact Allie at all; 
or to help Chamcha in his time of need. Nor had he been at all perturbed by 
the appearance on Saladin's head of a pair of fine new horns, a thing that 
should surely have occasioned some concern. He had been in some sort of 
trance, and when he asked the old dame what she thought of it all she 
smiled weirdly and told him that there was nothing new under the sun, she 
had seen things, the apparitions of men with horned helmets, in an ancient 
land like England there was no room for new stories, every blade of turf had 
already been walked over a hundred thousand times. For long periods of the 
day her talk became rambling and confused, but at other times she insisted 
on cooking him huge heavy meals, shepherd's pies, rhubarb crumble with 
thick custard, thick--gravied hotpots, all manner of weighty soups. And at all 
times she wore an air of inexplicable contentment, as if his presence had 
satisfied her in some deep, unlookedfor way. He went shopping in the village 
with her; people stared; she ignored them, waving her imperious stick. The 
days passed. Gibreel did not leave. 

"Blasted English mame," he told himself. "Some type of extinct species. 
What the hell am I doing here?" But stayed, held by unseen chains. While 
she, at every opportunity, sang an old song, in Spanish, he couldn't 
understand a word. Some sorcery there? Some ancient Morgan Le Fay 
singing a young Merlin into her crystal cave? Gibreel headed for the door; 
Rosa piped up; he stopped in his tracks. "Why not, after all," he shrugged. 
"The old woman needs company. Faded grandeur, I swear! Look what she's 
come to here. Anyhow, I need the rest. Gather my forces. Just a coupla 
days." 

In the evenings they would sit in that drawing-room stuffed with silver 
ornaments, including on the wall a certain silver-hafted knife, beneath the 
plaster bust of Henry Diamond that stared down from the top of the corner 
cabinet, and when the grandfather clock struck six he would pour two 



glasses of sherry and she would begin to talk, but not before she said, as 
predictably as clockwork, _Grandfather is always four minutes late, for good 
manners, he doesn't like to be too punctual_. Then she began without 
bothering with onceuponatime, and whether it was all true or all false he 
could see the fierce energy that was going into the telling, the last desperate 
reserves of her will that she was putting into her story, _the only bright time 
I can remember_, she told him, so that he perceived that this memory- 
jumbled rag-bag of material was in fact the very heart of her, her self- 
portrait, the way she looked in the mirror when nobody else was in the room, 
and that the silver land of the past was her preferred abode, not this 
dilapidated house in which she was constantly bumping into things, -- 
knocking over coffee-tables, bruising herself on doorknobs -- bursting into 
tears, and crying out: _Everything shrinks_. 

When she sailed to Argentina in 1935 as the bride of the Anglo-Argentine 
Don Enrique of Los Alamos, he pointed to the ocean and said, that's the 
pampa. You can't tell how big it is by looking at it. You have to travel 
through it, the unchangingness, day after day. In some parts the wind is 
strong as a fist, but it's completely silent, it'll knock you flat but you'll never 
hear a thing. No trees is why: not an ombu, not a poplar, nada. And you 
have to watch out for ombu leaves, by the way. Deadly poison. The wind 
won't kill you but the leaf-juice can. She clapped her hands like a child: 
Honestly, Henry, silent winds, poisonous leaves. You make it sound like a 
fairy-story. Henry, fairhaired, soft-bodied, wide-eyed and ponderous, looked 
appalled. _Oh, no_, he said. _It's not so bad as that_. 
She arrived in that immensity, beneath that infinite blue vault of sky, 
because Henry popped the question and she gave the only answer that a 
forty-year-old spinster could. But when she arrived she asked herself a 
bigger question: of what was she capable in all that space? What did she 
have the courage for, how could she _expand?_ To be good or bad, she told 
herself: but to be _new_. Our neighbour Doctor Jorge Babington, she told 
Gibreel, never liked me, you know, he would tell me tales of the British in 
South America, always such gay blades, he said contemptuously, spies and 
brigands and looters. _Are you such exotics in your cold England?_ he asked 
her, and answered his own question, _sehora, I don't think so. Crammed 
into that coffin of an island, you must find wider horizons to express these 
secret selves_. 

Rosa Diamond's secret was a capacity for love so great that it soon became 
plain that her poor prosaic Henry would never fulfil it, because whatever 
romance there was in that jellied frame was reserved for birds. Marsh hawks, 
screamers, snipe. In a small rowing boat on the local lagunas he spent his 
happiest days amid the buirushes with his field-glasses to his eyes. Once on 
the train to Buenos Aires he embarrassed Rosa by demonstrating his 
favourite bird-calls in the dining-car, cupping his hands around his mouth: 
sleepyhead bird, vanduria ibis, trupial. Why can't you love me this way, she 



wanted to ask. But never did, because for Henry she was a good sort, and 
passion was an eccentricity of other races. She became the generalissimo of 
the homestead, and tried to stifle her wicked longings. At night she took to 
walking out into the pampa and lying on her back to look at the galaxy 
above, and sometimes, under the influence of that bright flow of beauty, she 
would begin to tremble all over, to shudder with a deep delight, and to hum 
an unknown tune, and this star-music was as close as she came to joy. 
Gibreel Farishta: felt her stories winding round him like a web, holding him 
in that lost world where _fifty sat down to dinner every day, what men they 
were, our gauchos, nothing servile there, very fierce and proud, very. Pure 
carnivores; you can see it in the pictures_. During the long nights of their 
insomnia she told him about the heat-haze that would come over the pampa 
so that the few trees stood out like islands and a rider looked like a 
mythological being, galloping across the surface of the ocean. _It was like 
the ghost of the sea_. She told him campfire stories, for example about the 
atheist gaucho who disproved Paradise, when his mother died, by calling 
upon her spirit to return, every night for seven nights. On the eighth night 
he announced that she had obviously not heard him, or she would certainly 
have come to console her beloved son; therefore, death must be the end. 
She snared him in descriptiSns of the days when the Peron people came in 
their white suits and slicked down hair and the peons chased them off, she 
told him how the railroads were built by the Anglos to service their estancias, 
and the dams, too, the story, for example, of her friend Claudette, "a real 
heartbreaker, my dear, married an engineer chap name of Granger, 
disappointed half the Hurlingham. Off they went to some dam he was 
building, and next thing they heard, the rebels were coming to blow it up. 
Granger went with the men to guard the dam, leaving Claudette alone with 
the maid, and wouldn't you know, a few hours later, the maid came running, 
sehora, ees one hombre at the door, ees as beeg as a house. What else? A 
rebel captain. -- "And your spouse, madame?" -- "Waiting for you at the 
dam, as he should be." -- "Then since he has not seen fit to protect you, the 
revolution will." And he left guards outside the house, my dear, quite a thing. 
But in the fighting both men were killed, husband and captain and Claudette 
insisted on a joint funeral, watched the two coffins going side by side into 
the ground, mourned for them both. After that we knew she was a 
dangerous lot, _trop fatale_, eh? What? _Trop_ jolly _fatale_." In the tall 
story of the beautiful Clau-- dette, Gibreel heard the music of Rosa's own 
longings. At such moments he would catch sight of her looking at him from 
the corners of her eyes, and he would feel a tugging in the region of his 
navel, as if something were trying to come out. Then she looked away, and 
the sensation faded. Perhaps it was only a sideeffect of stress. 
He asked her one night if she had seen the horns growing on Chamcha's 
head, but she went deaf and, instead of answering, told him how she would 
sit on a camp stool by the galpon or bull-pen at Los Alamos and the prize 



bulls would come up and lay their horned heads in her lap. One afternoon a 
girl named Aurora del Sol, who was the fiancee of Martin de la Cruz, let fall a 
saucy remark: I thought they only did that in the laps of virgins, she stage- 
whispered to her giggling friends, and Rosa turned to her sweetly and 
replied, Then perhaps, my dear, you would like to try? From that time 
Aurora del Sol, the best dancer at the estancia and the most desirable oi all 
the peon women, became the deadly enemy of the too-tall, too-bony woman 
from over the sea. 

"You look just like him," Rosa Diamond said as they stood at her night-time 
window, side by side, looking out to sea. "His double. Martin de la Cruz." At 
the mention of the cowboy's name Gibreel felt so violent a pain in his navel, 
a pulling pain, as if somebody had stuck a hook in his stomach, that a cry 
escaped his lips. Rosa Diamond appeared not to hear. "Look," she cried 
happily, "over there." 

Running along the midnight beach in the direction of the Martello tower and 
the holiday camp, -- running along the water's edge so that the incoming 
tide washed away its footprints, -- swerving and feinting, running for its life, 
there came a fullgrown, large--as— life ostrich. Down the beach it fled, and 
Gibreel's eyes followed it in wonder, until he could no longer make it out in 
the dark. 

ooo 

The next thing that happened took place in the village. They had gone into 
town to collect a cake and a bottle of champagne, because Rosa had 
remembered that it was her eighty-ninth birthday. Her family had been 
expelled from her life, so there had been no cards or telephone calls. Gibreel 
insisted that they should hold some sort of celebration, and showed her the 
secret inside his shirt, a fat money-belt full of pounds sterling acquired on 
the black market before leaving Bombay. "Also credit cards galore," he said. 
"I am no indigent fellow. Come, let us go. My treat." He was now so deeply 
in thrall to Rosa's narrative sorcery that he hardly remembered from day to 
day that he had a life to go to, a woman to surprise by the simple fact of his 
being alive, or any such thing. Trailing behind her meekly, he carried Mrs. 
Diamond's shopping-bags. 

He was loafing around on a Street corner while Rosa chatted to the baker 
when he felt, once again, that dragging hook in his stomach, and he fell 
against a lamp— post and gasped for air. He heard a clip-clopping hoise, and 
then around the corner came an archaic pony-trap, full of young people in 
what seemed at first sight to be fancy dress: the men in tight black trousers 
studded at the calf with silver buttons, their white shirts open almost to the 
waist; the women in wide skirts of frills and layers and bright colours, scarlet, 
emerald, gold. They were Singing in a foreign language and their gaiety 
made the street look dim and tawdry, but Gibreel realized that something 
weird was afoot, because nobody else in the street took the slightest notice 
of the ponytrap. Then Rosa emerged from the baker's with the cake-box 



dangling by its ribbon from the index finger of her left hand, and exclaimed: 
"Oh, there they are, arriving for the dance. We always had dances, you 
know, they like it, it's in their blood." And, after a pause: "That was the 
dance at which he killed the vulture." 

That was the dance at which a certain Juan Julia, nicknamed The Vulture on 
account of his cadaverous appearance, drank too much and insulted the 
honour of Aurora del Sol, and didn't stop until Martin had no option but to 
fight, _hey Martin, why you enjoy fi4cking with this one, I thought she was 

pretty dull . "Let us go away from the dancing," Martin said, and in the 

darkness, silhouetted against the fairy-lights hung from the trees around the 
dance-floor, the two men wrapped ponchas around their forearms, drew 
their knives, circled, fought. Juan died. Martin de la Cruz picked up the dead 
man's hat and threw it at the feet of Aurora del Sol. She picked up the hat 
and watched him walk away. 

Rosa Diamond at eighty-nine in a long silver sheath dress with a cigarette 
holder in one gloved hand and a silver turban on her head drank gin-and-sin 
from a green glass triangle and told stories of the good old days. "I want to 
dance," she announced suddenly. "It's my birthday and I haven't danced 
once." 

ooo 

The exertions of that night on which Rosa and Gibreel danced until dawn 
proved too much for the old lady, who collapsed into bed the next day with a 
low fever that induced ever more delirious apparitions: Gibreel saw Martin 
de la Cruz and Aurora del Sol dancing flamenco on the tiled and gabled roof 
of the Diamond house, and Peronistas in white suits stood on the boathouse 
to address a gathering of peons about the future: "Under Peron these lands 
will be expropriated and distributed among the people. The British railroads 
also will become the property of the state. Let's chuck them out, these 
brigands, these privateers ..." The plaster bust of Henry Diamond hung in 
mid-air, observing the scene, and a white—suited agitator pointed a finger at 
him and cried, That's him, your oppressor; there is the enemy. Gibreel's 
stomach ached so badly that he feared for his life, but at the very moment 
that his rational mind was considering the possibility of an ulcer or 
appendicitis, the rest of his brain whispered the truth, which was that he was 
being held prisoner and manipulated by the force of Rosa's will, just as the 
Angel Gibreel had been obliged to speak by the overwhelming need of the 
Prophet, Mahound. 

"She's dying," he realized. "Not long to go, either." Tossing in her bed in the 
fever's grip Rosa Diamond muttered about ombu poison and the enmity of 
her neighbour Doctor Babington, who asked Henry, is your wife perhaps 
quiet enough for the pastoral life, and who gave her (as a present for 
recovering from typhus) a copy of Amerigo Vespucci's account of his 
voyages. "The man was a notorious fantasist, of course," Babington smiled, 
"but fantasy can be stronger than fact; after all, he had continents named 



after him." As she grew weaker she poured more and more of her remaining 
strength into her own dream of Argentina, and Gibreel's navel felt as if it had 
been set on fire. He lay slumped in an armchair at her bedside and the 
apparitions multiplied by the hour. Woodwind music filled the air, and, most 
wonderful of all, a small white island appeared just off the shore, bobbing on 
the waves like a raft; it was white as snow, with white sand sloping up to a 
clump of albino trees, which were white, chalk—white, paper—white, to the 
very tips of their leaves. 

After the arrival of the white island Gibreel was overcome by a deep lethargy. 
Slumped in an armchair in the bedroom of the dying woman, his eyelids 
drooping, he felt the weight of his body increase until all movement became 
impossible. Then he was in another bedroom, in tight black trousers, with 
silver buttons along the calves and a heavy silver buckle at the waist. _You 
sent for me, Don Enrique_, he was saying to the soft, heavy man with a face 
like a white plaster bust, but he knew who had asked for him, and he never 
took his eyes from her face, even when he saw the colour rising from the 
white frill around her neck. 

Henry Diamond had refused to permit the authorities to become involved in 
the matter of Martin de la Cruz, _these people are my responsibility_, he 
told Rosa, _it is a question of honour_. Instead he had gone to some lengths 
to demonstrate his continuing trust in the killer, de la Cruz, for example by 
making him the captain of the estancia polo team. But Don Enrique was 
never really the same once Martin had killed the Vulture. He was more and 
more easily exhausted, and became listless, uninterested even in birds. 
Things began to come apart at Los Alamos, imperceptibly at first, then more 
obviously. The men in the white suits returned and were not chased away. 
When Rosa Diamond contracted typhus, there were many at the estancia 
who took it for an allegory of the old estate's decline. 

_What am I doing here_, Gibreel thought in great alarm, as he stood before 
Don Enrique in the rancher's study, while Doha Rosa blushed in the 
background, _this is someone else's place_. -- Great confidence in you, 
Henry was saying, not in English but Gibreel could still understand. -- My 
wife is to undertake a motor tour, for her convalescence, and you will 
accompany . . . Responsibilities at Los Alamos prevent me from going along. 
_Now I must speak, what to say_, but when his mouth opened the alien 
words emerged, it will be my honour, Don Enrique, click of heels, swivel, exit. 
Rosa Diamond in her eighty-nine-year-old weakness had begun to dream 
her story of stories, which she had guarded for more than half a century, 
and Gibreel was on a horse behind her Hispano-Suiza, driving from estancia 
to estancia, through a wood of arayana trees, beneath the high cordillera, 
arriving at grotesque homesteads built in the style of Scottish castles or 
Indian palaces, visiting the land of Mr. Cadwallader Evans, he of the seven 
wives who were happy enough to have only one night of duty each per week, 
and the territory of the notorious MacSween who had become enamoured of 



the ideas arriving in Argentina from Germany, and had started flying, from 
his estancia's flagpole, a red flag at whose heart a crooked black cross 
danced in a white circle. It was on the MacSween estancia that they came 
across the lagoon, and Rosa saw for the first time the white island of her 
fate, and insisted on rowing out for a picnic luncheon, accompanied neither 
by maid nor by chauffeur, taking only Martin de la Cruz to row the boat and 
to spread a scarlet cloth upon the white sand and to serve her with meat 
and wine. 

_As white as snow and as red as blood and as black as ebony_. As she 
reclined in black skirt and white blouse, lying upon scarlet which itself lay 
over white, while he (also wearing black and white) poured red wine into the 
glass in her white-gloved hand, -- and then, to his own astonishment, 
_bloody goddamn_, as he caught at her hand and began to kiss, -- 
something happened, the scene grew blurred, one minute they were lying on 
the scarlet cloth, rolling all over it so that cheeses and cold cuts and salads 
and pates were crushed beneath the weight of their desire, and when they 
returned to the Hispano-Suiza it was impossible to conceal anything from 
chauffeur or maid on account of the foodstains all over their clothes, -- while 
the next minute she was recoiling from him, not cruelly but in sadness, 
drawing her hand away and making a tiny gesture of the head, no, and he 
stood, bowed, retreated, leaving her with virtue and lunch intact, -- the two 
possibilities kept alternating, while dying Rosa tossed on her bed, did-she- 
didn't-she, making the last version of the story of her life, unable to decide 
what she wanted to be true. 

ooo 

"I'm going crazy," Gibreel thought. "She's dying, but I'm losing my mind." 
The moon was out, and Rosa's breathing was the only sound in the room: 
snoring as she breathed in and exhaling heavily, with small grunting noises. 
Gibreel tried to rise from his chair, and found he could not. Even in these 
intervals between the visions his body remained impossibly heavy. As if a 
boulder had been placed upon his chest. And the images, when they came, 
continued to be confused, so that at one moment he was in a hayloft at Los 
Alamos, making love to her while she murmured his name, over and over, 
_Martin of the Cross_, -- and the next moment she was ignoring him in 
broad daylight beneath the watching eyes of a certain Aurora del Sol, -- so 
that it was not possible to distinguish memory from wishes, or guilty 
reconstructions from confessional truths, -- because even on her deathbed 
Rosa Diamond did not know how to look her history in the eye. 
Moonlight streamed into the room. As it struck Rosa's face it appeared to 
pass right through her, and indeed Gibreel was beginning to be able to make 
out the pattern of the lace embroidery on her pillowcase. Then he saw Don 
Enrique and his friend, the puritanical and disapproving Dr. Babington, 
standing on the balcony, as solid as you could wish. It occurred to him that 
as the apparitions increased in clarity Rosa grew fainter and fainter, fading 



away, exchanging places, one might say, with the ghosts. And because he 
had also understood that the manifestations depended on him, his stomach- 
-ache, his stone--like weightiness, he began to fear for his own life as well. 
"You wanted me to falsify Juan Julia's death certificate," Dr. Babington was 
saying. "I did so out of our old friendship. But it was wrong to do so; and I 
see the result before me. You have sheltered a killer and it is, perhaps, your 
conscience that is eating you away. Go home, Enrique. Go home, and take 
that wife of yours, before something worse happens." 

"I am home," Henry Diamond said. "And I take exception to your mention of 
my wife." 

"Wherever the English settle, they never leave England," Dr. Babington said 
as he faded into the moonlight. "Unless, like Doha Rosa, they fall in love." 
A cloud passed across the moonlight, and now that the balcony was empty 
Gibreel Farishta finally managed to force himself out of the chair and on to 
his feet. Walking was like dragging a ball and chain across the floor, but he 
reached the window. In every direction, and as far as he could see, there 
were giant thistles waving in the breeze. Where the sea had been there was 
now an ocean of thistles, extending as far as the horizon, thistles as high as 
a full-grown man. He heard the disembodied voice of Dr. Babington mutter 
in his ear: "The first plague of thistles for fifty years. The past, it seems, 
returns." He saw a woman running through the thick, rippling growth, 
barefoot, with loose dark hair. "She did it," Rosa's voice said clearly behind 
him. "After betraying him with the Vulture and making him into a murderer. 
He wouldn't look at her after that. Oh, she did it all right. Very dangerous 
one, that one. Very." Gibreel lost sight of Aurora del Sol in the thistles; one 
mirage obscured another. 

He felt something grab him from behind, spin him around and fling him flat 
on his back. There was nobody to be seen, but Rosa Diamond was sitting 
bolt upright in bed, staring at him wide-eyed, making him understand that 
she had given up hope of clinging on to life, and needed him to help her 
complete the last revelation. As with the businessman of his dreams, he felt 
helpless, ignorant . . . she seemed to know, however, how to draw the 
images from him. Linking the two of them, navel to navel, he saw a shining 
cord. 

Now he was by a pond in the infinity of the thistles, allowing his horse to 
drink, and she came riding up on her mare. Now he was embracing her, 
loosening her garments and her hair, and now they were making love. Now 
she was whispering, how can you like me, I am so much older than you, and 
he spoke comforting words. 

Now she rose, dressed, rode away, while he remained there, his body 
languid and warm, failing to notice the moment when a woman's hand stole 
out of the thistles and took hold of his silver—hafted knife. . . 
No! No! No, this way! Now she rode up to him by the pond, and the moment 
she dismounted, looking nervously at him, he fell upon her, he told her he 



couldn't bear her rejections any longer, they fell to the ground together, she 
screamed, he tore at her clothes, and her hands, clawing at his body, came 
upon the handle of a knife... 
No! No, never, no! This way: here! 

Now the two of them were making love, tenderly, with many slow caresses; 
and now a third rider entered the clearing by the pool, and the lovers rushed 
apart; now Don Enrique drew his small pistol and aimed at his rival's heart, - 

-- and he felt Aurora stabbing him in the heart, over and over, this is for 
Juan, and this is for abandoning me, and this is for your grand English whore, 
--. -- and he felt his victim's knife entering his heart, as Rosa stabbed him, 
once, twice, and again, — . 

-- and after Henry's bullet had killed him the Englishman took the dead 
man's knife and stabbed him, many times, in the bleeding wound. 
Gibreel, screaming loudly, lost consciousness at this point. 
When he regained his senses the old woman in the bed was speaking to 
herself, so softly that he could barely make out the words. "The pampero 
came, the south-west wind, flattening the thistles. That's when they found 
him, or was it before." The last of the story. How Aurora del Sol spat in Rosa 
Diamond's face at the funeral of Martin de la Cruz. How it was arranged that 
nobody was to be charged for the murder, on condition that Don Enrique 
took Doha Rosa and returned to England with all speed. How they boarded 
the train at the Los Alamos station and the men in white suits stood on the 
platform, wearing borsalino hats, making sure they really left. How, once the 
train had started moving, Rosa Diamond opened the holdall on the seat 
beside her, and said defiantly, _I brought something. A little souvenir_. And 
unwrapped a cloth bundle to reveal a gaucho's silver-hafted knife. 
"Henry died the first winter home. Then nothing happened. The war. The 
end." She paused. "To diminish into this, after being in that vastness. It isn't 
to be borne." And, after a further silence: "Everything shrinks." 
There was a change in the moonlight, and Gibreel felt a weight lifting from 
him, so rapidly that he thought he might float up towards the ceiling. Rosa 
Diamond lay still, eyes closed, her arms resting on the patchwork 
counterpane. She looked: _normal_. Gibreel realized that there was nothing 
to prevent him from walking out of the door. 

He made his way downstairs carefully, his legs still a little unsteady; found 
the heavy gabardine overcoat that had once belonged to Henry Diamond, 
and the grey felt trilby inside which Don Enrique's name had been sewn by 
his wife's own hand; and left, without looking back. The moment he got 
outside a wind snatched his hat and sent it skipping down the beach. He 
chased it, caught it, jammed it back on. _London shareef, here I come_. He 
had the city in his pocket: Geographers' London, the whole dog-eared 
metropolis, A to Z. 



"What to do?" he was thinking. "Phone or not phone? No, just turn up, ring 
the bell and say, baby, your wish came true, from sea bed to your bed, 
takes more than a plane crash to keep me away from you. -- Okay, maybe 
not quite, but words to that effect. -- Yes. Surprise is the best policy. Allie 
Bibi, boo to you." 

Then he heard the singing. It was coming from the old boathouse with the 
one-eyed pirate painted on the outside, and the song was foreign, but 
familiar: a song that Rosa Diamond had often hummed, and the voice, too, 
was familiar, although a little different, less quavery; _younger_. The 
boathouse door was unaccountably unlocked, and banging in the wind. He 
went towards the song. 

"Take your coat off," she said. She was dressed as she had been on the day 
of the white island: black skirt and boots, white silk blouse, hatless. He 
spread the coat on the boathouse floor, its bright scarlet lining glowing in 
the confined, moonlit space. She lay down amid the random clutter of an 
English life, cricket stumps, a yellowed lampshade, chipped vases, a folding 
table, trunks; and extended an arm towards him. He lay down by her side. 
"How can you like me?" she murmured. "I am so much older than you." 

3 

When they pulled his pyjamas down in the windowless police van and he saw 
the thick, tightly curled dark hair covering his thighs, Saladin Chamcha 
broke down for the second time that night; this time, however, he began to 
giggle hysterically, infected, perhaps, by the continuing hilarity of his captors. 
The three immigration officers were in particularly high spirits, and it was 
one of these -- the popeyed fellow whose name, it transpired, was Stein -- 
who had "de-- bagged" Saladin with a merry cry of, "Opening time, Packy; 
let's see what you're made of!" Red-and-white stripes were dragged off the 
protesting Chamcha, who was reclining on the floor of the van with two stout 
policemen holding each arm and a fifth constable's boot placed firmly upon 
his chest, and whose protests went unheard in the general mirthful din. His 
horns kept banging against things, the wheel— arch, the uncarpeted floor or 
a policeman's shin -- on these last occasions he was soundly buffeted about 
the face by the understandably irate law—enforcement officer -- and he was, 
in sum, in as miserably low spirits as he could recall. Nevertheless, when he 
saw what lay beneath his borrowed pyjamas, he could not prevent that 
disbelieving giggle from escaping past his teeth. 

His thighs had grown uncommonly wide and powerful, as well as hairy. 
Below the knee the hairiness came to a halt, and his legs narrowed into 
tough, bony, almost fleshless calves, terminating in a pair of shiny, cloven 
hoofs, such as one might find on any billy-goat. Saladin was also taken 
aback by the sight of his phallus, greatly enlarged and embarrassingly erect, 
an organ that he had the greatest difficulty in acknowledging as his own. 
"What's this, then?" joked Novak -- the former "Hisser" — giving it a playful 



tweak. "Fancy one of us, maybe?" Whereupon the "moaning" immigration 
officer, Joe Bruno, slapped his thigh, dug Novak in the ribs, and shouted, 
"Nah, that ain't it. Seems like we really got his goat." "I get it," Novak 
shouted back, as his fist accidentally punched Saladin in his newly enlarged 
testicles. "Hey! Hey!" howled Stein, with tears in his eyes. "Listen, here's an 
even better ... no wonder he's so fucking _horny_." 
At which the three of them, repeating many times "Got his goat. . . 
horny.. ." fell into one another's arms and howled with delight. Chamcha 
wanted to speak, but was afraid that he would find his voice mutated into 
goat--bleats, and, besides, the policeman's boot had begun to press harder 
than ever on his chest, and it was hard to form any words. What puzzled 
Chamcha was that a circumstance which struck him as utterly bewildering 
and unprecedented -- that is, his metamorphosis into this supernatural imp - 
- was being treated by the others as if it were the most banal and familiar 
matter they could imagine. "This isn't England," he thought, not for the first 
or last time. How could it be, after all; where in all that moderate and 
common--sensical land was there room for such a police van in whose 
interior such events as these might plausibly transpire? He was being forced 
towards the conclusion that he had indeed died in the exploding aeroplane 
and that everything that followed had been some sort of after-life. If that 
were the case, his long—standing rejection of the Eternal was beginning to 
look pretty foolish. -- But where, in all this, was any sign of a Supreme 
Being, whether benevolent or malign? Why did Purgatory, or Hell, or 
whatever this place might be, look so much like that Sussex of rewards and 
fairies which every schoolboy knew? -- Perhaps, it occurred to him, he had 
not actually perished in the _Bostan_ disaster, but was lying gravely ill in 
some hospital ward, plagued by delirious dreams? This explanation appealed 
to him, not least because it unmade the meaning of a certain late-night 
telephone call, and a man's voice that he was trying, unsuccessfully, to 
forget ... He felt a sharp kick land on his ribs, painful and realistic enough 
to make him doubt the truth of all such hallucination-theories. He returned 
his attention to the actual, to this present comprising a sealed police van 
containing three immigration officers and five policemen that was, for the 
moment at any rate, all the universe he possessed. It was a universe of fear. 
Novak and the rest had snapped out of their happy mood. "Animal," Stein 
cursed him as he administered a series of kicks, and Bruno joined in: "You're 
all the same. Can't expect animals to observe civilized standards. Eh?" And 
Novak took up the thread: "We're talking about fucking personal hygiene 
here, you little fuck." 

Chamcha was mystified. Then he noticed that a large number of soft, pellety 
objects had appeared on the floor of the Black Maria. He felt consumed by 
bitterness and shame. It seemed that even his natural processes were 
goatish now. The humiliation of it! He was -- had gone to some lengths to 
become — a sophisticated man! Such degradations might be all very well for 



riff-raff from villages in Sylhet or the bicycle-repair shops of Gujranwala, but 
he was cut from different cloth! "My good fellows," he began, attempting a 
tone of authority that was pretty difficult to bring off from that undignified 
position on his back with his hoofy legs wide apart and a soft tumble of his 
own excrement all about him, "my good fellows, you had best understand 
your mistake before it's too late." 

Novak cupped a hand behind an ear. "What's that? What was that noise?" he 
inquired, looking about him, and Stein said, "Search me." "Tell you what it 
sounded like," Joe Bruno volunteered, and with his hands around his mouth 
he bellowed: "Maaaa-aa!" Then the three of them all laughed once more, so 
that Saladin had no way of telling if they were simply insulting him or if his 
vocal cords had truly been infected, as he feared, by this macabre 
demoniasis that had overcome him without the slightest warning. He had 
begun to shiver again. The night was extremely cold. 
The officer, Stein, who appeared to be the leader of the trinity, or at least 
the primus inter pares, returned abruptly to the subject of the pellety refuse 
rolling around the floor of the moving van. "In this country," he informed 
Saladin, "we clean up our messes." 

The policemen stopped holding him down and pulled him into a kneeling 
position. "That's right," said Novak, "clean it up." Joe Bruno placed a large 
hand behind Chamcha's neck and pushed his head down towards the pellet- 
littered floor. "Off you go," he said, in a conversational voice. "Sooner you 
start, sooner you'll polish it off." 
ooo 

Even as he was performing (having no option) the latest and basest ritual of 
his unwarranted humiliation, -- or, to put it another way, as the 
circumstances of his miraculously spared life grew ever more infernal and 
outre -- Saladin Chamcha began to notice that the three immigration officers 
no longer looked or acted nearly as strangely as at first. For one thing, they 
no longer resembled one another in the slightest. Officer Stein, whom his 
colleagues called "Mack" or "Jockey", turned out to be a large, burly man 
with a thick roller-coaster of a nose; his accent, it now transpired, was 
exaggeratedly Scottish. "Tha's the ticket," he remarked approvingly as 
Chamcha munched miserably on. "An actor, was it? I'm partial to watchin" a 
guid man perform." 

This observation prompted Officer Novak -- that is, "Kim" -- who had 
acquired an alarmingly pallid colouring, an ascetically bony face that 
reminded one of medieval icons, and a frown suggesting some deep inner 
torment, to burst into a short peroration about his favourite television soap- 
opera stars and gameshow hosts, while Officer Bruno, who struck Chamcha 
as having grown exceedingly handsome all of a sudden, his hair shiny with 
styling gel and centrally divided, his blond beard contrasting dramatically 
with the darker hair on his head, -- Bruno, the youngest of the three, asked 
lasciviously, what about watchin" girls, then, that's my game. This new 



notion set the three of them off into all manner of half-completed anecdotes 
pregnant with suggestions of a certain type, but when the five policemen 
attempted to join in they joined ranks, grew stern, and put the constables in 
their places. "Little children," Mr. Stein admonished them, "should be seen 
an" no hearrud." 

By this time Chamcha was gagging violently on his meal, forcing himself not 
to vomit, knowing that such an error would only prolong his misery. 
He was crawling about on the floor of the van, seeking out the pellets of his 
torture as they rolled from side to side, and the policemen, needing an outlet 
for the frustration engendered by the immigration officer's rebuke, began to 
abuse Saladin roundly and pull the hair on his rump to increase both his 
discomfort and his discomfiture. Then the five policemen defiantly started up 
their own version of the immigration officers' conversation, and set to 
analysing the merits of divers movie stars, darts players, professional 
wrestlers and the like; but because they had been put into a bad humour by 
the loftiness of "Jockey" Stein, they were unable to maintain the abstract 
and intellectual tone of their superiors, and fell to quarrelling over the 
relative merits of the Tottenham Hotspur "double" team of the early 1960s 
and the mighty Liverpool side of the present day, -- in which the Liverpool 
supporters incensed the Spurs fans by alleging that the great Danny 
Blanchflower was a "luxury" player, a cream puff, fldwer by name, pansy by 
nature; -- whereupon the offended claque responded by shouting that in the 
case of Liverpool it was the supporters who were the bum-boys, the Spurs 
mob could take them apart with their arms tied behind their backs. Of 
course all the constables were familiar with the techniques of football 
hooligans, having spent many Saturdays with their backs to the game 
watching the spectators in the various stadiums up and down the country, 
and as their argument grew heated they reached the point of wishing to 
demonstrate, to their opposing colleagues, exactly what they meant by 
"tearing apart", "bollocking", "bottling" and the like. The angry factions 
glared at one another and then, all together, they turned to gaze upon the 
person of Saladin Chamcha. 

Well, the ruckus in that police van grew noisier and noisier, -- and it's true to 
say that Chamcha was partly to blame, because he had started squealing 
like a pig, -- and the young bobbies were thumping and gouging various 
parts of his anatomy, using him both as a guinea-pig and a safety-valve, 
remaining careful, in spite of their excitation, to confine their blows to his 
softer, more fleshy parts, to minimize the risk of breakages and bruises; and 
when Jockey, Kim and Joey saw what their juniors were getting up to, they 
chose to be tolerant, because boys would have their fun. 
Besides, all this talk of watching had brought Stein, Bruno and Novak round 
to an examination of weightier matters, and now, with solemn faces and 
judicious voices, they were speaking of the need, in this day and age, for an 
increase in observation, not merely in the sense of "spectating", but in that 



of "watchfulness", and "surveillance". The young constables' experience was 
extremely relevant, Stein intoned: watch the crowd, not the game. "Eternal 
vigilance is the price o" liberty," he proclaimed. 

"Eek," cried Chamcha, unable to avoid interrupting. "Aargh, unnhh, owoo." 
ooo 

After a time a curious mood of detachment fell upon Saladin. He no longer 
had any idea of how long they had been travelling in the Black Maria of his 
hard fall from grace, nor could he have hazarded a guess as to the proximity 
of their ultimate destination, even though the tinnitus in his ears was 
growing gradually louder, those phantasmal grandmother's footsteps, 
ellowen, deeowen, London. The blows raining down on him now felt as soft 
as a lover's caresses; the grotesque sight of his own metamorphosed body 
no longer appalled him; even the last pellets of goatexcrement failed to stir 
his much— abused stomach. Numbly, he crouched down in his little world, 
trying to make himself smaller and smaller, in the hope that he might 
eventually disappear altogether, and so regain his freedom. 
The talk of surveillance techniques had reunited immigration officers and 
policemen, healing the breach caused by Jockey Stein's words of puritanical 
reproof. Chamcha, the insect on the floor of the van, heard, as if through a 
telephone scrambler, the faraway voices of his captors speaking eagerly of 
the need for more video equipment at public events and of the benefits of 
computerized information, and, in what appeared to be a complete 
contradiction, of the efficacy of placing too rich a mixture in the nosebags of 
police horses on the night before a big match, because when equine 
stomach—upsets led to the marchers being showered with shit it always 
provoked them into violence, _an" then we can really get amongst them, 
can't we just_. Unable to find a way of making this universe of soap operas, 
matchoftheday, cloaks and daggers cohere into any recognizable whole, 
Chamcha closed his ears to the chatter and listened to the footsteps in his 
ears. 

Then the penny dropped. 
"Ask the Computer!" 

Three immigration officers and five policemen fell silent as the foul—smelling 
creature sat up and hollered at them. "What's he on about?" asked the 
youngest policeman — one of the Tottenham supporters, as it happened -- 
doubtfully. "Shall I fetch him another whack?" 
"My name is Salahuddin Chamchawala, professional name Saladin 
Chamcha," the demi-goat gibbered. "I am a member of Actors' Equity, the 
Automobile Association and the Garrick Club. My car registration number is 
suchandsuch. Ask the Computer. Please." 

"Who're you trying to kid?" inquired one of the Liverpool fans, but he, too, 
sounded uncertain. "Look at yourself. You're a fucking Packy billy. Sally-who? 
-- What kind of name is that for an Englishman?" 



Chamcha found a scrap of anger from somewhere. "And what about them?" 
he demanded, jerking his head at the immigration officers. "They don't 
sound so Anglo-Saxon to me." 

For a moment it seemed that they might all fall upon him and tear him limb 
from limb for such temerity, but at length the skull-faced Officer Novak 
merely slapped his face a few times while replying, "I'm from Weybridge, 
you cunt. Get it straight: Weybridge, where the fucking _Beatles_ used to 
live." 

Stein said: "Better check him out." Three and a half minutes later the Black 
Maria came to a halt and three immigration officers, five constables and one 
police driver held a crisis conference -- _here's a pretty effing pickle_ -- and 
Chamcha noted that in their new mood all nine had begun to look alike, 
rendered equal and identical by their tension and fear. Nor was it long before 
he understood that the call to the Police National Computer, which had 
promptly identified him as a British Citizen first class, had not improved his 
situation, but had placed him, if anything, in greater danger than before. 
— We could say, -- one of the nine suggested, — that he was lying 
unconscious on the beach. -- Won't work, -- came the reply, on account of 
the old lady and the other geezer. -- Then he resisted arrest and turned 
nasty and in the ensuing altercation he kind of fainted. -- Or the old bag was 
ga-ga, made no sense to any of us, and the other guy wossname never 
spoke up, and as for this bugger, you only have to clock the bleeder, looks 
like the very devil, what were we supposed to think? — And then he went 
and passed out on us, so what could we do, in all fairness, I ask you, your 
honour, but bring him in to the medical facility at the Detention Centre, for 
proper care followed by observation and questioning, using our reason-to- 
believe guidelines; what do you reckon on something of that nature? -- It's 
nine against one, but the old biddy and the second bloke make it a bit of a 
bastard. -- Look, we can fix the tale later, first thing like I keep saying is to 
get him unconscious. — Right. 

ooo 

Chamcha woke up in a hospital bed with green slime coming up from his 
lungs. His bones felt as if somebody had put them in the icebox for a long 
while. He began to cough, and when the fit ended nineteen and a half 
minutes later he fell back into a shallow, sickly sleep without having taken in 
any aspect of his present whereabouts. When he surfaced again a friendly 
woman's face was looking down at him, smiling reassuringly. "You goin to be 
fine," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "A lickle pneumonia is all you 
got." She introduced herself as his physiotherapist, Hyacinth Phillips. And 
added, "I never judge a person by appearances. No, sir. Don't you go 
thinking I do." 

With that, she rolled him over on to his side, placed a small cardboard box 
by his lips, hitched up her white housecoat, kicked off her shoes, and leaped 
athletically on to the bed to sit astride him, for all the world as if he were a 



horse that she meant to ride right through the screens surrounding his bed 
and out into goodness knew what manner of transmogrified landscape. 
"Doctor's orders," she explained. "Thirty— minute sessions, twice a day." 
Without further preamble, she began pummelling him briskly about the 
middle body, with fightly clenched, but evidently expert, fists. 
For poor Saladin, fresh from his beating in the police van, this new assault 
was the last straw. He began to struggle beneath her pounding fists, crying 
loudly, "Let me out of here; has anybody informed my wife?" The effort of 
shouting out induced a second coughing spasm that lasted seventeen and 
three—quarter minutes and earned him a telling off from the physiotherapist, 
Hyacinth. "You wastin my time," she said. "I should be done with your right 
lung by now and instead I hardly get started. You go behave or not?" She 
had remained on the bed, straddling him, bouncing up and down as his body 
convulsed, like a rodeo rider hanging on for the nine-second bell. He 
subsided in defeat, and allowed her to beat the green fluid out of his 
inflamed lungs. When she finished he was obliged to admit that he felt a 
good deal better. She removed the little box which was now half-full of slime 
and said cheerily, "You be standin up firm in no time," and then, colouring in 
confusion, apologized, "Excuse _me_," and fled without remembering to pull 
back the encircling screens. 

"Time to take stock of the situation," he told himself. A quick physical 
examination informed him that his new, mutant condition had remained 
unchanged. This cast his spirits down, and he realized that he had been half- 
hoping that the nightmare would have ended while he slept. He was dressed 
in a new pair of alien pyjamas, this time of an undifferentiated pale green 
colour, which matched both the fabric of the screens and what he could see 
of the walls and ceiling of that cryptic and anonymous ward. His legs still 
ended in those distressing hoofs, and the horns on his head were as sharp 
as before ... he was distracted from this morose inventory by a man's voice 
from nearby, crying out in heart-rending distress: "Oh, if ever a body 
suffered . . . !" 

"What on earth?" Chamcha thought, and determined to investigate. But now 
he was becoming aware of many other sounds, as unsettling as the first. It 
seemed to him that he could hear all sorts of animal noises: the snorting of 
bulls, the chattering of monkeys, even the pretty— polly mimic-squawks of 
parrots or talking budgerigars. Then, from another direction, he heard a 
woman grunting and shrieking, at what sounded like the end of a painful 
labour; followed by the yowling of a new-born baby. However, the woman's 
cries did not subside when the baby's began; if anything, they redoubled in 
their intensity, and perhaps fifteen minutes later Chamcha distinctly heard a 
second infant's voice joining the first. Still the woman's birth-agony refused 
to end, and at intervals ranging from fifteen to thirty minutes for what 
seemed like an endless time she continued to add new babies to the already 
improbable numbers marching, like conquering armies, from her womb. 



His nose informed him that the sanatorium, or whatever the place called 
itself, was also beginning to stink to the heavens; jungle and farmyard 
odours mingled with a rich aroma similar to that of exotic spices sizzling in 
clarified butter -- coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves. "This is 
too much," he thought firmly. "Time to get a few things sorted out." He 
swung his legs out of bed, tried to stand up, and promptly fell to the floor, 
being utterly unaccustomed to his new legs. It took him around an hour to 
overcome this problem -- learning to walk by holding on to the bed and 
stumbling around it until his confidence grew. At length, and not a little 
unsteadily, he made his way to the nearest screen; whereupon the face of 
the immigration officer Stein appeared, Cheshire-Cat--like, between two of 
the screens to his left, followed rapidly by the rest of the fellow, who drew 
the screens together behind him with suspicious rapidity. 
"Doing all right?" Stein asked, his smile remaining wide. 
"When can I see the doctor? When can I go to the toilet? When can I leave?" 
Chamcha asked in a rush. Stein answered equably: the doctor would be 
round presently; Nurse Phillips would bring him a bedpan; he could leave as 
soon as he was well. "Damn decent of you to come down with the lung 
thing," Stein added, with the gratitude of an author whose character had 
unexpectedly solved a ticklish technical problem. "Makes the story much 
more convincing. Seems you were that sick, you did pass out on us after all. 
Nine of us remember it well. Thanks." Chamcha could not find any words. 
"And another thing," Stein went on. "The old burd, Mrs. Diamond. Turns out 
to be dead in her bed, cold as mutton, and the other gentleman vanished 
clear away. The possibility of foul play has no as yet been eliminated." 
"In conclusion," he said before disappearing forever from Saladin's new life, 
"I suggest, Mr. Citizen Saladin, that you dinna trouble with a complaint. 
You'll forgive me for speaking plain, but with your wee horns and your great 
hoofs you wouldna look the most reliable of witnesses. Good day to you 
now." 

Saladin Chamcha closed his eyes and when he opened them his tormentor 
had turned into the nurse and physiotherapist, Hyacinth Phillips. "Why you 
wan go walking?" she asked. "Whatever your heart desires, you jus ask me, 
Hyacinth, and we'll see what we can fix." 

ooo 



"Ssst." 

That night, in the greeny light of the mysterious institution, Saladin was 
awakened by a hiss out of an Indian bazaar. 
"Ssst. You, Beelzebub. Wake up." 

Standing in front of him was a figure so impossible that Chamcha wanted to 
bury his head under the sheets; yet could not, for was not he himself. . . ? 
"That's right," the creature said. "You see, you're not alone." 
It had an entirely human body, but its head was that of a ferocious tiger, 
with three rows of teeth. "The night guards often doze off," it explained. 
"That's how we manage to get to talk." 

Just then a voice from one of the other beds -- each bed, as Chamcha now 
knew, was protected by its own ring of screens -- wailed loudly: "Oh, if ever 
a body suffered!" and the man-tiger, or manticore, as it called itself, gave an 
exasperated growl. "That Moaner Lisa," it exclaimed. "All they did to him 
was make him blind." 
"Who did what?" Chamcha was confused. 

"The point is," the manticore continued, "are you going to put up with it?" 
Saladin was still puzzled. The other seemed to be suggesting that these 
mutations were the responsibility of— of whom? How could they be? -- "I 
don't see," he ventured, "who can be blamed . . ." 

The manticore ground its three rows of teeth in evident frustration. "There's 
a woman over that way," it said, "who is now mostly water-buffalo. There 
are businessmen from Nigeria who have grown sturdy tails. There is a group 
of holidaymakers from Senegal who were doing no more than changing 
planes when they were turned into slippery snakes. I myself am in the rag 
trade; for some years now I have been a highly paid male model, based in 
Bombay, wearing a wide range of suitings and shirtings also. But who will 
employ me now?" he burst into sudden and unexpected tears. "There, 
there," said Saladin Chamcha, automatically. "Everything will be all right, 
I'm sure of it. Have courage." 

The creature composed itself. "The point is," it said fiercely, "some of us 
aren't going to stand for it. We're going to bust out of here before they turn 
us into anything worse. Every night I feel a different piece of me beginning 
to change. I've started, for example, to break wind continually ... I beg your 
pardon you see what I mean? By the way, try these," he slipped Chamcha a 
packet of extra-strength peppermints. "They'll help your breath. I've bribed 
one of the guards to bring in a supply." 
"But how do they do it?" Chamcha wanted to know. 

"They describe us," the other whispered solemnly. "That's all. They have the 
power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct." 
"It's hard to believe," Chamcha argued. "I've lived here for many years and 
it never happened before ..." His words dried up because he saw the 
manticore looking at him through narrow, distrustful eyes. "Many years?" it 



asked. "How could that be? -- Maybe you're an informer? -- Yes, that's it, a 
spy?" 

Just then a wail came from a far corner of the ward. "Lemme go," a woman's 
voice howled. "OJesus I want to go. Jesus Mary I gotta go, lemme go, O God, 
O Jesus God." A very lecherouslooking wolf put its head through Saladin's 
screens and spoke urgently to the manticore. "The guards'll be here soon," it 
hissed. "It's her again, Glass Bertha." 

"Glass . . .?" Saladin began. "Her skin turned to glass," the manticore 
explained impatiently, not knowing that he was bringing Chamcha's worst 
dream to life. "And the bastards smashed it up for her. Now she can't even 
walk to the toilet." 

A new voice hissed out across the greeny night. "For God's sake, woman. Go 
in the fucking bedpan." 

The wolf was pulling the manticore away. "Is he with us or not?" it wanted to 
know. The manticore shrugged. "He can't make up his mind," it answered. 
"Can't believe his own eyes, that's his trouble." 

They fled, hearing the approaching crunch of the guards' heavy boots. 

ooo 

The next day there was no sign of a doctor, or of Pamela, and Chamcha in 
his utter bewilderment woke and slept as if the two conditions no longer 
required to be thought of as opposites, but as states that flowed into and out 
of one another to create a kind of unending delirium of the senses.. . he 
found himself dreaming of the Queen, of making tender love to the Monarch. 
She was the body of Britain, the avatar of the State, and he had chosen her, 
joined with her; she was his Beloved, the moon of his delight. 
Hyacinth came at the appointed times to ride and pummel him, and he 
submitted without any fuss. But when she finished she whispered into his 
ear: "You in with the rest?" and he understood that she was involved in the 
great conspiracy, too. "If you are," he heard himself saying, "then you can 
count me in." She nodded, looking pleased. Chamcha felt a warmth filling 
him up, and he began to wonder about taking hold of one of the 
physiotherapist's exceedingly dainty, albeit powerful, little fists; but just 
then a shout came from the direction of the blind man: "My stick, I've lost 
my stick." 

"Poor old bugger," said Hyacinth, and hopping off Chamcha she darted 
across to the sightless fellow, picked up the fallen stick, restored it to its 
owner, and came back to Saladin. "Now," she said. "I'll see you this pm; 
okay, no problems?" 

He wanted her to stay, but she acted brisk. "I'm a busy woman, Mr. 
Chamcha. Things to do, people to see." 

When she had gone he lay back and smiled for the first time in a long while. 
It did not occur to him that his metamorphosis must be continuing, because 
he was actually entertaining romantic notions about a black woman; and 



before he had time to think such complex thoughts, the blind man next door 
began, once again, to speak. 

"I have noticed you," Chamcha heard him say, "I have noticed you, and 
come to appreciate your kindness and understanding." Saladin realized that 
he was making a formal speech of thanks to the empty space where he 
clearly believed the physiotherapist was still standing. "I am not a man who 
forgets a kindness. One day, perhaps, I may be able to repay it, but for the 
moment, please know that it is remembered, and fondly, too. . ." Chamcha 
did not have the courage to call out, _she isn't there, old man, she left some 
time back_. He listened unhappily until at length the blind man asked the 
thin air a question: "I hope, perhaps, you may also remember me? A little? 
On occasion?" Then came a silence; a dry laugh; the sound of a man sitting 
down, heavily, all of a sudden. And finally, after an unbearable pause, 
bathos: "Oh," the soliloquist bellowed, "oh, if ever a body suffered. . . !" 
We strive for the heights but our natures betray us, Chamcha thought; 
clowns in search of crowns. The bitterness overcame him. _Once I was 
lighter, happier, warm. Now the black water is in my veins_. 
Still no Pamela. _What the hell_. That night, he told the manticore and the 
wolf that he was with them, all the way. 

ooo 

The great escape took place some nights later, when Saladin's lungs had 
been all but emptied of slime by the ministrations of Miss Hyacinth Phillips. 
It turned out to be a well-organized affair on a pretty large scale, involving 
not only the inmates of the sanatorium but also the detenus, as the 
manticore called them, held behind wire fences in the Detention Centre 
nearby. Not being one of the grand strategists of the escape, Chamcha 
simply waited by his bed as instructed until Hyacinth brought him word, and 
then they ran out of that ward of nightmares into the clarity of a cold, 
moonlit sky, past several bound, gagged men: their former guards. There 
were many shadowy figures running through the glowing night, and 
Chamcha glimpsed beings he could never have imagined, men and women 
who were also partially plants, or giant insects, or even, on occasion, built 
partly of brick or stone; there were men with rhinoceros horns instead of 
noses and women with necks as long as any giraffe. The monsters ran 
quickly, silently, to the edge of the Detention Centre compound, where the 
manticore and other sharp-toothed mutants were waiting by the large holes 
they had bitten into the fabric of the containing fence, and then they were 
out, free, going their separate ways, without hope, but also without shame. 
Saladin Chamcha and Hyacinth Phillips ran side by side, his goat-hoofs clip- 
clopping on the hard pavements: _east_ she told him, as he heard his own 
footsteps replace the tinnitus in his ears, east east east they ran, taking the 
low roads to London town. 



4 

Jumpy Joshi had become Pamela Chamcha's lover by what she afterwards 
called "sheer chance" on the night she learned of her husband's death in the 
_Bostan_ explosion, so that the sound of his old college friend Saladin's 
voice speaking from beyond the grave in the middle of the night, uttering 
the five gnomic words _sorry, excuse please, wrong number_, -- speaking, 
moreover, less than two hours after Jumpy and Pamela had made, with the 
assistance of two bottles of whisky, the two-- backed beast, -- put him in a 
tight spot. "Who was _that?_" Pamela, still mostly asleep, with a blackout 
mask over her eyes, rolled over to inquire, and he decided to reply, "Just a 
breather, don't worry about it," which was all very well, except then he had 
to do the worrying all by himself, sitting up in bed, naked, and sucking, for 
comfort, as he had all his life, the thumb on his right hand. 
He was a small person with wire coathanger shoulders and an enormous 
capacity for nervous agitation, evidenced by his pale, sunken--eyed face; his 
thinning hair -- still entirely black and curly -- which had been ruffled so 
often by his frenzied hands that it no longer took the slightest notice of 
brushes or combs, but stuck out every which way and gave its owner the 
perpetual air of having just woken up, late, and in a hurry; and his 
endearingly high, shy and self-deprecating, but also hiccoughy and over- 
excited, giggle; all of which had helped turn his name, Jamshed, into this 
Jumpy that everybody, even first-time acquaintances, now automatically 
used; everybody, that is, except Pamela Chamcha. Saladin's wife, he 
thought, sucking away feverishly. -- Or widow? -- Or, God help me, wife, 
after all. He found himself resenting Chamcha. A return from a watery grave: 
so operatic an event, in this day and age, seemed almost indecent, an act of 
bad faith. 

He had rushed over to Pamela's place the moment he heard the news, and 
found her dry-eyed and composed. She led him into her clutter-lover's study 
on whose walls watercolours of rose-gardens hung between clenched—fist 
posters reading _Partido Socialista_, photographs of friends and a cluster of 
African masks, and as he picked his way across the floor between ashtrays 
and the _Voice_ newspaper and feminist science— fiction novels she said, 
flatly, "The surprising thing is that when they told me I thought, well, shrug, 
his death will actually make a pretty small hole in my life." Jumpy, who was 
close to tears, and bursting with memories, stopped in his tracks and flapped 
his arms, looking, in his great shapeless black coat, and with his pallid, 
terror— stricken face, like a vampire caught in the unexpected and hideous 
light of day. Then he saw the empty whisky bottles. Pamela had started 
drinking, she said, some hours back, and since then she had been going at it 
steadily, rhythmically, with the dedication of a long-distance runner. He sat 
down beside her on her low, squashy sofa-bed, and offered to act as a 
pacemaker. "Whatever you want," she said, and passed him the bottle. 



Now, sitting up in bed with a thumb instead of a bottle, his secret and his 
hangover banging equally painfully inside his head (he had never been a 
drinking or a secretive man), Jumpy felt tears coming on once again, and 
decided to get up and walk himself around. Where he went was upstairs, to 
what Saladin had insisted on calling his "den", a large loft--space with 
skylights and windows looking down on an expanse of communal gardens 
dotted with comfortable trees, oak, larch, even the last of the elms, a 
survivor of the plague years. _First the elms, now us_, Jumpy reflected. 
_Maybe the trees were a warning_. He shook himself to banish such small- 
hour morbidities, and perched on the edge of his friend's mahogany desk. 
Once at a college party he had perched, just so, on a table soggy with spilled 
wine and beer next to an emaciated girl in black lace minidress, purple 
feather boa and eyelids like silver helmets, unable to pluck up the courage to 
say hello. Finally he did turn to her and stutter out some banality or other; 
she gave him a look of absolute contempt and said without moving her 
black— lacquer lips, conversation's dead, man_. He had been pretty upset, 

so upset that he blurted out, tell me, why are all the girls in this town so 

rude?_, and she answered, without pausing to think, _because most of the 
boys are like you_. A few moments later Chamcha came up, reeking of 
patchouli, wearing a white kurta, everybody's goddamn cartoon of the 
mysteries of the East, and the girl left with him five minutes later. The 
bastard, Jumpy Joshi thought as the old bitterness surged back, he had no 
shame, he was ready to be anything they wanted to buy, that read-your- 
palm bedspread-jacket HareKrishna dharma-bum, you wouldn't have caught 
me dead. That stopped him, that word right there. Dead. Face it, Jamshed, 
the girls never went for you, that's the truth, and the rest is envy. Well, 
maybe so, he half-conceded, and then again. Maybe dead, he added, and 
then again, maybe not. 

Chamcha's room struck the sleepless intruder as contrived, and therefore 
sad: the caricature of an actor's room full of signed photographs of 
colleagues, handbills, framed programmes, production stills, citations, 
awards, volumes of movie—star memoirs, a room bought off the peg, by the 
yard, an imitation of life, a mask's mask. Novelty items on every surface: 
ashtrays in the shape of pianos, china pierrots peeping out from behind a 
shelf of books. And everywhere, on the walls, in the movie posters, in the 
glow of the lamp borne by bronze Eros, in the mirror shaped like a heart, 
oozing up through the blood-red carpet, dripping from the ceiling, Saladin's 
need for love. In the theatre everybody gets kissed and everybody is darling. 
The actor's life offers, on a daily basis, the simulacrum of love; a mask can 
be satisfied, or at least consoled, by the echo of what it seeks. The 
desperation there was in him, Jumpy recognized, he'd do anything, put on 
any damnfool costume, change into any shape, if it earned him a loving 
word. Saladin, who wasn't by any means unsuccessful with women, see 



above. The poor stumblebum. Even Pamela, with all her beauty and 
brightness, hadn't been enough. 

It was clear he'd been getting to be a long way from enough for her. 
Somewhere around the bottom of the second whisky bottle she leaned her 
head on his shoulder and said boozily, "You can't imagine the relief of being 
with someone with whom I don't have to have a fight every time I express 
an opinion. Someone on the side of the goddamn angels." He waited; after a 
pause, there was more. "Him and his Royal Family, you wouldn't believe. 
Cricket, the Houses of Parliament, the Queen. The place never stopped being 
a picture postcard to him. You couldn't get him to look at what was really 
real." She closed her eyes and allowed her hand, by accident, to rest on his. 
"He was a real Saladin," Jumpy said. "A man with a holy land to conquer, his 
England, the one he believed in. You were part of it, too." She rolled away 
from him and stretched out on top of magazines, crumpled balls of waste 
paper, mess. "Part of it? I was bloody Britannia. Warm beer, mince pies, 
common-sense and me. But I'm really real, too, J. J.; I really really am." She 
reached over to him, pulled him across to where her mouth was waiting, 
kissed him with a great un-Pamela-like slurp. "See what I mean?" Yes, he 
saw. 

"You should have heard him on the Falklands war," she said later, 
disengaging herself and fiddling with her hair. '"Pamela, suppose you heard 
a noise downstairs in the middle of the night and went to investigate and 
found a huge man in the livingroom with a shotgun, and he said, Go back 
upstairs, what would you do?' I'd go upstairs, I said. 'Well, it's like that. 
Intruders in the home. It won't do.' Jumpy noticed her fists had clenched 
and her knuckles were bone-white. "I said, if you must use these blasted 

cosy metaphors, then get them right. What it's li ke is if two people claim 

they own a house, and one of them is squatting the place, and _then_ the 
other turns up with the shotgun. That's what it's _like_." "That's what's 
really real," Jumpy nodded, seriously. "_Right_," she slapped his knee. 
"That's really right, Mr. Real Jam . . . it's really truly like that. Actually. 
Another drink." 

She leaned over to the tape deck and pushed a button. Jesus, Jumpy 
thought, _Boney M?_ Give me a break. For all her tough, race—professional 
attitudes, the lady still had a lot to learn about music. Here it came, 
boomchickaboom. Then, without warning, he was crying, provoked into real 
tears by counterfeit emotion, by a disco-beat imitation of pain. It was the 
one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm, "Super flumina". King David calling 
out across the centuries. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land. 
"I had to learn the psalms at school," Pamela Chamcha said, sitting on the 
floor, her head leaning against the sofa-bed, her eyes shut tight. _By the 
river of Babylon, where we sat down, oh oh we wept_ . . . she stopped the 
tape, leaned back again, began to recite. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let 



my right hand forget its cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth." 
Later, asleep in bed, she dreamed of her convent school, of matins and 
evensong, of the chanting of psalms, when Jumpy rushed in and shook her 
awake, shouting, "It's no good, I've got to tell you. He isn't dead. Saladin: 
he's bloody well alive." 
ooo 

She came wide awake at once, plunging her hands into her thick, curly, 
hennaed hair, in which the first strands of white were just beginning to be 
noticeable; she knelt on the bed, naked, with her hands in her hair, unable 
to move, until Jumpy had finished speaking, and then, without warning, she 
began to hit out at him, punching him on the chest and arms and shoulders 
and even his face, as hard as she could hit. He sat down on the bed beside 
her, looking ridiculous in her frilly dressing-gown, while she beat him; he 
allowed his body to go loose, to receive the blows, to submit. When she ran 
out of punches her body was covered in perspiration and he thought she 
might have broken one of his arms. She sat down beside him, panting, and 
they were silent. 

Her dog entered the bedroom, looking worried, and padded over to offer her 
his paw, and to lick at her left leg. Jumpy stirred, cautiously. "I thought he 
got stolen," he said eventually. Pamela jerked her head for _yes, but_. "The 
thieves got in touch. I paid the ransom. He now answers to the name of 
Glenn. That's okay; I could never pronounce Sher Khan properly, anyway." 
After a while, Jumpy found that he wanted to talk. "What you did, just now," 
he began. 
"Oh, God." 

"No. It's like a thing I once did. Maybe the most sensible thing I ever did." In 
the summer of 1967, he had bullied the "apolitical" twenty-year-old Saladin 
along on an anti-war demonstration. "Once in your life, Mister Snoot; I'm 
going to drag you down to my level." Harold Wilson was coming to town, 
and because of the Labour Government's support of U S involvement in 
Vietnam, a mass protest had been planned. Chamcha went along, "out of 
curiosity," he said. "I want to see how allegedly intelligent people turn 
themselves into a mob." 

That day it rained an ocean. The demonstrators in Market Square were 
soaked through. Jumpy and Chamcha, swept along by the crowd, found 
themselves pushed up against the steps of the town hail; _grandstand view_ 
Chamcha said with heavy irony. Next to them stood two students disguised 
as Russian assassins, in black fedoras, greatcoats and dark glasses, carrying 
shoeboxes filled with ink-dipped tomatoes and labelled in large block letters, 
bombs. Shortly before the Prime Minister's arrival, one of them tapped a 
policeman on the shoulder and said: "Excuse, please. When Mr. Wilson, self- 
-styled Prime Meenster, comes in long car, kindly request to wind down 
weendow so my friend can throw with him the bombs." The policeman 



answered, "Ho, ho, sir. Very good. Now I'll tell you what. You can throw 
eggs at him, sir, "cause that's all right with me. And you can throw tomatoes 
at him, sir, like what you've got there in that box, painted black, labelled 
bombs, "cause that's all right with me. You throw anything hard at him, sir, 
and my mate here'll get you with his gun." O days of innocence when the 
world was young . . . when the car arrived there was a surge in the crowd 
and Chamcha and Jumpy were separated. Then Jumpy appeared, climbed on 
to the bonnet of Harold Wilson's limousine, and began to jump up and down 
on the bonnet, creating large dents, leaping like a wild man to the rhythm of 
the crowd's chanting: _We shall fight, we shall win, long live Ho Chi Minh_. 
"Saladin started yelling at me to get off, partly because the crowd was full of 
Special Branch types converging on the limo, but mainly because he was so 
damn embarrassed." But he kept leaping, up higher and down harder, 
drenched to the bone, long hair flying: Jumpy the jumper, leaping into the 
mythology of those antique years. And Wilson and Marcia cowered in the 
back seat. _Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!_ At the last possible moment Jumpy took 
a deep breath, and dived head-first into a sea of wet and friendly faces; and 
vanished. They never caught him: fuzz pigs filth. "Saladin wouldn't speak to 
me for over a week," Jumpy remembered. "And when he did, all he said was, 
'I hope you realize those cops could have shot you to pieces, but they 
didn't.' 

They were still sitting side by side on the edge of the bed. Jumpy touched 
Pamela on the forearm. "I just mean I know how it feels. Wham, barn. It felt 
incredible. It felt necessary." 

"Oh, my God," she said, turning to him. "Oh, my God, I'm sorry, but yes, it 
did." 

0 0 0 

In the morning it took an hour to get through to the airline on account of the 
volume of calls still being generated by the catastrophe, and then another 
twenty-five minutes of insistence -- _but he telephoned, it was his voice_ -- 
while at the other end of the phone a woman's voice, professionally trained 
to deal with human beings in crisis, understood how she felt and 
sympathized with her in this awful moment and remained very patient, but 
clearly didn't believe a word she said. _I'm sorry, madam, I don't mean to 
be brutal, but the plane broke up in mid-air at thirty thousand feet_. By the 
end of the call Pamela Chamcha, normally the most controlled of women, 
who locked herself in a bathroom when 



she wanted to cry, was shrieking down the line, for God's sake, woman, will 
you shut up with your little good-samaritan speeches and listen to what I'm 
saying? Finally she slammed down the receiver and rounded on Jumpy Joshi, 
who saw the expression in her eyes and spilled the coffee he had been 
bringing her because his limbs began to tremble in fright. "You fucking 
creep," she cursed him. "Still alive, is he? I suppose he flew down from the 
sky on fucking _wings_ and headed straight for the nearest phone booth to 
change out of his fucking Superman costume and ring the little wife." They 
were in the kitchen and Jumpy noticed a group of kitchen knives attached to 
a magnetic strip on the wall next to Pamela's left arm. He opened his mouth 
to speak, but she wouldn't let him. "Get out before I do something," she said. 
"I can't believe I fell for it. You and voices on the phone: I should have 
fucking known." 

In the early 1970S Jumpy had run a travelling disco out of the back of his 
yellow mini-van. He called it Finn's Thumb in honour of the legendary 
sleeping giant of Ireland, Finn MacCool, another sucker, as Chamcha used to 
say. One day Saladin had played a practical joke on Jumpy, by ringing him 
up, putting on a vaguely Mediterranean accent, and requesting the services 
of the musical Thumb on the island of Skorpios, on behalf of Mrs. Jacqueline 
Kennedy Onassis, offering a fee often thousand dollars and transportation 
to Greece, in a private aircraft, for up to six persons. This was a terrible 
thing to do to a man as innocent and upright as Jamshed Joshi. "I need an 
hour to think," he had said, and then fallen into an agony of the soul. When 
Saladin rang back an hour later and heard that Jumpy was turning down Mrs. 
Onassis's offer for political reasons, he understood that his friend was in 
training to be a saint, and it was no good trying to pull his leg. "Mrs. Onassis 
will be broken in the heart for sure," he had concluded, and Jumpy had 
worriedly replied, "Please tell her it's nothing personal, as a matter of fact 
personally I admire her a great deal." 

We have all known one another too long, Pamela thought as Jumpy left. We 

can hurt each other with memories two decades old. 

ooo 

On the subject of mistakes with voices, she thought as she drove much too 
fast down the M4 that afternoon in the old MG hardtop from which she got a 
degree of pleasure that was, as she had always cheerfully 



confessed, "quite ideologically unsound", -- on that subject, I really ought to 
be more charitable. 

Pamela Chamcha, nee Lovelace, was the possessor of a voice for which, in 
many ways, the rest of her life had been an effort to compensate. It was a 
voice composed of tweeds, headscarves, summer pudding, hockey-sticks, 
thatched houses, saddle-soap, house—parties, nuns, family pews, large dogs 
and philistinism, and in spite of all her attempts to reduce its volume it was 
loud as a dinner-jacketed drunk throwing bread rolls in a Club. It had been 
the tragedy of her younger days that thanks to this voice she had been 
endlessly pursued by the gentlemen farmers and debs' delights and 
somethings in the city whom she despised with all her heart, while the 
greenies and peacemarchers and world—changers with whom she 
instinctively felt at home treated her with deep suspicion, bordering on 
resentment. How could one be _on the side of the angels_ when one 
sounded like a no-goodnik every time one moved one's lips? Accelerating 
past Reading, Pamela gritted her teeth. One of the reasons she had decided 
to _admit it_ end her marriage before fate did it for her was that she had 
woken up one day and realized that Chamcha was not in love with her at all, 
but with that voice stinking of Yorkshire pudding and hearts of oak, that 
hearty, rubicund voice of ye olde dream-England which he so desperately 
wanted to inhabit. It had been a marriage of crossed purposes, each of them 
rushing towards the very thing from which the other was in flight. 
_No survivors_. And in the middle of the night, Jumpy the idiot and his 
stupid false alarm. She was so shaken up by it that she hadn't even got 
round to being shaken up by having gone to bed with Jumpy and made love 
in what _admit it_ had been a pretty satisfying fashion, _spare me your 
nonchalance_, she rebuked herself, _when did you last have so much fun_. 
She had a lot to deal with and so here she was, dealing with it by running 
away as fast as she could go. A few days of pampering oneself in an 
expensive country hotel and the world may begin to seem less like a fucking 
hellhole. Therapy by luxury: okayokay, she allowed, I know: I'm _reverting 
to class_. Fuck it; watch me go. If you've got any objections, blow them out 
of your ass. Arse. Ass. 

One hundred miles an hour past Swindon, and the weather turned nasty. 
Sudden, dark clouds, lightning, heavy rain; she kept her foot on the 
accelerator. _No survivors_. People were always dying on her, leaving her 



with a mouth full of words and nobody to spit them at. Her father the 
classical scholar who could make puns in ancient Greek and from whom she 
inherited the Voice, her legacy and curse; and her mother who pined for him 
during the War, when he was a Pathfinder pilot, obliged to fly home from 
Germany one hundred and eleven times in a slow aeroplane through a night 
which his own flares had just illuminated for the benefit of the bombers, -- 
and who vowed, when he returned with the noise of the ack-ack in his ears, 
that she would never leave him, -- and so followed him everywhere, into the 
slow hollow of depression from which he never really emerged, -- and into 
debt, because he didn't have the face for poker and used her money when 
he ran out of his own, -- and at last to the top of a tall building, where they 
found their way at last. Pamela never forgave them, especially for making it 
impossible for her to tell them of her unforgiveness. To get her own back, 
she set about rejecting everything of them that remained within her. Her 
brains, for example: she refused to go to college. And because she could not 
shake off her voice, she made it speak ideas which her conservative suicides 
of parents would have anathematized. She married an Indian. And, because 
he turned out to be too much like them, would have left him. Had decided to 
leave. When, once again, she was cheated by a death. 
She was overtaking a frozen-food road train, blinded by the spray kicked up 
by its wheels, when she hit the expanse of water that had been waiting for 
her in a slight declivity, and then the M G was aquaplaning at terrifying 
speed, swerving out of the fast lane and spinning round so that she saw the 
headlights of the road train staring at her like the eyes of the exterminating 
angel, Azrael. "Curtains," she thought; but her car swung and skidded out of 
the path of the juggernaut, slewing right across all three lanes of the 
motorway, all of them miraculously empty, and coming to rest with rather 
less of a thump than one might have expected against the crash barrier at 
the edge of the hard shoulder, after spinning through a further one hundred 
and eighty degrees to face, once again, into the west, where with all the 
corny timing of real life, the sun was breaking up the storm, 
ooo 

The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one. That night, in 
an oak-panelled dining-room decorated with medieval flags, Pamela 
Chamcha in her most dazzling gown ate venison and drank a bottle of 



Chateau Talbot at a table heavy with silver and crystal, celebrating a new 
beginning, an escape from the jaws of, a fresh start, to be born again first 
you have to: well, almost, anyway. Under the lascivious eyes of Americans 
and salesmen she ate and drank alone, retiring early to a princess's 
bedroom in a stone tower to take a long bath and watch old movies on 
television. In the aftermath of her brush with death she felt the past 
dropping away from her: her adolescence, for example, in the care of her 
wicked uncle Harry Higham, who lived in a seventeenth-century manor 
house once owned by a distant relative, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder- 
General, who had named it Gremlins in, no doubt, a macabre attempt at 
humour. Remembering Mr. Justice Higham in order to forget him, she 
murmured to the absent Jumpy that she, too, had her Vietnam story. After 
the first big Grosvenor Square demonstration at which many people threw 
marbles under the feet of charging police horses, there occurred the one and 
only instance in British law in which the marble was deemed to be a lethal 
weapon, and young persons were jailed, even deported, for possessing the 
small glass spheres. The presiding judge in the case of the Grosvenor 
Marbles was this same Henry (thereafter known as "Hang"em") Higham, and 
to be his niece had been a further burden for a young woman already 
weighed down by her right-wing voice. Now, warm in bed in her temporary 
castle, Pamela Chamcha rid herself of this old demon, _goodbye, Hang"eni, 
I've no more time for you_; and of her parents' ghosts; and prepared to be 
free of the most recent ghost of all. 

Sipping cognac, Pamela watched vampires on TV and allowed herself to take 
pleasure in, well, in herself. Had she not invented herself in her own image? 
I am that I am, she toasted herself in Napoleon brandy. I work in a 
community relations council in the borough of Brickhall, London, NET; 
deputy community relations officer and damn good at it, ifisaysomyself. 
Cheers! We just elected our first black Chair and all the votes cast against 
him were white. Down the hatch! Last week a respected Asian street trader, 
for whom M Ps of all parties had interceded, was deported after eighteen 
years in Britain because, fifteen years ago, he posted a certain form forty- 
eight hours late. Chin-chin! Next week in Brickhall Magistrates' Court the 
police will be trying to fit up a fifty-year-old Nigerian woman, accusing her of 
assault, having previously beaten her senseless. Skol! This is my head: see 
it? What I call my job: bashing my head against Brickhall. 



Saladin was dead and she was alive. 

She drank to that. There were things I was waiting to tell you, Saladin. 
Some big things: about the new high-rise office building in Brickhall High 
Street, across from McDonald"s; -- they built it to be perfectly sound-proof, 
but the workers were so disturbed by the silence that now they play tapes of 
white noise on the tannoy system. -- You'd have liked that, eh? -- And about 
this Parsi woman I know, Bapsy, that's her name, she lived in Germany for a 
while and fell in love with a Turk. -- Trouble was, the only language they had 
in common was German; now Bapsy has forgotten almost all she knew, 
while his gets better and better; he writes her increasingly poetic letters and 
she can hardly reply in nursery rhyme. -- Love dying, because of an 
inequality of language, what do you think of that? -- Love dying. There's a 
subject for us, eb? Saladin? What do you say? 

And a couple of tiny little things. There's a killer on the loose in my patch, 
specializes in killing old women; so don't worry, I'm safe. Plenty older than 
me. 

One more thing: I'm leaving you. It's over. We're through. 
I could never say anything to you, not really, not the least thing. If I said 
you were putting on weight you'd yell for an hour, as if it would change what 
you saw in the mirror, what the tightness of your own trousers was telling 
you. You interrupted me in public. People noticed it, what you thought of me. 
I forgave you, that was my fault; I could see the centre of you, that question 
so frightful that you had to protect it with all that posturing certainty. That 
empty space. 

Goodbye, Saladin. She drained her glass and set it down beside her. The 
returning rain knocked at her leaded windows; she drew her curtains shut 
and turned out the light. 

Lying there, drifting towards sleep, she thought of the last thing she needed 
to tell her late husband. "In bed," the words came, "you never seemed 
interested in me; not in my pleasure, what I needed, not really ever. I came 
to think you wanted, not a lover. A servant." There. Now rest in peace. 



She dreamed of him, his face, filling the dream. "Things are ending," he told 
her. "This civilization; things are closing in on it. It has been quite a culture, 
brilliant and foul, cannibal and Christian, the glory of the world. We should 
celebrate it while we can; until night falls." 

She didn't agree, not even in the dream, but she knew, as she dreamed, 

that there was no point telling him now. 

ooo 

After Pamela Chamcha threw him out, Jumpy Joshi went over to Mr. 
Sufyan's Shaandaar Cafe in Brickhall High Street and sat there trying to 
decide if he was a fool. It was early in the day, so the place was almost 
empty, apart from a fat lady buying a box of pista barfi and jalebis, a couple 
of bachelor garment workers drinking chaloo chai and an elderly Polish 
woman from the old days when it was the Jews who ran the sweatshops 
round here, who sat all day in a corner with two vegetable samosas, one pun 
and a glass of milk, announcing to everyone who came in that she was only 
there because "it was next best to kosher and today you must do the best 
you can". Jumpy sat down with his coffee beneath the lurid painting of a 
bare-breasted myth-woman with several heads and wisps of clouds 
obscuring her nipples, done life-size in salmon pink, neon-green and gold, 
and because the rush hadn't started yet Mr. Sufyan noticed he was down in 
the dumps. 

"Hey, Saint Jumpy," he sang out, "why you bringing your bad weather into 
my place? This country isn't full enough of clouds?" 
Jumpy blushed as Sufyan bounced over to him, his little white cap of 
devotion pinned in place as usual, the moustache-less beard hennaed red 
after its owner's recent pilgrimage to Mecca. Muhammad Sufyan was a burly, 
thick-forearmed fellow with a belly on him, as godly and as unfanatic a 
believer as you could meet, and Joshi thought of himas a sort of elder 
relative. "Listen, Uncle," he said when the cafe proprietor was standing over 
him, "you think I'm a real idiot or what?" 
"You ever make any money?" Sufyan asked. 
"Not me, Uncle." 



"Ever do any business? Import-export? Off-licence? Corner shop?" 

"I never understood figures." 

"And where your family members are?" 

"I've got no family, Uncle. There's only me." 

"Then you must be praying to God continually for guidance in your 
loneliness?" 

"You know me, Uncle. I don't pray." 

"No question about it," Sufyan concluded. "You're an even bigger fool than 
you know." 

"Thanks, Uncle," Jumpy said, finishing his coffee. "You've been a great help." 
Sufyan, knowing that the affection in his teasing was cheering the other man 
up in spite of his long face, called across to the light-skinned, blue-eyed 
Asian man who had just come in wearing a snappy check overcoat with 
extra-wide lapels. "You, Hanif Johnson," he called out, "come here and solve 
a mystery. "Johnson, a smart lawyer and local boy made good, who 
maintained an office above the Shaandaar Cafe, tore himself away from 
Sufyan's two beautiful daughters and headed over to Jumpy's table. "You 
explain this fellow," Sufyan said. "Beats me. Doesn't drink, thinks of money 
like a disease, owns maybe two shirts and no V C R, forty years old and isn't 
married, works for two pice in the sports centre teaching martial arts and 
what--all, lives on air, behaves like a rishi or pir but doesn't have any faith, 
going nowhere but looks like he knows some secret. All this and a college 
education, you work it out." 

Hanif Johnson punched Jumpy on the shoulder. "He hears voices," he said. 
Sufyan threw up his hands in mock amazement. "Voices, oop-baba! Voices 
from where? Telephone? Sky? Sony Walkman hidden in his coat?" 
"Inner voices," Hanif said solemnly. "Upstairs on his desk there's a piece of 
paper with some verses written on it. And a title: _The River of Blood_." 
Jumpy jumped, knocking over his empty cup. "I'll kill you," he shouted at 
Hanif, who skipped quickly across the room, singing out, "We got a poet in 
our midst, Sufyan Sahib. Treat with respect. Handle with care. He says a 
street is a river and we are the flow; humanity is a river of blood, that's the 
poet's point. Also the individual human being," he broke off to run around to 
the far side of an eight--seater table as Jumpy came after him, blushing 
furiously, flapping his arms. "In our very bodies, does the river of blood not 
flow?" _l_ike the Roman_, the ferrety Enoch Powell had said, _I seem to see 
the river Tiber foaming with much blood_. Reclaim the metaphor, Jumpy 
Joshi had told himself. Turn it; make it a thing we can use. "This is like 
rape," he pleaded with Hanif. "For God's sake, stop." 
"Voices that one hears are outside, but," the cafe proprietor was musing. 
"Joan of Arc, na. Or that what's his name with the cat: Turn-again 
Whittington. But with such voices one becomes great, or rich at least. This 
one however is not great, and poor." 



"Enough." Jumpy held both arms above his head, grinning without really 
wanting to. "I surrender." 

For three days after that, in spite of all the efforts of Mr. Sufyan, Mrs. 
Sufyan, their daughters Mishal and Anahita, and the lawyer Hanif Johnson, 
Jumpy Joshi was not really himself, "More a Dumpy than a Jumpy," as 
Sufyan said. He went about his business, at the youth clubs, at the offices of 
the film co-operative to which he belonged, and in the streets, distributing 
leaflets, selling certain newspapers, hanging out; but his step was heavy as 
he went his way. Then, on the fourth evening, the telephone rang behind the 
counter of the Shaandaar Cafe. 

"Mr. Jamshed Joshi," Anahita Sufyan carolled, doing her imitation of an 
upper—class English accent. "Will Mr. Joshi please come to the instrument? 
There is a personal call." 

Her father took one look at the joy bursting out on Jumpy's face and 
murmured softly to his wife, "Mrs, the voice this boy is wanting to hear is 
not inner by any manner of means." 

ooo 

The impossible thing came between Pamela and Jamshed after they had 
spent seven days making love to one another with inexhaustible enthusiasm, 
infinite tenderness and such freshness of spirit that you'd have thought the 
procedure had only just been invented. For seven days they remained 
undressed with the central heating turned high, and pretended to be tropical 
lovers in some hot bright country to the south. Jamshed, who had always 
been clumsy with women, told Pamela that he had not felt so wonderful 
since the day in his eighteenth year when he had finally learned how to ride 
a bicycle. The moment the words were out he became afraid that he had 
spoiled everything, that this comparison of the great love of his life to the 
rickety bike of his student days would be taken for the insult it undeniably 
was; but he needn't have worried, because Pamela kissed him on the mouth 
and thanked him for saying the most beautiful thing any man had ever said 
to any woman. At this point he understood that he could do no wrong, and 
for the first time in his life he began to. feel genuinely safe, safe as houses, 
safe as a human being who is loved; and so did Pamela Chamcha. 
On the seventh night they were awakened from dreamless sleep by the 
unmistakable sound of somebody trying to break into the house. "I've got a 
hockey-stick under my bed," Pamela whispered, terrified. "Give it to me," 
Jumpy, who was equally scared, hissed back. "I'm coming with you," quaked 
Pamela, and Jumpy quavered, "Oh, no you don't." In the end they both crept 
downstairs, each wearing one of Pamela's frilly dressing-gowns, each with a 
hand on the hockey-stick that neither felt brave enough to use. Suppose it's 
a man with a shotgun, Pamela found herself thinking, a man with a shotgun 
saying, Go back upstairs . . . They reached the foot of the stairs. Somebody 
turned on the lights. 



Pamela and Jumpy screamed in unison, dropped the hockeystick and ran 
upstairs as fast as they could go; while down in the front hail, standing 
brightly illuminated by the front door with the glass panel it had smashed in 
order to turn the knob of the tongue-and-groove lock (Pamela in the throes 
of her passion had forgotten to use the security locks), was a figure out of a 
nightmare or a late-night TV movie, a figure covered in mud and ice and 
blood, the hairiest creature you ever saw, with the shanks and hoofs of a 
giant goat, a man's torso covered in goat's hair, human arms, and a horned 
but otherwise human head covered in muck and grime and the beginnings of 
a beard. Alone and unobserved, the impossible thing pitched forward on to 
the floor and lay still. Upstairs, at the very top of the house, that is to say in 
Saladin's "den", Mrs. Pamela Chamcha was writhing in her lover's arms, 
crying her heart out, and bawling at the top of her voice: "It isn't true. My 
husband exploded. No survivors. Do you hear me? I am the widow Chamcha 
whose spouse is beastly dead." 
5 

Mr. Gibreel Farishta on the railway train to London was once again seized as 
who would not be by the fear that God had decided to punish him for his loss 
of faith by driving him insane. He had seated himself by the window in a 
first-class non-smoking compartment, with his back to the engine because 
unfortunately another fellow was already in the other place, and jamming his 
trilby down on his head he sat with his fists deep in scarlet—lined gabardine 
and panicked. The terror of losing his mind to a paradox, of being unmade 
by what he no longer believed existed, of turning in his madness into the 
avatar of a chimerical archangel, was so big in him that it was impossible to 
look at it for long; yet how else was he to account for the miracles, 
metamorphoses and apparitions of recent days? "It's a straight choice," he 
trembled silently. "It's A, I'm off my head, or B, baba, somebody went and 
changed the rules." 

Now, however, there was the comforting cocoon of this railway compartment 
in which the miraculous was reassuringly absent, the arm-rests were frayed, 
the reading light over his shoulder didn't work, the mirror was missing from 
its frame, and then there were the regulations: the little circular red— and— 
white signs forbidding smoking, the stickers penalizing the improper use of 
the chain, the arrows indicating the points to which -- and not beyond! -- it 
was permitted to open the little sliding windows. Gibreel paid a visit to the 
toilet and here, too, a small series of prohibitions and instructions gladdened 
his heart. By the time the conductor arrived with the authority of his 
crescent-cutting ticket-punch, Gibreel had been somewhat soothed by these 
manifestations of law, and began to perk up and invent rationalizations. He 
had had a lucky escape from death, a subsequent delirium of some sort, and 
now, restored to himself, could expect the threads of his old life -- that is, 
his old new life, the new life he had planned before the er interruption -- to 
be picked up again. As the train carried him further and further away from 



the twilight zone of his arrival and subsequent mysterious captivity, bearing 
him along the happy predictability of parallel metal lines, he felt the pull of 
the great city beginning to work its magic on him, and his old gift of hope 
reasserted itself, his talent for embracing renewal, for blinding himself to 
past hardships so that the future could come into view. He sprang up from 
his seat and thumped down on the opposite side of the compartment, with 
his face symbolically towards London, even though it meant giving up the 
window. What did he care for windows? All the London he wanted was right 
there, in his mind's eye. He spoke her name aloud: "Alleluia." 
"Alleluia, brother," the compartment's only other occupant affirmed. 
"Hosanna, my good sir, and amen." 

ooo 

"Although I must add, sir, that my beliefs are strictly non-denominational," 
the stranger continued. "Had you said 'La--ilaha', I would gladly have 
responded with a full-throated 'illallah'." 

Gibreel realized that his move across the compartment and his inadvertent 
taking of Allie's unusual name had been mistaken by his companion for 
overtures both social and theological. "John Maslama," the fellow cried, 
snapping a card out of a little crocodile-skin case and pressing it upon 
Gibreel. "Personally, I follow my own variant of the universal faith invented 
by the Emperor Akbar. God, I would say, is something akin to the Music of 
the Spheres." 

It was plain that Mr. Maslama was bursting with words, and that, now that 
he had popped, there was nothing for it but to sit it out, to permit the 
torrent to run its orotund course. As the fellow had the build of a prize- 
fighter, it seemed inadvisable to irritate him. In his eyes Farishta spotted the 
glint of the True Believer, a light which, until recently, he had seen in his 
own shaving-mirror every day. 

"I have done well for myself, sir," Maslama was boasting in his well- 
modulated Oxford drawl. "For a brown man, exceptionally well, considering 
the quiddity of the circumstances in which we live; as I hope you will allow." 
With a small but eloquent sweep of his thick ham of a hand, he indicated the 
opulence of his attire: the bespoke tailoring of his three-piece pin-stripe, the 
gold watch with its fob and chain, the Italian shoes, the crested silk tie, the 
jewelled links at his starched white cuffs. 



Above this costume of an English milord there stood a head of startling size, 
covered with thick, slicked-down hair, and sprouting implausibly luxuriant 
eyebrows beneath which blazed the ferocious eyes of which Gibreel had 
already taken careful note. "Pretty fancy," Gibreel now conceded, some 
response being clearly required. Maslama nodded. "I have always tended," 
he admitted, "towards the ornate." 

He had made what he called his _first pile_ producing advertising jingles, 
"that ol" devil music", leading women into lingerie and lip-gloss and men into 
temptation. Now he owned record stores all over town, a successful 
nightclub called Hot Wax, and a store full of gleaming musical instruments 
that was his special pride and joy. He was an Indian from Guyana, "but 
there's nothing left in that place, sir. People are leaving it faster than planes 
can fly." He had made good in quick time, "by the grace of God Almighty. 
I'm a regular Sunday man, sir; I confess to a weakness for the English 
Hymnal, and I sing to raise the roof." 

The autobiography was concluded with a brief mention of the existence of a 
wife and some dozen children. Gibreel offered his congratulations and hoped 
for silence, but now Maslama dropped his bombshell. "You don't need to tell 
me about yourself," he said jovially. "Naturally I know who you are, even if 
one does not expect to see such a personage on the Eastbourne-Victoria 
line." He winked leeringly and placed a finger alongside his nose. "Mum's the 
word. I respect a man's privacy, no question about it; no question at all." 
"I? Who am I?" Gibreel was startled into absurdity. The other nodded 
weightily, his eyebrows waving like soft antlers. "The prize question, in my 
opinion. These are problematic times, sir, for a moral man. When a man is 
unsure of his essence, how may he know if he be good or bad? But you are 
finding me tedious. I answer my own questions by my faith in It, sir," -- 
here Maslama pointed to the ceiling of the railway compartment -- "and of 
course you are not in the least confused about your identity, for you are the 
famous, the may I say legendary Mr. Gibreel Farishta, star of screen and, 
increasingly, I'm sorry to add, of pirate video; my twelve children, one wife 
and I are all long-standing, unreserved admirers of your divine heroics." He 
grabbed, and pumped Gibreel's right hand. 

"Tending as I do towards the pantheistic view," Maslama thundered on, "my 
own sympathy for your work arises out of your willingness to portray deities 
of every conceivable water. You, sir, are a rainbow coalition of the celestial; 
a walking United Nations of gods! You are, in short, the future. Permit me to 
salute you." He was beginning to give off the unmistakable odour of the 
genuine crazy, and even though he had not yet said or done anything 
beyond the merely idiosyncratic, Gibreel was getting alarmed and measuring 
the distance to the door with anxious little glances. "I incline, sir," Maslama 
was saying, "towards the opinion that whatever name one calls It by is no 
more than a code; a cypher, Mr. Farishta, behind which the true name lies 
concealed." 



Gibreel remained silent, and Maslama, making no attempt to hide his 
disappointment, was obliged to speak for him. "What is that true name, I 
hear you inquire," he said, and then Gibreel knew he was right; the man was 
a full-fledged lunatic, and his autobiography was very likely as much of a 
concoction as his "faith". Fictions were walking around wherever he went, 
Gibreel reflected, fictions masquerading as real human beings. "I have 
brought him upon me," he accused himself. "By fearing for my own sanity I 
have brought forth, from God knows what dark recess, this voluble and 
maybe dangerous nut." 

"You don't know it!" Maslama yelled suddenly, jumping to his feet. 
"Charlatan! Poser! Fake! You claim to be the screen immortal, avatar of a 
hundred and one gods, and you haven't a _foggy!_ How is it possible that I, 
a poor boy made good from Bartica on the Essequibo, can know such things 
while Gibreel Farishta does not? Phoney! Phooey to you!" 
Gibreel got to his feet, but the other was filling almost all the available 
standing room, and he, Gibreel, had to lean over awkwardly to one side to 
escape Maslama's windmilling arms, one of which knocked off his grey trilby. 
At once Maslama's mouth fell open. He seemed to shrink several inches, and 
after a few frozen moments, he fell to his knees with a thud. 
What's he doing down there, Gibreel wondered, picking up my hat? But the 
madman was begging for forgiveness. "I never doubted you would come," 
he was saying. "Pardon my clumsy rage." The train entered a tunnel, and 
Gibreel saw that they were surrounded by a warm golden light that was 
coming from a point just behind his head. In the glass of the sliding door, he 
saw the reflection of the halo around his hair. Maslama was struggling with 
his shoelaces. "All my life, sir, I knew I had been chosen," he was saying in 
a voice as humble as it had earlier been menacing. "Even as a child in 
Bartica, I knew." He pulled off his right shoe and began to roll down his sock. 
"I was given," he said, "a sign." The sock was removed, revealing what 
looked to be a perfectly ordinary, if outsize, foot. Then Gibreel counted and 
counted again, from one to six. "The same on the other foot," Maslama said 
proudly. "I never doubted the meaning for a minute." He was the self- 
appointed helpmate of the Lord, the sixth toe on the foot of the Universal 
Thing. Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet, 
thought Gibreel Farishta. Too many demons inside people claiming to believe 
in God. 

The train emerged from the tunnel. Gibreel took a decision. "Stand, six-toed 
John," he intoned in his best Hindi movie manner. "Maslama, arise." 
The other scrambled to his feet and stood pulling at his fingers, his head 
bowed. "What I want to know, sir," he mumbled, "is, which is it to be? 
Annihilation or salvation? Why have you returned?" 

Gibreel thought rapidly. "It is forjudging," he finally answered. "Facts in the 
case must be sifted, due weight given pro and contra. Here it is the human 
race that is the undertrial, and it is a defendant with a rotten record: a 



history-sheeter, a bad egg. Careful evaluations must be made. For the 
present, verdict is reserved; will be promulgated in due course. In the 
meantime, my presence must remain a secret, for vital security reasons." He 
put his hat back on his head, feeling pleased with himself. 
Maslama was nodding furiously. "You can depend on me," he promised. "I'm 
a man who respects a person's privacy. Mum" -- for the second time! — "is 
the word." 

Gibreel fled the compartment with the lunatic's hymns in hot pursuit. As he 
rushed to the far end of the train Maslama's paeans remained faintly audible 
behind him. "Alleluia! Alleluia!" Apparently his new disciple had launched into 
selections from Handel's _Messiah_. 

However: Gibreel wasn't followed, and there was, fortunately, a first—class 
carriage at the rear of the train, too. This one was of open—plan design, with 
comfortable orange seats arranged in fours around tables, and Gibreel 
settled down by a window, staring towards London, with his chest thumping 
and his hat jammed down on his head. He was trying to come to terms with 
the undeniable fact of the halo, and failing to do so, because what with the 
derangement of John Maslama behind him and the excitement of Alleluia 
Cone ahead it was hard to get his thoughts straight. Then to his despair Mrs. 
Rekha Merchant floated up alongside his window, sitting on her flying 
Bokhara, evidently impervious to the snowstorm that was building up out 
there and making England look like a television set after the day's 
programmes end. She gave him a little wave and he felt hope ebbing from 
him. Retribution on a levitating rug: he closed his eyes and concentrated on 
trying not to shake. 

ooo 

"I know what a ghost is," Allie Cone said to a classroom of teenage girls 
whose faces were illuminated by the soft inner light of worship. "In the high 
Himalayas it is often the case that climbers find themselves being 
accompanied by the ghosts of those who failed in the attempt, or the sadder, 
but also prouder, ghosts of those who succeeded in reaching the summit, 
only to perish on the way down." 

Outside, in the Fields, the snow was settling on the high, bare trees, and on 
the flat expanse of the park. Between the low, dark snow-clouds and the 
white-carpeted city the light was a dirty yellow colour, a narrow, foggy light 
that dulled the heart and made it impossible to dream. Up _there_, Allie 
remembered, up there at eight thousand metres, the light was of such 
clarity that it seemed to resonate, to sing, like music. Here on the flat earth 
the light, too, was flat and earthbound. Here nothing flew, the sedge was 
withered, and no birds sang. Soon it would be dark. 
"Ms Cone?" The girls' hands, waving in the air, drew her back into the 
classroom. "Ghosts, miss? Straight up?" "You're pulling our legs, right?" 
Scepticism wrestled with adoration in their faces. She knew the question 
they really wanted to ask, and probably would not: the question of the 



miracle of her skin. She had heard them whispering excitedly as she entered 
the classroom, 's true, look, how _pale_, 's incredible. Alleluia Cone, whose 
iciness could resist the heat of the eight-thousand-metre sun. Allie the snow 
maiden, the icequeen. _Miss, how come you never get a tan?_ When she 
went up Everest with the triumphant Collingwood expedition, the papers 
called them Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, though she was no 
Disneyish cutie, her full lips pale rather than rose--red, her hair ice-blonde 
instead of black, her eyes not innocently wide but narrowed, out of habit, 
against the high snowglare. A memory of Gibreel Farishta welled up, 
catching her unawares: Gibreel at some point during their three and a half 
days, booming with his usual foot-in-mouth lack of restraint, "Baby, you're 
no iceberg, whatever they say. You're a passionate lady, bibi. Hot, like a 
kachori." He had pretended to blow on scalded fingertips, and shook his 
hand for emphasis: _0, too hot. O, throw water_. Gibreel Farishta. She 
controlled herself: Hi ho, it's off to work. 

"Ghosts," she repeated firmly. "On the Everest climb, after I came through 
the ice-fall, I saw a man sitting on an outcrop in the lotus position, with his 
eyes shut and a tartan tam--o"--shanter on his head, chanting the old 
mantra: om mani padme hum." She had guessed at once, from his archaic 
clothing and surprising behaviour, that this was the spectre of Maurice 
Wilson, the yogi who had prepared for a solo ascent of Everest, back in 1934, 
by starving himself for three weeks in order to cement so deep a union 
between his body and soul that the mountain would be too weak to tear 
them apart. He had gone up in a light aircraft as high as it would take him, 
crash-landed deliberately in a snowfield, headed upwards, and never 
returned. Wilson opened his eyes as Allie approached, and nodded lightly in 
greeting. He strolled beside her for the rest of that day, or hung in the air 
while she worked her way up a face. Once he belly-flopped into the snow of 
a sharp incline and glided upwards as if he were riding on an invisible anti- 
gravity toboggan. Allie had found herself behaving quite naturally, as if she'd 
just bumped into an old acquaintance, for reasons afterwards obscure to her. 
Wilson chattered on a fair bit — "Don't get a lot of company these days, one 
way and another" -- and expressed, among other things, his deep irritation 
at having had his body discovered by the Chinese expedition of 1960. "Little 
yellow buggers actually had the gall, the sheer face, to film my corpse." 
Alleluia Cone was struck by the bright, yellow-and-black tartan of his 
immaculate knickerbockers. All this she told the girls at Brickhall Fields Girls' 
School, who had written so many letters pleading for her to address them 
that she had not been able to refuse. "You've got to," they pleaded in writing. 
"You even live here." From the window of the classroom she could see her 
flat across the park, just visible through the thickening fall of snow. 
What she did not tell the class was this: as Maurice Wilson's ghost described, 
in patient detail, his own ascent, and also his posthumous discoveries, for 
example the slow, circuitous, infinitely delicate and invariably unproductive 



mating ritual of the yeti, which he had witnessed recently on the South Col, 
-- so it occurred to her that her vision of the eccentric of 1934, the first 
human being ever to attempt to scale Everest on his own, a sort of 
abominable snowman himself, had been no accident, but a kind of signpost, 
a declaration of kinship. A prophecy of the future, perhaps, for it was at that 
moment that her secret dream was born, the impossible thing: the dream of 
the unaccompanied climb. It was possible, also, that Maurice Wilson was the 
angel of her death. 

"I wanted to talk about ghosts," she was saying, "because most 
mountaineers, when they come down from the peaks, grow embarrassed 
and leave these stories out of their accounts. But they do exist, I have to 
admit it, even though I'm the type who's always kept her feet on solid 
ground." 

That was a laugh. Her feet. Even before the ascent of Everest she had begun 
to suffer from shooting pains, and was informed by her general practitioner, 
a no-nonsense Bombay woman called Dr. Mistry, that she was suffering from 
fallen arches. "In common parlance, flat feet." Her arches, always weak, had 
been further weakened by years of wearing sneakers and other unsuitable 
shoes. Dr. Mistry couldn't recommend much: toe-clenching exercises, 
running upstairs barefoot, sensible footwear. "You're young enough," she 
said. "If you take care, you'll live. If not, you'll be a cripple at forty." When 
Gibreel -- damn it! -- heard that she had climbed Everest with spears in her 
feet he took to calling her his silkie. He had read a Bumper Book of fairy- 
tales in which he found the story of the sea-woman who left the ocean and 
took on human form for the sake of the man she loved. She had feet instead 
of fins, but every step she took was an agony, as if she were walking over 
broken glass; yet she went on walking, forward, away from the sea and over 
land. You did it for a bloody mountain, he said. Would you do it for a man? 
She had concealed her foot-ache from her fellow-mountaineers because the 
lure of Everest had been so overwhelming. But these days the pain was still 
there, and growing, if anything, worse. Chance, a congenital weakness, was 
proving to be her footbinder. Adventure's end, Allie thought; betrayed by my 
feet. The image of footbinding stayed with her. 
_Goddamn Chinese_, she mused, echoing Wilson's ghost. 
"Life is so easy for some people," she had wept into Gibreel Farishta's arms. 
"Why don't _their_ blasted feet give out?" He had kissed her forehead. "For 
you, it may always be a struggle," he said. "You want it too damn much." 
The class was waiting for her, growing impatient with all this talk of 
phantoms. They wanted _the_ story, her story. They wanted to stand on the 
mountain-top. _Do you know how it feels_, she wanted to ask them, _to 
have the whole of your life concentrated into one moment, a few hours long? 
Do you know what it's like when the only direction is down?_ "I was in the 
second pair with Sherpa Pemba," she said. "The weather was perfect, 
perfect. So clear you felt you could look right through the sky into whatever 



lay beyond. The first pair must have reached the summit by now, I said to 
Pemba. Conditions are holding and we can go. Pemba grew very serious, 
quite a change, because he was one of the expedition clowns. He had never 
been to the summit before, either. At that stage I had no plans to go without 
oxygen, but when I saw that Pemba intended it, I thought, okay, me too. It 
was a stupid whim, unprofessional, really, but I suddenly wanted to be a 
woman sitting on top of that bastard mountain, a human being, not a 
breathing machine. Pemba said, Allie Bibi, don't do, but I just started up. In 
a while we passed the others coming down and I could see the wonderful 
thing in their eyes. They were so high, possessed of such an exaltation, that 
they didn't even notice I wasn't wearing the oxygen equipment. Be careful, 
they shouted over to us, Look out for the angels. Pemba had fallen into a 
good breathing pattern and I fell into step with it, breathing in with his in, 
out with his out. I could feel something lifting off the top of my head and I 
was grinning, just grinning from ear to ear, and when Pemba looked my way 
I could see he was doing the same. It looked like a grimace, like pain, but it 
was just foolish joy." She was a woman who had been brought to 
transcendence, to the miracles of the soul, by the hard physical labour of 
hauling herself up an icebound height of rock. "At that moment," she told 
the girls, who were climbing beside her every step of the way, "I believed it 
all: that the universe has a sound, that you can lift a veil and see the face of 
God, everything. I saw the Himalayas stretching below me and that was 
God's face, too. Pemba must have seen something in my expression that 
bothered him because he called across, Look out, Allie Bibi, the height. I 
recall sort of floating over the last overhang and up to the top, and then we 
were there, with the ground falling away on every side. Such light; the 
universe purified into light. I wanted to tear off my clothes and let it soak 
into my skin." Not a titter from the class; they were dancing naked with her 
on the roof of the world. "Then the visions began, the rainbows looping and 
dancing in the sky, the radiance pouring down like a waterfall from the sun, 
and there were angels, the others hadn't been joking. I saw them and so did 
Sherpa Pemba. We were on our knees by then. His pupils looked pure white 
and so did mine, I'm sure. We would probably have died there, I'm sure, 
snow-blind and mountain-foolish, but then I heard a noise, a loud, sharp 
report, like a gun. That snapped me out of it. I had to yell at Pern until he, 
too, shook himself and we started down. The weather was changing rapidly; 
a blizzard was on the way. The air was heavy now, heaviness instead of that 
light, that lightness. We just made it to the meeting point and the four of us 
piled into the little tent at Camp Six, twenty-seven thousand feet. You don't 
talk much up there. We all had our Everests to re-climb, over and over, all 
night. But at some point I asked: "What was that noise? Did anyone fire a 
gun?" They looked at me as if I was touched. Who'd do such a damnfool 
thing at this altitude, they said, and anyway, Allie, you know damn well 
there isn't a gun anywhere on the mountain. They were right, of course, but 



I heard it, I know that much: wham bam, shot and echo. That's it," she 
ended abruptly. "The end. Story of my life." She picked up a silver-headed 
cane and prepared to depart. The teacher, Mrs. Bury, came forward to utter 
the usual platitudes. But the girls were not to be denied. "So what was it, 
then, Al lie?" they insisted; and she, looking suddenly ten years older than 
her thirty-three, shrugged. "Can't say," she told them. "Maybe it was 
Maurice Wilson's ghost." 

She left the classroom, leaning heavily on her stick. 

ooo 

The city -- Proper London, yaar, no bloody less! -- was dressed in white, like 
a mourner at a funeral. -- Whose bloody funeral, mister, Gibreel Farishta 
asked himself wildly, not mine, I bloody hope and trust. When the train 
pulled into Victoria station he plunged out without waiting for it to come to a 
complete halt, turned his ankle and went sprawling beneath the baggage 
trolleys and sneers of the waiting Londoners, clinging, as he fell, on to his 
increasingly battered hat. Rekha Merchant was nowhere to be seen, and 
seizing the moment Gibreel ran through the scattering crowd like a man 
possessed, only to find her by the ticket barrier, floating patiently on her 
carpet, invisible to all eyes but his own, three feet off the ground. 
"What do you want," he burst out, "what's your business with me?" "To 
watch you fall," she instantly replied. "Look around," she added, "I've 
already made you look like a pretty big fool." 

People were clearing a space around Gibreel, the wild man in an outsize 
overcoat and trampy hat, _that man's talking to himself_, a child's voice 
said, and its mother answered _shh, dear, it's wicked to mock the afflicted_. 
Welcome to London. Gibreel Farishta rushed towards the stairs leading down 
towards the Tube. Rekha on her carpet let him go. 
But when he arrived in a great rush at the northbound platform of the 
Victoria Line he saw her again. This time she was a colour photograph in a 
48--sheet advertising poster on the wall across the track, advertising the 
merits of the international direct — dialling system. _Send your voice on a 
magic-carpet ride to India_, she advised. _No djinns or lamps required_. He 
gave a loud cry, once again causing his fellow-travellers to doubt his sanity, 
and fled over to the southbound platform, where a train was just pulling in. 
He leapt aboard, and there was Rekha Merchant facing him with her carpet 
rolled up and lying across her knees. The doors closed behind him with a 
bang. 

That day Gibreel Farishta fled in every direction around the Underground of 
the city of London and Rekha Merchant found him wherever he went; she 
sat beside him on the endless up-escalator at Oxford Circus and in the 
tightly packed elevators of Tufnell Park she rubbed up against him from 
behind in a manner that she would have thought quite outrageous during 
her lifetime. On the outer reaches of the Metropolitan Line she hurled the 
phantoms of her children from the tops of claw--like trees, and when he 



came up for air outside the Bank of England she flung herself histrionically 
from the apex of its neo-classical pediment. And even though he did not 
have any idea of the true shape of that most protean and chameleon of 
cities he grew convinced that it kept changing shape as he ran around 
beneath it, so that the stations on the Underground changed lines and 
followed one another in apparently random sequence. More than once he 
emerged, suffocating, from that subterranean world in which the laws of 
space and time had ceased to operate, and tried to hail a taxi; not one was 
willing to stop, however, so he was obliged to plunge back into that hellish 
maze, that labyrinth without a solution, and continue his epic flight. At last, 
exhausted beyond hope, he surrendered to the fatal logic of his insanity and 
got out arbitrarily at what he conceded must be the last, meaningless station 
of his prolonged and futile journey in search of the chimera of renewal. He 
came out into the heartbreaking indifference of a litter-blown street by a 
lorry—infested roundabout. Darkness had already fallen as he walked 
unsteadily, using the last reserves of his optimism, into an unknown park 
made spectral by the ectoplasmic quality of the tungsten lamps. As he sank 
to his knees in the isolation of the winter night he saw the figure of a woman 
moving slowly towards him across the snow-shrouded grass, and surmised 
that it must be his nemesis, Rekha Merchant, coming to deliver her death- 
kiss, to drag him down into a deeper underworld than the one in which she 
had broken his wounded spirit. He no longer cared, and by the time the 
woman reached him he had fallen forward on to his forearms, his coat 
dangling loosely about him and giving him the look of a large, dying beetle 
who was wearing, for obscure reasons, a dirty grey trilby hat. 
As if from a great distance he heard a shocked cry escape the woman's lips, 
a gasp in which disbelief, joy and a strange resentment were all mixed up, 
and just before his senses left him he understood that Rekha had permitted 
him, for the time being, to reach the illusion of a safe haven, so that her 
triumph over him could be the sweeter when it came at the last. 
"You're alive," the woman said, repeating the first words she had ever 
spoken to his face. "You got your life back. That's the point., 
Smiling, he fell asleep at Allie's flat feet in the falling snow. 



IV Ayesha 



Even the serial visions have migrated now; they know the city better than he. 
And in the aftermath of Rosa and Rekha the dream-worlds of his archangelic 
other self begin to seem as tangible as the shifting realities he inhabits while 
he's awake. This, for instance, has started coming: a mansion block built in 
the Dutch style in a part of London which he will subsequently identify as 
Kensington, to which the dream flies him at high speed past Barkers 
department store and the small grey house with double bay windows where 
Thackeray wrote _Vanity Fair_ and the square with the convent where the 
little girls in uniform are always going in, but never come out, and the house 
where Talleyrand lived in his old age when after a thousand and one 
chameleon changes of allegiance and principle he took on the outward form 
of the French ambassador to London, and arrives at a seven--storey corner 
block with green wrought—iron balconies up to the fourth, and now the 
dream rushes him up the outer wall of the house and on the fourth floor it 
pushes aside the heavy curtains at the living-room window and finally there 
he sits, unsleeping as usual, eyes wide in the dim yellow light, staring into 
the future, the bearded and turbaned Imam. 

Who is he? An exile. Which must not be confused with, allowed to run into, 
all the other words that people throw around: emigre, expatriate, refugee, 
immigrant, silence, cunning. Exile is a dream of glorious return. Exile is a 
vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking 
forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air. 
He hangs there, frozen in time, translated into a photograph; denied motion, 
suspended impossibly above his native earth, he awaits the inevitable 
moment at which the photograph must begin to move, and the earth reclaim 
its own. These are the things the Imam thinks. His home is a rented flat. It 
is a waiting-- room, a photograph, air. 

The thick wallpaper, olive stripes on a cream ground, has faded a little, 
enough to emphasize the brighter rectangles and ovals that indicate where 
pictures used to hang. The Imam is the enemy of images. When he moved 
in the pictures slid noiselessly from the walls and slunk from the room, 
removing themselves from the rage of his unspoken disapproval. Some 
representations, however, are permitted to remain. On the mantelpiece he 
keeps a small group of postcards bearing conventional images of his 
homeland, which he calls simply Desh: a mountain looming over a city; a 
picturesque village scene beneath a mighty tree; a mosque. But in his 
bedroom, on the wall facing the hard cot where he lies, there hangs a more 
potent icon, the portrait of a woman of exceptional force, famous for her 
profile of a Grecian statue and the black hair that is as long as she is high. A 
powerful woman, his enemy, his other: he keeps her close. Just as, far away 
in the palaces of her omnipotence she will be clutching his portrait beneath 



her royal cloak or hiding it in a locket at her throat. She is the Empress, and 
her name is -- what else? -- Ayesha. On this island, the exiled Imam, and at 
home in Desh, She. They plot each other's deaths. 

The curtains, thick golden velvet, are kept shut all day, because otherwise 
the evil thing might creep into the apartment: foreignness, Abroad, the alien 
nation. The harsh fact that he is here and not There, upon which all his 
thoughts are fixed. On those rare occasions when the Imam goes out to take 
the Kensington air, at the centre of a square formed by eight young men in 
sunglasses and bulging suits, he folds his hands before him and fixes his 
gaze upon them, so that no element or particle of this hated city, -- this sink 
of iniquities which humiliates him by giving him sanctuary, so that he must 
be beholden to it in spite of the lustfulness, greed and vanity of its ways, — 
can lodge itself, like a dust--speck, in his eyes. When he leaves this loathed 
exile to return in triumph to that other city beneath the postcard-mountain, 
it will be a point of pride to be able to say that he remained in complete 
ignorance of the Sodom in which he had been obliged to wait; ignorant, and 
therefore unsullied, unaltered, pure. 

And another reason for the drawn curtains is that of course there are eyes 
and ears around him, not all of them friendly. The orange buildings are not 
neutral. Somewhere across the street there will be zoom lenses, video 
equipment, jumbo mikes; and always the risk of snipers. Above and below 
and beside the Imam are the safe apartments occupied by his guards, who 
stroll the Kensington streets disguised as women in shrouds and silvery 
beaks; but it is as well to be too careful. Paranoia, for the exile, is a 
prerequisite of survival. 

A fable, which he heard from one of his favourites, the American convert, 
formerly a successful singer, now known as Bilal X. In a certain nightclub to 
which the Imam is in the habit of sending his lieutenants to listen in to 
certain other persons belonging to certain opposed factions, Bilal met a 
young man from Desh, also a singer of sorts, so they fell to talking. It turned 
out that this Mahmood was a badly scared individual. He had recently 
_shacked up_ with a gori, a long red woman with a big figure, and then it 
turned out that the previous lover of his beloved Renata was the exiled boss 
of the S A V A K torture organization of the Shah of Iran. The number one 
Grand Panjandrum himself, not some minor sadist with a talent for 
extracting toenails or setting fire to eyelids, but the great haramzada in 
person. The day after Mahmood and Renata moved in to their new 
apartment a letter arrived for Mahmood. _Okay, shit-eater, you're fucking 
my woman, I just wanted to say hello_. The next day a second letter arrived. 
_By the way, prick, I forgot to mention, here is your new telephone 
number_. At that point Mahmood and Renata had asked for an exdirectory 
listing but had not as yet been given their new number by the telephone 
company. When it came through two days later and was exactly the same as 
the one on the letter, Mahmood's hair fell out all at once. Then, seeing it 



lying on the pillow, he joined his hands together in front of Renata and 
begged, "Baby, I love you, but you're too hot for me, please go somewhere, 
far far." When the Imam was told this story he shook his head and said, that 
whore, who will touch her now, in spite of her lustcreating body? She put a 
stain on herself worse than leprosy; thus do human beings mutilate 
themselves. But the true moral of the fable was the need for eternal 
vigilance. London was a city in which the ex-boss of S A V A K had great 
connections in the telephone company and the Shah's ex-chef ran a thriving 
restaurant in Hounslow. Such a welcoming city, such a refuge, they take all 
types. Keep the curtains drawn. 

Floors three to five of this block of mansion flats are, for the moment, all the 
homeland the Imam possesses. Here there are rifles and short-wave radios 
and rooms in which the sharp young men in suits sit and speak urgently into 
several telephones. There is no alcohol here, nor are playing cards or dice 
anywhere in evidence, and the only woman is the one hanging on the old 
man's bedroom wall. In this surrogate homeland, which the insomniac saint 
thinks of as his waiting-room or transit lounge, the central heating is at full 
blast night and day, and the windows are tightly shut. The exile cannot 
forget, and must therefore simulate, the dry heat of Desh, the once and 
future land where even the moon is hot and dripping like a fresh, buttered 
chapati. O that longed-for part of the world where the sun and moon are 
male but their hot sweet light is named with female names. At night the 
exile parts his curtains and the alien moonlight sidles into the room, its 
coldness striking his eyeballs like a nail. He winces, narrows his eyes. Loose- 
robed, frowning, ominous, awake: this is the Imam. 
Exile is a soulless country. In exile, the furniture is ugly, expensive, all 
bought at the same time in the same store and in too much of a hurry: shiny 
silver sofas with fins like old Buicks DeSotos Oldsmobiles, glass-fronted 
bookcases containing not books but clippings files. In exile the shower goes 
scalding hot whenever anybody turns on a kitchen tap, so that when the 
Imam goes to bathe his entire retinue must remember not to fill a kettle or 
rinse a dirty plate, and when the Imam goes to the toilet his disciples leap 
scalded from the shower. In exile no food is ever cooked; the dark- 
spectacled bodyguards go out for takeaway. In exile all attempts to put 
down roots look like treason: they are admissions of defeat. 
The Imam is the centre of a wheel. 

Movement radiates from him, around the clock. His son, Khalid, enters his 
sanctum bearing a glass of water, holding it in his right hand with his left 
palm under the glass. The Imam drinks water constantly, one glass every 
five minutes, to keep himself clean; the water itself is cleansed of impurities, 
before he sips, in an American filtration machine. All the young men 
surrounding him are well aware of his famous Monograph on Water, whose 
purity, the Imam believes, communicates itself to the drinker, its thinness 
and simplicity, the ascetic pleasures of its taste. "The Empress," he points 



out, "drinks wine." Burgundies, clarets, hocks mingle their intoxicating 
corruptions within that body both fair and foul. The sin is enough to 
condemn her for all time without hope of redemption. The picture on his 
bedroom wall shows the Empress Ayesha holding, in both hands, a human 
skull filled with a dark red fluid. The Empress drinks blood, but the Imam is 
a water man. "Not for nothing do the peoples of our hot lands offer it 
reverence," the Monograph proclaims. "Water, preserver of life. No civilized 
individual can refuse it to another. A grandmother, be her limbs ever so 
arthritically stiff, will rise at once and go to the tap if a small child should 
come to her and ask, pani, nani. Beware all those who blaspheme against it. 
Who pollutes it, dilutes his soul." 

The Imam has often vented his rage upon the memory of the late Aga Khan, 
as a result of being shown the text of an interview in which the head of the 
Ismailis was observed drinking vintage champagne. _0, sir, this champagne 
is only for outward show. The instant it touches my lips, it turns to water_. 
Fiend, the Imam is wont to thunder. Apostate, blasphemer, fraud. When the 
future comes such individuals will be judged, he tells his men. Water will 
have its day and blood will flow like wine. Such is the miraculous nature of 
the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated 
apartment becomes the fate of nations. Who has not dreamed this dream, of 
being a king for a day? -- But the Imam dreams of more than a day; feels, 
emanating from his fingertips, the arachnid strings with which he will control 
the movement of history. 
No: not history. 
His is a stranger dream. 

ooo 

His son, water-carrying Khalid, bows before his father like a pilgrim at a 
shrine, informs him that the guard on duty outside the sanctum is Salman 
Farsi. Bilal is at the radio transmitter, broadcasting the day's message, on 
the agreed frequency, to Desh. 

The Imam is a massive stillness, an immobility. He is living stone. His great 
gnarled hands, granite--grey, rest heavily on the wings of his high-backed 
chair. His head, looking too large for the body beneath, lolls ponderously on 
the surprisingly scrawny neck that can be glimpsed through the grey-black 
wisps of beard. The Imam's eyes are clouded; his lips do not move. He is 
pure force, an elemental being; he moves without motion, acts without 
doing, speaks without uttering a sound. He is the conjurer and history is his 
trick. 

No, not history: something stranger. 

The explanation of this conundrum is to be heard, at this very moment, on 
certain surreptitious radio waves, on which the voice of the American 
convert Bilal is singing the Imam's holy song. Bilal the muezzin: his voice 
enters a ham radio in Kensington and emerges in dreamed-of Desh, 
transmuted into the thunderous speech of the Imam himself. Beginning with 



ritual abuse of the Empress, with lists of her crimes, murders, bribes, sexual 
relations with lizards, and so on, he proceeds eventually to issue in ringing 
tones the Imam's nightly call to his people to rise up against the evil of her 
State. "We will make a revolution," the Imam proclaims through him, "that 
is a revolt not only against a tyrant, but against history." For there is an 
enemy beyond Ayesha, and it is History herself. History is the blood— wine 
that must no longer be drunk. History the intoxicant, the creation and 
possession of the Devil, of the great Shaitan, the greatest of the lies -- 
progress, science, rights -- against which the Imam has set his face. History 
is a deviation from the Path, knowledge is a delusion, because the sum of 
knowledge was complete on the day AILah finished his revelation to 
Mahound. "We will unmake the veil of history," Bilal declaims into the 
listening night, "and when it is unravelled, we will see Paradise standing 
there, in all its glory and light." The Imam chose Bilal for this task on 
account of the beauty of his voice, which in its previous incarnation 
succeeded in climbing the Everest of the hit parade, not once but a dozen 
times, to the very top. The voice is rich and authoritative, a voice in the 
habit of being listened to; well—nourished, highly trained, the voice of 
American confidence, a weapon of the West turned against its makers, 
whose might upholds the Empress and her tyranny. In the early days Bilal X 
protested at such a description of his voice. He, too, belonged to an 
oppressed people, he insisted, so that it was unjust to equate him with the 
Yankee imperialists. The Imam answered, not without gentleness: Bilal, your 
suffering is ours as well. But to be raised in the house of power is to learn its 
ways, to soak them up, through that very skin that is the cause of your 
oppression. The habit of power, its timbre, its posture, its way of being with 
others. It is a disease, Bilal, infecting all who come too near it. If the 
powerful trample over you, you are infected by the soles of their feet. 
Bilal continues to address the darkness. "Death to the tyranny of the 
Empress Ayesha, of calendars, of America, of time! We seek the eternity, 
the timelessness, of God. His still waters, not her flowing wines." Burn the 
books and trust the Book; shred the papers and hear the Word, as it was 
revealed by the Angel Gibreel to the Messenger Mahound and explicated by 
your interpreter and Imam. "Ameen," Bilal said, concluding the night's 
proceedings. While, in his sanctum, the Imam sends a message of his own: 
and summons, conjures up, the archangel, Gibreel. 

ooo 

He sees himself in the dream: no angel to look at, just a man in his ordinary 
street clothes, Henry Diamond's posthumous handme-downs: gabardine and 
trilby over outsize trousers held up by braces, a fisherman's woollen pullover, 
billowy white shirt. This dream-Gibreel, so like the waking one, stands 
quaking in the sanctum of the Imam, whose 



eyes are white as clouds. 

Gibreel speaks querulously, to hide his fear. 

"Why insist on archangels? Those days, you should know, are gone." 
The Imam closes his eyes, sighs. The carpet extrudes long hairy tendrils, 
which wrap themselves around Gibreel, holding him fast. 
"You don't need me," Gibreel emphasizes. "The revelation is complete. Let 
me go." 

The other shakes his head, and speaks, except that his lips do not move, 
and it is Bilal's voice that fills Gibreel's ears, even though the broadcaster is 
nowhere to be seen, _tonight's the night_, the voice says, _and you must fly 
me to Jerusalem_. 

Then the apartment dissolves and they are standing on the roof beside the 
water—tank, because the Imam, when he wishes to move, can remain still 
and move the world around him. His beard is blowing in the wind. It is 
longer now; if it were not for the wind that catches at it as if it were a 
flowing chiffon scarf, it would touch the ground by his feet; he has red eyes, 
and his voice hangs around him in the sky. Take me. Gibreel argues, Seems 
you can do it easily by yourself: but the Imam, in a single movement of 
astonishing rapidity, slings his beard over his shoulder, hoists up his skirts to 
reveal two spindly legs with an almost monstrous covering of hair, and leaps 
high into the night air, twirls himself about, and settles on Gibreel's 
shoulders, clutching on to him with fingernails that have grown into long, 
curved claws. Gibreel feels himself rising into the sky, bearing the old man 
of the sea, the Imam with hair that grows longer by the minute, streaming 
in every direction, his eyebrows like pennants in the wind. 
Jerusalem, he wonders, which way is that? -- And then, it's a slippery word, 
Jerusalem, it can be an idea as well as a place: a goal, an exaltation. Where 
is the Imam's Jerusalem? "The fall of the harlot," the disembodied voice 
resounds in his ears. "Her crash, the Babylonian whore." 
They zoom through the night. The moon is heating up, beginning to bubble 
like cheese under a grill; he, Gibreel, sees pieces of it falling off from time to 
time, moon-drips that hiss and bubble on the sizzling griddle of the sky. 
Land appears below them. The heat grows intense. 
It is an immense landscape, reddish, with flat-topped trees. They fly over 
mountains that are also flat-topped; even the stones, here, are flattened by 
the heat. Then they come to a high mountain of almost perfectly conical 
dimensions, a mountain that also sits postcarded on a mantelpiece far away; 
and in the shadow of the mountain, a city, sprawling at its feet like a 
supplicant, and on the mountain's lower slopes, a palace, the palace, her 
place: the Empress, whom radio messages have unmade. This is a 
revolution of radio hams. 

Gibreel, with the Imam riding him like a carpet, swoops lower, and in the 
steaming night it looks as if the streets are alive, they seem to be writhing, 
like snakes; while in front of the palace of the Empress's defeat a new hill 



seems to be growing, _while we watch, baba, what's going on here?_ The 
Imam's voice hangs in the sky: "Come down. I will show you Love." 
They are at rooftop— level when Gibreel realizes that the streets are 
swarming with people. Human beings, packed so densely into those snaking 
paths that they have blended into a larger, composite entity, relentless, 
serpentine. The people move slowly, at an even pace, down alleys into lanes, 
down lanes into side streets, down side streets into highways, all of them 
converging upon the grand avenue, twelve lanes wide and lined with giant 
eucalyptus trees, that leads to the palace gates. The avenue is packed with 
humanity; it is the central organ of the new, manyheaded being. Seventy 
abreast, the people walk gravely towards the Empress's gates. In front of 
which her household guards are waiting in three ranks, lying, kneeling and 
standing, with machine-guns at the ready. The people are walking up the 
slope towards the guns; seventy at a time, they come into range; the guns 
babble, and they die, and then the next seventy climb over the bodies of the 
dead, the guns giggle once again, and the hill of the dead grows higher. 
Those behind it commence, in their turn, to climb. In the dark doorways of 
the city there are mothers with covered heads, pushing their beloved sons 
into the parade, _go, be a martyr, do the needful, die_. "You see how they 
love me," says the disembodied voice. "No tyranny on earth can withstand 
the power of this slow, walking love." 

"This isn't love," Gibreel, weeping, replies. "It's hate. She has driven them 
into your arms." The explanation sounds thin, superficial. 
"They love me," the Imam's voice says, "because I am water. I am fertility 
and she is decay. They love me for my habit of smashing clocks. Human 
beings who turn away from God lose love, and certainty, and also the sense 
of His boundless time, that encompasses past, present and future; the 
timeless time, that has no need to move. We long for the eternal, and I am 
eternity. She is nothing: a tick, or tock. She looks in her mirror every day 
and is terrorized by the idea of age, of time passing. Thus she is the prisoner 
of her own nature; she, too, is in the chains of Time. After the revolution 
there will be no clocks; we'll smash the lot. The word _clock_ will be 
expunged from our dictionaries. After the revolution there will be no 
birthdays. We shall all be born again, all of us the same unchanging age in 
the eye of Almighty God." 

He falls silent, now, because below us the great moment has come: the 
people have reached the guns. Which are silenced in their turn, as the 
endless serpent of the people, the gigantic python of the risen masses, 
embraces the guards, suffocating them, and silences the lethal chuckling of 
their weapons. The Imam sighs heavily. "Done." 

The lights of the palace are extinguished as the people walk towards it, at 
the same measured pace as before. Then, from within the darkened palace, 
there rises a hideous sound, beginning as a high, thin, piercing wail, then 
deepening into a howl, an ululation loud enough to fill every cranny of the 



city with its rage. Then the golden dome of the palace bursts open like an 
egg, and rising from it, glowing with blackness, is a mythological apparition 
with vast black wings, her hair streaming loose, as long and black as the 
Imam's is long and white: Al— Lat, Gibreel understands, bursting out of 
Ayesha's shell. 

"Kill her," the Imam commands. 

Gibreel sets him down on the palace's ceremonial balcony, his arms 
outstretched to encompass the joy of the people, a sound that drowns even 
the howls of the goddess and rises up like a song. And then he is being 
propelled into the air, having no option, he is a marionette going to war; and 
she, seeing him coming, turns, crouches in air, and, moaning dreadfully, 
comes at him with all her might. Gibreel understands that the Imam, 
fighting by proxy as usual, will sacrifice him as readily as he did the hill of 
corpses at the palace gate, that he is a suicide soldier in the service of the 
cleric's cause. I am weak, he thinks, I am no match for her, but she, too, 
has been weakened by her defeat. The Imam's strength moves Gibreel, 
places thunderbolts in his hands, and the battle is joined; he hurls lightning 
spears into her feet and she plunges comets into his groin, _we are killing 
each other_, he thinks, _we will die and there will be two new constellations 
in space: Al-Lat, and Gibreel_. Like exhausted warriors on a corpse-- littered 
field, they totter and slash. Both are failing fast. 
She falls. 

Down she tumbles, Al-Lat queen of the night; crashes upsidedown to earth, 
crushing her head to bits; and lies, a headless black angel, with her wings 
ripped off, by a little wicket gate in the palace gardens, all in a crumpled 
heap. -- And Gibreel, looking away from her in horror, sees the Imam grown 
monstrous, lying in the palace forecourt with his mouth yawning open at the 
gates; as the people march through the gates he swallows them whole. 
The body of Al-Lat has shrivelled on the grass, leaving behind only a dark 
stain; and now every clock in the capital city of Desh begins to chime, and 
goes on unceasingly, beyond twelve, beyond twenty-four, beyond one 
thousand and one, announcing the end of Time, the hour that is beyond 
measuring, the hour of the exile's return, of the victory of water over wine, 
of the commencement of the Untimc of the Imam. 

ooo 

When the nocturnal story changes, when, without warning, the progress of 
events injahilia and Yathrib gives way to the struggle of Imam and Empress, 
Gibreel briefly hopes that the curse has ended, that his dreams have been 
restored to the random eccentricity of ordinary life; but then, as the new 
story, too, falls into the old pattern, continuing each time he drops off from 
the precise point at which it was interrupted, and as his own image, 
translated into an avatar of the archangel, re-enters the frame, so his hope 
dies, and he succumbs once more to the inexorable. Things have reached 
the point at which some of his night-sagas seem 



more bearable than others, and after the apocalypse of the Imam he feels 
almost pleased when the next narrative begins, extending his internal 
repertory, because at least it suggests that the deity whom he, Gibreel, has 
tried unsuccessfully to kill can be a God of love, as well as one of vengeance, 
power, duty, rules and hate; and it is, too, a nostalgic sort of tale, of a lost 
homeland; it feels like a return to the past . . . what story is, this? Coming 
right up. To begin at the beginning: On the morning of his fortieth birthday, 
in a room full of butterflies, Mirza Saeed Akhtar watched his sleeping wife. 

ooo 

On the fateful morning of his fortieth birthday, in a room full of butterflies, 
the zamindar Mirza Saeed Akhtar watched over his sleeping wife, and felt his 
heart fill up to the bursting-point with love. He had awoken early for once, 
rising before dawn with a bad dream souring his mouth, his recurring dream 
of the end of the world, in which the catastrophe was invariably his fault. He 
had been reading Nietzsche the night before -- "the pitiless end of that small, 
overextended species called Man" -- and had fallen asleep with the book 
resting face downwards on his chest. Waking to the rustle of butterfly wings 
in the cool, shadowy bedroom, he was angry with himself for being so 
foolish in his choice of bedside reading matter. He was, however, wide 
awake now. Getting up quietly, he slipped his feet into chappals and strolled 
idly along the verandas of the great mansion, still in darkness on account of 
their lowered blinds, and the butterflies bobbed like courtiers at his back. In 
the far distance, someone was playing a flute. Mirza Saeed drew up the chick 
blinds and fastened their cords. The gardens were deep in mist, through 
which the butterfly clouds were swirling, one mist intersecting another. This 
remote region had always been renowned for its lepidoptera, for these 
miraculous squadrons that filled the air by day and night, butterflies with the 
gift of chameleons, whose wings changed colour as they settled on vermilion 
flowers, ochre curtains, obsidian goblets or amber finger-rings. In the 
zamindar's mansion, and also in the nearby village, the miracle of the 
butterflies had become so familiar as to seem mundane, but in fact they had 
only returned nineteen years ago, as the servant women would recall. They 
had been the familiar spirits, or so the legend ran, of a local saint, the holy 
woman known only as Bibiji, who had lived to the age of two hundred and 
forty-two and whose grave, until its location was forgotten, had the property 
of curing impotence and warts. Since the death of Bibiji one hundred and 
twenty years ago the butterflies had vanished into the same realm of the 
legendary as Bibiji herself, so that when they came back exactly one 
hundred and one years after their departure it looked, at first, like an omen 
of some imminent, wonderful thing. After Bibiji's death -- it should quickly 
be said — the village had continued to prosper, the potato crops remained 
plentiful, but there had been a gap in many hearts, even though the 
villagers of the present had no memory of the time of the old saint. So the 
return of the butterflies lifted many spirits, but when the expected wonders 



failed to materialize the locals sank back, little by little, into the insufficiency 
of the day-to-day. The name of the zamindar's mansion, _Peristan_, may 
have had its origins in the magical creatures' fairy wings, and the village's 
name, _Titlipur_, certainly did. But names, once they are in common use, 
quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of 
the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit. The human inhabitants of 
Titlipur, and its butterfly hordes, moved amongst one another with a kind of 
mutual disdain. The villagers and the zamindar's family had long ago 
abandoned the attempt to exclude the butterflies from their homes, so that 
now whenever a trunk was opened, a batch of wings would fly out of it like 
Pandora's imps, changing colour as they rose; there were butterflies under 
the closed lids of the thunderboxes in the toilets of Peristan, and inside 
every wardrobe, and between the pages of books. When you awoke you 
found the butterflies sleeping on your cheeks. 

The commonplace eventually becomes invisible, and Mirza Saeed had not 
really noticed the butterflies for a number of years. On the morning of his 
fortieth birthday, however, as the first light of dawn touched the house and 
the butterflies began instantly to glow, the beauty of the moment took his 
breath away. He ran at once to the bedroom in the zenana wing in which his 
wife Mishal lay sleeping, veiled in a mosquito—net. The magic butterflies 
were resting on her exposed toes, and a mosquito had evidently found its 
way inside as well, because there was a line of little bites along the raised 
edge of her collar— bone. He wanted to lift the net, crawl inside and kiss the 
bites until they faded away. How inflamed they looked! How, when she 
awoke, they would itch! But he held himself back, preferring to enjoy the 
innocence of her sleeping form. She had soft, red-brown hair, white white 
skin, and her eyes, behind the closed lids, were silky grey. Her father was a 
director of the state bank, so it had been an irresistible match, an arranged 
marriage which restored the fortunes of the Mirza's ancient, decaying family 
and then ripened, overtime and in spite of their failure to have children, into 
a union of real love. Full of emotion, Mirza Saeed watched Mishal sleep and 
chased the last shreds of his nightmare from his mind. "How can the world 
be done for," he reasoned contentedly to himself, "if it can offer up such 
instances of perfection as this lovely dawn?" 

Continuing down the line of these happy thoughts, he formulated a silent 
speech to his resting wife. "Mishal, I'm forty years old and as contented as a 
forty-day babe. I see now that I've been falling deeper and deeper into our 
love over the years, and now I swim, like some fish, in that warm sea." How 
much she gave him, he marvelled; how much he needed her! Their marriage 
transcended mere sensuality, was so intimate that a separation was 
unthinkable. "Growing old beside you," he told her while she slept, "will be, 
Mishal, a privilege." He permitted himself the sentimentality of blowing a 
kiss in her direction and then tiptoeing from the room. Out once more on the 
main veranda of his private quarters on the mansion's upper storey, he 



glanced across to the gardens, which were coming into view as the dawn 
lifted the mist, and saw the sight that would destroy his peace of mind 
forever, smashing it beyond hope of repair at the very instant in which he 
had become certain of its invulnerability to the ravages of fate. 
A young woman was squatting on the lawn, holding out her left palm. 
Butterflies were settling on this surface while, with her right hand, she 
picked them up and put them in her mouth. Slowly, methodically, she 
breakfasted on the acquiescent wings. 

Her lips, cheeks, chin were heavily stained by the many different colours 
that had rubbed off the dying butterflies. 

When Mirza Saeed Akhtar saw the young woman eating her gossamer 
breakfast on his lawn, he felt a surge of lust so powerful that he instantly 
felt ashamed. "It's impossible," he scolded himself, "I am not an animal, 
after all." The young woman wore a saffron yellow sari wrapped around her 
nakedness, after the fashion of the poor women of that region, and as she 
stooped over the butterflies the sari, hanging loosely forwards, bared her 
small breasts to the gaze of the transfixed zamindar. Mirza Saeed stretched 
out his hands to grip the balcony railing, and the slight movement of his 
white kurta must have caught her eye, because she lifted her head quickly 
and looked right into his face. 

And did not immediately look down again. Nor did she get up and run away, 
as he had half expected. 

What she did: waited for a few seconds, as though to see if he intended to 
speak. When he did not, she simply resumed her strange meal without 
taking her eyes from his face. The strangest aspect of it was that the 
butterflies seemed to be funnelling downwards from the brightening air, 
going willingly towards her outstretched palms and their own deaths. She 
held them by the wingtips, threw her head back and flicked them into her 
mouth with the tip of her narrow tongue. Once she kept her mouth open, the 
dark lips parted defiantly, and Mirza Saeed trembled to see the butterfly 
fluttering within the dark cavern of its death, yet making no attempt to 
escape. When she was satisfied that he had seen this, she brought her lips 
together and began to chew. They remained thus, peasant woman below, 
landowner above, until her eyes unexpectedly rolled upwards in their sockets 
and she fell heavily, twitching violently, on to her left side. 
After a few seconds of transfixed panic, the Mirza shouted, "Ohe, house! Ohe, 
wake up, emergency!" At the same time he ran towards the stately 
mahogany staircase from England, brought here from some unimaginable 
Warwickshire, some fantastic location in which, in a damp and lightless 
priory, King Charles I had ascended these same steps, before losing his head, 
in the seventeenth century of another system of time. Down these stairs 
hurtled Mirza Saeed Akhtar, last of his line, trampling over the ghostly 
impressions of beheaded feet as he sped towards the lawn. 



The girl was having convulsions, crushing butterflies beneath her rolling, 
kicking body. Mirza Saeed got to her first, although the servants and Mishal, 
awakened by his cry, were not far behind. He grasped the girl by the jaw 
and forced it open, inserting a nearby twig, which she at once bit in half. 
Blood trickled from her cut mouth, and he feared for her tongue, but the 
sickness left her just then, she became calm, and slept. Mishal had her 
carried to her own bedroom, and now Mirza Saeed was obliged to gaze on a 
second sleeping beauty in that bed, and was stricken for a second time by 
what seemed too rich and deep a sensation to be called by the crude name, 
_lust_. He found that he was at once sickened by his own impure designs 
and also elated by the feelings that were coursing within him, fresh feelings 
whose newness excited him greatly. Mishal came to stand beside her 
husband. "Do you know her?" Saeed asked, and she nodded. "An orphan girl. 
She makes small enamel animals and sells them at the trunk road. She has 
had the falling sickness since she was very little." Mirza Saeed was awed, 
not for the first time, by his wife's gift of involvement with other human 
beings. He himself could hardly recognize more than a handful of the 
villagers, but she knew each person's pet names, family histories and 
incomes. They even told her their dreams, although few of them dreamed 
more than once a month on account of being too poor to afford such luxuries. 
The overflowing fondness he had felt at dawn returned, and he placed his 
arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against him and said softly: 
"Happy birthday." He kissed the top of her hair. They stood embracing, 
watching the sleeping girl. Ayesha: his wife told him the name. 

ooo 

After the orphan girl Ayesha arrived at puberty and became, on account of 
her distracted beauty and her air of staring into another world, the object of 
many young men's desires, it began to be said that she was looking for a 
lover from heaven, because she thought herself too good for mortal men. 
Her rejected suitors complained that in practical terms she had no business 
acting so choosy, in the first place because she was an orphan, and in the 
second, because she was possessed by the demon of epilepsy, who would 
certainly put off any heavenly spirits who might otherwise have been 
interested. Some embittered youths went so far as to suggest that as 
Ayesha's defects would prevent her from ever finding a husband she might 
as well start taking lovers, so as not to waste that beauty, which ought in all 
fairness to have been given to a less problematic individual. In spite of these 
attempts by the young men of Titlipur to turn her into their whore, Ayesha 
remained chaste, her defence being a look of such fierce concentration on 
patches of air immediately above people's left shoulders that it was regularly 
mistaken for contempt. Then people heard about her new habit of 
swallowing butterflies and they revised their opinion of her, convinced that 
she was touched in the head and therefore dangerous to lie with in case the 
demons crossed over into her lovers. After this the lustful males of her 



village left her alone in her hovel, alone with her toy animals and her 
peculiar fluttering diet. One young man, however, took to sitting a little 
distance from her doorway, facing discreetly in the opposite direction, as if 
he were on guard, even though she no longer had any need of protectors. 
He was a former untouchable from the neighbouring village of Chatnapatna 
who had been converted to Islam and taken the name of Osman. Ayesha 
never acknowledged Osman's presence, nor did he ask for such 
acknowledgement. The leafy branches of the village waved over their heads 
in the breeze. 

The village of Titlipur had grown up in the shade of an immense ban yan-- 
tree, a single monarch that ruled, with its multiple roots, over an area more 
than half a mile in diameter. By now the growth of tree into village and 
village into tree had become so intricate that it was impossible to 
differentiate between the two. Certain districts of the tree had become well- 
known lovers' nooks; others were chicken runs. Some of the poorer 
labourers had constructed rough-and-ready shelters in the angles of stout 
branches, and actually lived inside the dense foliage. There were branches 
that were used as pathways across the village, and children's swings made 
out of the old tree's beards, and in places where the tree stooped low down 
towards the earth its leaves formed roofs for many a hutment that seemed 
to hang from the greenery like the nest of a weaver bird. When the village 
panchayat assembled, it sat on the mightiest branch of all. The villagers had 
grown accustomed to referring to the tree by the name of the village, and to 
the village simply as "the tree". The banyan's non-human inhabitants -- 
honey ants, squirrels, owls -- were accorded the respect due to fellow- 
citizens. Only the butterflies were ignored, like hopes long since shown to be 
false. 

It was a Muslim village, which was why the convert Osman had come here 
with his clown's outfit and his "boom-boom" bullock after he had embraced 
the faith in an act of desperation, hoping that changing to a Muslim name 
would do him more good than earlier re-namings, for example when 
untouchables were renamed "children of God". As a child of God in 
Chatnapatna he had not been permitted to draw water from the town well, 
because the touch of an outcaste would have polluted the drinking water. . 
Landless and, like Ayesha, an orphan, Osman earned his living as a clown. 
His bullock wore bright red paper cones over its horns and much tinselly 
drapery over its nose and back. He went from village to village performing 
an act, at marriages and other celebrations, in which the bullock was his 
essential partner and foil, nodding in answer to his questions, one nod for no, 
twice for yes. 

"Isn't this a nice village we've come to?" Osman would ask. 



Boom, the bullock disagreed. 

"It isn't? Oh yes it is. Look: aren't the people good?" 
Boom. 

"What? Then it's a village full of sinners?" 
Boom, boom. 

"Baapu-re! Then, will everybody go to hell?" 
Boom, boom. 

"But, bhaijan. Is there any hope for them?" 

Boom, boom, the bullock offered salvation. Excitedly, Osman bent down, 
placing his ear by the bullock's mouth. "Tell, quickly. What should they do to 
be saved?" At this point the bullock plucked Osman's cap off his head and 
carried it around the crowd, asking for money, and Osman would nod, 
happily: Boom, boom. 

Osman the convert and his boom-boom bullock were well liked in Titlipur, 
but the young man only wanted the approval of one person, and she would 
not give it. He had admitted to her that his conversion to Islam had been 
largely tactical, "Just so I could get a drink, bibi, what's a man to do?" She 
had been outraged by his confession, informed him that he was no Muslim at 
all, his soul was in peril and he could go back to Chatnapatna and die of 
thirst for all she cared. Her face coloured, as she spoke, with an 
unaccountably strong disappointment in him, and it was the vehemence of 
this disappointment that gave him the optimism to remain squatting a dozen 
paces from her home, day after day, but she continued to stalk past him, 
nose in air, without so much as a good morning or hope-you"re-well. 
Once a week, the potato carts of Titlipur trundled down the rutted, narrow, 
four-hour track to Chatnapatna, which stood at the point at which the track 
met the grand trunk road. In Chatnapatna stood the high, gleaming 
aluminium silos of the potato wholesalers, but this had nothing to do with 
Ayesha's regular visits to the town. She would hitch a ride on a potato cart, 
clutching a little sackcloth bundle, to take her toys to market. Chatnapatna 
was known throughout the region for its kiddies' knick-knacks, carved 
wooden toys and enamelled figurines. Osman and his bullock stood at the 
edge of the banyan-tree, watching her bounce about on top of the potato 
sacks until she had diminished to a dot. 

In Chatnapatna she made her way to the premises of Sri Srinivas, owner of 
the biggest toy factory in town. On its walls were the political graffiti of the 
day: _Vote for Hand_. Or, more politely: _Please to vote for CP (M)_. Above 
these exhortations was the proud announcement: _Srinivas's Toy Univas. 
Our Moto: Sinceriety & Creativity_. Srinivas was inside: a large jelly of a 
man, his head a hairless sun, a fiftyish fellow whom a lifetime of selling toys 
had failed to sour. Ayesha owed him her livelihood. He had been so taken 
with the artistry of her whittling that he had agreed to buy as many as she 
could produce. But in spite of his habitual bonhomie his expression darkened 
when Ayesha undid her bundle to show him two dozen figures of a young 



man in a clown hat, accompanied by a decorated bullock that could dip its 
tinselled head. Understanding that Ayesha had forgiven Osman his 
conversion, Sri Srinivas cried, "That man is a traitor to his birth, as you well 
know. What kind of a person will change gods as easily as his dhotis? God 
knows what got into you, daughter, but I don't want these dolls." On the 
wall behind his desk hung a framed certificate which read, in elaborately cur- 
- licued print: _This is to certify that MR SRI S. SRINIVAS is an Expert on 
the Geological History of the Planet Earth, having flown through Grand 
Canyon with SCENIC AIRLINES_. Srinivas closed his eyes and folded his 
arms, an unlaughing Buddha with the indisputable authority of one who had 
flown. "That boy is a devil," he said with finality, and Ayesha folded the dolls 
into her piece of sackcloth and turned to leave, without arguing. Srinivas's 
eyes flew open. "Damn you," he shouted, "aren't you going to give me a 
hard time? You think I don't know you need the money? Why you did such a 
damn stupid thing? What are you going to do now? just go and make some 
FP dolls, double quick, and I will buy at best rate plus, because I am 
generous to a fault." Mr. Srinivas's personal invention was the Family 
Planning doll, a socially responsible variant of the old Russian--doll notion. 
Inside a suited-and-booted Abba-doll was a demure, sari-clad Amma, and 
inside her a daughter containing a son. Two children are plenty: that was the 
message of the dolls. "Make quickly quickly," Srinivas called after the 
departing Ayesha. "FP dolls have high turnover." 

Ayesha turned, and smiled. "Don't worry about me, Srinivasji," she said, and 
left. 

Ayesha the orphan was nineteen years old when she began her walk back to 
Titlipur along the rutted potato track, but by the time she turned up in her 
village some forty—eight hours later she had attained a kind of agelessness, 
because her hair had turned as white as snow while her skin had regained 
the luminous perfection of a new-born child's, and although she was 
completely naked the butterflies had settled upon her body in such thick 
swarms that she seemed to be wearing a dress of the most delicate material 
in the universe. The clown Osman was practising routines with the boom- 
boom bullock near the track, because even though he had been worried sick 
by her extended absence, and had spent the whole of the previous night 
searching for her, it was still necessary to earn a living. When he laid eyes 
on her, that young man who had never respected God because ofhaving 
been born untouchable was filled with holy terror, and did not dare to 
approach the girl with whom he was so helplessly in love. 
She went into her hut and slept for a day and a night without waking up. 
Then she went to see the village headman, Sarpanch Muhammad Din, and 
informed him matter-of-factly that the Archangel Gibreel had appeared to 
her in a vision and had lain down beside her to rest. "Greatness has come 
among us," she informed the alarmed Sarpanch, who had until then been 



more concerned with potato quotas than transcendence. "Everything will be 
required of us, and everything will be given to us also." 
In another part of the tree, the Sarpanch's wife Khadija was consoling a 
weeping clown, who was finding it hard to accept that he had lost his 
beloved Ayesha to a higher being, for when an archangel lies with a woman 
she is lost to men forever. Khadija was old and forgetful and frequently 
clumsy when she tried to be loving, and she gave Osman cold comfort: "The 
sun always sets when there is fear of tigers," she quoted the old saying: bad 
news always comes all at once. 

Soon after the story of the miracle got out, the girl Ayesha was summoned 
to the big house, and in the following days she spent long hours closeted 
with the zamindar's wife, Begum Mishal Akhtar, whose mother had also 
arrived on a visit, and fallen for the archangel's white—haired wife. 

ooo 

The dreamer, dreaming, wants (but is unable) to protest: I never laid a 
finger on her, what do you think this is, some kind of wet dream or what? 
Damn me if I know from where that girl was getting her 
information/inspiration. Not from this quarter, that's for sure. 
This happened: she was walking back to her village, but then she seemed to 
grow weary all of a sudden, and went off the path to lie in the shade of a 
tamarind—tree and rest. The moment her eyes closed he was there beside 
her, dreaming Gibreel in coat and hat, sweltering in the heat. She looked at 
him but he couldn't say what she saw, wings maybe, haloes, the works. 
Then he was lying there and finding he could not get up, his limbs had 
become heavier than iron bars, it seemed as if his body might be crushed by 
its own weight into the earth. When she finished looking at him she nodded, 
gravely, as if he had spoken, and then she took off her scrap of a sari and 
stretched out beside him, nude. Then in the dream he fell asleep, out cold as 
if somebody pulled out the plug, and when dreamed himself awake again 
she was standing in front of him with that loose white hair and the 
butterflies clothing her: transformed. She was still nodding, with a rapt 
expression on her face, receiving a message from somewhere that she called 
Gibreel. Then she left him lying there and returned to the village to make 
her entrance. 

So now I have a dream-wife, the dreamer becomes conscious enough to 
think. What the hell to do with her? -- But it isn't up to him. Ayesha and 
Mishal Akhtar are together in the big house. 

ooo 

Ever since his birthday Mirza Saeed had been full of passionate desires, "as 
if life really does begin at forty", his wife marvelled. Their marriage became 
so energetic that the servants had to change the bedsheets three times per 
day. Mishal hoped secretly that this heightening of her husband's libido 
would lead her to conceive, because she was of the firm opinion that 
enthusiasm mattered, whatever doctors might say to the contrary, and that 



the years of taking her temperature every morning before getting out of bed, 
and then plotting the results on graph paper in order to establish her pattern 
of ovulation, had actually dissuaded the babies from being born, partly 
because it was difficult to be properly ardent when science got into bed 
along with you, and partly, too, in her view, because no self—respecting 
foetus would wish to enter the womb of so mechanically programmed a 
mother; Mishal still prayed for a child, although she no longer mentioned the 
fact to Saeed so as to spare him the sense of having failed her in this 
respect. Eyes shut, feigning sleep, she would call on God for a sign, and 
when Saeed became so loving, so frequently, she wondered if maybe this 
might not be it. As a result, his strange request that from now on, whenever 
they came to stay at Periscan, she should adopt the "old ways" and retreat 
into purdah, was not treated by her with the contempt it deserved. In the 
city, where they kept a large and hospitable house, the zamindar and his 
wife were known as one of the most "modern" and "go--go" couples on the 
scene; they collected contemporary art and threw wild parties and invited 
friends round for fumbles in the dark on sofas while watching soft-porno 
VCRs. So when Mirza Saeed said, "Would it not be sort of delicious, Mishu, if 
we tailored our behaviour to fit this old house," she should have laughed in 
his face. Instead she replied, "What you like, Saeed," because he gave her 
to understand that it was a sort of erotic game. He even hinted that his 
passion for her had become so overwhelming that he might need to express 
it at any moment, and if she were out in the open at the time it might 
embarrass the staff; certainly her presence would make it impossible for him 
to concentrate on any of his tasks, and besides, in the city, "we will still be 
completely up-to-date". From this she understood that the city was full of 
distractions for the Mirza, so that her chances of conceiving were greatest 
right here in Titlipur. She resolved to stay put. This was when she invited 
her mother to come and stay, because if she were to confine herself to the 
zenana she would need company. Mrs. Qureishi arrived wobbling with plump 
fury, determined to scold her son-in-law until he gave up this purdah 
foolishness, but Mishal amazed her mother by begging: "Please don't." Mrs. 
Qureishi, the wife of the state bank director, was quite a sophisticate herself. 
"In fact, all your teenage, Mishu, you were the grey goose and I was the 
hipster. I thought you dragged yourself out of that ditch but I see he pushed 
you back in there again." The financier's wife had always been of the opinion 
that her son-in— law was a secret cheapskate, an opinion which had survived 
intact in spite of being starved of any scrap of supporting evidence. Ignoring 
her daughter's veto, she sought out Mirza Saeed in the formal garden and 
launched into him, wobbling, as was her wont, for emphasis. "What type 



of life are you living?" she demanded. "My daughter is not for locking up, but 
for taking out! What is all your fortune for, if you keep it also under lock and 
key? My son, unlock both wallet and wife! Take her away, renew your love, 
on some enjoyable _outing!_" Mirza Saeed opened his mouth, found no 
reply, shut it again. Dazzled by her own oratory, which had given rise, quite 
on the spur of the moment, to the idea of a holiday, Mrs. Qureishi warmed 
to her theme. "Just get set, and go!" she urged. "Go, man, go! Go away with 
her, or will you lock her up until she goes away," -- here she jabbed an 
ominous finger at the sky -- "_forever?_" 
Guiltily, Mirza Saeed promised to consider the idea. 

"What are you waiting for?" she cried in triumph. "You big softo? You .. . you 
_Hamlet?_" 

His mother-in-law's attack brought on one of the periodic bouts of self- 
reproach which had been plaguing Mirza Saeed ever since he persuaded 
Mishal to take the veil. To console himself he settled down to read Tagore's 
story _Ghare-Baire_ in which a zamindar persuades his wife to come out of 
purdah, whereupon she takes up with a firebrand politico involved in the 
"swadeshi" campaign, and the zamindar winds up dead. The novel cheered 
him up momentarily, but then his suspicions returned. Had he been sincere 
in the reasons he gave his wife, or was he simply finding a way of leaving 
the coast clear for his pursuit of the madonna of the butterflies, the epileptic, 
Ayesha? "Some coast," he thought, remembering Mrs. Qureishi with her 
eyes of an accusative hawk, "some clear." His mother-in-law's presence, he 
argued to himself, was further proof of his bona fides. Had he not positively 
encouraged Mishal to send for her, even though he knew perfectly well that 
the old fatty couldn't stand him and would suspect him of every damn 
slyness under the sun? "Would I have been so keen for her to come if I was 
planning on hanky panky?" he asked himself. But the nagging inner voices 
continued: "All this recent sexology, this renewed interest in your lady wife, 
is simple transference. Really, you are longing for your peasant floozy to 
come and flooze with you." 

Guilt had the effect of making the zamindar feel entirely worthless. His 
mother— in— law's insults came to seem, in his unhappiness, like the literal 
truth. "Softo," she called him, and sitting in his study, surrounded by 
bookcases in which worms were munching contentedly upon priceless 
Sanskrit texts such as were not to be found even in the national archives, 
and also, less upliftingly, on the complete works of Percy Westerman, G. A. 
Henty and Dornford Yates, Mirza Saeed admitted, yes, spot on, I am soft. 
The house was seven generations old and for seven generations the 
softening had been going on. He walked down the corridor in which his 
ancestors hung in baleful, gilded frames, and contemplated the mirror which 
he kept hanging in the last space as a reminder that one day he, too, must 
step up on to this wall. He was a man without sharp corners or rough edges; 
even his elbows were covered by little pads of flesh. In the mirror he saw 



the thin moustache, the weak chin, the lips stained by paan. Cheeks, nose, 
forehead: all soft, soft, soft. "Who would see anything in a type like me?" he 
cried, and when he realized that he had been so agitated that he had spoken 
aloud he knew he must be in love, that he was sick as a dog with love, and 
that the object of his affections was no longer his loving wife. 
"Then what a damn, shallow, tricksy and self-deceiving fellow I am," he 
sighed to himself, "to change so much, so fast. I deserve to be finished off 
without ceremony." But he was not the type to fall on his sword. Instead, he 
strolled a while around the corridors of Peristan, and pretty soon the house 
worked its magic and restored him to something like a good mood once 
again. 

The house: in spite of its faery name, it was a solid, rather prosy building, 
rendered exotic only by being in the wrong country. It had been built seven 
generations ago by a certain Perowne, an English architect much favoured 
by the colonial authorities, whose only style was that of the neo-classical 
English country house. In those days the great zamindars were crazy for 
European architecture. Saeed's great--great--great— great— grand-father had 
hired the fellow five minutes after meeting him at the Viceroy's reception, to 
indicate publicly that not all Indian Muslims had supported the action of the 
Meerut soldiers or been in sympathy with the subsequent uprisings, no, not 
by any means; -- and then given him carte blanche; -- so here Peristan now 
stood, in the middle of near-tropical potato fields and beside the great 
banyan-tree, covered in bougainvillaea creeper, with snakes in the kitchens 
and butterfly skeletons in the cupboards. Some said its name owed more to 
the Englishman's than to anything more fanciful: it was a mere contraction 
of _Perownistan_. 

After seven generations it was at last beginning to look as if it belonged in 
this landscape of bullock carts and palm-trees and high, clear, star—heavy 
skies. Even the stained— glass window looking down on the staircase of King 
Charles the Headless had been, in an indefinable manner, naturalized. Very 
few of these old zamindar houses had survived the egalitarian depredations 
of the present, and accordingly there hung over Peristan something of the 
musty air of a museum, even though -- or perhaps because -- Mirza Saeed 
took great pride in the old place and had spent lavishly to keep it in trim. He 
slept under a high canopy of worked and beaten brass in a ship-like bed that 
had been occupied by three Viceroys. In the grand salon he liked to sit with 
Mishal and Mrs. Qureishi in the unusual three-way love seat. At one end of 
this room a colossal Shiraz carpet stood rolled up, on wooden blocks, 
awaiting the glamorous reception which would merit its unfurling, and which 
never came. In the dining-room there were stout classical columns with 
ornate Corinthian tops, and there were peacocks, both real and stone, 
strolling on the main steps to the house, and Venetian chandeliers tinkling in 
the hail. The original punkahs were still in full working order, all their 
operating cords travelling by way of pulleys and holes in walls and floors to a 



little, airless boot-room where the punkah-wallah sat and tugged the lot 
together, trapped in the irony of the foetid air of that tiny windowless room 
while he despatched cool breezes to all other parts of the house. The 
servants, too, went back seven generations and had therefore lost the art of 
complaining. The old ways ruled: even the Titlipur sweet-vendor was 
required to seek the zamindar's approval before commencing to sell any 
innovative sweetmeat he might have invented. Life in Peristan was as soft as 
it was hard under the tree; but, even into such cushioned existences, heavy 
blows can fall. 

ooo 

The discovery that his wife was spending most of her time closeted with 
Ayesha filled the Mirza with an insupportable irritation, an eczema of the 
spirit that maddened him because there was no way of scratching it. Mishal 
was hoping that the archangel, Ayesha's husband, would grant her a baby, 
but because she couldn't tell that to her husband she grew sullen and 
shrugged petulantly when he asked her why she wasted so much time with 
the village's craziest girl. Mishal's new reticence worsened the itch in Mirza 
Saeed's heart, and made him jealous, too, although he wasn't sure if he was 
jealous of Ayesha, or Mishal. He noticed for the first time that the mistress 
of the butterflies had eyes of the same lustrous grey shade as his wife, and 
for some reason this made him cross, too, as if it proved that the women 
were ganging up on him, whispering God knew what secrets; maybe they 
were chittcring and chattering about him! This zenana business seemed to 
have backfired; even that old jelly Mrs. Qureishi had been taken in by 
Ayesha. Quite a threesome, thought Mirza Saeed; when mumbo-jumbo gets 
in through your door, good sense leaves by the window. 
As for Ayesha: when she encountered the Mirza on the balcony, or in the 
garden as he wandered reading Urdu love-poetry, she was invariably 
deferential and shy; but her good behaviour, coupled with the total absence 
of any spark of erotic interest, drove Saeed further and further into the 
helplessness of his despair. So it was that when, one day, he spied Ayesha 
entering his wife's quarters and heard, a few minutes later, his mother-in- 
law's voice rise in a melodramatic shriek, he was seized by a mood of mulish 
vengefulness and deliberately waited a full three minutes before going to 
investigate. He found Mrs. Qureishi tearing her hair and sobbing like a movie 
queen, while Mishal and Ayesha sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each 
other, grey eyes staring into grey, and Mishal's face was cradled between 
Ayesha's outstretched palms. 

It turned out that the archangel had informed Ayesha that the zamindar's 
wife was dying of cancer, that her breasts were full of the malign nodules of 
death, and that she had no more than a few months to live. The location of 
the cancer had proved to Mishal the cruelty of God, because only a vicious 
deity would place death in the breast of a woman whose only dream was to 
suckle new life. When Saeed entered, Ayesha had been whispering urgently 



to Mishal: "You mustn't think that way. God will save you. This is a test of 
faith." 

Mrs. Qureishi told Mirza Saeed the bad news with many shrieks and howls, 
and for the confused zamindar it was the last straw. He flew into a temper 
and started yelling loudly and trembling as if he might at any moment start 
smashing up the furniture in the room and its occupants as well. 
"To hell with your spook cancer," he screamed at Ayesha in his exasperation. 
"You have come into my house with your craziness and angels and dripped 
poison into my family's ears. Get out of here with your visions and your 
invisible spouse. This is the modern world, and it is medical doctors and not 
ghosts in potato fields who tell us when we are ill. You have created this 
bloody hullabaloo for nothing. Get out and never come on to my land again." 
Ayesha heard him out without removing her eyes or hands from Mishal. 
When Saeed stopped for breath, clenching and unclenching his fists, she said 
softly to his wife: "Everything will be required of us, and everything will be 
given." When he heard this formula, which people all over the village were 
beginning to parrot as if they knew what it meant, Mirza Saeed Akhtar went 
briefly out of his mind, raised his hand and knocked Ayesha senseless. She 
fell to the floor, bleeding from the mouth, a tooth loosened by his fist, and 
as she lay there Mrs. Qureishi hurled abuse at her son-in-law. "O God, I 
have put my daughter in the care of a killer. O God, a woman hitter. Go on, 
hit me also, get some practice. Defiler of saints, blasphemer, devil, unclean." 
Saeed left the room without saying a word. 

The next day Mishal Akhtar insisted on returning to the city for a complete 
medical check-up. Saeed took a stand. "If you want to indulge in 
superstition, go, but don't expect me to come along. It's eight hours' drive 
each way; so, to hell with it." Mishal left that afternoon with her mother and 
the driver, and as a result Mirza Saeed was not where he should have been, 
that is, at his wife's side, when the results of the tests were communicated 
to her: positive, inoperable, too far advanced, the claws of the cancer dug in 
deeply throughout her chest. A few months, six if she was lucky, and before 
that, coming soon, the pain. Mishal returned to Peristan and went straight to 
her rooms in the zenana, where she wrote her husband a formal note on 
lavender stationery, telling him of the doctor's diagnosis. When he read her 
death sentence, written in her own hand, he wanted very badly to burst into 
tears, but his eyes remained obstinately dry. He had had no time for the 
Supreme Being for many years, but now a couple of Aycsha's phrases 
popped back into his mind. _God will save you. Everything will be given_. A 
bitter, superstitious notion occurred to him: "It is a curse," he thought. 
"Because I lusted after Ayesha, she has murdered my wife." 
When he went to the zenana, Mishal refused to see him, but her mother, 
barring the doorway, handed Saeed a second note on scented blue 
notepaper. "I want to see Ayesha," it read. "Kindly permit this." Bowing his 
head, Mirza Saeed gave his assent, and crept away in shame. 



0 0 0 

With Mahound, there is always a struggle; with the Imam, slavery; but with 
this girl, there is nothing. Gibreel is inert, usually asleep in the dream as he 
is in life. She comes upon him under a tree, or in a ditch, hears what he isn't 
saying, takes what she needs, and leaves. What does he know about cancer, 
for example? Not a solitary thing. 

All around him, he thinks as he half--dreams, half-wakes, are people hearing 
voices, being seduced by words. But not his; never his original material. -- 
Then whose? Who is whispering in their ears, enabling them to move 
mountains, halt clocks, diagnose disease? 
He can't work it out. 

ooo 

The day after Mishal Akhtar's return to Titlipur, the girl Ayesha, whom 
people were beginning to call a kahin, a pir, disappeared completely for a 
week. Her hapless admirer, Osman the clown, who had been following her at 
a distance along the dusty potato track to Chatnapatna, told the villagers 
that a breeze got up and blew dust into his eyes; when he got it out again 
she had "just gone". Usually, when Osman and his bullock started telling 
their tall tales about djinnis and magic lamps and open—sesames, the 
villagers looked tolerant and teased him, okay, Osman, save it for those 
idiots in Chatnapatna; they may fall for that stuff but here in Titlipur we 
know which way is up and that palaces do not appear unless a thousand and 
one labourers build them, nor do they disappear unless the same workers 
knock them down. On this occasion, however, nobody laughed at the clown, 
because where Ayesha was concerned the villagers were willing to believe 
anything. They had grown convinced that the snow-haired girl was the true 
successor to old Bibiji, because had the butterflies not reappeared in the 
year of her birth, and did they not follow her around like a cloak? Ayesha 
was the vindication of the longsoured hope engendered by the butterflies' 
return, and the evidence that great things were still possible in this life, even 
for the weakest and poorest in the land. 

"The angel has taken her away," marvelled the Sarpanch's wife Khadija, and 
Osman burst into tears. "But no, it is a wonderful thing," old Khadija 
uncomprehendingly explained. The villagers teased the Sarpanch: "How you 
got to be village headman with such a tactless spouse, beats us." 
"You chose me," he dourly replied. 

On the seventh day after her disappearance Ayesha was sighted walking 
towards the village, naked again and dressed in golden butterflies, her silver 
hair streaming behind her in the breeze. She went directly to the home of 
Sarpanch Muhammad Din and asked that the Titlipur panchayat be convened 
for an immediate emergency meeting. "The greatest event in the history of 
the tree has come upon us," she confided. Muhammad Din, unable to refuse 
her, fixed the time of the meeting for that evening, after dark. 



That night the panchayat members took their places on the usual branch of 
the tree, while Ayesha the kahin stood before them on the ground. "I have 
flown with the angel into the highest heights," she said. "Yes, even to the 
lote— tree of the uttermost end. The archangel, Gibreel: he has brought us a 
message which is also a command. Everything is required of us, and 
everything will be given." 

Nothing in the life of the Sarpanch Muhammad Din had prepared him for the 
choice he was about to face. "What does the angel ask, Ayesha, daughter?" 
he asked, fighting to steady his voice. 

"It is the angel's will that all of us, every man, and woman and child in the 
village, begin at once to prepare for a pilgrimage. We are commanded to 
walk from this place to Mecca Sharif, to kiss the Black Stone in the Ka"aba at 
the centre of the Haram Sharif, the sacred mosque. There we must surely 

go." 

Now the panchayat's quintet began to debate heatedly. There were the 
crops to consider, and the impossibility of abandoning their homes en masse. 
"It is not to be conceived of, child," the Sarpanch told her. "It is well known 
that Allah excuses haj and umra to those who are genuinely unable to go for 
reasons of poverty or health." But Ayesha remained silent and the elders 
continued to argue. Then it was as if her silence infected everyone else and 
for a long moment, in which the question was settled -- although by what 
means nobody ever managed to comprehend -- there were no words spoken 
at all. 

It was Osman the clown who spoke up at last, Osman the convert, for whom 
his new faith had been no more than a drink of water. "It's almost two 
hundred miles from here to the sea," he cried. "There are old ladies here, 
and babies. However can we go?" 

"God will give us the strength," Ayesha serenely replied. 
"Hasn't it occurred to you," Osman shouted, refusing to give up, "that 
there's a mighty ocean between us and Mecca Sharif? How will we ever cross? 
We have no money for the pilgrim boats. Maybe the angel will grow us wings, 
so we can fly?" 

Many villagers rounded angrily upon the blasphemer Osman. "Be quiet now," 
Sarpanch Muhammad Din rebuked him. "You haven't been long in our faith 
or our village. Keep your trap shut and learn our ways." 
Osman, however, answered cheekily, "So this is how you welcome new 
settlers. Not as equals, but as people who must do as they are told." A knot 
of red— faced men began to tighten around Osman, but before anything else 
could happen the kahin Ayesha changed the mood entirely by answering the 
clown's questions. 

"This, too, the angel has explained," she said quietly. "We will walk two 
hundred miles, and when we reach the shores of the sea, we will put our 
feet into the foam, and the waters will open for us. The waves shall be 
parted, and we shall walk across the ocean-floor to Mecca." 



0 0 0 

The next morning Mirza Saced Akhtar awoke in a house that had fallen 
unusually silent, and when he called for the servants there was no reply. The 
stillness had spread into the potato fields, too; but under the broad, 
spreading roof of the Titlipur tree all was hustle and bustle. The panchayat 
had voted unanimously to obey the command of the Archangel Gibreel, and 
the villagers had begun to prepare for departure. At first the Sarpanch had 
wanted the carpenter Isa to construct litters that could be pulled by oxen 
and on which the old and infirm could ride, but that idea had been knocked 
on the head by his own wife, who told him, "You don't listen, Sarpanch 
sahibji! Didn't the angel say we must walk? Well then, that is what we must 
do." Only the youngest of infants were to be excused the foot-pilgrimage, 
and they would be carried (it had been decided) on the backs of all the 
adults, in rotation. The villagers had pooled all their resources, and heaps of 
potatoes, lentils, rice, bitter gourds, chillies, aubergines and other 
vegetables were piling up next to the panchayat bough. The weight of the 
provisions was to be evenly divided between the walkers. Cooking utensils, 
too, were being gathered together, and whatever bedding could be found. 
Beasts of burden were to be taken, and a couple of carts carrying live 
chickens and such, but in general the pilgrims were under the Sarpanch's 
instructions to keep personal belongings to a minimum. Preparations had 
been under way since before dawn, so that by the time an incensed Mirza 
Saeed strode into the village, things were well advanced. For forty-five 
minutes the zamindar slowed things up by making angry speeches and 
shaking individual villagers by the shoulders, but then, fortunately, he gave 
up and left, so that the work could be continued at its former, rapid pace. As 
the Mirza departed he smacked his head repeatedly and called people names, 
such as Joonies, simpletons_, very bad words, but he had always been a 
godless man, the weak end of a strong line, and he had to be left to find his 
own fate; there was no arguing with men like him. 
By sunset the villagers were ready to depart, and the Sarpanch told 
everyone to rise for prayers in the small hours so that they could leave 
immediately afterwards and thus avoid the worst heat of the day. That night, 
lying down on his mat beside old Khadija, he murmured, "At last. I've 
always wanted to see the Ka"aba, to circle it before I die." She reached out 
from her mat to take his hand. "I, too, have hoped for it, against hope," she 
said. "We'll walk through the waters together." 

Mirza Saeed, driven into an impotent frenzy by the spectacle of the packing 
village, burst in on his wife without ceremony. "You should see what's going 
on, Mishu," he exclaimed, gesticulating absurdly. "The whole of Titlipur has 
taken leave of its brains, and is off to the seaside. What is to happen to their 
homes, their fields? There is ruination in store. Must be political agitators 
involved. Someone has been bribing someone. — Do you think if I offered 



cash they would stay here like sane persons?" His voice dried. Ayesha was in 
the room. 

"You bitch," he cursed her. She was sitting cross—legged on the bed while 
Mishal and her mother squatted on the floor, sorting through their 
belongings and working out how little they could manage with on the 
pilgrimage. 

"You're not going," Mirza Saeed ranted."! forbid it, the devil alone knows 
what germ this whore has infected the villagers with, but you are my wife 
and I refuse to let you embark upon this suicidal venture." 
"Good words," Mishal laughed bitterly. "Saeed, good choice of words. You 
know I can't live but you talk about suicide. Saeed, a thing is happening 
here, and you with your imported European atheism don't know what it is. 
Or maybe you would if you looked beneath your English suitings and tried to 
locate your heart." 

"It's incredible," Saeed cried. "Mishal, Mishu, is this you? All of a sudden 

you've turned into this God-bothered type from ancient history?" 

Mrs. Qureishi said, "Go away, son. No room for unbelievers here. The angel 

has told Ayesha that when Mishal completes the pilgrimage to Mecca her 

cancer will have disappeared. Everything is required and everything will be 

given." 

Mirza Saeed Akhtar put his palms against a wall of his wife's bedroom and 
pressed his forehead against the plaster. After a long pause he said: "If it is 
a question of performing umra then for God's sake let's go to town and catch 
a plane. We can be in Mecca within a couple of days." 
Mishal answered, "We are commanded to walk." 

Saeed lost control of himself. "Mishal? Mishal?" he shrieked. "Commanded? 
Archangels, Mishu? _Gibreel?_ God with a long beard and angels with wings? 
Heaven and hell, Mishal? The Devil with a pointy tail and cloven hoofs? How 
far are you going with this? Do women have souls, what do you say? Or the 
other way: do souls have gender? Is God black or white? When the waters of 
the ocean part, where will the extra water go? Will it stand up sideways like 
walls? Mishal? Answer me. Are there miracles? Do you believe in Paradise? 
Will I be forgiven my sins?" He began to cry, and fell on to his knees, with 
his forehead still pressed against the wall. His dying wife came up and 
embraced him from behind. "Go with the pilgrimage, then," he said, dully. 
"But at least take the Mercedes station wagon. It's got air-conditioning and 
you can take the icebox full of Cokes." 

"No," she said, gently. "We'll go like everybody else. We're pilgrims, Saeed. 
This isn't a picnic at the beach." 

"I don't know what to do," Mirza Saeed Akhtar wept. "Mishu, I can't handle 
this by myself." 

Ayesha spoke from the bed. "Mirza sahib, come with us," she said. "Your 
ideas are finished with. Come and save your soul." 



Saeed stood up, red-eyed. "A bloody outing you wanted," he said viciously 
to Mrs. Qureishi. "That chicken certainly came home to roost. Your outing 
will finish off the lot of us, seven generations, the whole bang shoot." 
Mishal leaned her cheek against his back. "Come with us, Saeed. Just 
come." 

He turned to face Ayesha. "There is no God," he said firmly. 
"There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet," she replied. 
"The mystical experience is a subjective, not an objective truth," he went on. 
"The waters will not open." 

"The sea will part at the angel's command," Ayesha answered. 
"You are leading these people into certain disaster." 
"I am taking them into the bosom of God." 

"I don't believe in you," Mirza Saeed insisted. "But I'm going to come, and 
will try to end this insanity with every step I take." 
"God chooses many means," Ayesha rejoiced, "many roads by which the 
doubtful may be brought into his certainty." 

"Go to hell," shouted Mirza Saeed Akhtar, and ran, scattering butterflies, 
from the room. 

ooo 

"Who is the madder," Osman the clown whispered into his bullock's ear as 
he groomed it in its small byre, "the madwoman, or the fool who loves the 
madwoman?" The bullock didn't reply. "Maybe we should have stayed 
untouchable," Osman continued. "A compulsory ocean sounds worse than a 
forbidden well." And the bullock nodded, twice for yes, boom, boom. 



V A City Visible but Unseen 



1 

"_Once I'm an owl, what is the spell or antidote for turning me back into 
myself?_" Mr. Muhammad Sufyan, prop. Shaandaar Cafe and landlord of the 
rooming-house above, mentor to the variegated, transient and particoloured 
inhabitants of both, seen-it-all type, least doctrinaire of hajis and most 
unashamed of V C R addicts, ex-schoolteacher, self-taught in classical texts 
of many cultures, dismissed from post in Dhaka owing to cultural differences 
with certain generals in the old days when Bangladesh was merely an East 
Wing, and therefore, in his own words, "not so much an immig as an emig 
runt" -- this last a good-natured allusion to his lack of inches, for though he 
was a wide man, thick of arm and waist, he stood no more than sixtyone 
inches off the ground, blinked in his bedroom doorway, awakened by Jumpy 
Joshi's urgent midnight knock, polished his half--rimmed spectacles on the 
edge of Bengali-style kurta (drawstrings tied at the neck in a neat bow), 
squeezed lids tightly shut open shut over myopic eyes, replaced glasses, 
opened eyes, stroked moustacheless hennaed beard, sucked teeth, and 
responded to the now-indisputable horns on the brow of the shivering fellow 
whom Jumpy, like the cat, appeared to have dragged in, with the above 
impromptu quip, stolen, with commendable mental alacrity for one aroused 
from his slumbers, from Lucius Apuleius of Madaura, Moroccan priest, AD 
120--180 approx., colonial of an earlier Empire, a person who denied the 
accusation of having bewitched a rich widow yet confessed, somewhat 
perversely, that at an early stage in his career he had been transformed, by 
witchcraft, into (not an owl, but) an ass. "Yes, yes," Sufyan continued, 
stepping out into the passage and blowing a white mist of winter breath into 
his cupped hands, "Poor misfortunate, but no point wallowing. Constructive 
attitude must be adopted. I will wake my wife." 

Chamcha was beard-fuzz and grime. He wore a blanket like a toga below 
which there protruded the comic deformity of goats' hoofs, while above it 
could be seen the sad comedy of a sheepskin jacket borrowed from Jumpy, 
its collar turned up, so that sheepish curls nestled only inches from pointy 
billy-goat horns. He seemed incapable of speech, sluggish of body, dull of 
eye; even though Jumpy attempted to encourage him — "There, you see, 
we'll have this well sorted in a flash" -- he, Saladin, remained the most limp 
and passive of -- what? -- let us say: satyrs. Sufyan, meanwhile, offered 
further Apuleian sympathy. "In the case of the ass, reverse metamorphosis 
required personal intervention of goddess Isis," he beamed. "But old times 
are for old fogies. In your instance, young mister, first step would possibly 
be a bowl of good hot soup." 



At this point his kindly tones were quite drowned by the intervention of a 
second voice, raised high in operatic terror; moments after which, his small 
form was being jostled and shoved by the mountainous, fleshy figure of a 
woman, who seemed unable to decide whether to push him out of her way 
or keep him before her as a protective shield. Crouching behind Sufyan, this 
new being extended a trembling arm at whose end was a quivering, pudgy, 
scarlet-nailed index finger. "That over there," she howled. "What thing is 
come upon us?" 

"It is a friend of Joshi's," Sufyan said mildly, and continued, turning to 
Chamcha, "Please forgive, -- the unexpectedness et cet, isn't it? — Anyhow, 
may I present my Mrs; -- my Begum Sahiba, -- Hind." 

"What friend? How friend?" the croucher cried. "Ya Allah, eyes aren't next to 
your nose?" 

The passageway, -- bare-board floor, torn floral paper on the walls, -- was 
starting to fill up with sleepy residents. Prominent among whom were two 
teenage girls, one spike-haired, the other pony-tailed, and both relishing the 
opportunity to demonstrate their skills (learned from Jumpy) in the martial 
arts of karate and Wing Chun: Sufyan's daughters, Mishal (seventeen) and 
fifteenyear-old Anahita, leapt from their bedroom in fighting gear, Bruce Lee 
pajamas worn loosely over T-shirts bearing the image of the new Madonna; 
-- caught sight of unhappy Saladin; -- and shook their heads in wide-eyed 
delight. 

"Radical," said Mishal, approvingly. And her sister nodded assent: "Crucial. 
Fucking A." Her mother did not, however, reproach her for her language; 
Hind's mind was elsewhere, and she wailed louder than ever: "Look at this 
husband of mine. What sort of haji is this? Here is Shaitan himself walking in 
through our door, and I am made to offer him hot chicken yakhni, cooked by 
my own right hand." 

Useless, now, forJumpyJoshi to plead with Hind for tolerance, to attempt 
explanations and demand solidarity. "If he's not the devil on earth," the 
heaving-chested lady pointed out unanswerably, "from where that plague- 
breath comes that he's breathing? From, maybe, the Perfumed Garden?" 
"Not Gulistan, but Bostan," said Chamcha, suddenly. "AI Flight 420." On 
hearing his voice, however, Hind squealed frightfully, and plunged past him, 
heading for the kitchen. 

"Mister," Mishal said to Saladin as her mother fled downstairs, "anyone who 
scares her that way has got to be seriously _bad_." 
"Wicked," Anahita agreed. "Welcome aboard." 

ooo 

This Hind, now so firmly entrenched in exclamatory mode, had once been -- 
strangebuttrue! -- the most blushing of brides, the soul of gentleness, the 
very incarnation of tolerant good humour. As the wife of the erudite 
schoolteacher of Dhaka, she had entered into her duties with a will, the 
perfect helpmeet, bringing her husband cardamom-scented tea when he 



stayed up late marking examination papers, ingratiating herself with the 
school principal at the termly Staff Families Outing, struggling with the 
novels of Bibhutibhushan Banerji and the metaphysics of Tagore in an 
attempt to be more worthy of a spouse who could quote effortlessly from 
Rig--Veda as well as Quran—Sharif, from the military accounts of Julius 
Caesar as well as the Revelations of St John the Divine. In those days she 
had admired his pluralistic openness of mind, and struggled, in her kitchen, 
towards a parallel eclecticism, learning to cook the dosas and uttapams of 
South India as well as the soft meatballs of Kashmir. Gradually her espousal 
of the cause of gastronomic pluralism grew into a grand passion, and while 
secularist Sufyan swallowed the multiple cultures of the subcontinent -- "and 
let us not pretend that Western culture is not present; after these centuries, 
how could it not also be part of our heritage?" -- his wife cooked, and ate in 
increasing quantities, its food. As she devoured the highly spiced dishes of 
Hyderabad and the high-faluting yoghurt sauces of Lucknow her body began 
to alter, because all that food had to find a home somewhere, and she began 
to resemble the wide rolling land mass itself, the subcontinent without 
frontiers, because food passes across any boundary you care to mention. 
Mr. Muhammad Sufyan, however, gained no weight: not a _tola_, not an 
_ounce_. 

His refusal to fatten was the beginning of the trouble. When she reproached 
him -- "You don't like my cooking? For whom I'm doing it all and blowing up 
like a balloon?" -- he answered, mildly, looking up at her (she was the taller 
of the two) over the top of half-rimmed specs: "Restraint is also part of our 
traditions, Begum. Eating two mouthfuls less than one's hunger: self-denial, 
the ascetic path." What a man: all the answers, but you couldn't get him to 
give you a decent fight. 

Restraint was not for Hind. Maybe, if Sufyan had ever complained; if just 
once he'd said, _I thought I was marrying one woman but these days you're 
big enough for two_; if he'd ever given her the incentive! -- then maybe 
she'd have desisted, why not, of course she would; so it was his fault, for 
having no aggression, what kind of a male was it who didn't know how to 
insult his fat lady wife? -- In truth, it was entirely possible that Hind would 
have failed to control her eating binges even if Sufyan had come up with the 
required imprecations and entreaties; but, since he did not, she munched on, 
content to dump the whole blame for her figure on him. 
As a matter of fact, once she had started blaming him for things, she found 
that there were a number of other matters she could hold against him; and 
found, too, her tongue, so that the schoolteacher's humble apartment 
resounded regularly to the kinds of tickings-off he was too much of a mouse 
to hand out to his pupils. Above all, he was berated for his excessively high 
principles, thanks to which, Hind told him, she knew he would never permit 
her to become a rich man's wife; -- for what could one say about a man who, 
finding that his bank had inadvertently credited his salary to his account 



twice in the same month, promptly _drew the institution's notice_ to the 
error and handed back the cash?; -- what hope was there for a teacher who, 
when approached by the wealthiest of the schoolchildren's parents, flatly 
refused to contemplate accepting the usual remunerations in return for 
services rendered when marking the little fellows' examination papers? 
"But all of that I could forgive," she would mutter darkly at him, leaving 
unspoken the rest of the sentence, which was _if it hadn't been for your two 
real offences: your sexual, and political, crimes_. 

Ever since their marriage, the two of them had performed the sexual act 
infrequently, in total darkness, pin-drop silence and almost complete 
immobility. It would not have occurred to Hind to wiggle or wobble, and 
since Sufyan appeared to get through it all with an absolute minimum of 
motion, she took it — had always taken it -- that the two of them were of 
the same mind on this matter, viz., that it was a dirty business, not to be 
discussed before or after, and not to be drawn attention to during, either. 
That the children took their time in coming she took as God's punishment for 
He only knew what misdeeds of her earlier life; that they both turned out to 
be girls she refused to blame on Allah, preferring, instead, to blame the 
weakling seed implanted in her by her unmanly spouse, an attitude she did 
not refrain from expressing, with great emphasis, and to the horror of the 
midwife, at the very moment of little Anahita's birth. "Another girl," she 
gasped in disgust. "Well, considering who made the baby, I should think 
myself lucky it's not a cockroach, or a mouse." After this second daughter 
she told Sufyan that enough was enough, and ordered him to move his bed 
into the hail. He accepted without any argument her refusal to have more 
children; but then she discovered that the lecher thought he could still, from 
time to time, enter her darkened room and enact that strange rite of silence 
and near-motionlessness to which she had only submitted in the name of 
reproduction. "What do you think," he shouted at him the first time he tried 
it, "I do this thing for fun?" 

Once he had got it through his thick skull that she meant business, no more 
hanky-panky, no sir, she was a decent woman, not a lust--crazed libertine, 
he began to stay out late at night. It was during this period -- she had 
thought, mistakenly, that he was visiting prostitutes -- that he became 
involved with politics, and not just any old politics, either, oh no, Mister 
Brainbox had to go and join the devils themselves, the Communist Party, no 
less, so much for those principles of his; demons, that's what they were, 
worse by far than whores. It was because of this dabbling in the occult that 
she had to pack up her bags at such short notice and leave for England with 
two small babies in tow; because of this ideological witchcraft that she had 
had to endure all the privations and humiliations of the process of 
immigration; and on account of this diabolism of his that she was stuck 
forever in this England and would never see her village again. "England," she 
once said to him, "is your revenge upon me for preventing you from 



performing your obscene acts upon my body." He had not given an answer; 
and silence denotes assent. 

And what was it that made them a living in this Vilayet of her exile, this 
Yuke of her sex-obsessed husband's vindictiveness? What? His book learning? 
His _Gitanjali_, _Eclogues_, or that play _Othello_ that he explained was 
really Attallah or Attaullah except the writer couldn't spell, what sort of 
writer was that, anyway? 

It was: her cooking. "Shaandaar," it was praised. "Outstanding, brilliant, 
delicious." People came from all over London to eat her samosas, her 
Bombay chaat, her gulab jamans straight from Paradise. What was there for 
Sufyan to do? Take the money, serve the tea, run from here to there, 
behave like a servant for all his education. O, yes, of course the customers 
liked his personality, he always had an appealing character, but when you're 
running an eatery it isn't the conversation they pay for on the bill. Jalebis, 
barfi, Special of the Day. How life had turned out! She was the mistress now. 
Victory! 

And yet it was also a fact that she, cook and breadwinner, chiefest architect 
of the success of the Shaandaar Cafe, which had finally enabled them to buy 
the whole four-storey building and start renting out its rooms, -- _she_ was 
the one around whom there hung, like bad breath, the miasma of defeat. 
While Sufyan twinkled on, she looked extinguished, like a lightbulb with a 
broken filament, like a fizzled star, like a flame. -- Why? -- Why, when 
Sufyan, who had been deprived of vocation, pupils and respect, bounded 
about like a young lamb, and even began to put on weight, fattening up in 
Proper London as he had never done back home; why, when power had 
been removed from his hands and delivered into hers, did she act -- as her 
husband put it -- the "sad sack", the "glum chum" and the "moochy pooch"? 
Simple: not in spite of, but on account of. Everything she valued had been 
upset by the change; had in this process of translation, been lost. 
Her language: obliged, now, to emit these alien sounds that made her 
tongue feel tired, was she not entitled to moan? Her familiar place: what 
matter that they had lived, in Dhaka, in a teacher's humble flat, and now, 
owing to entrepreneurial good sense, savings and skill with spices, occupied 
this four--storey terraced house? Where now was the city she knew? Where 
the village of her youth and the green waterways of home? The customs 
around which she had built her life were lost, too, or at least were hard to 
find. Nobody in this Vilayet had time for the slow courtesies of life back 
home, or for the many observances of faith. Furthermore: was she not 
forced to put up with a husband of no account, whereas before she could 
bask in his dignified position? Where was the pride in being made to work for 
her living, for his living, whereas before she could sit at home in much- 
befitting pomp? -- And she knew, how could she not, the sadness beneath 
his bonhomie, and that, too, was a defeat; never before had she felt so 
inadequate as a wife, for what kind of a Mrs. is it that cannot cheer up her 



man, but must observe the counterfeit of happiness and make do, as if it 
were the genuine McCoy? -- Plus also: they had come into a demon city in 
which anything could happen, your windows shattered in the middle of the 
night without any cause, you were knocked over in the street by invisible 
hands, in the shops you heard such abuse you felt like your ears would drop 
off but when you turned in the direction of the words you saw only empty air 
and smiling faces, and every day you heard about this boy, that girl, beaten 
up by ghosts. -- Yes, a land of phantom imps, how to explain; best thing 
was to stay home, not go out for so much as to post a letter, stay in, lock 
the door, say your prayers, and the goblins would (maybe) stay away. -- 
Reasons for defeat? Baba, who could count them? Not only was she a 
shopkeeper's wife and a kitchen slave, but even her own people could not be 
relied on; -- there were men she thought of as respectable types, sharif, 
giving telephone divorces to wives back home and running off with some 
haramzadi female, and girls killed for dowry (some things could be brought 
through the foreign customs without duty); -- and worst of all, the poison of 
this devil-island had infected her baby girls, who were growing up refusing 
to speak their mothertongue, even though they understood every word, they 
did it just to hurt; and why else had Mishal cut off all her hair and put 
rainbows into it; and every day it was fight, quarrel, disobey, -- and worst of 
all, there was not one new thing about her complaints, this is how it was for 
women like her, so now she was no longer just one, just herself, just Hind 
wife of teacher Sufyan; she had sunk into the anonymity, the characterless 
plurality, of being merely one-of-the-women--like-her. This was history's 
lesson: nothing for women-like-her to do but suffer, remember, and die. 
What she did: to deny her husband's weakness, she treated him, for the 
most part, like a lord, like a monarch, for in her lost world her glory had lain 
in his; to deny the ghosts outside the cafe, she stayed indoors, sending 
others out for kitchen provisions and household necessities, and also for the 
endless supply of Bengali and Hindi movies on V C R through which (along 
with her ever-increasing hoard of Indian movie magazines) she could stay in 
touch with events in the "real world", such as the bizarre disappearance of 
the incomparable Gibreel Farishta and the subsequent tragic announcement 
of his death in an airline accident; and to give her feelings of defeated, 
exhausted despair some outlet, she shouted at her daughters. The elder of 
whom, to get her own back, hacked off her hair and permitted her nipples to 
poke through shirts worn provocatively tight. 

The arrival of a fully developed devil, a horned goat-man, was, in the light of 
the foregoing, something very like the last, or at any rate the penultimate, 
straw. 

ooo 

Shaandaar residents gathered in the night—kitchen for an impromptu crisis 
summit. While Hind hurled imprecations into chicken soup, Sufyan placed 
Chamcha at a table, drawing up, for the poor fellow's use, an aluminium 



chair with a blue plastic seat, and initiated the night's proceedings. The 
theories of Lamarck, I am pleased to report, were quoted by the exiled 
schoolteacher, who spoke in his best didactic voice. When Jumpy had 
recounted the unlikely story of Chamcha's fall from the sky — the 
protagonist himself being too immersed in chicken soup and misery to speak 
for himself-- Sufyan, sucking teeth, made reference to the last edition of 
_The Origin of Species_. "In which even great Charles accepted the notion of 
mutation in extremis, to ensure survival of species; so what if his followers - 
- always more Darwinian than man himselfl -- repudiated, posthumously, 
such Lamarckian heresy, insisting on natural selection and nothing but, -- 
however, I am bound to admit, such theory is not extended to survival of 
individual specimen but only to species as a whole; -- in addition, regarding 
nature of mutation, problem is to comprehend actual utility of the change." 
"Da-ad," Anahita Sufyan, eyes lifting to heaven, cheek lying ho-hum against 
palm, interrupted these cogitations. "Give over. Point is, how'd he turn into 
such a, such a," -- admiringly -- "freak?" 

Upon which, the devil himself, looking up from chicken soup, cried out, "No, 
I'm not. I'm not a freak, O no, certainly I am not." His voice, seeming to rise 
from an unfathomable abyss of grief, touched and alarmed the younger girl, 
who rushed over to where he sat, and, impetuously caressing a shoulder of 
the unhappy beast, said, in an attempt to make amends: "Of course you 
aren't, I'm sorry, of course I don't think you're a freak; it's just that you look 
like one." 

Saladin Chamcha burst into tears. 

Mrs. Sufyan, meanwhile, had been horrified by the sight of her younger 
daughter actually laying hands on the creature, and turning to the gallery of 
nightgowned residents she waved a soup-ladle at them and pleaded for 
support. "How to tolerate? -- Honour, safety of young girls cannot be 
assured. -- That in my own house, such a thing. ..!" 
Mishal Sufyan lost patience. "Jesus, Mum." 
"_Jesus?_" 

"Dju think it's temporary?" Mishal, turning her back on scandalized Hind, 
inquired of Sufyan and Jumpy. "Some sort of possession thing -- could we 
maybe get it you know _exorcized?_" Omens, shinings, ghoulies, nightmares 
on Elm Street, stood excitedly in her eyes, and her father, as much the V C 
R aficionado as any teenager, appeared to consider the possibility seriously. 
"In _Der Steppenwolf_," he began, but Jumpy wasn't having any more of 
that. "The central requirement," he announced, "is to take an ideological 
view of the situation." 
That silenced everyone. 

"Objectively," he said, with a small self—deprecating smile, "what has 
happened here? A: Wrongful arrest, intimidation, violence. Two: Illegal 
detention, unknown medical experimentation in hospital," -- murmurs of 
assent here, as memories of intra-vaginal inspections, Depo-Provera 



scandals, unauthorized post-partum sterilizations, and, further back, the 
knowledge of Third World drug-dumping arose in every person present to 
give substance to the speaker's insinuations, -- because what you believe 
depends on what you've seen, -- not only what is visible, but what you are 
prepared to look in the face, -- and anyhow, something had to explain horns 
and hoofs; in those policed medical wards, anything could happen -- "And 
thirdly," Jumpy continued, "psychological breakdown, loss of sense of self, 
inability to cope. We've seen it all before." 

Nobody argued, not even Hind; there were some truths from which it was 
impossible to dissent. "Ideologically," Jumpy said, "I refuse to accept the 
position of victim. Certainly, he has been victim _ized_, but we know that all 
abuse of power is in part the responsibility of the abused; our passiveness 
colludes with, permits such crimes." Whereupon, having scolded the 
gathering into shamefaced submission, he requested Sufyan to make 
available the small attic room that was presently unoccupied, and Sufyan, in 
his turn, was rendered entirely unable, by feelings of solidarity and guilt, to 
ask for a single p in rent. Hind did, it is true, mumble: "Now I know the 
world is mad, when a devil becomes my house guest," but she did so under 
her breath, and nobody except her elder daughter Mishal heard what she 
said. 

Sufyan, taking his cue from his younger daughter, went up to where 
Chamcha, huddled in his blanket, was drinking enormous quantities of Hind's 
unrivalled chicken yakhni, squatted down, and placed an arm around the 
still-shivering unfortunate. "Best place for you is here," he said, speaking as 
if to a simpleton or small child. "Where else would you go to heal your 
disfigurements and recover your normal health? Where else but here, with 
us, among your own people, your own kind?" 

Only when Saladin Chamcha was alone in the attic room at the very end of 
his strength did he answer Sufyan's rhetorical question. "I'm not your kind," 
he said distinctly into the night. "You're not my people. I've spent half my 
life trying to get away from you." 
ooo 

His heart began to misbehave, to kick and stumble as if it, too, wanted to 
metamorphose into some new, diabolic form, to substitute the complex 
unpredictability of tabla improvisations for its old metronomic beat. Lying 
sleepless in a narrow bed, snagging his horns in bedsheets and pillowcases 
as he tossed and turned, he suffered the renewal of coronary eccentricity 
with a kind of fatalistic acceptance: if everything else, then why not this, too? 
Badoomboom, went the heart, and his torso jerked. _Watch it or I'll really 
let you have it. Doomboombadoom_. Yes: this was Hell, all right. The city of 
London, transformed into Jahannum, Gehenna, Muspellheim. 
Do devils suffer in Hell? Aren't they the ones with the pitchforks? 
Water began to drip steadily through the dormer window. Outside, in the 
treacherous city, a thaw had come, giving the streets the unreliable 



consistency of wet cardboard. Slow masses of whiteness slid from sloping, 
grey-slate roofs. The footprints of delivery vans corrugated the slush. First 
light; and the dawn chorus began, chattering of road--drills, chirrup of 
burglar alarms, trumpeting of wheeled creatures clashing at corners, the 
deep whirr of a large olive—green garbage eater, screaming radio—voices 
from a wooden painter's cradle clinging to the upper storey of a Free House, 
roar of the great wakening juggernauts rushing awesomely down this long 
but narrow pathway. From beneath the earth came tremors denoting the 
passage of huge subterranean worms that devoured and regurgitated human 
beings, and from the skies the thrum of choppers and the screech of higher, 
gleaming birds. 

The sun rose, unwrapping the misty city like a gift. Saladin Chamcha slept. 
Which afforded him no respite: but returned him, rather, to that other night- 
street down which, in the company of the physiotherapist Hyacinth Phillips, 
he had fled towards his destiny, clip-clop, on unsteady hoofs; and reminded 
him that, as captivity receded and the city drew nearer, Hyacinth's face and 
body had seemed to change. He saw the gap opening and widening between 
her central upper incisors, and the way her hair knotted and plaited itself 
into medusas, and the strange triangularity of her profile, which sloped 
outwards from her hairline to the tip of her nose, swung about and headed 
in an unbroken line inwards to her neck. He saw in the yellow light that her 
skin was growing darker by the minute, and her teeth more prominent, and 
her body as long as a child's stick-figure drawing. At the same time she was 
casting him glances of an ever more explicit lechery, and grasping his hand 
in fingers so bony and inescapable that it was as though a skeleton had 
seized him and was trying to drag him down into a grave; he could smell the 
freshly dug earth, the cloying scent of it, on her breath, on her lips . . . 
revulsion seized him. How could he ever have thought her attractive, even 
desired her, even gone so far as to fantasize, while she straddled him and 
pummelled fluid from his lungs, that they were lovers in the violent throes of 
sexual congress? . . . The city thickened around them like a forest; the 
buildings twined together and grew as matted as her hair. "No light can get 
in here," she whispered to him. "It's black; all black." She made as if to lie 
down and pull him towards her, towards the earth, but he shouted, "Quick, 
the church," and plunged into an unprepossessing box-like building, seeking 
more than one kind of sanctuary. Inside, however, the pews were full of 
Hyacinths, young and old, Hyacinths wearing shapeless blue two— piece suits, 
false pearls, and little pill— box hats decked out with bits of gauze, Hyacinths 
wearing virginal white nightgowns, every imaginable form of Hyacinth, all 
singing loudly, _Fix me, Jesus_; until they saw Chamcha, quit their spir— 
itualling, and commenced to bawl in a most unspiritual manner, _Satan, the 
Goat, the Goat_, and suchlike stuff. Now it became clear that the Hyacinth 
with whom he'd entered was looking at him with new eyes, just the way he'd 
looked at her in the street; that she, too, had started seeing something that 



made her feel pretty sick; and when he saw the disgust on that hideously 
pointy and clouded face he just let rip. "_Hubshees_," he cursed them in, for 
some reason, his discarded mother-tongue. Troublemakers and savages, he 
called them. "I feel sorry for you," he pronounced. "Every morning you have 
to look at yourself in the mirror and see, staring back, the darkness: the 
stain, the proof that you're the lowest of the low." They rounded upon him 
then, that congregation of Hyacinths, his own Hyacinth now lost among 
them, indistinguishable, no longer an individual but a woman-likethem, and 
he was being beaten frightfully, emitting a piteous bleating noise, running in 
circles, looking for a way out; until he realized that his assailants' fear was 
greater than their wrath, and he rose up to his full height, spread his arms, 
and screamed devilsounds at them, sending them scurrying for cover, 
cowering behind pews, as he strode bloody but unbowed from the battlefield. 
Dreams put things in their own way; but Chamcha, coming briefly awake as 
his heartbeat skipped into a new burst of syncopations, was bitterly aware 
that the nightmare had not been so very far from the truth; the spirit, at 
least, was right. -- That was the last of Hyacinth, he thought, and faded 
away again. -- To find himself shivering in the hail of his own home while, on 
a higher plane, Jumpy Joshi argued fiercely with Pamela. _With my wife_. 
And when dream-Pamela, echoing the real one word for word, had rejected 
her husband a hundred and one times, _he doesn't exist, it, such things are 
not so_, it was Jamshed the virtuous who, setting aside love and desire, 
helped. Leaving behind a weeping Pamela -- _Don't you dare bring that back 
here_, she shouted from the top floor -- from Saladin's den -- Jumpy, 
wrapping Chamcha in sheepskin and blanket, led enfeebled through the 
shadows to the Shaandaar Cafe, promising with empty kindness: "It'll be all 
right. You'll see. It'll all be fine." 

When Saladin Chamcha awoke, the memory of these words filled him with a 
bitter anger. Where's Farishta, he found himself thinking. That bastard: I bet 
he's doing okay. -- It was a thought to which he would return, with 
extraordinary results; for the moment, however, he had other fish to fry. 
I am the incarnation of evil, he thought. He had to face it. However it had 
happened, it could not be denied. I am _no longer myself_, or not only. I am 
the embodiment of wrong, of whatwe--hate, of sin. 
Why? Why me? 

What evil had he done -- what vile thing could he, would he do? 
For what was he -- he couldn't avoid the notion -- being punished? And, 
come to that, by whom? (I held my tongue.) Had he not pursued his own 
idea of _the good_, sought to become that which he most admired, 
dedicated himself with a will bordering on obsession to the conquest of 
Englishness? Had he not worked hard, avoided trouble, striven to become 
new? Assiduity, fastidiousness, moderation, restraint, self—reliance, probity, 
family life: what did these add up to if not a moral code? Was it his fault that 
Pamela and he were childless? Were genetics his responsibility? Could it be, 



in this inverted age, that he was being victimized by -- the fates, he agreed 
with himself to call the persecuting agency -- precisely _because of_ his 
pursuit of "the good"? -- That nowadays such a pursuit was considered 
wrong-headed, even evil? -- Then how cruel these fates were, to instigate 
his rejection by the very world he had so determinedly courted; how 
desolating, to be cast from the gates of the city one believed oneself to have 
taken long ago! -- What mean small-mindedness was this, to cast him back 
into the bosom of _his people_, from whom he'd felt so distant for so long! - 
- Here thoughts of Zeeny Vakil welled up, and guiltily, nervously, he forced 
them down again. 

His heart kicked him violently, and he sat up, doubled over, gasped for 
breath. _Calm down, or it's curtains. No place for such stressful cogitations: 
not any more_. He took deep breaths; lay back; emptied his mind. The 
traitor in his chest resumed normal service. 

No more of that, Saladin Chamcha told himself firmly. No more of thinking 
myself evil. Appearances deceive; the cover is not the best guide to the 
book. Devil, Goat, Shaitan? Not I. 
Not I: another. 
Who? 

ooo 

Mishal and Anahita arrived with breakfast on a tray and excitement all over 
their faces. Chamcha devoured cornflakes and Nescafe while the girls, after 
a few moments of shyness, gabbled at him, simultaneously, non--stop. "Well, 
you've set the place buzzing and no mistake." -- "You haven't gone and 
changed back in the night or anything?" -- "Listen, it's not a trick, is it? I 
mean, it's not make-up or something theatrical? -- I mean, Jumpy says 
you're an actor, and I only thought, -- I mean," and here young Anahita 
dried up, because Chamcha, spewing cornflakes, howled angrily: "Make--up? 
Theatrical? _Trick?_" 

"No offence," Mishal said anxiously on her sister's behalf. "It's just we've 
been thinking, know what I mean, and well it'd just be awful if you weren't, 
but you are, "course you are, so that's all right," she finished hastily as 
Chamcha glared at her again. -- "Thing is," Anahita resumed, and then, 
faltering, "Mean to say, well, we just think it's great." -- "You, she means," 
Mishal corrected. "We think you're, you know." -- "Brilliant," Anahita said 
and dazzled the bewildered Chamcha with a smile. "Magic. You know. 
_Extreme_." 

"We didn't sleep all night," Mishal said. "We've got ideas." 

"What we reckoned," Anahita trembled with the thrill of it, "as you've turned 

into, — what you are, — then maybe, well, probably, actually, even if you 

haven't tried it out, it could be, you could..." And the older girl finished the 

thought: "You could've developed — you know -- _powers_." 

"We thought, anyway," Anahita added, weakly, seeing the clouds gathering 

on Chamcha's brow. And, backing towards the door, added: "But we're 



probably wrong. -- Yeh. We're wrong all right. Enjoy your meal." -- Mishal, 
before she fled, took a small bottle full of green fluid out of a pocket of her 
red-andblack-check donkey jacket, put it on the floor by the door, and 
delivered the following parting shot. "O, excuse me, but Mum says, can you 
use this, it's mouthwash, for your breath." 

ooo 

That Mishal and Anahita should adore the disfiguration which he loathed with 
all his heart convinced him that "his people" were as crazily wrong-headed 
as he'd long suspected. That the two of them should respond to his 
bitterness -- when, on his second attic morning, they brought him a masala 
dosa instead of packet cereal complete with toy silver spacemen, and he 
cried out, ungratefully: "Now I'm supposed to eat this filthy foreign food?" -- 
with expressions of sympathy, made matters even worse. "Sawful muck," 
Mishal agreed with him. "No bangers in here, worse luck." Conscious of 
having insulted their hospitality, he tried to explain that he thought of 
himself, nowadays, as, well, British. . . "What about us?" Anahita wanted to 
know. "What do you think we are?" -- And Mishal confided: "Bangladesh in't 
nothing to me. Just some place Dad and Mum keep banging on about." -- 
And Anahita, conclusively: "Bungleditch." — With a satisfied nod. -- "What I 
call it, anyhow." 

But they weren't British, he wanted to tell them: not _really_, not in any 
way he could recognize. And yet his old certainties were slipping away by 
the moment, along with his old life. . . "Where's the telephone?" he 
demanded. "I've got to make some calls." 

It was in the hall; Anahita, raiding her savings, lent him the coins. His head 
wrapped in a borrowed turban, his body concealed in borrowed trousers 
(Jumpy"s) and Mishal's shoes, Chamcha dialled the past. 
"Chamcha," said the voice of Mimi Mamoulian. "You're dead." 
This happened while he was away: Mimi blacked out and lost her teeth. "A 
whiteout is what it was," she told him, speaking more harshly than usual 
because of difficulty with her jaw. "A reason why? Don't ask. Who can ask 
for reason in these times? What's your number?" she added as the pips went. 
"I'll call you right back." But it was a full five minutes before she did. "I took 
a leak. You have a reason why you're alive? Why the waters parted for you 
and the other guy but closed over the rest? Don't tell me you were worthier. 
People don't buy that nowadays, not even you, Chamcha. I was walking 
down Oxford Street looking for crocodile shoes when it happened: out cold in 
mid-stride and I fell forward like a tree, landed on the point of my chin and 
all the teeth fell out on the sidewalk in front of the man doing findthe-lady. 
People can be thoughtful, Chamcha. When I came to I found my teeth in a 
little pile next to my face. I opened my eyes and saw the little bastards 
staring at me, wasn't that nice? First thing I thought, thank God, I've got the 
money. I had them stitched back in, privately of course, great job, better 
than before. So I've been taking a break for a while. The voiceover business 



is in bad shape, let me tell you, what with you dying and my teeth, we just 
have no sense of responsibility. Standards have been lowered, Chamcha. 
Turn on the TV, listen to radio, you should hear how corny the pizza 
commercials, the beer ads with the Cherman accents from Central Casting, 
the Martians eating potato powder and sounding like they came from the 
Moon. They fired us from _The Aliens Show_. Get well soon. Incidentally, 
you might say the same for me." 

So he had lost work as well as wife, home, a grip on life. "It's not just the 
dentals that go wrong," Mimi powered on. "The fucking plosives scare me 
stupid. I keep thinking I'll spray the old bones on the street again. Age, 
Chamcha: it's all humiliations. You get born, you get beaten up and bruised 
all over and finally you break and they shovel you into an urn. Anyway, if I 
never work again I'll die comfortable. Did you know I'm with Billy Battuta 
now? That's right, how could you, you've been swimming. Yeah, I gave up 
waiting for you so I cradlesnatched one of your ethnic co-persons. You can 
take it as a compliment. Now I gots to run. Nice talking to the dead, 
Chamcha. Next time dive from the low board. Toodle oo." 
I am by nature an inward man, he said silently into the disconnected phone. 
I have struggled, in my fashion, to find my way towards an appreciation of 
the high things, towards a small measure of fineness. On good days I felt it 
was within my grasp, somewhere within me, somewhere within. But it 
eluded me. I have become embroiled, in things, in the world and its messes, 
and I cannot resist. The grotesque has me, as before the quotidian had me, 
in its thrall. The sea gave me up; the land drags me down. 
He was sliding down a grey slope, the black water lapping at his heart. Why 
did rebirth, the second chance granted to Gibreel Farishta and himself, feel 
so much, in his case, like a perpetual ending? He had been reborn into the 
knowledge of death; and the inescapability of change, of things-never-the- 
same, of noway-back, made him afraid. When you lose the past you're 
naked in front of contemptuous Azraeel, the death-angel. Hold on if you can, 
he told himself. Cling to yesterdays. Leave your nail-marks in the grey slope 
as you slide. 

Billy Battuta: that worthless piece of shit. Playboy Pakistani, turned an 
unremarkable holiday business -- _Battuta's Travels_ -- into a fleet of 
supertankers. A con--man, basically, famous for his romances with leading 
ladies of the Hindi screen and, according to gossip, for his predilection for 
white women with enormous breasts and plenty of rump, whom he "treated 
badly", as the euphemism had it, and "rewarded handsomely". What did 
Mimi want with bad Billy, his sexual instruments and his Maserati Biturbo? 
For boys like Battuta, white women -- never mind fat, Jewish, non- 
deferential white women -- were for fucking and throwing over. What one 
hates in whites -- love of brown sugar -- one 



must also hate when it turns up, inverted, in black. Bigotry is not only a 
function of power. 

Mimi telephoned the next evening from New York. Anahita called him to the 
phone in her best damnyankee tones, and he struggled into his disguise. 
When he got there she had rung off, but she rang back. "Nobody pays 
transatlantic prices for hanging on." "Mimi," he said, with desperation patent 
in his voice, "you didn't say you were leaving." "You didn't even tell me your 
damn address," she responded. "So we both have secrets." He wanted to 
say, Mimi, come home, you're going to get kicked. "I introduced him to the 
family," she said, too jokily. "You can imagine. Yassir Arafat meets the 
Begins. Never mind. We'll all live." He wanted to say, Mimi, you're all I've 
got. He managed, however, only to piss her off. "I wanted to warn you about 
Billy," was what he said. 

She went icy. "Chamcha, listen up. I'll discuss this with you one time 
because behind all your bulishit you do maybe care for me a little. So 
comprehend, please, that I am an intelligent female. I have read _Finnegans 
Wake_ and am conversant with postmodernist critiques of the West, e.g. 
that we have here a society capable only of pastiche: a 'flattened' world. 
When I become the voice of a bottle of bubble bath, I am entering Flatland 
knowingly, understanding what I'm doing and why. Viz., I am earning cash. 
And as an intelligent woman, able to do fifteen minutes on Stoicism and 
more on Japanese cinema, I say to you, Chamcha, that I am fully aware of 
Billy boy's rep. Don't teach me about exploitation. We had exploitation when 
youplural were running round in skins. Try being Jewish, female and ugly 
sometime. You'll beg to be black. Excuse my French: brown." 
"You concede, then, that he's exploiting you," Chamcha interposed, but the 
torrent swept him away. "What's the fuckin" d iff?" she trilled in her Tweetie 
Pie voice. "Billy's a funny boy, a natural scam artist, one of the greats. Who 
knows for how long this is? I'll tell you some notions I do not require: 
patriotism, God and love. Definitely not wanted on the voyage. I like Billy 
because he knows the score." 

"Mimi," he said, "something's happened to me," but she was still protesting 
too much and missed it. He put the receiver down without giving her his 
address. 

She rang him once more, a few weeks later, and by now the unspoken 
precedents had been set; she didn't ask for, he didn't give his whereabouts, 
and it was plain to them both that an age had ended, they had drifted apart, 
it was time to wave goodbye. It was still all Billy with Mimi: his plans to 
make Hindi movies in England and America, importing the top stars, Vinod 
Khanna, Sridevi, to cavort in front of Bradford Town Hall and the Golden 
Gate Bridge — "it's some sort of tax dodge, obviously," Mimi carolled gaily. 
In fact, things were heating up for Billy; Chamcha had seen his name in the 
papers, coupled with the terms _fraud squad_ and _tax evasion_, but once a 
scam man, always a ditto, Mimi said. "So he says to me, do you want a mink? 



I say, Billy, don't buy me things, but he says, who's talking about buying? 
Have a mink. It's business." They had been in New York again, and Billy had 
hired a stretched Mercedes limousine "and a stretched chauffeur also". 
Arriving at the furriers, they looked like an oil sheikh and his moll. Mimi tried 
on the five figure numbers, waiting for Billy's lead. At length he said, You 
like that one? It's nice. Billy, she whispered, it's _forty thousand_, but he 
was already smooth-talking the assistant: it was Friday afternoon, the banks 
were closed, would the store take a cheque. "Well, by now they know he's 
an oil sheikh, so they say yes, we leave with the coat, and he takes me into 
another store right around the block, points to the coat, and says, Ijust 
bought this for forty thousand dollars, here's the receipt, will you give me 
thirty for it, I need the cash, big weekend ahead." -- Mimi and Billy had been 
kept waiting while the second store rang the first, where all the alarm bells 
went off in the manager's brain, and five minutes later the police arrived, 
arrested Billy for passing a dud cheque, and he and Mimi spent the weekend 
in jail. On Monday morning the banks opened and it turned out that Billy's 
account was in credit to the tune of forty-two thousand, one hundred and 
seventeen dollars, so the cheque had been good all the time. He informed 
the furriers of his intention to sue them for two million dollars damages, 
defamation of character, open and shut case, and within forty-eight hours 
they settled out of court for $250,000 on the nail. "Don't you love him?" 
Mimi asked Chamcha. "The boy's a genius. I mean, this was _class_." 
I am a man, Chamcha realized, who does not know the score, living in an 
amoral, survivalist, get--away--with--it--world. Mishal and Anahita Sufyan, 
who still unaccountably treated him like a kind of soul-mate, in spite of all 
his attempts to dissuade them, were beings who plainly admired such 
creatures as moonlighters, shoplifters, flichers: scam artists in general. He 
corrected himself: not admired, that wasn't it. Neither girl would ever steal a 
pin. But they saw such persons as representatives of the gestalt, of how-it- 
was. As an experiment he told them the story of Billy Battuta and the mink 
coat. Their eyes shone, and at the end they applauded and giggled with 
delight: wickedness unpunished made them laugh. Thus, Chamcha realized, 
people must once have applauded and giggled at the deeds of earlier 
outlaws, DickTurpin, Ned Kelly, Phoolan Devi, and of course that other Billy: 
William Bonney, also a Kid. 

"Scrapheap Youths' Criminal Idols," Mishal read his mind and then, laughing 
at his disapproval, translated it into yellowpress headlines, while arranging 
her long, and, Chamcha realized, astonishing body into similarly 
exaggerated cheesecake postures. Pouting outrageously, fully aware of 
having stirred him, she prettily added: "Kissy kissy?" 

Her younger sister, not to be outdone, attempted to copy Mishal's pose, with 
less effective results. Abandoning the attempt with some annoyance, she 
spoke sulkily. "Trouble is, we've got good prospects, us. Family business, no 
brothers, bob's your uncle. This place makes a packet, dunnit? Well then." 



The Shaandaar rooming-house was categorized as a Bed and Breakfast 
establishment, of the type that borough councils were using more and more 
owing to the crisis in public housing, lodging fiveperson families in single 
rooms, turning blind eyes to health and safety regulations, and claiming 
"temporary accommodation" allowances from the central government. "Ten 
quid per night per person," Anahita informed Chamcha in his attic. "Three 
hundred and fifty nicker per room per week, it comes to, as often as not. Six 
occupied rooms: you work it out. Right now, we're losing three hundred 
pounds a month on this attic, so I hope you feel really bad." For that kind of 
money, it struck Chamcha, you could rent pretty reasonable family-sized 
apartments in the private sector. But that wouldn't be classified as 
temporary accommodation; no central funding for such solutions. Which 
would also be opposed by local politicians committed to fighting the "cuts". 
_La lutte continue_; meanwhile, Hind and her daughters raked in the cash, 
unworldly Sufyan went to Mecca and came home to dispense homely wisdom, 
kindliness and smiles. And behind six doors that opened a crack every time 
Chamcha went to make a phone call or use the toilet, maybe thirty 
temporary human beings, with little hope of being declared permanent. 
The real world. 

"You needn't look so fish-faced and holy, anyway," Mishal Sufyan pointed 
out. "Look where all your law abiding got you." 

ooo 

"Your universe is shrinking." A busy man, Hal Valance, creator of _The Aliens 
Show_ and sole owner of the property, took exactly seventeen seconds to 
congratulate Chamcha on being alive before beginning to explain why this 
fact did not affect the show's decision to dispense with his services. Valance 
had started out in advertising and his vocabulary had never recovered from 
the blow. Chamcha could keep up, however. All those years in the voiceover 
business taught you a little bad language. In marketing parlance, _a 
universe_ was the total potential market for a given product or service: the 
chocolate universe, the slimming universe. The dental universe was 
everybody with teeth; the others were the denture cosmos. "I'm talking," 
Valance breathed down the phone in his best Deep Throat voice, "about the 
ethnic universe." 

_My people again_: Chamcha, disguised in turban and the rest of his ill- 
fitting drag, hung on a telephone in a passageway while the eyes of 
impermanent women and children gleamed through barely opened doors; 
and wondered what his people had done to him now. "No capeesh," he said, 
remembering Valance's fondness for Italian—American argot -- this was, 
after all, the author of the fast food slogan _Getta pizza da action_. On this 
occasion, however, Valance wasn't playing. "Audience surveys show," he 
breathed, "that ethnics don't watch ethnic shows. They don't want "em, 
Chamcha. They want fucking _Dynasty_, like everyone else. Your profile's 
wrong, if you follow: with you in the show it's just too damn racial. _The 



Aliens Show_ is too big an idea to be held back by the racial dimension. The 
merchandising possibilities alone, but I don't have to tell you this." 
Chamcha saw himself reflected in the small cracked mirror above the phone 
box. He looked like a marooned genie in search of a magic lamp. "It's a 
point of view," he answered Valance, knowing argument to be useless. With 
Hal, all explanations were post facto rationalizations. He was strictly a seat— 
of— the--pants man, who took for his motto the advice given by Deep Throat 
to Bob Woodward: _Follow the money_. He had the phrase set in large sans- 

-serif type and pinned up in his office over a still from All the President's 

Men_: Hal Holbrook (another Hal!) in the car park, standing in the shadows. 
Follow the money: it explained, as he was fond of saying, his five wives, all 
independently wealthy, from each of whom he had received a handsome 
divorce settlement. He was presently married to a wasted child maybe one— 
third his age, with waist—length auburn hair and a spectral look that would 
have made her a great beauty a quarter of a century earlier. "This one 
doesn't have a bean; she's taking me for all I've got and when she's taken it 
she'll bugger off," Valance had told Chamcha once, in happier days. "What 
the hell. I'm human, too. This time it's love." More cradlesnatching. No 
escape from it in these times. Chamcha on the telephone found he couldn't 
remember the infant's name. "You know my motto," Valance was saying. 
"Yes," Chamcha said neutrally. "It's the right line for the product." The 
product, you bastard, being you. 

By the time he met Hal Valance (how many years ago? Five, maybe six), 
over lunch at the White Tower, the man was already a monster: pure, self- 
created image, a set of attributes plastered thickly over a body that was, in 
Hal's own words, "in training to be Orson Welles". He smoked absurd, 
caricature cigars, refusing all Cuban brands, however, on account of his 
uncompromisingly capitalistic stance. He owned a Union Jack waistcoat and 
insisted on flying the flag over his agency and also above the door of his 
Highgate home; was prone to dress up as Maurice Chevalier and sing, at 
major presentations, to his amazed clients, with the help of straw boater and 
silver— headed cane; claimed to own the first Loire chateau to be fitted with 
telex and fax machines; and made much of his "intimate" association with 
the Prime Minister he referred to affectionately as "Mrs. Torture". The 
personification of philistine triumphalism, midatlantic— accented Hal was one 
of the glories of the age, the creative half of the city's hottest agency, the 
Valance & Lang Partnership. Like Billy Battuta he liked big cars driven by big 
chauffeurs. It was said that once, while being driven at high speed down a 
Cornish lane in order to "heat up" a particularly glacial seven-foot Finnish 
model, there had been an accident: no injuries, but when the other driver 
emerged furiously from his wrecked vehicle he turned out to be even larger 
than Hal's minder. As this colossus bore down on him, Hal lowered his push- 
button window and breathed, with a sweet smile: "I strongly advise you to 
turn around and walk swiftly away; because, sir, if you do not do so within 



the next fifteen seconds, I am going to have you killed." Other advertising 
geniuses were famous for their work: Mary Wells for her pink Braniff planes, 
David Ogilvy for his eyepatch,Jerry della Femina for "From those wonderful 
folks who gave you Pearl Harbor". Valance, whose agency went in for cheap 
and cheerful vulgarity, all bums and honky-tonk, was renowned in the 
business for this (probably apocryphal) "I'm going to have you killed", a turn 
of phrase which proved, to those in the know, that the guy really was a 
genius. Chamcha had long suspected he'd made up the story, with its 
perfect ad-land components — Scandinavian icequcen, two thugs, expensive 
cars, Valance in the Blofeld role and 007 nowhere on the scene -- and put it 
about himself, knowing it to be good for business. 

The lunch was by way of thanking Chamcha for his part in a recent, smash- 
hit campaign for Slimbix diet foods. Saladin had been the voice of a cutesy 
cartoon blob: _Hi. I'm Cal, and I'm one sad calorie_. Four courses and plenty 
of champagne as a reward for persuading people to starve. _How's a poor 
calorie to earn a salary? Thanks to Slimbix, I'm out of work_. Chamcha 
hadn't known what to expect from Valance. What he got was, at least, 
unvarnished. "You've done well," Hal congratulated him, "for a person of the 
tinted persuasion." And proceeded, without taking his eyes off Chamcha's 
face: "Let me tell you some facts. Within the last three months, we re--shot 
a peanut—butter poster because it researched better without the black kid in 
the background. We re-recorded a building society jingle because 
T'Chairman thought the singer sounded black, even though he was white as 
a sodding sheet, and even though, the year before, we'd used a black boy 
who, luckily for him, didn't suffer from an excess of soul. We were told by a 
major airline that we couldn't use any blacks in their ads, even though they 
were actually employees oi the airline. A black actor came to audition for me 
and he was wearing a Racial Equality button badge, a black hand shaking a 
white one. I said this: don't think you're getting special treatment from me, 
chum. You follow me? You follow what I'm telling you?" It's a goddamn 
audition, Saladin realized. "I've never felt I belonged to a race," he replied. 
Which was perhaps why, when Hal Valance set up his production company, 
Chamcha was on his "A list"; and why, eventually, Maxim Alien came his 
way. 

When _The Aliens Show_ started coming in for stick from black radicals, 
they gave Chamcha a nickname. On account of his private-school education 
and closeness to the hated Valance, he was known as "Brown Uncle Tom". 
Apparently the political pressure on the show had increased in Chamcha's 
absence, orchestrated by a certain Dr. Uhuru Simba. "Doctor of what, beats 
me," Valance deepthroatcd down the phone. "Our ah researchers haven't 
come up with anything yet." Mass pickets, an embarrassing appearance on 
_Right to Reply_. "The guy's built like a fucking tank." Chamcha envisaged 
the pair of them, Valance and Simba, as one another's antitheses. It seemed 
that the protests had succeeded: Valance was "de— politicizing" the show, by 



firing Chamcha and putting a huge blond Teuton with pectorals and a quiff 
inside the prosthetic make-up and computergenerated imagery. A latex-and- 
Quantel Schwarzenegger, a synthetic, hip-talking version of Rutger Hauer in 
_Blade Runner_. The Jews were out, too: instead of Mimi, the new show 
would have a voluptuous shiksa doll. "I sent word to Dr. Simba: stick that up 
your fucking pee aitch dee. No reply has been received. He'll have to work 
harder than that if he's going to take over _this_ little country. I," Hal 
Valance announced, "love this fucking country. That's why I'm going to sell it 
to the whole goddamn world, Japan, America, fucking Argentina. I'm going 
to sell the arse off it. That's what I've been selling all my fucking life: the 
fucking nation. The _flag_." He didn't hear what he was saying. When he got 
going on this stuff, he went puce and often wept. He had done just that at 
the White Tower, that first time, while stuffing himself full of Greek food. The 
date came back to Chamcha now: just after the Falklands war. People had a 
tendency to swear loyalty oaths in those days, to hum "Pomp and 
Circumstance" on the buses. So when Valance, over a large balloon of 
Armagnac, started up -- "I'll tell you why I love this country" -- Chamcha, 
pro-Falklands himself, thought he knew what was coming next. But Valance 
began to describe the research programme of a British aerospace company, 
a client of his, which had just revolutionized the construction of missile 
guidance systems by studying the flight pattern of the common housefly. 
"Inflight course corrections," he whispered theatrically. "Traditionally done in 
the line of flight: adjust the angle up a bit, down a touch, left or right a 
nadge. Scientists studying high-speed film of the humble fly, however, have 
discovered that the little buggers always, but always, make corrections _in 
right angles_." He demonstrated with his hand stretched out, palm flat, 
fingers together. "Bzzt! Bzzt! The bastards actually fly vertically up, down or 
sideways. Much more accurate. Much more fuel efficient. Try to do it with an 
engine that depends on nose-to-tail airflow, and what happens? The sodding 
thing can't breathe, stalls, falls out of the sky, lands on your fucking allies. 
Bad karma. You follow. You follow what I'm saying. So these guys, they 
invent an engine with three—way airflow: nose to tail, plus top to bottom, 
plus side to side. And bingo: a missile that flies like a goddamn fly, and can 
hit a fifty p coin travelling at a ground speed of one hundred miles an hour 
at a distance of three miles. What I love about this country is that: its genius. 
Greatest inventors in the world. It's beautiful: am I right or am I right?" He 
had been deadly serious. Chamcha answered: "You're right." "You're damn 
right I'm right," he confirmed. 

They met for the last time just before Chamcha took off for Bombay: Sunday 
lunch at the flag-waving Highgate mansion. Rosewood panelling, a terrace 
with stone urns, a view down a wooded hill. Valance complaining about a 
new development that would louse up the scenery. Lunch was predictably 
jingoistic: _rosbif, boudin Yorkshire, choux de bruxelles_. Baby, the 
nymphet wife, didn't join them, but ate hot pastrami on rye while shooting 



pool in a nearby room. Servants, a thunderous Burgundy, more Armagnac, 
cigars. The self—made man's paradise, Chamcha reflected, and recognized 
the envy in the thought. 

After lunch, a surprise. Valance led him into a room in which there stood two 
clavichords of great delicacy and lightness. "I make "em," his host confessed. 
"To relax. Baby wants me to make her a fucking guitar." Hal Valance's talent 
as a cabinet—maker was undeniable, and somehow at odds with the rest of 
the man. "My father was in the trade," he admitted under Chamcha's 
probing, and Saladin understood that he had been granted a privileged 
glimpse into the only piece that remained of Valance's original self, the 
Harold that derived from history and blood and not from his own frenetic 
brain. 

When they left the secret chamber of the clavichords, the familiar Hal 
Valance instantly reappeared. Leaning on the balustrade of his terrace, he 
confided: "The thing that's so amazing about her is the size of what she's 
trying to do." Her? Baby? Chamcha was confused. "I'm talking about you- 
know-who," Valance explained helpfully. "Torture. Maggie the Bitch." Oh. 
"She's radical all right. What she wants -- what she actually thinks she can 
fucking _achieve_ -- is literally to invent a whole goddamn new middle class 
in this country. Get rid of the old woolly incompetent buggers from fucking 
Surrey and Hampshire, and bring in the new. People without background, 
without history. Hungry people. People who really _want_, and who know 
that with her, they can bloody well get. 

Nobody's ever tried to replace a whole fucking _class_ before, and the 
amazing thing is she might just do it if they don't get her first. The old class. 
The dead men. You follow what I'm saying." "I think so," Chamcha lied. "And 
it's not just the businessmen," Valance said slurrily. "The intellectuals, too. 
Out with the whole faggoty crew. In with the hungry guys with the wrong 
education. New professors, new painters, the lot. It's a bloody revolution. 
Newness coming into this country that's stuffed full of fucking old _corpses_. 
It's going to be something to see. It already is." 
Baby wandered out to meet them, looking bored. "Time you were off, 
Chamcha," her husband commanded. "On Sunday afternoons we go to bed 
and watch pornography on video. It's a whole new world, Saladin. 
Everybody has to join sometime." 

No compromises. You're in or you're dead. It hadn't been Chamcha's way; 
not his, nor that of the England he had idolized and come to conquer. He 
should have understood then and there: he was being given, had been given, 
fair warning. 

And now the coup de grace. "No hard feelings," Valance was murmuring into 

his ear. "See you around, eh? Okay, right." 

"Hal," he made himself object, "I've got a contract." 

Like a goat to the slaughter. The voice in his ear was now openly amused. 

"Don't be silly," it told him. "Of course you haven't. Read the small print. Get 



a _lawyer_ to read the small print. Take me to court. Do what you have to 
do. It's nothing to me. Don't you get it? You're history." 
Dialling tone. 

ooo 

Abandoned by one alien England, marooned within another, Mr. Saladin 
Chamcha in his great dejection received news of an old companion who was 
evidently enjoying better fortunes. The shriek of his landlady -- "_Tini 
benche achen!_" -- warned him that something was up. Hind was billowing 
along the corridors of the Shaandaar B and B, waving, it turned out, a 
current copy of the imported Indian fanzine _Cine-Blitz_. Doors opened; 
temporary beings popped out, looking puzzled and alarmed. 
Mishal Sufyan emerged from her room with yards of midriff showing 
between shortie tank-top and 501s. From the office he maintained across 
the hall, Hanif Johnson emerged in the incongruity of a sharp three— piece 
suit, was hit by the midriff and covered his face. "Lord have mercy," he 
prayed. Mishal ignored him and yelled after her mother: "What's up? Who's 
alive?" 

"Shameless from somewhere," Hind shouted back along the passage, "cover 
your nakedness." 

"Fuck off," Mishal muttered under her breath, fixing mutinous eyes on Hanif 
Johnson. "What about the michelins sticking out between her sari and her 
choli, I want to know." Down at the other end of the passage, Hind could be 
seen in the half-light, thrusting _Cine-Blitz_ at the tenants, repeating, he's 
alive. With all the fervour of those Greeks who, after the disappearance of 
the politician Lambrakis, covered the country with the whitewashed letter 
_Z_. _Zi: he lives_. 
"Who?" Mishal demanded again. 

"_Gibreel_," came the cry of impermanent children. "_Farishta benche 
achen_." Hind, disappearing downstairs, did not observe her elder daughter 
returning to her room, -- leaving the door ajar; -- and being followed, when 
he was sure the coast was clear, by the well-known lawyer Hanif Johnson, 
suited and booted, who maintained this office to keep in touch with the 
grass roots, who was also doing well in a smart uptown practice, who was 
well connected with the local Labour Party and was accused by the sitting M 
P of scheming to take his place when reselection came around. 
When was Mishal Sufyan's eighteenth birthday? -- Not for a few weeks yet. 
And where was her sister, her roommate, sidekick, shadow, echo and foil? 
Where was the potential chaperone? She was: out. 
But to continue: 

The news from _Cine-Blitz_ was that a new, London-based film production 
outfit headed by the whiz-kid tycoon Billy Battuta, whose interest in cinema 
was well known, had entered into an association with the reputable, 
independent Indian producer Mr. S. S. Sisodia for the purpose of producing a 
comeback vehicle for the legendary Gibreel, now exclusively revealed to 



have escaped the jaws of death for a second time. "It is true I was booked 
on the plane under the name of Najmuddin," the star was quoted as saying. 
"I know that when the investigating sleuths identified this as my incognito -- 
in fact, my real name -- it caused great grief back home, and for this I do 
sincerely apologize to my fans. You see, the truth is, that grace of God I 
somehow missed the flight, and as I had wished in any case to go to ground, 
excuse, please, no pun intended, I permitted the fiction of my demise to 
stand uncorrected and took a later flight. Such luck: truly, an angel must 
have been watching over me." After a time of reflection, however, he had 
concluded that it was wrong to deprive his public, in this unsportsmanlike 
and hurtful way, of the true data and also his presence on the screen. 
"Therefore I have accepted this project with full commitment and joy." The 
film was to be -- what else -- a theological, but of a new type. It would be 
set in an imaginary and fabulous city made of sand, and would recount the 
story of the encounter between a prophet and an archangel; also the 
temptation of the prophet, and his choice of the path of purity and not that 
of base compromise. "It is a film," the producer, Sisodia, informed _Cine - 
Blitz_, "about how newness enters the world." — But would it not be seen as 
blasphemous, a crime against ... — "Certainly not," Billy Battuta insisted. 
"Fiction is fiction; facts are facts. Our purpose is not to make some farrago 
like that movie _The Message_ in which, whenever Prophet Muhammad (on 
whose name be peace!) was heard to speak, you saw only the head of his 
camel, moving its mouth. _That_ -- excuse me for pointing out -- had no 
class. We are making a high--taste, quality picture. A moral tale: like -- 
what do you call them? -- fables." 
"Like a dream," Mr. Sisodia said. 

When the news was brought to Chamcha's attic later that day by Anahita 
and Mishal Sufyan, he flew into the vilest rage either of them had ever 
witnessed, a fury under whose fearful influence his voice rose so high that it 
seemed to tear, as if his throat had grown knives and ripped his cries to 
shreds; his pestilential breath all but blasted them from the room, and with 
arms raised high and goat--legs dancing he looked, at last, like the very 
devil whose image he had become. "Liar," he shrieked at the absent Gibreel. 
"Traitor, deserter, scum. Missed the plane, did you? -- Then whose head, in 
my own lap, with my own hands ...?-- who received caresses, spoke of 
nightmares, and fell at last singing from the sky?" 

"There, there," pleaded terrified Mishal. "Calm down. You'll have Mum up 
here in a minute." 

Saladin subsided, a pathetic goaty heap once again, no threat to anyone. 
"It's not true," he wailed. "What happened, happened to us both." 
"Course it did," Anahita encouraged him. "Nobody believes those movie 
magazines, anyway. They'll say anything, them." 

Sisters backed out of the room, holding their breath, leaving Chamcha to his 
misery, failing to observe something quite remarkable. For which they must 



not be blamed; Chamcha's antics were sufficient to have distracted the 
keenest eyes. It should also, in fairness, be stated that Saladin failed to 
notice the change himself. 

What happened? This: during Chamcha's brief but violent outburst against 
Gibreel, the horns on his head (which, one may as well point out, had grown 
several inches while he languished in the attic of the Shaandaar B and B) 
definitely, unmistakably, -- by about three-quarters of an inch, -- 
_diminished_. 

In the interest of the strictest accuracy, one should add that, lower down his 
transformed body, -- inside borrowed pantaloons (delicacy forbids the 
publication of explicit details), -- something else, let us leave it at that, got a 
little smaller, too. 

Be that as it may: it transpired that the optimism of the report in the 
imported movie magazine had been ill founded, because within days of its 
publication the local papers carried news of Billy Battuta's arrest, in a 
midtown New York sushi bar, along with a female companion, Mildred 
Mamoulian, described as an actress, forty years of age. The story was that 
he had approached numbers of society matrons, "movers and shakers", 
asking for "very substantial" sums of money which he had claimed to need in 
order to buy his freedom from a sect of devil worshippers. Once a confidence 
man, always a confidence man: it was what Mimi Mamoulian would no doubt 
have described as a beautiful sting. Penetrating the heart of American 
religiosity, pleading to be saved -- "when you sell your soul you can't expect 
to buy back cheap" -- Billy had banked, the investigators alleged, "six figure 
sums". The world community of the faithful longed, in the late 1980s, for 
_direct contact with the supernaL, and Billy, claiming to have raised (and 
therefore to need rescuing from) infernal fiends, was on to a winner, 
especially as the Devil he offered was so democratically responsive to the 
dictates of the Almighty Dollar. What Billy offered the West Side matrons in 
return for their fat cheques was verification: yes, there is a Devil; I've seen 
him with my own eyes -- God, it was frightful! -- and if Lucifer existed, so 
must Gabriel; if Hellfire had been seen to burn, then somewhere, over the 
rainbow, Paradise must surely shine. Mimi Mamoulian had, it was alleged, 
played a full part in the deceptions, weeping and pleading for all she was 
worth. They were undone by overconfidence, spotted at Takesushi 
(whooping it up and cracking jokes with the chef) by a Mrs. Aileen 
Struwelpeter who had, only the previous afternoon, handed the then- 
distraught and terrified couple a five-thousand-dollar cheque. Mrs. 
Struwelpeter was not without influence in the New York Police Department, 
and the boys in blue arrived before Mimi had finished her tempura. They 
both went quietly. Mimi was wearing, in the newspaper photographs, what 
Chamcha guessed was a forty-thousanddollar mink coat, and an expression 
on her face that could only be read one way. 



_The hell with you all_. Nothing further was heard, for some while, about 

Farishta's film. 

ooo 

_It was so, it was not_, that as Saladin Chamcha's incarceration in the body 
of a devil and the attic of the Shaandaar B and B lengthened into weeks and 
months, it became impossible not to notice that his condition was worsening 
steadily. His horns (notwithstanding their single, momentary and 
unobserved diminution) had grown both thicker and longer, twirling 
themselves into fanciful arabesques, wreathing his head in a turban of 
darkening bone. He had grown a thick, long beard, a disorienting 
development in one whose round, moony face had never boasted much hair 
before; indeed, he was growing hairier all over his body, and had even 
sprouted, from the base of his spine, a fine tail that lengthened by the day 
and had already obliged him to abandon the wearing of trousers; he tucked 
the new limb, instead, inside baggy salwar pantaloons filched by Anahita 
Sufyan from her mother's generously tailored collection. The distress 
engendered in him by his continuing metamorphosis into some species of 
bottled djinn will readily be imagined. Even his appetites were altering. 
Always fussy about his food, he was appalled to find his palate coarsening, 
so that all foodstuffs began to taste much the same, and on occasion he 
would find himself nibbling absently at his bedsheets or old newspapers, and 
come to his senses with a start, guilty and shamefaced at this further 
evidence of his progress away from manhood and towards -- yes -- 
goatishness. Increasing quantities of green mouthwash were required to 
keep his breath within acceptable limits. It really was too grievous to be 
borne. 

His presence in the house was a continual thorn in the side of Hind, in whom 
regret for the lost income mingled with the remnants of her initial terror, 
although it's true to say that the soothing processes of habituation had 
worked their sorceries on her, helping her to see Saladin's condition as some 
kind of Elephant Man illness, a thing to feel disgusted by but not necessarily 
to fear. "Let him keep out of my way and I'll keep out of his," she told her 
daughters. "And you, the children of my despair, why you spend your time 
sitting up there with a sick person while your youth is flying by, who can say, 
but in this Vilayet it seems everything I used to know is a lie, such as the 
idea that young girls should help their mothers, think of marriage, attend to 
studies, and not go sitting with goats, whose throats, on Big Eid, it is our old 
custom to slit." 

Her husband remained solicitous, however, even after the strange incident 
that took place when he ascended to the attic and suggested to Saladin that 
the girls might not have been so wrong, that perhaps the, how could one put 
it, possession of his body could be terminated by the intercession of a 
mullah? At the mention of a priest Chamcha reared up on his feet, raising 
both arms above his head, and somehow or other the room filled up with 



dense and sulphurous smoke while a highpitched vibrato screech with a kind 
of tearing quality pierced Sufyan's hearing like a spike. The smoke cleared 
quickly enough, because Chamcha flung open a window and fanned 
feverishly at the fumes, while apologizing to Sufyan in tones of acute 
embarrassment: "I really can't say what came over me, -- but at times I 
fear I am changing into something, -- something one must call bad." 
Sufyan, kindly fellow that he was, went over to where Chamcha sat clutching 
at his horns, patted him on the shoulder, and tried to bring what good cheer 
he could. "Question of mutability of the essence of the self," he began, 
awkwardly, "has long been subject of profound debate. For example, great 
Lucretius tells us, in _De Rerum Natura_, this following thing: _quodcumque 
suis mutatumfinibus exit, continuo hoc mors est illius quodfuit ante_. Which 
being translated, forgive my clumsiness, is 'Whatever by its changing goes 
out of its frontiers,' --that is, bursts its banks, -- or, maybe, breaks out of its 
limitations, -- so to speak, disregards its own rules, but that is too free, I am 
thinking . . 'that thing', at any rate, Lucretius holds, 'by doing so brings 
immediate death to its old self. However," up went the ex-- schoolmaster's 
finger, "poet Ovid, in the _Metamorphoses_, takes diametrically opposed 
view. He avers thus: 'As yielding wax' -- heated, you see, possibly for the 
sealing of documents or such, -- 'is stamped with new designs And changes 
shape and seems not still the same, Yet is indeed the same, even so our 
souls,' -- you hear, good sir? Our spirits! Our immortal essences! -- 'Are still 
the same forever, but adopt In their migrations ever-varying forms.'" 
He was hopping, now, from foot to foot, full of the thrill of the old words. 
"For me it is always Ovid over Lucretius," he stated. "Your soul, my good 
poor dear sir, is the same. Only in its migration it has adopted this presently 
varying form." 

"This is pretty cold comfort," Chamcha managed a trace of his old dryness. 
"Either I accept Lucretius and conclude that some demonic and irreversible 
mutation is taking place in my inmost depths, or I go with Ovid and concede 
that everything now emerging is no more than a manifestation of what was 
already there." 

"I have put my argument badly," Sufyan miserably apologized. "I meant 
only to reassure." 

"What consolation can there be," Chamcha answered with bitter rhetoric, his 
irony crumbling beneath the weight of his unhappiness, "for a man whose 
old friend and rescuer is also the nightly lover of his wife, thus encouraging - 
- as your old books would doubtless affirm -- the growth of cuckold's horns?" 

ooo 

The old friend, Jumpy Joshi, was unable for a single moment of his 



waking hours to rid himself of the knowledge that, for the first time in as 
long as he could remember, he had lost the will to lead his life according to 
his own standards of morality. At the sports centre where he taught martial 
arts techniques to ever— greater numbers of students, emphasizing the 
spiritual aspects of the disciplines, much to their amusement ("Ah so, 
Grasshopper," his star pupil Mishal Sufyan would tease him, "when 
honolable fascist swine jump at you flom dark alleyway, offer him teaching 
of Buddha before you kick him in honolable balls"), -- he began to display 
such _passionate intensity_ that his pupils, realizing that some inner anguish 
was being expressed, grew alarmed. When Mishal asked him about it at the 
end of a session that had left them both bruised and panting for breath, in 
which the two of them, teacher and star, had hurled themselves at one 
another like the hungriest of lovers, he threw her question back at her with 
an uncharacteristic lack of openness. "Talk about pot and kettle," he said. 
"Question of mote and beam." They were standing by the vending machines. 
She shrugged. "Okay," she said. "I confess, but keep the secret." He 
reached for his Coke: "What secret?" Innocent Jumpy. Mishal whispered in 
his ear: "I'm getting laid. By your friend: Mister Hanif Johnson, Bar At Law." 
He was shocked, which irritated her. "O, come on. It's not like I'm 
_fifteen_." He replied, weakly, "If your mother ever," and once again she 
was impatient. "If you want to know," petulantly, "the one I'm worried about 
is Anahita. She wants whatever I've got. And she, by the way, really is 
fifteen." Jumpy noticed that he'd knocked over his paper-cup and there was 
Coke on his shoes. "Out with it," Mishal was insisting. "I owned up. Your 
turn." But Jumpy couldn't say; was still shaking his head about Hanif. "It'd 
be the finish of him," he said. That did it. Mishal put her nose in the air. "O, I 
get it," she said. "Not good enough for him, you reckon." And over her 
departing shoulder: "Here, Grasshopper. Don't holy men ever fuck?" 
Not so holy. He wasn't cut out for sainthood, any more than the David 
Carradine character in the old _Kung Fu_ programmes: like Grasshopper, 
like Jumpy. Every day he wore himself out trying to stay away from the big 
house in Notting Hill, and every evening he ended up at Pamela's door, 
thumb in mouth, biting the skin around the edges of the nail, fending off the 
dog and his own guilt, heading without wasting any time for the bedroom. 
Where they would fall upon one another, mouths searching out the places in 
which they had chosen, or learned, to begin: first his lips around her nipples, 
then hers moving along his lower thumb. 

She had come to love in him this quality of impatience, because it was 
followed by a patience such as she had never experienced, the patience of a 
man who had never been "attractive" and was therefore prepared to value 
what was offered, or so she had thought at first; but then she learned to 
appreciate his consciousness of and solicitude for her own internal tensions, 
his sense of the difficulty with which her slender, bony, small-breasted body 
found, learned and finally surrendered to a rhythm, his knowledge of time. 



She loved in him, too, his overcoming of himself; loved, knowing it to be a 
wrong reason, his willingness to overcome his scruples so that they might be 
together: loved the desire in him that rode over all that had been imperative 
in him. Loved it, without being willing to see, in this love, the beginning of 
an end. 

Near the end of their lovemaking, she became noisy. "Yow!" she shouted, all 
the aristocracy in her voice crowding into the meaningless syllables of her 
abandonment. "Whoop! Hi! _Hah_." 

She was still drinking heavily, scotch bourbon rye, a stripe of redness 
spreading across the centre of her face. Under the influence of alcohol her 
right eye narrowed to half the size of the left, and she began, to his horror, 
to disgust him. No discussion of her boozing was permitted, however: the 
one time he tried he found himself on the street with his shoes clutched in 
his right hand and his overcoat over his left arm. Even after that he came 
back: and she opened the door and went straight upstairs as though nothing 
had happened. Pamela's taboos: jokes about her background, mentions of 
whisky-bottle "dead soldiers", and any suggestion that her late husband, the 
actor Saladin Chamcha, was still alive, living across town in a bed and 
breakfast joint, in the shape of a supernatural beast. 
These days, Jumpy — who had, at first, badgered her incessantly about 
Saladin, telling her she should go ahead and divorce him, but this pretence 
of widowhood was intolerable: what about the man's assets, his rights to a 
share of the property, and so forth? Surely she would not leave him 
destitute? -- no longer protested about her unreasonable behaviour. "I've 
got a confirmed report of his death," she told him on the only occasion on 
which she was prepared to say anything at all. "And what have you got? A 
billy-goat, a circus freak, nothing to do with me." And this, too, like her 
drinking, had begun to come between them. Jumpy's martial arts sessions 
increased in vehemence as these problems loomed larger in his mind. 
Ironically, while Pamela refused point—blank to face the facts about her 
estranged husband, she had become embroiled, through her job at the 
community relations committee, in an investigation into allegations of the 
spread of witchcraft among the officers at the local police station. Various 
stations did from time to time gain the reputation of being "out of control" — 
Notting Hill, Kentish Town, Islington -- but witchcraft? Jumpy was sceptical. 
"The trouble with you," Pamela told him in her loftiest shootingstick voice, 
"is that you still think of normality as being normal. My God: look at what's 
happening in this country. A few bent coppers taking their clothes off and 
drinking urine out of helmets isn't so weird. Call it working-class 
Freemasonry, if you want. I've got black people coming in every day, scared 
out of their heads, talking about obeah, chicken entrails, the lot. The 
goddamn bastards are _enjoying_ this: scare the coons with their own ooga 
booga and have a few naughty nights into the bargain. Unlikely? Bloody 
_wake up_." Witchfinding, it seemed, ran in the family: from Matthew 



Hopkins to Pamela Lovelace. In Pamela's voice, speaking at public meetings, 
on local radio, even on regional news programmes on television, could be 
heard all the zeal and authority of the old Witchflnder-General, and it was 
only on account of that voice of a twentieth-century Gloriana that her 
campaign was not laughed instantly into extinction. _New Broomstick 
Needed to Sweep Out Witches_. There was talk of an official inquiry. What 
drove Jumpy wild, however, was Pamela's refusal to connect her arguments 
in the question of the occult policemen to the matter of her own husband: 
because, after all, the transformation of Saladin Chamcha had precisely to 
do with the idea that normality was no longer composed (if it had ever been) 
of banal, "normal" elements. "Nothing to do with it," she said flatly when he 
tried to make the point: imperious, he thought, as any hanging judge. 

ooo 

After Mishal Sufyan told him about her illegal sexual relations with Hanif 
Johnson, Jumpy on his way over to Pamela Chamcha's had to stifle a 
number of bigoted thoughts, such as _his father hadn't been white he'd 
never have done it_; Hanif, he raged, that immature bastard who probably 
cut notches in his cock to keep count of his conquests, this Johnson with 
aspirations to represent his people who couldn't wait until they were of age 
before he started shafting them! . . . couldn't he see that Mishal with her 
omniscient body was just a, just a, child? -- No she wasn't. -- Damn him, 
then, damn him for (and here Jumpy shocked himself) being the first. 
Jumpy en route to his mistress tried to convince himself that his 
resentments of Hanif, _his friend Hanif_, were primarily -- how to put it? -- 
_linguistic_. Hanif was in perfect control of the languages that mattered: 
sociological, socialistic, black— radical, anti— anti— anti— racist, demagogic, 
oratorical, sermonic: the vocabularies of power. _But you bastard you 
rummage in my drawers and laugh at my stupid poems. The real language 
problem: how to bend it shape it, how to let it be our freedom, how to 
repossess its poisoned wells, how to master the river of words of time of 
blood: about all that you haven't got a clue_. How hard that struggle, how 
inevitable the defeat. _Nobody's going to elect me to anything. No power- 
base, no constituency: just the battle with the words_. But he, Jumpy, also 
had to admit that his envy of Hanif was as much as anything rooted in the 
other's greater control of the languages of desire. Mishal Sufyan was quite 
something, an elongated, tubular beauty, but he wouldn't have known how, 
even if he'd thought of, he'd never have dared. Language is courage: the 
ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true. 
When Pamela Chamcha answered the door he found that her hair had gone 
snow-white overnight, and that her response to this inexplicable calamity 
had been to shave her head right down to the scalp and then conceal it 
inside an absurd burgundy turban which she refused to remove. 
"It just happened," she said. "One must not rule out the possibility that I 
have been bewitched." 



He wasn't standing for that. "Or the notion of a reaction, however delayed, 
to the news of your husband's altered, but extant, state." 
She swung to face him, halfway up the stairs to the bedroom, and pointed 
dramatically towards the open sitting-room door. "In that case," she 
triumphed, "why did it also happen to the dog?" 

ooo 

He might have told her, that night, that he wanted to end it, that his 
conscience no longer permitted, -- he might have been willing to face her 
rage, and to live with the paradox that a decision could be simultaneously 
conscientious and immoral (because cruel, unilateral, selfish); but when he 
entered the bedroom she grabbed his face with both hands, and watching 
closely to see how he took the news she confessed to having lied about 
contraceptive precautions. She was pregnant. It turned out she was better 
at making unilateral decisions than he, and had simply taken from him the 
child Saladin Chamcha had been unable to provide. "I wanted it," she cried 
defiantly, and at close range. "And now I'm going to have it." 
Her selfishness had pre-empted his. He discovered that he felt relieved; 
absolved of the responsibility for making and acting upon moral choices, — 
because how could he leave her now? -- he put such notions out of his head 
and allowed her, gently but with unmistakable intent, to push him 
backwards on to the bed. 

ooo 

Whether the slowly transmogrifying Saladin Chamcha was turning into some 
sort of science-fiction or horror-video mutey, some random mutation shortly 
to be naturally selected out of existence, -- or whether he was evolving into 
an avatar of the Master of Hell, -- or whatever was the case, the fact is (and 
it will be as well in the present matter to proceed cautiously, stepping from 
established fact to established fact, leaping to no conclusion until our 
yellowbrick lane of things-incontrovertibly-so has led us to within an inch or 
two of our destination) that the two daughters of Haji Sufyan had taken him 
under their wing, caring for the Beast as only Beauties can; and that, as 
time passed, he came to be extremely fond of the pair of them himself. For 
a long while Mishal and Anahita struck him as inseparable, fist and shadow, 
shot and echo, the younger girl seeking always to emulate her tall, feisty 
sibling, practising karate kicks and Wing Chun forearm smashes in flattering 
imitation of Mishal's uncompromising ways. More recently, however, he had 
noted the growth of a saddening hostility between the sisters. One evening 
at his attic window Mishal was pointing out some of the Street's characters, - 
- there, a Sikh ancient shocked by a racial attack into 



complete silence; he had not spoken, it was said, for nigh on seven years, 
before which he had been one of the city's few "black" justices of the 
peace . . . now, however, he pronounced no sentences, and was 
accompanied everywhere by a crotchety wife who treated him with 
dismissive exasperation, _0, ignore him, he never says a dicky bird_; -- and 
over there, a perfectly ordinary-looking "accountant type" (Mishal's term) on 
his way home with briefcase and box of sweetmeats; this one was known in 
the Street to have developed the strange need to rearrange his sitting-room 
furniture for half an hour each evening, placing chairs in rows interrupted by 
an aisle and pretending to be the conductor of a single-decker bus on its 
way to Bangladesh, an obsessive fantasy in which all his family were obliged 
to participate, _and after ha if an hour precisely he snaps out of it, and the 
rest of the time he's the dullest guy you could meet_; — and after some 
moments of this, fifteen-year-old Anahita broke in spitefully: "What she 
means is, you're not the only casualty, round here the freaks are two a 
penny, you only have to look." 

Mishal had developed the habit of talking about the Street as if it were a 
mythological battleground and she, on high at Chamcha's attic window, the 
recording angel and the exterminator, too. From her Chamcha learned the 
fables of the new Kurus and Pandavas, the white racists and black "self- 
help" or vigilante posses starring in this modern _Mahabharata_, or, more 
accurately, _Mahavila yet_. Up there, under the railway bridge, the National 
Front used to do battle with the fearless radicals of the Socialist Workers 
Party, "every Sunday from closing time to opening time," she sneered, 
"leaving us lot to clear up the wreckage the rest of the sodding week." -- 
Down that alley was where the Brickhall Three were done over by the police 
and then fitted up, verballed, framed; up that side-street he'd find the scene 
of the murder of the Jamaican, Ulysses E. Lee, and in that public house the 
stain on the carpet marking where Jatinder Singh Mehta breathed his last. 
"Thatcherism has its effect," she declaimed, while Chamcha, who no longer 
had the will or the words to argue with her, to speak ofjustice and the rule of 
law, watched Anahita's mounting rage. -- "No pitched battles these days," 
Mishal elucidated. "The emphasis is on small—scale enterprises and the cult 
of the individual, right? In other words, five or six white bastards murdering 
us, one individual at a time." These days the posses roamed the nocturnal 
Street, ready for aggravation. "It's our turf," said Mishal Sufyan of that 
Street without a blade of grass in sight. "Let "em come and get it if they 
can." "Look at her," Anahita burst out. "So ladylike, in"she? So refined. 
Imagine what Mum'd say if she knew." -- "If she knew what, you little grass 
— ?" But Anahita wasn't to be cowed: "O, yes," she wailed. "O, yes, we know, 
don't think we don't. How she goes to the bhangra beat shows on Sunday 
mornings and changes in the ladies into those tarty— farty clothes -- who she 
wiggles with and jiggles with at the Hot Wax daytime disco that she thinks I 
never heard of before -- what went on at that bluesdance she crept off to 



with Mister You-know-who Cockybugger -- some big sister," she produced 
her grandstand finish, "she'll probably wind up dead of wossname 
_ignorance_." Meaning, as Chamcha and Mishal well knew, -- those cinema 
commercials, expressionist tombstones rising from earth and sea, had left 
the residue of their slogan well implanted, no doubt of that -- _Aids_. 
Mishal fell upon her sister, pulling her hair, -- Anahita, in pain, was 
nevertheless able to get in another dig, "Least I didn't cut my hair into any 
weirdo pincushion, must be a flutter who fancies _that_," and the two 
departed, leaving Chamcha to wonder at Anahita's sudden and absolute 
espousal of her mother's ethic of femininity. _Trouble brewing_, he 
concluded. 

Trouble came: soon enough. 

ooo 

More and more, when he was alone, he felt the slow heaviness pushing him 
down, until he fell out of consciousness, running down like a wind-up toy, 
and in those passages of stasis that always ended just before the arrival of 
visitors his body would emit alarming noises, the howlings of infernal 
wahwah pedals, the snare--drum cracking of satanic bones. These were the 
periods in which, little by little, he grew. And as he grew, so too did the 
rumours of his presence; you can't keep a devil locked up in the attic and 
expect to keep it to yourself forever. 

How the news got out (for the people in the know remained tight-lipped, the 
Sufyans because they feared loss of business, the temporary beings because 
their feeling of evanescence had rendered them unable, for the moment, to 
act, -- and all parties because of the fear of the arrival of the police, never 
exactly reluctant to enter such establishments, bump accidentally into a little 
furniture and step by chance on a few arms legs necks): he began to appear 
to the locals in their dreams. The mullahs at the Jamme Masjid which used 
to be the Machzikel HaDath synagogue which had in its turn replaced the 
Huguenots' Calvinist church; -- and Dr. Uhuru Simba the man-mountain in 
African pill-box hat and red-yellow-black poncho who had led the successful 
protest against _The Aliens Show_ and whom Mishal Sufyan hated more 
than any other black man on account of his tendency to punch uppity 
women in the mouth, herself for example, in public, at a meeting, plenty of 
witnesses, but it didn't stop the Doctor, _he's a crazy bastard, that one_, 
she told Chamcha when she pointed him out from the attic one day, 
_capable of anything; he could've killed me, and all because I told 
everybody he wasn't no African, I knew him when he was plain Sylvester 
Roberts from down New Cross way;fucking witch doctor, if you ask me_; -- 
and Mishal herself, and Jumpy, and Hanif; -- and the Bus Conductor, too, 
they all dreamed him, rising up in the Street like Apocalypse and burning the 
town like toast. And in every one of the thousand and one dreams he, 
Saladin Chamcha, gigantic of limb and horn-turbaned of head, was singing, 
in a voice so diabolically ghastly and guttural that it proved impossible to 



identify the verses, even though the dreams turned out to have the 
terrifying quality of being serial, each one following on from the one the 
night before, and so on, night after night, until even the Silent Man, that 
former justice of the peace who had not spoken since the night in an Indian 
restaurant when a young drunk stuck a knife under his nose, threatened to 
cut him, and then committed the far more shocking offence of spitting all 
over his food, -- until this mild gentleman astounded his wife by sitting 
upright in his sleep, ducking his neck forwards like a pigeon's, clapping the 
insides of his wrists together beside his right ear, and roaring out a song at 
the top of his voice, which sounded so alien and full of static that she 
couldn't make out a word. 

Very quickly, because nothing takes a long time any more, the image of the 
dream-devil started catching on, becoming popular, it should be said, only 
amongst what Hal Valance had described as the _tinted persuasion_. While 
non-tint neo--Georgians dreamed of a suiphurous enemy crushing their 
perfectly restored residences beneath his smoking heel, nocturnal browns- 
and-blacks found themselves cheering, in their sleep, this what--else--after- 
-all--but-- black--man, maybe a little twisted up by fate class race history, 
all that, but getting off his behind, bad and mad, to kick a little ass. 
At first these dreams were private matters, but pretty soon they started 
leaking into the waking hours, as Asian retailers and manufacturers of 
button-badges sweatshirts posters understood the power of the dream, and 
then all of a sudden he was everywhere, on the chests of young girls and in 
the windows protected against bricks by metal grilles, he was a defiance and 
a warning. Sympathy for the Devil: a new lease of life for an old tune. The 
kids in the Street started wearing rubber devil—horns on their heads, the 
way they used to wear pink-and-green balls jiggling on the ends of stiff 
wires a few years previously, when they preferred to imitate spacemen. The 
symbol of the Goatman, his fist raised in might, began to crop up on 
banners at political demonstrations, Save the Six, Free the Four, Eat the 
Heinz FiftySeven. _Pleasechu meechu_, the radios sang, _hopeyu guessma 
nayym_. Police community relations officers pointed to the "growing devil- 
cult among young blacks and Asians" as a "deplorable tendency", using this 
"Satanist revival" to fight back against the allegations of Ms Pamela 
Chamcha and the local CR C: "Who are the witches now?" "Chamcha," 
Mishal said excitedly, "you're a hero. I mean, people can really identify with 
you. It's an image white society has rejected for so long that we can really 
take it, you know, occupy it, inhabit it, reclaim it and make it our own. It's 
time you considered action." 

"Go away," cried Saladin, in his bewilderment. "This isn't what I wanted. 
This is not what I meant, at all." 

"You're growing out of the attic, anyhow," rejoined Mishal, miffed. "It won't 
be big enough for you in not too long a while." 
Things were certainly coming to a head. 



0 0 0 

"Another old lady get slice las' night," announced Hanif Johnson, affecting a 
Trinidadian accent in the way he had. "No mo soshaal security for she." 
Anahita Sufyan, on duty behind the counter of the Shaandaar Cafe, banged 
cups and plates. "I don't know why you do that," she complained. "Sends 
me spare." Hanif ignored her, sat down beside Jumpy, who muttered 
absently: "What're they saying?" -- Approaching fatherhood was weighing on 
Jumpy Joshi, but Hanif slapped him on the back. "The ol 1 poetry not goin 
great, bra," he commiserated. "Look like that river of blood get coagulate." A 
look from Jumpy changed his tune. "They sayin what they say," he answered. 
"Look out for coloureds cruisin in cars. Now if she was black, man, it'd be 'No 
grounds fi suspec racial motive.' I tell you," he went on, dropping the accent, 
"sometimes the level of aggression bubbling just under the skin of this town 
gets me really scared. It's not just the damn Granny Ripper. It's everywhere. 
You bump into a guy's newspaper in a rush-hour train and you can get your 
face broken. Everybody's so goddamn angry, seems like to me. Including, 
old friend, you," he finished, noticing. Jumpy stood, excused himself, and 
walked out without an explanation. Hanif spread his arms, gave Anahita his 
most winsome smile: "What'd I do?" 

Anahita smiled back sweetly. "Dju ever think, Hanif, that maybe people don't 
like you very much?" 

When it became known that the Granny Ripper had struck again, 
suggestions that the solution to the hideous killings of old women by a 
"human fiend", -- who invariably arranged his victims' internal organs neatly 
around their corpses, one lung by each ear, and the heart, for obvious 
reasons, in the mouth, — would most likely be found by investigating the 
new occultism among the city's blacks which was giving the authorities so 
much cause for concern, -- began to be heard with growing frequency. The 
detention and interrogation of "tints" intensified accordingly, as did the 
incidence of snap raids on establishments "suspected of harbouring 
underground occultist cells". What was happening, although nobody 
admitted it or even, at first, understood, was that everyone, black brown 
white, had started thinking of the dream-figure as _real_, as a being who 
had crossed the frontier, evading the normal controls, and was now roaming 
loose about the city. Illegal migrant, outlaw king, foul criminal or race--hero, 
Saladin Chamcha was getting to be true. Stories rushed across the city in 
every direction: a physiotherapist sold a shaggy--dog tale to the Sundays, 
was not believed, but _no smoke without fire_, people said; it was a 
precarious state of affairs, and it couldn't be long before the raid on the 
Shaandaar Cafe that would send the whole thing higher than the sky. Priests 
became involved, adding another unstable element -- the linkage between 
the term _black_ and the sin _blasphemy_— to the mix. In his attic, slowly, 
Saladin Chamcha grew. 



0 0 0 

He chose Lucretius over Ovid. The inconstant soul, the mutability of 
everything, das Ich, every last speck. A being going through life can become 
so other to himself as to _be another_, discrete, severed from history. He 
thought, at times, of Zeeny Vakil on that other planet, Bombay, at the far 
rim of the galaxy: Zeeny, eclecticism, hybridity. The optimism of those ideas! 
The certainty on which they rested: of will, of choice! But, Zeeny mine, life 
just happens to you: like an accident. No: it happens to you as a result of 
your condition. Not choice, but -- at best -- process, and, at worst, shocking, 
total change. Newness: he had sought a different kind, but this was what he 
got. 

Bitterness, too, and hatred, all these coarse things. He would enter into his 
new self; he would be what he had become: loud, stenchy, hideous, outsize, 
grotesque, inhuman, powerful. He had the sense of being able to stretch out 
a little finger and topple church spires with the force growing in him, the 
anger, the anger, the anger. _Powers_. 

He was looking for someone to blame. He, too, dreamed; and in his dreams, 
a shape, a face, was floating closer, ghostly still, unclear, but one day soon 
he would be able to call it by its name. 
_I am_, he accepted, _that I am_. 
Submission. 

ooo 

His cocooned life at the Shaandaar B and B blew apart the evening Hanif 
Johnson came in shouting that they had arrested Uhuru Simba for the 
Granny Ripper murders, and the word was they were going to lay the Black 
Magic thing on him too, he was going to be the voodoo-priest baron-samedi 
fall guy, and the reprisals -- beatings--up, attacks on property, the usual -- 
were already beginning. "Lock your doors," Hanif told Sufyan and Hind. 
"There's a bad night ahead." 

Hanif was standing slap in the centre of the cafe, confident of the effect of 
the news he was bringing, so when Hind came across to him and hit him in 
the face with all her strength he was so unprepared for the blow that he 
actually fainted, more from surprise than pain. He was revived by Jumpy, 
who threw a glass of water at him the way he had been taught to do by the 
movies, but by then Hind was hurling his office equipment down into the 
street from upstairs; typewriter ribbons and red ribbons, too, the sort used 
for securing legal documents, made festive streamers in the air. Anahita 
Sufyan, unable any more to resist the demonic proddings of her jealousy, 
had told Hind about Mishal's relations with the up--and--coming lawyer- 
politico, and after that there had been no holding Hind, all the years of her 
humiliation had come pouring out of her, it wasn't enough that she was 
stuck in this country full of jews and strangers who lumped her in with the 
negroes, it wasn't enough that her husband was a weakling who performed 
the Haj but couldn't be bothered with godliness in his own home, but this 



had to happen to her also; she went at Mishal with a kitchen knife and her 
daughter responded by "unleashing a painful series of kicks and jabs, self- 
defence only, otherwise it would have been matricide for sure. -- Hanif 
regained consciousness and Haji Sufyan looked down on him, moving his 
hands in small helpless circles by his sides, weeping openly, unable to find 
consolation in learning, because whereas for most Muslims a journey to 
Mecca was the great blessing, in his case it had turned out to be the 
beginning of a curse; -- "Go," he said, "Hanif, my friend, get out," -- but 
Hanif wasn't going without having his say, _I've kept my mouth shut for too 
long_, he cried, _you people who call yourself so moral while you make 
fortunes off the misery of your own race_, whereupon it became clear that 
Haji Sufyan had never known of the prices being charged by his wife, who 
had not told him, swearing her daughters to secrecy with terrible and 
binding oaths, knowing that if he discovered he'd find a way of giving the 
money back so that they could go on rotting in poverty; -- and he, the 
twinkling familiar spirit of the Shaandaar Cafe, after that lost all love of life. - 

- And now Mishal arrived in the cafe, O the shame of a family's inner life 
being enacted thus, like a cheap drama, before the eyes of paying customers, 

— although in point of fact the last tea--drinker was hurrying from the scene 
as fast as her old legs would carry her. Mishal was carrying bags. "I'm 
leaving, too," she announced. "Try and stop me. It's only eleven days." 
When Hind saw her elder daughter on the verge of walking out of her life 
forever, she understood the price one pays for harbouring the Prince of 
Darkness under one's roof. She begged her husband to see reason, to 
realize that his good-hearted generosity had brought them into this hell, and 
that if only that devil, Chamcha, could be removed from the premises, then 
maybe they could become once again the happy and industrious family of 
old. As she finished speaking, however, the house above her head began to 
rumble and shake, and there was the noise of something coming down the 
stairs, growling and -- or so it seemed -- singing, in a voice so vilely hoarse 
that it was impossible to understand the words. 

It was Mishal who went up to meet him in the end, Mishal with Hanif 
Johnson holding her hand, while the treacherous Anahita watched from the 
foot of the stairs. Chamcha had grown to a height of over eight feet, and 
from his nostrils there emerged smoke of two different colours, yellow from 
the left, and from the right, black. He was no longer wearing clothes. His 
bodily hair had grown thick and long, his tail was swishing angrily, his eyes 
were a pale but luminous red, and he had succeeded in terrifying the entire 
temporary population of the bed and breakfast establishment to the point of 
incoherence. Mishal, however, was not too scared to talk. "Where do you 
think you're going?" she asked him. "You think you'd last five minutes out 
there, looking like you do?" Chamcha paused, looked himself over, observed 
the sizeable erection emerging from his loins, and shrugged. "I am 
considering action_," he told her, using her own phrase, although in that 



voice of lava and thunder it didn't seem to belong to her any more. "There is 
a person I wish to find." 

"Hold your horses," Mishal told him. "We'll work something out." 

ooo 

What is to be found here, one mile from the Shaandaar, here where the beat 
meets the street, at Club Hot Wax, formerly the Blak-An-Tan? On this star- 
crossed and moonless night, let us follow the figures -- some strutting, 
decked out, hot-to-trot, others surreptitious, shadow-hugging, shy -- 
converging from all quarters of the neighbourhood to dive, abruptly, 
underground, and through this unmarked door. What's within? Lights, fluids, 
powders, bodies shaking themselves, singly, in pairs, in threes, moving 
towards possibilities. But what, then, are these other figures, obscure in the 
on— off rainbow brilliance of the space, these forms frozen in their attitudes 
amid the frenzied dancers? What are these that hip-hop and hindi-pop but 
never move an inch? -- "You lookin good, Hot Wax posse!" Our host speaks: 
ranter, toaster, deejay nonpareil -- the prancing Pinkwalla, his suit of lights 
blushing to the beat. — Truly, he is exceptional, a seven— foot albino, his 
hair the palest rose, the whites of his eyes likewise, his features 
unmistakably Indian, the haughty nose, long thin lips, a face from a 
_Hamza-nama_ cloth. An Indian who has never seen India, East— India— 
man from the West Indies, white black man. A star. 
Still the motionless figures dance between the shimmying of sisters, the 
jouncing and bouncing of youth. What are they? -- Why, waxworks, nothing 
more. -- Who are they? -- History. See, here is Mary Seacole, who did as 
much in the Crimea as another magic-lamping Lady, but, being dark, could 
scarce be seen for the flame of Florence's candle; -- and, over there!, one 
Abdul Karim, aka The Munshi, whom Queen Victoria sought to promote, but 
who was done down by colour-barring ministers. They're all here, dancing 
motionlessly in hot wax: the black clown of Septimius Severus, to the right; 
to the left, George IV's barber dancing with the slave, Grace Jones. 
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, the African prince who was sold for six feet of cloth, 
dances according to his ancient fashion with the slave's son Ignatius Sancho, 
who became in 1782 the first African writer to be published in England. -- 
The migrants of the past, as much the living dancers' ancestors as their own 
flesh and blood, gyrate stilly while Pinkwalla rants toasts raps up on the 
stage, _Now-mi-feel - indignation-when-dem-talk-immigration-when-dem- 
make-insinuation - we-no-part-a-de-nation-an-mi-make-proclamation-a-de- 
true-situation-how-we-make-contribution-since-de-Rome-Occupation_, and 
from a different part of the crowded room, bathed in evil green light, wax 
villains cower and grimace: Mosley, Powell, Edward Long, all the local 
avatars of Legree. And now a murmur begins in the belly of the Club, 
mounting, becoming a single word, chanted over and over: "Meltdown," the 
customers demand. "Meltdown, meltdown, melt." 



Pinkwalla takes his cue from the crowd, _So-it-meltdown-time-when-de- 
men-of-crime-gonna-get-in-line-for-some-hell-fi re-fr yin_, after which he 
turns to the crowd, arms wide, feet with the beat, to ask, _Who"s-it-gonna- 
be? Who-you-wanna-see?_ Names are shouted, compete, coalesce, until the 
assembled company is united once more, chanting a single word. Pinkwalla 
claps his hands. Curtains part behind him, allowing female attendants in 
shiny pink shorts and singlets to wheel out a fearsome cabinet: man--sized, 
glass-- fronted, internally—illuminated -- the microwave oven, complete with 
Hot Seat, known to Club regulars as: Hell's Kitchen. "All _right_," cries 
Pinkwalla. "Now we really cookin." 

Attendants move towards the tableau of hate-figures, pounce upon the 
night's sacrificial offering, the one most often selected, if truth be told; at 
least three times a week. Her permawaved coiffure, her pearls, her suit of 
blue. _Maggie-maggie-maggie_, bays the crowd. _Burn-burn-burn_. The doll, 
-- the _guy_, -- is strapped into the Hot Seat. Pinkwalla throws the switch. 
And O how prettily she melts, from the inside out, crumpling into 
formlessness. Then she is a puddle, and the crowd sighs its ecstasy: done. 
"The fire this time," Pinkwalla tells them. Music regains the night. 

ooo 

When Pinkwalla the deejay saw what was climbing under cover of darkness 
into the back of his panel van, which his friends Hanif and Mishal had 
persuaded him to bring round the back of the Shaandaar, the fear of obeah 
filled his heart; but there was also the contrary exhilaration of realizing that 
the potent hero of his many dreams was a flesh-and-blood actuality. He 
stood across the street, shivering under a lamp—post though it wasn't 
particularly cold, and stayed there for half an hour while Mishal and Hanif 
spoke urgently to him, _he needs somewhere to go, we have to think about 
his future_. Then he shrugged, walked over to the van, and started up the 
engine. Hanif sat beside him in the cab; Mishal travelled with Saladin, hidden 
from view. 

It was almost four in the morning when they bedded Chamcha down in the 
empty, locked-up nightclub. Pinkwalla — his real name, Sewsunker, was 
never used -- had unearthed a couple of sleeping-bags from a back room, 
and they sufficed. Hanif Johnson, saying goodnight to the fearsome entity of 
whom his lover Mishal seemed entirely unafraid, tried to talk to him 
seriously, "You've got to realize how important you could be for us, there's 
more at stake here than your personal needs," but mutant Saladin only 
snorted, yellow and black, and Hanif backed quickly away. When he was 
alone with the waxworks Chamcha was able to fix his thoughts once again 
on the face that had finally coalesced in his mind's eye, radiant, the light 
streaming out around him from a point just behind his head, Mister Perfecto, 
portrayer of gods, who always landed on his feet, was always forgiven his 
sins, loved, praised, adored . . . the face he had been trying to identify in his 
dreams, Mr. Gibreel Farishta, transformed into the simulacrum of an angel 



as surely as he was the Devil's mirror--self. Who should the Devil blame but 
the Archangel, Gibreel? 

The creature on the sleeping—bags opened its eyes; smoke began to issue 
from its pores. The face on every one of the waxwork dummies was the 
same now, Gibreel's face with its widow's peak and its long thin saturnine 
good looks. The creature bared its teeth and let out a long, foul breath, and 
the waxworks dissolved into puddles and empty clothes, all of them, every 
one. The creature lay back, satisfied. And. fixed its mind upon its foe. 
Whereupon it felt within itself the most inexplicable sensations of 
compression, suction, withdrawal; it was racked by terrible, squeezing pains, 
and emitted piercing squeals that nobody, not even Mishal who was staying 
with Hanif in Pinkwalla's apartment above the Club, dared to investigate. 
The pains mounted in intensity, and the creature thrashed and tossed 
around the dancefloor, wailing most piteously; until, at length, granted 
respite, it fell asleep. 

When Mishal, Hanif and Pinkwalla ventured into the clubroom several hours 
later, they observed a scene of frightful devastation, tables sent flying, 
chairs broken in half, and, of course, every waxwork -- good and evil -- 
Topsy and Legree -- melted like tigers into butter; and at the centre of the 
carnage, sleeping like a baby, no mythological creature at all, no iconic 
Thing of horns and hellsbreath, but Mr. Saladin Chamcha himself, apparently 
restored to his old shape, mother-naked but of entirely human aspect and 
proportions, _humanized_ -- is there any option but to conclude? -- by the 
fearsome concentration of his hate. 
He opened his eyes; which still glowed pale and red. 



2 



Alleluia Cone, coming down from Everest, saw a city of ice to the west of 
Camp Six, across the Rock Band, glittering in the sunlight below the 
massifofCho Oyu. _Shangri-La_, she momentarily thought; however, this 
was no green vale of immortality but a metropolis of gigantic ice— needles, 
thin, sharp and cold. Her attention was distracted by Sherpa Pemba warning 
her to maintain her concentration, and the city had gone when she looked 
back. She was still at twenty-seven thousand feet, but the apparition of the 
impossible city threw her back across space and time to the Bayswater study 
of old dark wooden furniture and heavy velvet curtains in which her father 
Otto Cone, the art historian and biographer of Picabia, had spoken to her in 
her fourteenth and his final year of "the most dangerous of all the lies we 
are fed in our lives", which was, in his opinion, the idea of the continuum. 
"Anybody ever tries to tell you how this most beautiful and most evil of 
planets is somehow homogeneous, composed only of reconcilable elements, 
that it all _adds up_, you get on the phone to the straitjacket tailor," he 



advised her, managing to give the impression of having visited more planets 
than one before coming to his conclusions. "The world is incompatible, just 
never forget it: gaga. Ghosts, Nazis, saints, all alive at the same time; in 
one spot, blissful happiness, while down the road, the inferno. You can't ask 
for a wilder place." Ice cities on the roof of the world wouldn't have fazed 
Otto. Like his wife Alicja, Allie's mother, he was a Polish emigre, a survivor 
of a wartime prison camp whose name was never mentioned throughout 
Allie's childhood. "He wanted to make it as if it had not been," Alicja told her 
daughter later. "He was unrealistic in many ways. But a good man; the best 
I knew." She smiled an inward smile as she spoke, tolerating him in memory 
as she had not always managed to during his life, when he was frequently 
appalling. For example: he developed a hatred of communism which drove 
him to embarrassing extremes of behaviour, notably at Christmas, when this 
Jewish man insisted on celebrating with his Jewish family and others what he 
described as "an English rite", as a mark of respect to their new "host 
nation" -- and then spoiled it all (in his wife's eyes) by bursting into the 
salon where the assembled company was relaxing in the glow of log fire, 
Christmas tree lights and brandy, got up in pantomime Chinee, with droopy 
moustaches and all, crying: "Father Christmas is dead! I have killed him! I 
am The Mao: no presents for anyone! Hee! Hee! Hee!" Allie on Everest, 
remembering, winced -- her mother's wince, she realized, transferred to her 
frosted face. 

The incompatibility of life's elements: in a tent at Camp Four, 27,600 feet, 
the idea which seemed at times to be her father's daemon sounded banal, 
emptied of meaning, of _atmosphere_, by the altitude. "Everest silences 
you," she confessed to Gibreel Far-- ishta in a bed above which parachute 
silk formed a canopy of hollow Himalayas. "When you come down, nothing 
seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you 
up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. The world 
rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had 
of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect 
sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; 
you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to 
continue." They spent most of their time in bed during their first weeks 
together: the appetite of each for the other seemingly inexhaustible, they 
made love six or seven times a day. "You opened me up," she told him. "You 
with the ham in your mouth. It was exactly as if you were speaking to me, 
as if I could read your thoughts. Not as if," she amended. "I did read them, 
right?" He nodded: it was true. "I read your thoughts and the right words 
just came out of my mouth," she marvelled. "Just flowed out. Bingo: love. In 
the beginning was the word." 

Her mother took a fatalistic view of this dramatic turn of events in Allie's life, 
the return of a lover from beyond the grave. "I'll tell you what I honestly 
thought when you gave me the news," she said over lunchtime soup and 



kreplach at the Whitechapel Bloom's. "I thought, oh dear, it's grand passion; 
poor Allie has to go through this now, the unfortunate child." Alicja's 
strategy was to keep her emotions strictly under control. She was a tall, 
ample woman with a sensual mouth but, as she put it, "I've never been a 
noise—maker." She was frank with Allie about her sexual passivity, and 
revealed that Otto had been, "Let's say, otherwise inclined. He had a 
weakness for grand passion, but it always made him so miserable I could 
not get worked up about it." She had been reassured by her knowledge that 
the women with whom her little, bald, jumpy husband consorted were "her 
type", big and buxom, "except they were brassy, too: they did what he 
wanted, shouting things out to spur him on, pretending for all they were 
worth; it was his enthusiasm they responded to, I think, and maybe his 
chequebook, too. He was of the old school and gave generous gifts." 
Otto had called Alleluia his "pearl without price", and dreamed for her a 
great future, as maybe a concert pianist or, failing that, a Muse. "Your sister, 
frankly, is a disappointment to me," he said three weeks before his death in 
that study of Great Books and Picabian bric-a-brac -- a stuffed monkey 
which he claimed was a "first draft" of the notorious _Portrait of Cezanne, 
Portrait of Rembrandt, Portrait of Renoir_, numerous mechanical 
contraptions including sexual stimulators that delivered small electric shocks, 
and a first edition of Jarry's _Ubu Roi_. "Elena has wants where she should 
have thoughts." He Anglicized the name -- Yelyena into Ellaynah --just as it 
had been his idea to reduce "Alleluia" to Allie and bowdlerize himself, Cohen 
from Warsaw, into Cone. Echoes of the past distressed him; he read no 
Polish literature, turning his back on Herbert, on Milosz, on "younger fellows" 
like Baranczak, because for him the language was irredeemably polluted by 
history. "I am English now," he would say proudly in his thick East European 
accent. "Silly mid-offl Pish-Tush! Widow of Windsor! Bugger all." In spite of 
his reticences he seemed content enough being a pantomime member of the 
English gentry. In retrospect, though, it looked likely that he'd been only too 
aware of the fragility of the performance, keeping the heavy drapes almost 
permanently drawn in case the inconsistency of things caused him to see 
monsters out there, or moonscapes instead of the familiar Moscow Road. 
"He was strictly a melting— pot man," Alicja said while attacking a large 
helping of tsimmis. "When he changed our name I told him, Otto, it isn't 
required, this isn't America, it's London W-- two; but he wanted to wipe the 
slate clean, even his Jewishness, excuse me but I know. The fights with the 
Board of Deputies! All very civilized, parliamentary language throughout, but 
bareknuckle stuff none the less." After his death she went straight back to 
Cohen, the synagogue, Chanukah and Bloom's. "No more imitation of life," 
she munched, and waved a sudden, distracted fork. "That picture. I was 
crazy for it. Lana Turner, am I right? And Mahalia Jackson singing in a 
church." 



Otto Cone as a man of seventy-plus jumped into an empty lift-shaft and died. 
Now there was a subject which Alicja, who would readily discuss most taboo 
matters, refused to touch upon: why does a survivor of the camps live forty 
years and then complete the job the monsters didn't get done? Does great 
evil eventually triumph, no matter how strenuously it is resisted? Does it 
leave a sliver of ice in the blood, working its way through until it hits the 
heart? Or, worse: can a man's death be incompatible with his life? Allie, 
whose first response on learning of her father's death had been fury, flung 
such questions as these at her mother. Who, stonefaced beneath a wide 
black hat, said only: "You have inherited his lack of restraint, my dear." 
After Otto's death Alicja ditched the elegant high style of dress and gesture 
which had been her offering on the altar of his lust for integration, her 
attempt to be his Cecil Beaton grande dame. "Phoo," she confided in Allie, 
"what a relief, my dear, to be shapeless for a change." She now wore her 
grey hair in a straggly bun, put on a succession of identical floral-print 
supermarket dresses, abandoned make-up, got herself a painful set of false 
teeth, planted vegetables in what Otto had insisted should be an English 
floral garden (neat flowerbeds around the central, symbolic tree, a 
"chimeran graft" of laburnum and broom) and gave, instead of dinners full of 
cerebral chat, a series of lunches -- heavy stews and a minimum of three 
outrageous puddings -- at which dissident Hungarian poets told convoluted 
jokes to Gurdjieffian mystics, or (if things didn't quite work out) the guests 
sat on cushions on the floor, staring gloomily at their loaded plates, and 
something very like total silence reigned for what felt like weeks. Allie 
eventually turned away from these Sunday afternoon rituals, sulking in her 
room until she was old enough to move out, with Alicja's ready assent, and 
from the path chosen for her by the father whose betrayal of his own act of 
survival had angered her so much. She turned towards action; and found 
she had mountains to climb. 

Alicja Cohen, who had found Allie's change of course perfectly 
comprehensible, even laudable, and rooted for her all the way, could not 
(she admitted over coffee) quite see her daughter's point in the matter of 
Gibreel Farishta, the revenant Indian movie star. "To hear you talk, dear, 
the man's not in your league," she said, using a phrase she believed to be 
synonymous with _not your type_, and which she would have been horrified 
to hear described as a racial, or religious, slur: which was inevitably the 
sense in which her daughter understood it. "That's just fine by me," Allie 
riposted with spirit, and rose. "The fact is, I don't even like my league." 
Her feet ached, obliging her to limp, rather than storm, from the restaurant. 
"Grand passion," she could hear her mother behind her back announcing 
loudly to the room at large. "The gift of tongues; means a girl can babble 
out any blasted thing." 

ooo 



Certain aspects of her education had been unaccountably neglected. One 
Sunday not long after her father's death she was buying the Sunday papers 
from the corner kiosk when the vendor announced: "It's the last wek this 
week. Twenty— three years I've been on this corner and the Pakis have 
finally driven me out of business." She heard the word _p-a-c-h-y_, and had 
a bizarre vision of elephants lumbering down the Moscow Road, flattening 
Sunday news vendors. "What's a pachy?" she foolishly asked and the reply 
was stinging: "A brown Jew." She went on thinking of the proprietors of the 
local "C TN" (confectioner—tobacconist-- newsagent) as _pach yderms_ for 
quite a while: as people set apart -- rendered objectionable -- by the nature 
of their skin. She told Gibreel this story, too. "Oh," he responded, crushingly, 
"an elephant joke." He wasn't an easy man. 

But there he was in her bed, this big vulgar fellow for whom she could open 
as she had never opened before; he could reach right into her chest and 
caress her heart. Not for many years had she entered the sexual arena with 
such celerity, and never before had so swift a liaison remained wholly 
untainted by regret or self— disgust. His extended silence (she took it for 
that until she learned that his name was on the _Bostan"s_ passenger list) 
had been sharply painful, suggesting a difference in his estimation of their 
encounter; but to have been mistaken about his desire, about such an 
abandoned, hurtling thing, was surely impossible? The news of his death 
accordingly provoked a double response: on the one hand, there was a kind 
of grateful, relieved joy to be had from the knowledge that he had been 
racing across the world to surprise her, that he had given up his entire life in 
order to construct a new one with her; while, on the other, there was the 
hollow grief of being deprived of him in the very moment of knowing that 
she truly had been loved. Later, she became aware of a further, less 
generous, reaction. What had he thought he was doing, planning to arrive 
without a word of warning on her doorstep, assuming that she'd be waiting 
with open arms, an unencumbered life, and no doubt a large enough 
apartment for them both? It was the kind of behaviour one would expect of 
a spoiled movie actor who expects his desires simply to fall like ripe fruits 
into his lap . . . in short, she had felt invaded, or potentially invaded. But 
then she had rebuked herself, pushing such notions back down into the pit 
where they belonged, because after all Gibreel had paid heavily for his 
presumption, if presumption it was. A dead lover deserves the benefit of the 
doubt. 

Then there he lay at her feet, unconscious in the snow, taking her breath 
away with the impossibility of his being there at all, leading her momentarily 
to wonder if he might not be another in the series of visual aberrations -- 
she preferred the neutral phrase to the more loaded _visions_ -- by which 
she'd been plagued ever since her decision to scorn oxygen cylinders and 
conquer Chomolungma on lung power alone. The effort of raising him, 
slinging his arm around her shoulders and half-carrying him to her flat -- 



more than half, if the truth be told -- fully persuaded her that he was no 
chimera, but heavy flesh and blood. Her feet stung her all the way home, 
and the pain reawakened all the resentments she'd stifled when she thought 
him dead. What was she supposed to do with him now, the lummox, 
sprawled out across her bed? God, but she'd forgotten what a sprawler the 
man was, how during the night he colonized your side of the bed and 
denuded you entirely of bedclothes. But other sentiments, too, had re- 
emerged, and these won the day; for here he was, sleeping beneath her 
protection, the abandoned hope: at long last, love. 
He slept almost round the clock for a week, waking up only to satisfy the 
minimum requirements of hunger and hygiene, saying almost nothing. His 
sleep was tormented: he thrashed about the bed, and words occasionally 
escaped his lips: _Jahilia, Al-Lat, Hind_. In his waking moments he appeared 
to wish to resist sleep, but it claimed him, waves of it rolling over him and 
drowning him while he, almost piteously, waved a feeble arm. She was 
unable to guess what traumatic events might have given rise to such 
behaviour, and, feeling a little alarmed, telephoned her mother. Alicja 
arrived to inspect the sleeping Gibreel, pursed her lips, and pronounced: 
"He's a man possessed." She had receded more and more into a kind of 
Singer Brothers dybbukery, and her mysticism never failed to exasperate 
her pragmatic, mountain— climbing daughter. "Use maybe a suction pump 
on his ear," Alicja recommended. "That's the exit these creatures prefer." 
Allie shepherded her mother out of the door. "Thanks a lot," she said. "I'll let 
you know." 

On the seventh day he came wide awake, eyes popping open like a doll's, 
and instantly reached for her. The crudity of the approach made her laugh 
almost as much as its unexpectedness, but once again there was that feeling 
of naturalness, of Tightness; she grinned, "Okay, you asked for it," and 
slipped out of the baggy, elasticated maroon pantaloons and loose jacket — 
she disliked clothes that revealed the contours of her body -- and that was 
the beginning of the sexual marathon that left them both sore, happy and 
exhausted when it finally ground to a halt. 

He told her: he fell from the sky and lived. She took a deep breath and 
believed him, because of her father's faith in the myriad and contradictory 
possibilities of life, and because, too, of what the mountain had taught her. 
"Okay," she said, exhaling. "I'll buy it. Just don't tell my mother, all right?" 
The universe was a place of wonders, and only habituation, the anaesthesia 
of the everyday, dulled our sight. She had read, a couple of days back, that 
as part of their natural processes of combustion, the stars in the skies 
crushed carbon into diamonds. The idea of the stars raining diamonds into 
the void: that sounded like a miracle, too. If that could happen, so could this. 
Babies fell out of zillionthfloor windows and bounced. There was a scene 
about that in Francois Truffaut's movie _L"Argent du Poche_ . . . She 



focused her thoughts. "Sometimes," she decided to say, "wonderful things 
happen to me, too." 

THE WORLD OF 2026 A.D. 

METROPOLIS is a classic of science-fiction which 
created an impact on the literary world which reverber- 
ates to this day. Its dramatic presentation of the city- 
world of the next century stirred the minds of readers 
with an unforgettable vision of a metropolis grown to 
Gargantuan proportions, of humanity fighting to keep its 
soul against the monster world of machinery, robots, and 
complexity that had been spawned in our own century. 
The book inspired a movie which is possibly the best 
science-fiction film ever made. 

Now Ace Books brings this classic back to print, with 
a special introduction by Forrest J Ackerman, who as 
a Hugo Award-winning fan personality, made its revival 
one of the primary objectives of his science-fiction career. 


This book is not of today or of the future. 

It tells of no place. 

It serves no cause, party or class. 

It has a moral which grows on the pillar of understanding: 
“The mediator between brain and muscle must be the 
Heart” 





METROPOLIS 


Introduction copyright ©, 1963, by Ace Books, Inc. 
This Ace edition follows the text of the first English 
edition, originally published in 1927. 


Title-page design by Jack Gaughan. 


Printed in U.S.A_ 


INTRODUCTION 
by Forrest J Ackerman 

“Mr. Science Fiction”; Hugo Award-winner; and Metropolis 
Fan #1. 


Welcome to Metropolis, My Home Town. 

Population — estimated by my slan-friend AE van Vogt — 
approximately 30 million. 

I’ve lived here since I was 10 years old. It’s the most excit- 
ing, fabulous city on the face of the earth — and under it. 
London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo ... all 
rolled and roiled into one. 

Just imaginel 

When I say the magic name — Metropolis — it is as tho I 
combine the skyscraping dominance of the Empire State 
Building with the elegance of the Taj Mahal, the fame of the 
Eiffel Tower and the eternal mystery of the Sphinx of Egypt. 
Metropolis — The New Babel, architectural masterpiece of 
monolitliic magnificence. The skyscrapers of the 20th century 
dwarfed by the towering stratoscrapers of the-21st 

And far beneath, in man-made caverns below, the monster- 
machines of Moloch: the incredible, inhuman Geyser Ma- 
chine, the Heart Machine, that must be forever tended by 
the Human Clocks, the subterranean sub-humans, the help- 
less workers of the mole-world who slave their hopeless lives 
away, serfs for the surface people, blind puppets to the will 
of the Master of Metropolis. 

The Master of Metropolis: Joh Fredersen, a man forged of 
ten-point steel, cold as the surface of Pluto — and as distant. 
A ruler as ruthless and imperious as ancient Caesar. 

5 


METROPOLIS 


Hidden somewhere amidst the futuristic superstructures of 
Metropolis is an anachronistic dwelling, a baroque and Gothic 
survival housing a laboratory wherein alchemical marvels are 
performed. With the Seal of Solomon on its door, the 
legendary Golem might have been born here hundreds of 
years before. Today a wild-eyed white-haired albino spider 
spins within, a sinister genuis who has sacrificed one hand to 
his supramundane science. It is the eerie abode of Rotwang, 
the evil Ralph 124C41+ of his day. 

And Rotwang has created Futura— sometimes also called 
Parody— a simulucrum in sentient metal of artificial female 
flesh. A robotrix of which Rossum might have dreamt. 

Metropolis— the book— has been compared to Karel Ca- 
pek’s play RUR, to Samuel Butler’s Utopian novel Erewhon, 
“of a future period when machinery would develop a soul 
and become man's master”, to The Time Machine, in which 
“the restless far-seeing mind of HGWells conceived an un- 
forgettable picture of the development of social and economic 
conditions under his Eloi, the epicurean and effete aristo- 
crats of the future world, and their underground and uncanny 
slaves, the Morlocks.” When the Sleeper Wakes (Wells), 
Land Under England (O’Neill), Looking Backward (Bel- 
lamy) and Summer in 3000 (Martin)— two of which came 
later— are reminiscent in some respects of the book. 

When I speak of Metropolis the film there is nothing with 
which to compare it: it remains the science-fantasy classic 
incomparable, the single greatest scientifilm I ever saw. 

The present work— firstime in print in America in a genera- 
tion— originally sold, in the late 20’s, in a chain of Ten Cent 
Stores! A wretched piece of book-making, the first edition 
nevertheless has become a cornerstone in the collections of 
collectors of collectors’ items and a work particularly coveted 
by aficionados of fantasy filmdom. The lastime I had a spare 
copy it was snapped up for $25. American-International 
Studios and Bert I. Gordon, independent motion picture 
producer, have evinced interest in the property and I am 
certainly going to give a copy of this edition to George Pal, 
who should seriously consider it for production. 

6 


METROPOLIS 

It is hightime, and over time, that a pocketbook edition of 
this unique book be made popularly, universally available. 

Thea von Harbou, its gifted authoress, now dead, in her 
lifetime exhibited a literary mind that leapt ahead of reality. 
When rocketry was in its infancy, long before it was in its 
launching cradle, she authored the world-famous Woman in 
the Moon, both book and screenplay. "The Indian Tomb”, 
“The Isle of the Immortals”, “Destiny”, “Spies”; “Siegfried” 
in film form and a cinemadaptation of “Dr. Mabuse”; were 
among Madame von Harbou’s literary and motion picture 
legacy. She was married to the celebrated director Fritz 
Lang, who so masterfully materialized her masterpiece Me- 
tropolis on the screen. 

“ Metropolis is unlike any other novel as yet written,” en- 
thused an observer at the time. “It is distinct, unique and 
original. It has a tremendous drama of conflicting forces and 
an idyllic love theme.” 

The language of the novel is sometimes as thesauric as 
Shiel, as kaleidoscopic as Merritt in “The Metal Emperor”, as 
bone-spare as Bradbury in “The Skeleton”, as poetic as Poe, 
as macabre as Machen. The title belongs on your Hugo 
Award shelf along with The World Below, The House on the 
Borderland, Last and First Men, The Demolished Man, 
Limbo, 1984. 

Science and Fantasy, Horror and Beauty; Mystery, Men- 
ace, Madness, Magnificence, Significance— Once in a Life- 
time all the Elements were Magically Combined to Create the 
Imaginative Classic, the Filmasterpiece Supreme: 
METROPOLIS! 

This is the book on which the film was based. 

The book has been called a work of genius. 

I agree. In the next few hours you will have an experience 
in reading that will last you all the rest of your life. 

—Forrest J Ackerman 
Apt. 4E, Rotwang Towers 
Lang Level and Harbou Skyway 
Metropolis 
24 Novembro 2026 


7 


CHAPTER I 


TNTow the rumbling of the great organ swelled to 
a roar, pressing, like a rising giant, against the vaulted 
ceiling, to burst through it. 

Freder bent his head backwards, his wide-open, burning 
eyes stared unseeingly upward. His hands formed music 
from the chaos of the notes; struggling with the vibration of 
the sound and stirring him to his innermost depths. 

He was never so near tears in his life and, blissfully 
helpless, he yielded himself up to the glowing moisture 
which dazzled him. 

Above him, the vault of heaven in lapis lazuli-, hovering 
therein, the twelve-fold mystery, the Signs of the Zodiac 
in gold. Set higher above them, the seven crowned ones: the 
planets. High above all a silver-shining bevy of stars: the 
universe. 

Before the bedewed eyes of the organ-player, to his 
music, the stars of heavens began the solemn mighty dance. 

The breakers of the notes dissolved the room into nothing. 
The organ, which Freder played, stood in the middle of the 
sea. 

It was a reef upon which the waves foamed. Carrying 
crests of froth, they dashed violently onward, and the seventh 
was always the mightiest. 

But high above the sea, which bellowed in the uproar 
of the waves, the stars of heaven danced the solemrt, mighty 
dance. 

Shaken to her core, the old earth started from her sleep. 
Her torrents dried up; her mountains fell to ruin. From the 

8 


METROPOLIS 

ripped open depths the fire welled up; The earth burnt with 
all she bore. The waves of the sea became waves of fire. The 
organ flared up, a roaring torch of music. The earth, the sea 
and the hymn-blazing organ crashed- in and became ashes. 

But high above the deserts and the spaces, to which 
creation was burnt, the stars of heaven danced the solemn 
mighty dance. 

Then, from the grey, scattered ashes, on trembling wings 
unspeakably beautiful and solitary, rose a bird with jewelled 
feathers. It uttered a mournful cry. No bird which ever 
lived could have mourned so agonisingly. 

It hovered above the ashes of the completely ruined earth. 
It hovered hither and thither, not knowing where to settle. It 
hovered above the grave of the sea and above the corpse of 
the earth. Never, since the sinning angel fell from heaven to 
hell, had the air heard such a cry of despair. 

Then, from the solemn mighty dance of the stars, one 
freed itself and neared the dead earth. Its light was gentler 
than moonlight and more imperious than the light of the sun. 
Among the music of the spheres it was the most heavenly 
note. It enveloped the mourning bird in its dear light; it 
was as strong as a deity, crying: “To me. ... to me!” 

Then the jewelled bird left the grave of the sea and earth 
and gave its sinking wings up to the powerful voice which 
bore it. Moving in a cradle of light, it swept upwards and 
sang, becoming a note of the spheres, vanishing into Eter- 
nity .... 

Freder let his fingers slip from the keys. He bent forward 
and buried his face in his hands. He pressed his eyes until 
he saw the fiery dance of the stars behind his eyelids. 
Nothing could help him— nothing. Everywhere, everywhere, 
in an agonising, blissful omnipresence, stood, in his vision, 
the one one countenance. 

The austere countenance of the virgin, the sweet coun- 
tenance of the mother— the agony and the desire with which 
he called and called for the one single vision for which his 
racked heart had not even a name, except the one, eternal, 
you .... you .... you . . . . ! 

He let his hands sink and raised his eyes to the heights of 

9 


METROPOLIS 

the beautifully vaulted room, in which his organ stood. From 
the sea-deep blue of the heavens, from the flawless gold of 
the heavenly bodies, from the mysterious twilight around him, 
the girl looked at him with the deadly severity of purity, 
quite maid and mistress, inviolability, graciousness itself, her 
beautiful brow in the diadem of goodness, her voice, pity, 
every word a song. Then to turn, and to go, and to vanish — 
no more to be found. Nowhere, nowhere. 

“You— 1” cried the man. The captive note struck against 
the walls, finding no way out. 

Now the loneliness was no longer bearable. Freder stood 
up and opened the windows. The works lay, in quivering 
brightness, before him. He pressed his eyes closed, standing 
still, hardly breathing. He felt the proximity of the servants, 
standing silently, waiting for the command which would 
permit them to come to life. 

There was one among them— Slim, with his courteous 
face, the expression of which never changed— Freder knew 
of him : one word to him, and, if the girl still walked on earth 
with her silent step, then Slim would find her. But one does 
not set a blood-hound on the track of a sacred, white hind, 
if one does not want to be cursed, and to be, all his life long, 
a miserable, miserable man. 

Freder saw, without looking at him, how Slim’s eyes were 
taking stock of him. He knew that the silent creature, or- 
dained, by his father, to be his all-powerful protector, was, 
at the same time, his keeper. During the fever of nights, 
bereft of sleep, during the fever of his work, in his work-shop, 
during the fever when playing his organ, calling upon God, 
there would be Slim measuring the pulse of the son of his 
great master. He gave no reports; they were not required of 
him. But, if the hour should come in which they were de- 
manded of him, he would certainly have a diary of faultless 
perfection to produce, from the number of steps with which 
one in torment treads out his loneliness with heavy foot, 
from minute to minute, to the dropping of a brow into 
propped up hands, tired with longing. 

Could it be possible that this man, who knew everything, 
knew nothing of her? 


10 


METROPOLIS 

Nothing about him betrayed that he was aware of the 
upheavel in the well-being and disposition of his young 
master, since that day in the “Club of the Sons.” But it was 
one of the slim, silent one’s greatest secrets never to^ give 
himself away, and, although he had no entrance to the “Club 
of the Sons” Freder was by no means sure that the money- 
backed agent of his father would be turned back by the 
rules of the club. 

He felt himself exposed, unclothed. A cruel brightness, 
which left nothing concealed, bathed him and everything 
in his workshop which was almost the most highly situated 
room in Metropolis. 

“I wish to be quite alone,” he said softly. 

Silently the servants vanished, Slim went. . . . But all 
these doors, which closed without the least sound, could 
also, without the least sound, be opened again to the narrow- 
est chink. 

His eyes aching, Freder fingered all the doors of his 
work-room. 

A smile, a rather bitter smile, drew down the comers of his 
mouth. He was a treasure which must be guarded as crown 
jewels are guarded. The son of a great father, and the 
only son. 

Really the only one—? 

Really the only one—? 

His thoughts stopped again at the exit of the circuit and 
the vision was there again and the scene and the event .... 

The “Club of the Sons” was, perhaps, one of the most 
beautiful buildings of Metropolis, and that was not so very 
remarkable. For fathers, for whom every revolution of a 
machine-wheel spelt gold, had presented this house to their 
sons. It was more a district than a house. It embraced theatres, 
picture-palaces, lecture-rooms and a library— in which, every 
book, printed in all the five continents, was to be found- 
race tracks and stadium and the famous “Eternal Gardens.” 

It contained very extensive dwellings for the young sons 
of indulgent fathers and it contained the dwellings of fault- 
less male servants and handsome, well-trained female ser- 
vants for whose training more time was requisite than for the 

11 


METROPOLIS 

development of new species of orchids. 

Their chief task consisted in nothing but, at all times, to 
appear delightful and to be incapriciously cheerful; and, 
with their bewildering costume, their painted faces, and 
their eye-masks, surmounted by snow-white wigs and fra- 
grant as flowers, they resembled delicate dolls of porcelain 
and brocade, devised by a master-hand, not purchaseable 
but rather delightful presents. 

Freder was but a rare visitant to the “Club of the Sons.” 
He preferred his work-shop and the starry chapel in which 
this organ stood. But when once the desire took him to fling 
himself into the radiant joyousness of the stadium competi- 
tions he was the most radiant and joyous of all, playing on 
from victory to victory with the laugh of a young god. 

On that day too. ... on that day too. 

Still tingling from the icy coolness of falling water, every 
muscle still quivering in the intoxication of victory he had 
lain, stretched out, slender, panting, smiling, drunken, beside 
himself, almost insane with joy. The milk-coloured glass 
ceiling above the Eternal Gardens was an opal in the light 
which bathed it. Loving little women attended him, waiting 
roguishly and jealously, from whose white hands, from whose 
fine finger-tips he would eat the fruits he desired. 

One was standing aside, mixing him a drink. From hip to 
knee billowed sparkling brocade. Slender, bare legs held 
proudly together, she stood, like ivory, in purple, peaked 
shoes. Her gleaming body rose, delicately, from her hips 
and— she was not aware of it— quivered in the same rhythm 
as did the man’s chest in exhaling his sweet-rising breath. 
Carefully did the little painted face under the eye-mask 
watch the work of her careful hands. 

Her mouth was not rouged, but yet was pomegranate red. 
And she smiled so unselfconsciously down at the beverage 
that it caused the other girls to laugh aloud. 

Infected, Freder also began to laugh. But the glee of the 
maidens swelled to a storm as she who was mixing the drink, 
not knowing why they were laughing, became suffused with 
a blush of confusion, from her pomegranate-hued mouth to 
her lustrous hips. The laughter induced the friends, for no 

12 


METROPOLIS 


reason, only because they were young and care-free, to join 
in the cheerful sound. Like a joyously ringing rainbow, peal 
upon peal of laughter arched itself gaily above the young 
people. 

Then suddenly— suddenly— Freder turned his head. His 
hands, which were resting on the hips of the drink-mixer, lost 
hold of her, dropping down by his sides as if dead. The 
laughter ceased, not one of the friends moved. Not one of 
the little, brocaded, bare-limbed women moved hand or foot. 
They stood and looked. 

The door of the Eternal Gardens had opened and through 
the door came a procession of children. They were all hold- 
ing hands. They had dwarves’ faces, grey and ancient. They 
were little ghost-like skeletons, covered with faded rags and 
smocks. They had colourless hair and colourless eyes. They 
walked on emaciated bare feet. Noiselessly they followed 
their leader. 

Their leader was a girl. The austere countenance of the 
Virgin. The sweet countenance of the mother. She held a 
skinny child by each hand. Now she stood still, regarding 
the young men and women one after another, with the 
deadly severity of purity. She was quite maid and mistress, 
inviolability— and was, too, graciousness itself, her beautiful 
brow in the diadem of goodness; her voice, pity; every word 
a song. 

She released the children and stretched forward her hand, 
motioning towards the friends and saying to the children: 

“Look, these are your brothers!” 

And, motioning towards the children, she said to the 
friends: 

“Look, these are your brothers!” 

She waited. She stood still and her gaze rested upon 
Freder. 

Then the servants came, the door-keepers came. Between 
these walls of marble and glass, under the opal dome of 
the Eternal Gardens, there reigned, for a short time, an 
unprecedented confusion of noise, indignation and embarrass- 
ment. The girl appeared still to be waiting. Nobody dared to 

13 


METROPOLIS 


touch her, though she stood so defenceless, among the grey 
infant-phantoms, Her eyes rested perpetually on Freder. 

Then she took her eyes from his and, stooping a little, took 
the children’s hands again, turned and led the procession out. 
The door swung to behind her; the servants disappeared 
with many apologies for not having been able to prevent the 
occurrence. All was emptiness and silence. Had not each of 
those before whom the girl had appeared, with her grey 
procession of children, so large a number of witnesses to the 
event they would have been inclined to put it down to 
hallucination. 

Near Freder, upon the illuminated mosaic floor, cowered 
the little drink-mixer, sobbing uncontrolledly. 

With a leisurely movement, Freder bent towards her and 
suddenly twitched the mask, the narrow black mask, from 
her eyes. 

The drink-mixer shrieked out as though overtaken in stark 
nudity. Her hands flew up, clutching, and remained hanging 
stiffly in the air. 

A little painted face stared, horror-stricken at the man. The 
eyes, thus exposed, were senseless, quite empty. The little 
face from which the charm of the mask had been taken 
away, was quite weird. 

Freder dropped the black piece of stuff. The drink-mixer 
pounced quickly upon it, hiding her face. Freder looked 
around him. t 

The Eternal Gardens scintillated. The beautiful beings in 
it, even if, temporarily, thrown out of balance, shone in their 
well-cared-forness, their cleanly abundance. The odour of 
freshness, which pervaded everywhere, was like the breath 
of a dewy garden. 

Freder looked down at himself. He wore, as all the youths 
in the “House of the Sons,” the white silk, which they wore 
but once— the soft, supple shoes, with the noiseless soles. 

He looked at his friends. He saw these beings who never 
wearied, unless from sport— who never sweated, unless from 
s P ort — who were never out of breath, unless from sport. 
Beings requiring their joyous games in order that their food 

14 


METROPOLIS 

and drink might agree with them, in order to be able to sleep 
well and digest easily. 

The tables, at which they had all eaten, were laid, as 
before-hand, with untouched dishes. Wine, golden and 
purple, embedded in ice or warmth, was there, proffering 
itself, like the loving little women. Now the music was 
playing again. It had been silenced when the girlish voice 
spoke the five soft words: 

“Look, these are your brothers!” 

And once more, with her eyes resting on Freder: 

“Look, these are your brothers!” 

As one suffocating, Freder sprang up. The masked women 
stared at him. He dashed to the door. He ran along passages 
and down steps. He came to the entrance. 

“Who was that girl?” 

Perplexed shrugs. Apologies. The occurrence was inex- 
cusable, the servants knew it. Dismissals, in plenty, would be 
distributed. 

The Major Domo was pale with anger. 

“I do not wish,” said Freder, gazing into space, “that any- 
one should suffer for what has happened. Nobody is to be 
dismissed .... I do not wish it . . . .” 

The Major Domo bowed in silence. He was accustomed to 
whims in the “Club of the Sons.” 

“Who is the girl. . . . can nobody tell me?” 

No. Nobody. But if an inquiry is to be made . . . . ? 

Freder remained silent. He thought of Slim. He shook 
his head. First slowly, then violently. “No- 

One does not set a bloodhound on the hack of a sacred, 
white hind. 

“Nobody is to inquire about her,” he said, tonelessly. 
He felt the soulless glance of the strange, hired person 
upon his face. He felt himself poor and besmirched. In an 
ill-temper which rendered him as wretched as though he 
had poison in his veins, he left the club. He walked home as 
though going into exile. He shut himself up in his work- 
room and worked. At nights he clung to his instrument and 
forced the monstrous solitude of Jupiter and Saturn down to 
him. 


15 


METROPOLIS 

Nothing could help him— nothing! In an agonising blissful 
omnipresence stood, before his vision the one, one counten- 
ance; the austere countenance of the virgin, the sweet 
countenance of the mother. 

A voice spoke: 

“Look, these are your brothers.” 

And the glory of the heavens was nothing, and the 
intoxication of work was nothing. And the conflagration 
which wiped out the sea could not wipe out the soft voice 
of the girl: 

“Look, these are your brothers!” 

My God, my God— 


With a painful, violent jerk, Freder turned around and 
walked up to his machine. Something like deliverance passed 
across his face as he considered this shining creation, waiting 
only for him, of which there was not a steel link, not a rivet, 
not a spring which he had not calculated and created. 

The creature was not large, appearing still more fragile 
by reason of the huge room and flood of sunlight in which 
it stood. But the soft lustre of its metal and the proud swing 
with which the foremost body seemed to raise itself to leap, 
even when not in motion, gave it something of the fair god- 
liness of a faultlessly beautiful anifnal, which is quite fearless, 
because it knows itself to be invincible. 

Freder caressed his creation. He pressed his head gently 
against the machine. With ineffable affection he felt its cool, 
flexible members. 

“To-night,” he said, “I shall be with you. I shall be entirely 
enwrapped by you s I shall pour out my life into you and shall 
fathom whether or not I can bring you to life. I shall, 
perhaps, feel your throb and the commencement of move- 
ment in your controlled body. I shall, perhaps, feel the 
giddiness with which you throw yourself out into your bound- 
less element, carrying me— me, the man who made-through 
the huge sea of midnight. The seven stars will be above us 
and the sad beauty of the moon. Mount Everest will remain, 

16 


METROPOLIS 

a hill, below us. You shall carry me and I shall know: 
You carry me as high as I wish. . . .” 

He stopped, closing his eyes. The shudder which ran 
through him was imparted, a thrill, to the silent machine. 

“But perhaps,” he continued, without raising his voice, 
“perhaps you notice, you, my beloved creation, that you are 
no longer my only love. Nothing on earth is more vengeful 
than the jealousy of a machine which believes itself to be 
neglected. Yes, I know that. . . . You are imperious mis- 
tresses. . . . ‘Thou shalt have none other Gods but me.” . . . 
Am I right? A thought apart from you— you feel it at once 
and become perverse. How could I keep it hidden from you 
that all my thoughts are not with you. I can’t help it, my 
creation. I was bewitched, machine. I press my forehead 
upon you and my forehead longs for the knees of the girl of 
whom I do not even know the name. . . .” 

He ceased and held his breath. He raised his head and 
listened. 

Hundreds and thousands of times had he heard that same 
sound in the city. But hundreds and thousands of time, it 
seemed to him, he had not comprehended it. 

It was an immeasurably glorious and transporting sound. 
As deep and rumbling as, and more powerful than, any 
sound on earth. The voice of the ocean when it is angry, 
the voice of falling torrents, the voice of very close thunder- 
storms would be miserably drowned in this- Behemoth-din. 
Without being shrill it penetrated all walls, and, as long as 
it lasted, all things seemed to swing in it. It was omnipresent, 
coming from the heights and from the depths, being beautiful 
and horrible, being an irresistible command. 

It was high above the town. It was the voice of the town. 

Metropolis raised her voice. The machines of Metropolis 
roared; they wanted to be fed. 

Freder pushed open the glass doors. He felt- them tremble 
like strings under strokes of the bow. He stepped out on to 
the narrow gallery which ran around this, almost the highest 
house of Metropoh's. The roaring sound received him, en- 
veloped him, never coming to an end. 

17 


METROPOLIS 

Great as Metropolis was: at all four corners of the city, 
this roared command was equally perceptible. 

Freder looked across the city at the building known to the 
world as the “New Tower of Babel.” 

In the brain-pan of this New Tower of Babel lived the 
man who was himself the Brain of Metropolis. 

As long as the man over there, who was nothing but work, 
despising sleep, eating and drinking mechanically, pressed 
his fingers on the blue metal plate, which apart from himself, 
no man had ever touched, so long would the voice of the 
machine-city of Metropolis roar for food, for food, for 
food. . . . 

She wanted living men for food. 

Then the living food came pushing along in masses. Along 
the street it came, along its own street which never crossed 
with other people’s streets. It rolled on, a broad, an endless 
stream. The stream was twelve files deep. They walked in 
even step. Men, men, men— all in the same uniform, from 
throat to ankle in dark blue linen, bare feet in the same hard 
shoes, hair tightly pressed down by the same black caps. 

And they all had the same faces. And they all appeared to 
be of the same age. They held themselves straightened up, 
but not straight. They did not raise their heads, they pushed 
them 'forward. They planted their feet forward, but they did 
not walk. The open gates of the New Tower of Babel, the 
machine center of Metropolis, gulped the masses down. 

Towards them, but past them, another procession dragged 
itself along, the shift just used. It rolled on, a broad, an 
endless stream. The stream was twelve files deep. They 
walked in even step. Men, men, men— all in the same uniform, 
from throat to ankle in dark blue linen, bare feet in the same 
hard shoes, hair tightly pressed down by the same black caps. 

And they all had the same faces. And they all seemed 
one thousand years old. They walked with hanging fists, they 
walked with hanging heads. No, they planted their feet for- 
ward but they did not walk. The open gates of the New 
Tower of Babel, the machine centre of Metropolis, threw the 
masses up as it gulped them down. 

When the fresh living food had disappeared through the 

18 


METROPOLIS 


gates the roaring voice was silent at last. And the never 
ceasing, throbbing hum of the great Metropolis became per- 
ceptible again, producing the effect of silence, a deep relief. 
The man who was the great brain in the brain-pan of Me- 
tropolis had ceased to press his fingers on the blue metal plate. 

In ten hours he would let the machine brute roar anew. 
And in another ten hours, again. And always the same, and 
always the same, without ever loosening the ten-hour clamp. 

Metropolis did not know what Sunday was. Metropolis 
knew neither high days nor holidays. Metropolis had the 
most saintly cathedral in the world, richly adorned with 
Gothic decoration. In times of which only the chronicles 
could tell, the star-crowned Virgin on its tower used to smile, 
as a mother, from out her golden mantle, deep, deep down 
upon the pious red rooves and the only companions of her 
graciousness were the doves which used to nest in the gar- 
goyles of the water-spouts and the bells which were called 
after the four archangels and of which Saint Michael was 
the most magnificent. 

It was said that the Master who cast it turned villain for 
its sake, for he stole consecrated and unconsecrated silver, 
like a raven, casting it into the metal body of the bell. As a 
reward for his deed he suffered, on the place of execution, 
the dreadful death on the wheel. But, it was said, he died 
exceedingly happy, for the Archangel Michael rang him on 
his way to death so wonderfully, touchingly, that all agreed 
the saints must have forgiven the sinner already, to ring the 
heavenly bells, thus, to receive him. 

The bells still rang with their old, ore voices but when 
Metropolis roared, then Saint Michael itself was hoarse. The 
New Tower of Babel and its fellow houses stretched their 
sombre heights high above the cathedral spire, that the 
young girls in the work-rooms and wireless stations gazed 
down just as deep from the thirtieth story windows on the 
star-crowned virgin as she, in earlier days, had looked down 
on the pious red rooves. In place of doves, flying machines 
swarmed over the cathedral roof and over the city, resting 
on the rooves, from which, at night glaring pillars and circles 
indicated the course of flight and landing points. 

19 


METROPOLIS 


The Master of Metropolis had already considered, more 
than once, having the cathedral pulled down, as being point- 
less and an obstruction to the traffic in the town of fifty 
million inhabitants. 

But the small, eager sect of Gothics, whose leader was 
Desertus, half monk, half one enraptured, had sworn the 
solemn oath: If one hand from the wicked city of Metropolis 
were to dare to touch just one stone -of the cathedral, then 
they would neither repose nor rest until the wicked city of 
Metropolis should lie, a heap of ruins, at the foot of her 
cathedral. 

The Master of Metropolis used to avenge the threats which 
constituted one sixth of his daily mail. But he did not care 
to fight with opponents to whom he rendered a service by 
destroying them for their belief. The great brain of Me- 
tropolis, a stranger to the sacrifice of a desire, estimated the 
incalculable power which the sacrificed ones and martyrs 
showered upon their followers too high rather than too low. 
Too, the demolition of the cathedral was not yet so burning 
a question as to have been the object of an estimate of 
expenses. But when the moment should come, the cost of its 
pulling down would exceed that of the construction of Me- 
tropolis. The Gothics were ascetics; the Master of Metropolis 
knew by experience that a multi-milliardaire was more 
cheaply bought over than an ascetic. 

Freder wondered, not without a foreign feeling of bitter- 
ness, how many more times the great Master of Metropolis 
would permit him to look on at the scene which the cathedral 
would present to him on every rainless day: When the sun 
sank at the back of Metropolis, the houses turning to moun- 
tains and the streets to valleys; when the stream of light, 
which seemed to crackle with coldness, broke forth from all 
windows, from the walls of the houses, from the rooves 
and from the heart of the town; when the silent quiver of 
electric advertisments began; when the searchlights, in all 
colours of the rainbow, began to play around the New Tower 
of Babel; when the omnibuses turned to chains of light- 
spitting monsters, the little motor cars to scurrying, luminous 
fishes in a waterless deep-sea, while from tire invisible 
. 20 


METROPOLIS 

harbour of the underground railway, an ever equal, magical 
shimmer pressed on to be swallowed by the hurrying shad- 
ows— then the cathedral would stand there, in this boundless 
ocean of light, which dissolved all forms by. outshining them, 
the only dark object, black and persistant, seeming, in its 
lightlessness, to free itself from the earth, to rise higher and 
ever higher, and appearing in this maelstrom of tumultous 
light, the only reposeful and masterful object. 

But the Virgin on the top of the tower seemed to have her 
own gentle starlight, and hovered, set free from the blackness 
of the stone, on the sickle of the silver moon, above the 
cathedral. 

Freder had never seen the countenance of the Virgin and 
yet he knew it so well he could have drawn it: the austere 
countenance of the Virgin, the sweet countenance of the 
mother. 

He stooped, clasping the burning palms of his hands 
around the iron railing. 

“Look at me, Virgin,” he begged, “Mother, look at me!” 

The spear of a searchlight flew into his eyes causing him 
to close them angrily. A whistling rocket hissed through 
the air, dropping down into the pale twilight of the afternoon, 
the word : Yoshiwara. . . . 

Remarkably white, and with penetrating beams, there 
hovered, towering up, over a house which was not to be 
seen, the word: Cinema. 

All the seven colours of the rainbow flared, cold and ghost- 
like in silently swinging circles. The enormous face of the 
clock on the New Tower of Babel was bathed in the glaring 
cross-fire of the searchlights. And over and over again from 
the pale, unreal-looking sky, dripped the word: Yoshiwara. 

Freder’s eyes hung on the clock of the New Tower of 
Babel, where the seconds flashed off as sparks of breathing 
lightning, continuous in their coming as in their going. 
He calculated the time which had passed since the voice of 
Metropolis had roared for food, for food, for food. He 
knew that behind the throbbing second flashes on the New 
Tower of Babel there was a wide, bare room with narrow 
windows, the height of the walls, switch-boards bn all sides, 

21 


METROPOLIS 


right in the centre, the table, the most ingenious instrument 
which the Master of Metropolis had created, on which to 
play, alone, as solitary master. 

On the plain chair before it, the embodiment of the great 
brain: the Master of Metropolis. Near his right hand the 
sensitive blue metal plate, to which he would stretch out his 
right hand, with the infallible certainty of a healthy machine, 
when seconds enough had flicked off into eternity, to let 
Metropolis roar once more— for food, for food, for food—” 

In this moment Freder was seized with the persistent 
idea that he would lose his reason if he had, once more, 
to hear the voice of Metropolis thus roaring to be fed.' And, 
already convinced of the pointlessness of his quest, he 
turned from the spectacle of the light crazy city and went 
to seek the Master of Metropolis, whose name was Joh 
Fredersen and who was his father. 


CHAPTER II 


The brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel was peopled 
with numbers. 

From an invisible source the numbers dropped rhythmi- 
cally down through the cooled air of the room, being col- 
lected, as in a water-basin, at the table at which the great 
brain of Metropolis worked, becoming objective under the 
pencils of his secretaries. These eight young men resembled 
each other as brothers, which they were not. Although 
sitting as immovable as statues, of which only the writing 
fingers of the right hand stirred, yet each single one, with 
sweat-bedewed brow and parted lips, seemed the personifi- 
cation of Breathlessness. 

No head was raised on Freder’s entering, Not even his 
father’s. 

The lamp under the third loud-speaker glowed white-red 

New York spoke. 


22 


METROPOLIS 

Joh Fredersen was comparing the figures of the evening 
exchange report with the lists which lay before him. Once 
his voice sounded, vibrationless: 

“Mistake. Further inquiry.” 

The first secretary quivered, stooped lower, rose and re- 
tired on soundless soles. Joh Fredersen’s left eyebrow rose a 
trifle as he watched the retreating figure— only as long as 
was possible without turning his head. 

A thin, concise penal-line crossed out a name. 

The white-red light glowed. The voice spoke. The num- 
bers dropped down through the great room. In the brain-pan 
of Metropolis. 

Freder remained standing, motionless, by the door. He 
was not sure as to whether or not his father had noticed 
him. Whenever he entered this room he was once more a 
boy of ten years old, his chief characteristic uncertainty, 
before the great concentrated, almighty certainty, which was 
called Joh Fredersen, and was his father. 

The first secretary walked past him, greeting him silently, 
respectfully. lie resembled a competitor leaving the course, 
beaten. The chalky face of the young man hovered for one 
moment before Freder ’s eyes like a big, white, lacquer mask. 
Then it was blotted out. 

Numbers dropped down through the room. 

One chair was empty. On seven others sat seven men, 
pursuing the numbers which sprang unceasingly from the 
invisible. 

A lamp glowed white-red. 

New York spoke. 

A lamp sparkled up: white-green. 

London began to speak. 

Freder looked up at the clock opposite the door, com- 
manding the whole wall like a gigantic wheel. It was the 
same clock, which, from the heights of the New Tower of 
Babel, flooded by searchlights, flicked off its second-sparks 
over the great Metropolis. 

Joh Fredersen’s head stood out against it. It was a crushing 
yet accepted halo above the brain of Metropolis. 

The searchlights raved in a delirium of colour upon the 

23 


METROPOLIS 


narrow windows which ran from floor to ceiling. Cascades of 
light frothed against the panes. Outside, deep down, at the 
foot of the New Tower of Babel boiled the Metropolis. But 
in this room not a sound was to be heard but the incessantly 
dripping numbers. 

The Rotwang-process had rendered the walls and windows 
sound-proof. 

In this room, which was at the same time crowned and 
subjugated by the mighty time-piece, the clock, indicating 
numbers, nothing had any significance but numbers. The son 
of the great Master of Metropolis realised that, as long as 
numbers came dripping out of the invisible no word, which 
was not a number, and coming from a visible mouth, could 
lay claim to the least attention. 

Therefore he stood, gazing unceasingly at his father’s head, 
watching the monstrous hand of the clock sweep onward, 
inevitably, like a sickle, a reaping scythe, pass through the 
skull of his father, without harming him, climb upwards, 
up the number-beset ring, creep around the heights and 
sink again, to repeat the vain blow of the scythe. 

At last the white-red light went out. A voice ceased. 

Then the white-green fight went out, too. 

Silence. 

The hands of those writing stopped and, for the space of 
a moment, they sat as though paralysed, relaxed, exhausted. 
Then Joh Fredersen’s voice said with a dry gentleness: 

“Thank you, to-morrow.” 

And without looking round: 

“What do you want, my boy?” 

The seven strangers quitted the now silent room. Freder 
crossed to his father, whose glance was sweeping the fists 
of captured number-drops. Freder’s eyes clung to the blue 
metal plate near his father’s right hand. 

“How did you know it was I?” he asked, softly. 

Joh Fredersen did not look up at him. Although his face 
had gained an expression of patience and pride at the first 
question which his son put to him he had lost none of his 
alertness. He glanced at the clock. His fingers glided over 
24 


METROPOLIS 


the flexible keyboard. Soundlessly were orders flashed out to 
waiting men. 

“The door opened. Nobody was announced. Nobody comes 
to me unannounced. Only my son.” 

A light below glass— a question. Joh Fredersen extin- 
guished the light. The first secretary entered and crossed 
over to the great Master of Metropolis. 

“You were right. It was a mistake. It has been rectified,” 
he reported, expressionlessly. 

"Thank you.” Not a look. Not a gesture. “The G— bank 
has been notified to pay you your salary. Good evening.” 

The young man stood motionless. Three, four, five, six 
seconds flicked off the gigantic time-piece. Two empty eyes 
burnt in the chalky face of the young man, impressing their 
brand of fear upon Freder’s vision. 

One of Joh Fredersen’s shoulders made a leisurely move- 
ment. 

“Good evening,” said the young man, in a strangled tone. 

He went. 

“Why did you dismiss him, father?” the son asked. 

“I have no use for him,” said Joh Fredersen, still not 
having looked at his son. 

“Why not, father?” 

“I have no use for people who start when one speaks to 
them,” said the Master over Metropolis. 

“Perhaps he felt ill . . . perhaps he is worrying about 
somebody who is dear to him.” 

“Possibly. Perhaps too, he was still under .the effects of the 
too long night in Yoshiwara. Freder, avoid assuming people 
to be good, innocent and victimized just because they 
suffer. He who suffers has sinned, against himself and against 
others.” 

“You do not suffer, father?” 

“No.” 

“You are quite free from sin?” 

“The time of sin and suffering lies behind me, Freder.” 

“And if this man, now ... I have never seen such a 
thing . . . but I believe that men resolved to end their lives 
go out of a room as he did . . .” 

. 25 


METROPOLIS 


“Perhaps.” 

“And suppose you were to hear, to-morrow, that he were 
dead . . . that would leave you untouched . . . ?” 

“Yes.” 

Freder was silent. 

His father’s hand slipped over a lever, and pressed it 
down. The white lamps in all the rooms surrounding the 
brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel went out. The Master 
over Metropolis had informed the circular world around 
him that he did not wish to be disturbed without urgent 
cause. 

“I cannot tolerate it,” he continued, “when a man, work- 
ing upon Metropolis, at my right hand, in common with me, 
denies the only great advantage he possesses above the 
machine.” 

41 And what is that, father?" 

“To take delight in work,” said the Master over Metropolis. 

Freder 's hand glided over his hair, then rested on its 
glorious fairness. He opened his lips, as though he wanted to 
say something; but he remained silent. 

“Do you suppose,” Joh Fredersen went on, “that I need 
my secretaries’ pencils to check American stock-exchange 
reports? The index tables of Rotwang’s trans-ocean trumpets 
are a hundred times more reliable and swift than clerk’s 
brains and hands. But, by the accuracy of the machine I 
can measure the accuracy of the men, by the breath of the 
machine, the lungs of the men who compete with her.” 

“And the man you just dismissed, and who is doomed 
(for to be dismissed by you, father, means going downl . . . 
Down! . . . Downl . . .) he lost his breath, didn’t he?” 

“Yes.” 

“Because he was a man and not a machine. . . .” 

“Because he denied his humanity before the machine.” 

Freder raised his head and his deeply troubled eyes. 

“I cannot follow yop now, father,” he said, as if in pain. 

The expression of patience on Joh Fredersen ’s face deep- 
ened. 

“The man,” he said quietly, “was my first secretary! The 
salary he drew was eight times as large as that of the last. 

26 


METROPOLIS 

That was synonymous with the obligation to perform eight 
times as much. To me. Not to himself. To-morrow the fifth 
secretary will be in his place. In a week he will have rendered 
four of the others superfluous. I have use for that man.” 

“Because he saves four others.” 

“No, Freder. Because he takes delight in the work of four 
others. Because he throws himself entirely into his work- 
throws himself as desiringly as if it were a woman.” 

Freder was silent. Joh Fredersen looked at his son. He 
looked at him carefully. 

“You have had some experience?” he asked. 

The eyes of the boy, beautiful and sad, slipped past him, 
out into space. Wild, white light frothed against the windows, 
and, in going out, left the sky behind, as a black velvet cloth 
over Metropolis. 

“I have had no experience,” said Freder, tentatively, “ex- 
cept that I believe for the first time in my life to have com- 
prehended the being of a machine 

“That should mean a great deal,” replied the Master over 
Metropolis. “But you are probably wrong, Freder. If you 
had really comprehended the being of a machine you would 
not be so perturbed.” 

Slowly the son tinned his eyes and the helplessness of his 
incomprehension to his father. 

“How can one but be perturbed,” he said, “if one comes 
to you, as I did, through the machine-rooms. Through the 
glorious rooms of your glorious machines . . . and sees the 
creatures who are fettered to them by laws of eternal 
watchfulness . . . lidless eyes . . .” 

He paused. His lips were dry as dust. 

Joh Fredersen leant back. He had not taken his gaze from 
his son, and still held it fast. 

“Why did you come to me through the machine-rooms,” 
he asked quietly. “It is neither the best, nor the most con- 
venient way.” 

“I wished,” said the son, picking his words carefully, “Just 
once to look the men in the face— whose little children are 
my brothers— my sisters ...” 

“H’m,” said the other with very tight lips. The pencil which 

27 


METROPOLIS 


he held between his fingers tapped gently, dryly, once, 
twice, upon the table’s edge. Joh Fredersen’s eyes wandered 
from his son to the twitching flash of the seconds on the 
clock, then sinking back again to him. 

“And what did you find?” he asked. 

Seconds, seconds, seconds of silence. Then it was as though 
the son, up-rooting and tearing loose his whole ego, threw 
himself, with a gesture of utter self-exposure, upon his father, 
yet he stood still, head a little bent, speaking softly, as 
though every word were smothering between his lips. 

“Father! Help the men who live at your machines!” 

“I cannot help them,” said the brain of Metropolis. “No- 
body can help them. They are \vhere they must be. They are 
what they must be. They are not fitted for anything more or 
anything different.” 

“I do not know for what they are fitted,” said Freder, 
expressionlessly: his head fell upon his breast as though 
almost severed from his neck. “I only know what I saw— and 
that it was dreadful to look upon ... I went through the 
machine-rooms— they were like temples. All the great gods 
were living in white temples. I saw Baal and Moloch, Huitzi- 
lopochtli and Durgha; some frightfully companionable, some 
terribly solitary. I saw Juggernaut’s divine car and the Towers 
of Silence, Mahomet’s curved sword, and the crosses of 
Golgotha. And all machines, machines, machines, which, con- 
fined to their pedestals, like deities to their temple thrones, 
from the resting places which bore them, lived their god-like 
lives: Eyeless but seeing all, earless but hearing all, without 
speech, yet, in themselves, a proclaiming mouth— not man, 
not woman, and yet engendering, receptive, and productive- 
lifeless, yet shaking the air of their temples with the never- 
expiring breath of their vitality. And, near the god-machines, 
the slaves of the god-machines: the men who were as 
though crushed between machine companionability and ma- 
chine solitude. They have no loads to carry: the machine 
carries the loads. They have not to lift and push: the machine 
lifts and pushes. They have nothing else to do but eternally 
one and the same thing, each in this place, each at his 
machine. Divided into periods of brief seconds, always the 

28 


METROPOLIS 


same clutch at the same second, at the same second. They 
have eyes, but they are blind but for one thing, the scale of 
the manometer. They have ears, but they are deaf but for 
one thing, the hiss of their machine. They watch and watch, 
having no thought but for one thing: should their watchful- 
ness waver, then the machine awakens from its feigned sleep 
and begins to race, racing itself to pieces. And the machine, 
having neither head nor brain, with the tension of its watch- 
fulness, sucks and sucks out the brain from the paralysed skull 
of its watchman, and does not stay, and sucks, and does not 
stay until a being is hanging to the sucked-out skull, no 
longer a man and not yet a machine, pumped dry, hollowed 
out, used up. And the machine which has sucked out and 
gulped down the spinal marrow and brain of the man 
and has wiped out the hollows in his skull with the soft, long 
tongue of its soft, long hissing, the maching gleams in its 
silver-velvet radiance, anointed with oil, beautiful, infallible— 
Baal and Moloch, Huitzilopochtli and Durgha. And you, 
father, you press your fingers upon the little blue metal plate 
near your right hand, and your great glorious, dreadful city 
of Metropolis roars out, proclaiming that she is hungry for 
fresh human marrow and human brain and then the living 
food rolls on, like a stream, into the machine-rooms, which are 
like temples, and that, just used, is thrown up. . . .” 

His voice failed him. He struck his fists violently together, 
and looked at his father. 

“. . . and they are all human beings!” 

“Unfortunately. Yes.” 

The father’s voice sounded. to the son’s ear as though he 
were speaking from behind seven closed doors. 

“That men are used up so rapidly at the machines, Freder, 
is no proof of the greed of the machine, but of the deficiency 
of the human material. Man is the product of change, Freder. 
A once-and-for-all being. If he is miscast he cannot be sent 
back to the melting-furnace. One is obliged to use him as he 
is. Whereby it has been statistically proved that the powers 
of performance of the non-intellectual worker lessen from 
month to month.” 

Freder laughed. The laugh came so dry, so parched, 
‘ 29 


METROPOLIS 


from his lips that Joh Fredersen jerked up his head, looking 
at his son from out narrowed eyelids. Slowly his eyebrows 
rose. 

“Are you not afraid, father (supposing that the statistic 
are correct and the consumption of man is progressing in- 
creasingly, rapidly) that one fine day there will be no more 
food there for the man-eating god-machines, and that the 
Moloch of glass, rubber and steel, the Durgha of aluminium 
with platinum veins, will have to starve miserably?” 

“The case is conceivable,” said the brain of Metropolis. 

“And then?” 

“Then,” said the brain of Metropolis, “by then a substitute 
for man will have to have been found.” 

“The improved man, you mean—? The machine-man—?” 

“Perhaps,” said the brain of Metropolis. 

Freder brushed the damp hah from his brow. He bent 
forward, his breath touching his father. 

“Then just listen to one thing, father,” he breathed, the 
veins on his temples standing out, blue, “see to it that the 
machine-man has no head, or, at any rate, no face, or give 
him a face which always smiles. Or a Harlequin’s face, or a 
closed visor. That it does not horrify one to look at him! For, 
as I walked through the machine-rooms to-day, I saw the 
men who watch your machines. And they know me, and I 
greeted them, one after the other. But not one returned my 
greeting. The machines were all too eagerly tautening their 
nerve-strings. And when I looked at them, father, quite 
closely, as closely as I am now looking at you— I was looking 
myself in the face. . . . Every single man, father, who slaves 
at your machines, has my face— has the face of your son. . . .” 

“Then mine too, Freder, for we are very like each other,” 
said the Master over the great Metropolis. He looked at the 
clock and stretched out his hand. In all the rooms surround- 
ing the brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel the white 
lamps flared up. 

“And doesn’t it fill you with horror,” asked the son, “to 
know so many shadows, so many phantoms, .to be working 
at your work?” 

“The time of horror lies behind me, Freder.” 

30 


METROPOLIS 


Then Freder turned and went, like a blind man— first 
missing the door with groping hand, then finding it. It opened 
before him. It closed behind him, and he stood still, in a room 
that seemed to him to be strange and icy. 

Forms rose up from the chairs upon which they had 
sat, waiting, bowing low to the son of Joh Fredersen, the 
Master of Metropolis. 

Freder only recognized one; that was Slim. 

He thanked those who greeted him, still standing near the 
door, seeming not to know his way. Behind him slipped Slim, 
going to Joh Fredersen, who had sent for him. 

The master of Metropolis was standing by the window, his 
back to the door. 

“Wait!” said the dark square back. 

Slim did not stir. He breathed inaudibly. His eye-lids 
lowered, he seemed to sleep while standing. But his mouth, 
with the remarkable tension of its muscles, made him the 
personification of concentration. 

Joh Fredersen’s eyes wandered over Metropolis, a restless 
roaring sea with a surf of light. In the flashes and waves, 
the Niagara falls of light, in the colour-play of revolving 
towers of light and brilliance. Metropolis seemed to have 
become transparent. The houses, dissected into cones and 
cubes by the moving scythes of the search-lights gleamed, 
towering up, hoveringly, light flowing down their flanks like 
rain. The streets licked up the shining radiance, themselves 
shining, and the things gliding upon them, an incessant 
stream, threw cones of light before them. Only the cathedral, 
with the star-crowned Virgin on the top of its tower, lay 
stretched out, massively, down in the city, like a black giant 
lying in an enchanted sleep. 

Joh Fredersen turned around slowly. He saw Slim standing 
by the door. Slim greeted him. Joh Fredersen came towards 
him. He crossed the whole width of the room in silence; he 
walked slowly on until he came up to the man. Standing 
there before him, he looked at him, as though peeling every- 
thing corporal from him, even to his innermost self. 

Slim held his ground during this peeling scrutiny. 

Joh Fredersen said, speaking rather softly: 

31 


METROPOLIS 


“From now on I wish to be informed of my son’s every 
action.” 

Slim bowed, waited, saluted and went. 

But he did not find the son of his great master again where 
he had left him. Nor was he destined to find him. 


CHAPTER III 


The man who had been Joh Fredersen’s first secretary stood 
in a cell of the Pater-noster, the never-stop passenger lift 
which, like a series of never ceasing well-buckets, trans-sected 
the New Tower of Babel.— With his back against the 
wooden wall, he was making the journey through the white, 
humming house, from, the heights of the roof, to the depths 
of the cellars and up again to the heights of the roof, for the 
thirtieth time, never moving from the one spot. 

Persons, greedy to gain a few seconds, stumbled in with 
him, and stories higher, or lower, out again. Nobody paid 
the least attention to him. One or two certainly recognised 
him. But, as yet, nobody interpreted the drops on his temples 
as being anything but a similar greed for the gain of a few 
seconds. All right— he would wait until they knew better, 
until they took him and threw him out of the cell: What are 
you taking up space for, you fool, if you’ve got so much 
time? Crawl down the stairs, or the first escape. . . . 

With gasping mouth he leant there and waited. . . . 

Now emerging from the depths again, he looked with 
stupified eyes towards the room which guarded Joh Freder- 
sen’s door, and saw Joh Fredersen’s son standing before that 
door. For the fraction of a second they stared into each 
other’s over-shadowed faces, and the glances of both broke 
out as signals of distress, of very different but of equally deep 
distress. Then the totally indifferent pumpworks carried the 
man in the cell upwards into the darkness of the roof of the 
tower, and, when he dipped down again, becoming visible 

C 32 


METROPOLIS 


once more on his way downwards, the son of Joh Fredersen 
was standing before the opening of the cell and was, in a 
step, standing beside the man whose back seemed to be nailed 
to the wooden wall. 

“What is your name?” he asked gently. 

A hesitation in drawing breath, then the answer, which 
sounded as though he were listening for something: “Josa- 
phat. . . 

“What will you do now, JosaphatP” 

They sank. They sank. As they passed through the great 
hall the enormous windows of which overlooked the street of 
bridges, broadly and ostentatiously, Freder saw, on turning 
his head, outlined against the blackness of the sky, already 
half extinguished, the dripping word: “Yoshiwara. . . . 

He spoke as if stretching out both hands, as just if closing 
his eyes in speaking: 

“Will you come to me, JosaphatP” 

A hand fluttered up like a scared bird. 

“I—?” gasped the stranger. 

“Yes, Josaphat.” 

The young voice so full of kindness. . . . 

They sank. They sank. Light— darkness— light— darkness 
again. 

“Will you come to me, Josaphat?” 

“YesI” said the strange man with incomparable fervour. 
“Yes!” 

They dropped into light. Freder seized him by the arm 
and dragged him out with him, out of the great pump-works 
of the New Tower of Babel, holding him fast as he reeled. 

“Where do you live, Josaphat?” 

“Ninetieth Block. House seven. Seventh floor.” 

“Then go home> Josaphat. Perhaps I shall come to you 
myself; perhaps I shall send a messenger who will bring you 
to me. I do not know what the next few hours will bring 
forth. . . . But I do not want any man I know, if I can prevent 
it, to lie a whole night long, staring up at the ceiling until 
it seems to come crashing down on him. . . .” 

“What can I do for you?” asked the man. 

Freder felt the vice-like pressure of his hand. He smiled. 

33 


METROPOLIS 


He shook his head. “Nothing. Go home. Wait. Be calm. To- 
morrow will bring another day and I hope a fair one. . . .” 

The man loosened the grip of his hand and went. Freder 
watched him go. The man stopped and looked back at 
Freder, and dropped his head with an expression which was 
so earnest, so unconditional, that the smile died on Freder’s 
lips. 

*Yes, man, he said. “I take you at your word!” 

The Pater -noster hummed at Freder’s back. The cells, like 
scoop-buckets, gathered men up and poured them out again. 
But the son of Joh Fredersen did not see them. Among all 
those tearing along to gain a few seconds, he alone stood still 
listening how the New Tower of Babel roared in its revolu- 
tions. The roaring seemed to him like the ringing of one of the 
cathedral bells— like the ore voice of the archangel Michael. 
But a song hovered above it, high and sweet. His whole 
young heart exulted in this song. 

“Have I done your will for the first time, you great media- 
tress of pity?” he asked in the roar of the bell’s voice. 

But no answer came. 

Then he went the way he wanted to go, to find the answer. 

As Slim entered Freder’s home to question the servants 
concerning their master, Joh Fredersen’s son was walking 
down the steps which led to the lower structure of the New 
Tower of Babel. As the servants shook their heads at Slim 
saying that their master had not come home, Joh Fredersen’s 
son was walking towards the luminous pillars which indi- 
cated his way. As Slim, with a glance at his watch, decided 
to wait, to wait, at any rate for a while— already alarmed, 
already conjecturing possibilities and how to meet them— 
Joh Fredersen’s sop was entering the room from which the 
New Tower of Babel drew the energies for its own require- 
ments. 

He had hesitated a long time before opening the door. 
For a weird existence went on behind that door. There 
was howling. There was panting. There was whistling. The 
whole building groaned. An incessant trembling ran through 
the walls and the floor. And amidst it all there was not one 
human sound. Only the things and the empty air roared. Men 

34 


METROPOLIS 


in the room on the other side of this door had powerless 
sealed lips. But for these men’s sakes Freder had come. 

He pushed the door open and then fell back, suffocated. 
Boiling air smote him, groping' at his eyes that he saw 
nothing. Gradually he regained his sight. 

The room was dimly lighted and the ceiling, which looked 
as though it could carry the weight of the entire earth, 
seemed perpetually to be falling down. 

A faint howling made breathing almost unbearable. It 
was as though the breath drank in the howling too. 

Air, rammed down to the depths, coming already used 
from the lungs of the great Metropolis, gushed out of the 
mouths of pipes. Hurled across the room, it was greedily 
sucked back by the mouths of pipes on the other side. 
And its howling light spread a coldness about it which fell 
into fierce conflict with the sweat-heat of the room. 

In the middle of the room crouched the Pater-noster ma- 
chine. It was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head. 
It- shone with oil. It had gleaming limbs. Under the crouch- 
ing body and the head which was sunken on the chest, 
crooked legs rested, gnome-like, upon the platform. The 
trunk and legs were motionless. But the short arms pushed 
and pushed alternately forwards, backwards, forwards. A 
little pointed light sparkled upon the play of the delicate 
joints. The floor, which was stone, and seamless, trembled 
under the pushing of the little machine, which was smaller 
than a five-year-old child. 

Heat spat from the walls in which the furnaces were 
roaring. The odour of oil, which whistled with heat, hung 
in thick layers in the room. Even the wild chase of the 
wandering masses of air did not tear out the suffocating 
fumes of oil. Even the water which was sprayed through 
the room fought a hopeless battle against the fury of the 
heat-spitting walls, evaporating, already saturated with oil- 
fumes, before it could protect the skins of the men in this 
hell from being roasted. 

Men glided by like swimming shadows. Their movements, 
the soundlessness of their inaudible slipping past, had some- 
35 


METROPOLIS 


thing of the black ghostliness of deep-sea divers. Their eyes 
stood open as though they never closed them. 

Near the little machine in the centre of the room stood a 
man, wearing the uniform of all the workmen of Metrop- 
olis: from throat to ankle, the dark blue linen, bare feet in 
the hard shoes, hair tightly pressed down by the black cap. 
The hunted stream of wandering air washed around his form, 
making the folds of the canvas flutter. The man held his 
hand on the lever and his gaze was fixed on the clock, the 
hands of which vibrated like magnetic needles. 

Freder groped his way across to the man. He stared at 
him. He could not see his face. How old was the man? A 
thousand years? Or not yet twenty? He was talking to him- 
self with babbling lips. What was the man muttering about? 
And had this man, too, the face of Joh Fredersen’s son?' 

“Look at me!” said Freder bending forward. 

But the man’s gaze did not leave the clock. His hand, 
also, was unceasingly, feverishly, clutching the lever. His 
lips babbled and babbled, excitedly. 

Freder listened. He caught the words. Shreds of words, 
tattered by the current of air. 

“Pater-noster. . . . that means, Our Father! . . . Our Father, 
which are in heaven! We are in hell. Our Father! . . . What is 
,thy name? Art thou called Pater-noster, Our Father? Or 
Joh Freder sen? Or machine? ... Be hallowed by us, machine. 
-Pater-noster! . . . Thy kingdom come. . . . Thy kingdom 
come, machine. . . . Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
-heaven. . . . What is thy will of us, machine, Pater-noster? 
Art thou the same in heaven as thou art on earth? . . . Our 
Father, which art in heaven, when thou callest us into 
heaven, shall we keep the machines in thy world— the great 
wheels which break the limbs of thy creatures— the great 
merry-go-round called the earth? . . . Thy will be done, 
Pater-noster! . . . Give us this day our daily bread. . . . 
Grind, machine, grind flour for our bread. The bread is 
baked from the flour of our bones . . . And forgive us our 
trespasses. . . . what trespasses, Pater-noster? The trespass 
of having a brain and a heart, that thou hast not, machine?. 
And lead us not into temptation. . . . Lead us not into 

36 


METROPOLIS 


temptation to rise against thee, machine, for thou art 
stronger than we, thou art a thousand times stronger than we, 
and thou art always in the right and we are always in the 
wrong, because we are weaker than thou , art, machine. . . . 
But deliver us from evil, machine. . . . Deliver us from thee, 
machine. . . . For thine is the kingdom, the power and the 
glory, for ever and ever, Amen. . . . Pater-noster, that means: 
“Our Father. . . . Our Father, which are in heaven. . . .” 

Freder touched the man’s arm. The man started, struck 
dumb. 

His hand lost its hold of the lever and leaped into the 
air like a shot bird. The man’s jaws stood gaping open as if 
locked. For one second the white of the eyes in the stiffened 
face was terribly visible. Then the man collapsed like a rag 
and Freder caught him as he fell. 

Freder held him fast. He looked around. Nobody was 
paying any attention, either to him or to the other man. 
Clouds of steam and fumes surrounded them like a fog. There 
was a door near by. Freder carried the man to the door and 
pushed it open. It led to the tool-house. A packing case 
offered a hard resting place. Freder let the man slip down 
into it. 

Dull eyes looked up at him. The face to which they 
belonged was little more than that of a boy. 

“What is your name?” said Freder. 

“11811 ” 

“I want to know what your mother called you. . . ? 

“Georgi.” 

“Georgi, do you know me?” 

Consciousness returned to the dull eyes together with 
recognition. 

“Yes, I know you. . . . You are the son of Joh Fredersen 
.... of Joh Fredersen, who is the father of us all. . . .” 

“Yes. Therefore I am your brother, Georgi, do you see? 
I heard your Pater-noster. . . .” 

The body flung itself up with a heave. 

“The machine—” He sprang to his feet. “My machine— I” 

“Leave it alone, Georgi, and listen to me. . . 

37 


METROPOLIS 


“Somebody must be at the machine!” 

“Somebody will be at the machine; but not you. . . 

“Who will, then?” 

“I.” 

Staring eyes were the answer. 

“I,” repeated Freder. “Are you fit to listen to me, and 
will you be able to take good note of what I say? It is very 
important, Georgil” 

“Yes,” said Georgi, paralysed. 

“We shall now exchange lives, Georgi. You take mine, I 
yours. I shall take your place at the machine. You go quietly 
out in my clothes. Nobody noticed me when I came here. 
Nobody will notice you when you go. You must only not 
lose your nerve and keep calm. Keep under cover of where 
the air is brewing like a mist. When you reach the street take 
a car. You will find more than enough money in my pockets. 
Three streets further on change the car. And again after 
another three streets. Then drive to the Ninetieth Block. At 
the corner pay off the taxi arid wait until the driver is out of 
sight. Then find your way to the seventh floor of the seventh 
house. A man called Josaphat lives there. You are to go to 
him. Tell him I sent you. Wait for me or for a message from 
me. Do you understand, Georgi?” 

“Yes.” 

But the “Yes” was empty and seemed to reply to some- 
thing other than Freder ’s question. 

A little while later the son of Joh Fredersen, the Master 
of the great Metropolis, was standing before the machine 
which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head. 

He wore the uniform of all the workmen of Metropolis: 
from throat to ankle the dark blue linen, bare feet in the 
hard shoes, hair firmly pressed down by the black cap. 

He held his hand on the lever and his gaze was set on 
the clock, the hands of which vibrated like magnetic needles. 

The hunted stream of air washed around him making the 
folds of the canvas flutter. 

Then he felt how, slowly, chokingly, from the incessant 
trembling of the floor, from the walls in which the furnaces 
whistled, from the ceiling which seemed eternally to be in 

38 


METROPOLIS 


the act of falling down, from the pushing of the short arms 
of the machine, from the steady resistance of the gleaming 
body, terror welled up in him— terror, even to the certainty 
of Death. 

He felt— and saw, too— how, from out the swathes of 
vapour, the long soft elephant’s trunk of the god Ganesha 
loosened itself from the head, sunken on the chest, and 
gently, with unerring finger, felt for his, Freder’s forehead. 
He felt the touch of this sucker, almost cool, not in the least 
painful, but horrible. Just in the centre, over the bridge of 
the nose, the ghostly bunk sucked itself fast; it was hardly a 
pain, yet it bored a fine, dead-sure gimlet, towards the centre 
of the brain. As though fastened to the clock of an infernal 
machine the heart began to thump. Pater-noster. . . . Pater> 
noster. . . . Pater-noster. . . . 

“I will not,” said Freder, throwing back his head to break 
the cursed contact: “I will not. ... I will. ... I will not. . . .” 

He groped for he felt the sweat dropping from his temples 
like drops of blood in all pockets of the strange uniform 
which he wore. He felt a rag in one of them and drew it out. 
He mopped his fore-head and, in doing so, felt the sharp 
edge of a stiff piece of paper, of which he had taken hold 
together with the cloth. 

He pocketed the cloth and examined the paper. 

It was no larger than a man’s hand, bearing neither 
print nor script, being covered over and over with the tracing 
of a strange symbol and an apparently half-destroyed plan. 

Freder tried hard to make something of it but he did not 
succeed. Of all the signs marked on the plan he did not know 
one. Ways seemed to be indicated, seeming to be false ways, 
but they all led to one destination; to a place which was 
filled with crosses. 

A symbol of life? Sense in nonsense? 

As Joh Fredersen’s son, Freder was accustomed swiftly 
and correctly to grasp anything called a plan. He pocketed 
the plan though it remained before his eyes. 

The sucker of the elephant’s trunk of the god Ganesha 
glided down to the occupied unsubdued brain which re- 
flected, analysed apd sought. The head, not tamed, sank 

39 


METROPOLIS 


back into the chest. Obediently, eagerly, worked the little 
machine which drove the Pater-noster of the New Tower of 
Babel. 

A little glimmering light played upon the more delicate 
joints almost on the top of the machine, like a small malicious 
eye. 

The machine had plenty of time. Many hours would pass 
before the Master of Metropolis, before Joh Fredersen would 
tear the food which his machines were chewing up from the 
teeth of his mighty machines. 

Quite softly, almost smilingly, the gleaming eye, the 
malicious eye, of the delicate machine looked down upon 
Joh Fredersen’s son, who was standing before it. . . . 

Georgi had left the New Tower of Babel unchallenged, 
through various doors and the city received him, the great 
Metropolis which swayed in the dance of light and which 
was a dancer. 

He stood in the street, drinking in the drunken air. He 
felt white silk on his body. On his feet he felt shoes which 
were soft and supple. He breathed deeply and the fullness 
of his own breath filled him with the most high intoxicating 
intoxication. 

He saw a city which he had never seen. He saw it as a 
man he had never been. He did not walk in a stream of 
others: a stream twelve files deep. ... He wore no blue linen, 
no hard -shoes, no cap. He was not going to work. Work 
was put away, another man was doing his work for him. 

A man had come to him and had said: “We shall now 
exchange lives, Georgi; you take mine and I yours . . 

“When you reach the street, take a car.” 

“You will find more than enough money in my pockets. . . 

“You will find more than enough money in my pockets. . . .” 

“You will find more than enough money in my pockets. . . 

Georgi looked at the city which he had never seen. . . . 

Ah! The intoxication of the lights. Ecstasy of Brightness! 
—Ah! Thousand-limbed city, built up of blocks of light. 
Towers of brilliance! Steep mountains of splendour! From 
the velvety sky above you showers golden rain, inexhaustibly, 
as into the open lap of the Danae. 

40 


METROPOLIS 


Ah— Metropolis! Metropolis! 

A drunken man, he took his first steps, saw a flame 
which hissed up into the heavens. A rocket wrote in drops 
of light on the velvety sky the word: “Yoshiwara .... 

George ran across the street, reached the steps, and, 
taking three steps at a time, reached the . roadway. Soft, 
flexible, a black willing beast, a car approached, stopped 
at his feet. 

Georgi sprang into the car, fell back upon x the cushions, 
the engine of the powerful automobile vibrating soundlessly. 
A recollection stiffened the man’s body. 

Was there not, somewhere in the \yorld— and not so very 
far away, under the sole of the New Tower of Babel, a 
room which was run through by incessant trembling? Did not 
a delicate little machine stand in the middle of this room, 
shining with oil and having strong, gleaming limbs? Under 
the crouching body and the head, which was sunken on the 
chest, crooked legs rested, gnome-like upon the platform. 
The trunk and legs were motionless. But the short arms 
pushed and pushed and pushed, alternately forwards, back- 
wards, and forwards. The floor which was of stone and seam- 
less, trembled under the pushing of the little machine which 
was smaller than a five-year-old child. 

The voice of the driver asked: Where to, sir?” 

Straight on, motioned Georgi with his hand. Anywhere. . . . 

The man had said to him: Change the car after the third 
street. 

But the rhythm of the motor-car embraced him too de- 
lightfully. Third street. . . . sixth street. ... it was still 
very far to the ninetieth block. 

He was filled with the wonder of being thus couched, the 
bewilderment of the lights, the shudder of entrancement at 
the motion. 

The further that, with the soundless gliding of the wheels, 
he drew away from the New Tower of Babel, the further 
did he seem to draw away from the consciousries of his own 
self. 

Who was he—? Had he not just stood in a greasy 
patched, blue linen uniform, in a seething hell, his brain 

41 


METROPOLIS 


mangled by eternal watchfulness, with bones, the marrow of 
which was being sucked out by eternally making the same 
turn of the lever to eternally the same rhythm, with face 
scorched by unbearable heat, and in the sldn of which the 
salty sweat tore its devouring furrows? 

Did he not live in a town which lay deeper under the 
.earth than the underground stations of Metropolis, with then- 
thousand shafts— in a town the houses of which storied 
just as high above squares and sheets as, above in the night, 
did the houses of Metropolis, which towered so high, one 
above the other? 

Had he ever known anything else than the horrible sobriety 
of these houses, in which there lived not men, but numbers, 
recognisable only by the enormous placards by the house- 
doors? 

Had his life ever had any purpose other than to go out 
from these doors, framed with numbers, out to work, when 
the sirens of Metropolis howled for him— and ten hours 
later, crushed and tired to death, to stumble into the house by 
the door of which his number stood? 

Was he, himself, anything but a number— number 11811— 
crammed into his linen, his clothes, his cap? Had not the 
number also become imprinted into his soul, into his brain, 
into his blood, that he must even stop and think of his own 
name? 

And now—? 

And now—? 

His body refreshed by pure cold water which had washed 
the sweat of labour from him, felt, with wonderful sweet- 
ness, the yielding relaxation of all his muscles. With a 
quiver which rendered all his muscles weak he felt the 
caressing touch of white silk on the bare skin of his body, 
and, while giving himself up to the gentle, even rhythm of 
the motion, the consciousness of the first and complete de- 
liverance from all that which had put so agonising a 
pressure on his existence overcame him with so overpowering 
a force that he burst out into the laughter of a madman, 
his tears falling uncontrollably. 

Violently, aye, with a glorious violence, the great city 
42 


METROPOLIS 

whirled towards him, like a sea which roars around moun- 
tains. 

The workman No. 11811, the man who lived in a prison- 
like house, under the underground railway of Metropolis, 
who knew no other way than that from the hole in which 
he slept to the machine and from the machine back to 
the hole— this man saw, for the first time in his life, the 
wonder of the world, which was Metropolis: the city, by 
night shining under millions and millions of lights. 

He saw the ocean of light which filled the endless trails 
of streets with a silver, flashing lustre. He saw the will-o’-the- 
wisp sparkle of the electric advertisements, lavishing them- 
selves inexhaustibly in an ecstasy of brightness. He saw 
towers projecting, built up*of blocks of light, feeling himself 
seized, over-powered to a state of complete impotenoe by 
this intoxication of light, feeling this sparkling ocean with 
its hundreds and thousands of spraying waves, to reach 
out for him, to take the breath from his mouth, to pierce 
him, suffocate him. . . . 

And then he grasped that this city of machines, this 
city of sobriety, this fanatic for work, sought, at night, the 
mighty counterpoise to the frenzy of the day’s work— that 
this city, at night, lost itself, as one insane, as one entirely 
witless, in the intoxication of a pleasure, which, flinging 
up to all heights, hurtling down to all depths, was bound- 
lessly blissful and boundlessly destructive. 

Georgi trembled from head to foot. And yet it was not 
really trembling which seized his resistless body. It was as 
though all his members were fastened to the soundless even- 
ness of the engine which bore them forwards. No, not to the 
single engine which was the heart of the motor-car in which 
he sat— to all these hundreds and thousands of engines 
which were driving an endlessly gliding, double stream of 
gleaming illuminated automobiles, on through the streets 
of the city in its nocturnal fever. And, at the same time, his 
body was set in vibration by the fire-works of spark-streaming 
wheels, ten-coloured lettering snow-white fountains of over- 
charged lamps, rockets, hissing upwards, towers of flame, 
blazing ice-cold. 


43 


METROPOLIS 


There was a word which always recurred. From an 
invisible source there shot up a sheaf of light, which bursting 
apart at the highest point, dropped down letters in all 
colours of the rainbow from the velvetblack sky of Me- 
tropolis. 

The letters formed themselves into the word: Yoshiwara. 

What did that mean: Yoshiwara—? 

From the iron-work of the elevated railway-track a yellow- 
skinned fellow hung, head downwards, suspended by the 
crocks of his knees, who let a snow-storm of white sheets of 
paper shower down upon the double row of motor-cars. 

The pages fluttered and fell. Georgi’s glance caught one 
of them. Upon it stood, in large, distorted letters: Yoshiwara. 

The car stopped at a crossing. Yellow-skinned fellows, in 
many-coloured embroidered silk jackets, wound themselves, 
supple as eels, through the twelve-fold strings of waiting 
cars. One of them swung himself onto the foot-board of the 
black motor-car in which Georgi sat. For one second the 
grinning hideousness stared into the young, white, helpless 
face. 

A sheaf of hand-bills were hurled through the window, 
falling upon Georgi’s knee and before his feet. He bent 
down mechanically and picked up that for which his fingers 
were groping. 

On these slips, which gave out a penetrating, bitter-sweet, 
seductive perfume, there stood, in large, bewitched-looking 
letters, the word: Yoshiwara. . . . 

Georgi’s throat was as dry as dust. He moistened his 
cracked lips with his tongue, which lay heavy and as though 
parched in his mouth. 

A voice had said to him: “You will find more than enough 
money in my pockets. . . .” 

Enough money. . . . what for? To clutch and drag near 
this city-this mighty, heavenly, hellish city; to embrace her 
with both arms, both legs, in the impotence of mastering her; 
to despair, to throw one-self into her-take mel-take mel 
—To feel the filled bowl at one’s lips— gulping, gulping— not 
drawing breath, the brim of the bowl set fast between the 
44 


METROPOLIS 


teeth— eternal, eternal insatiability, competing with the eter- 
nal, eternal overflow, overpouring of the bowl of intoxica- 
tion. . . . 

Ah— Metropolis! . . . Metropolis! . . . 

“More than enough money 

A strange sound came from Georgi’s throat, and there was 
something in it of the throat-rattle of a man who knows he 
is dreaming and wants to awake, and something of the 
gutteral sound of the beast of prey when it scents blood. 
His hand did not let go of the wad of bank-notes for the 
second time. It screwed it up in burning convulsive fingers. 

He turned his head this way and that, as though seeking a 
way out, which, nevertheless, he feared to find. . . . 

Another car slipped silently along beside his, a great, black- 
gleaming shadow, the couch of a woman, set on four wheels, 
decorated with flowers, lighted by dim lamps. Georgie saw 
the woman very clearly, and the woman looked at him. She 
cowered rather than sat, among the cushions of the car, 
having entirely wrapped herself in her gleaming cloak, from 
which one shoulder projected with the dull whiteness of a 
swan’s feather. 

She was bewilderingly made-up— as though she did not 
wish to be human, to be a woman, but rather a peculiar 
animal, disposed, perhaps to play, perhaps to murder. 

Calmly holding the man’s gaze, she gently slipped her 
right hand, sparkling with stones, and the slender arm, which 
was quite bare and dull white, even as the shoulder, from 
the wrappings of her cloak, and began to fan herself in a 
leisurely manner with one of the sheets of paper on which 
the word Yoshiwara stood. . . . 

“No!” said the man. He panted, wiping the perspiration 
from his forehead. Coolness welled out from the fine, strange 
stuff with which he dried the perspiration from his brow. 

Eyes stared at him. Eyes which were fading away. The 
all-knowing smile of a painted mouth. 

With a panting sound Georgi made to open the door of 
the taxi and to jump out into the road. However, the move- 
ment of the car threw him back on to the cushions. He 


45 


METROPOLIS 


clenched his fists, pressing them before both eyes. A vision 
shot through his head, quite misty and lacking in outline, 
a strong little machine, no larger than a five-year-old child. 
It’s short arms pushed and pushed and pushed, alternately 
forwards, backwards, forwards. . . . The head, sunken on the 
chest, rose, grinning. . . . 

“Nol” shrieked the man, clapping his hands and laughing. 
He had been set free from the machine. He had exchanged 
lives. 

Exchanged— with whom? 

With a man who had said: “You will find more than 
enough money in my pockets. . . .” 

The man bent back his head into the nape of his neck 
and stared at the roof suspended above him. 

On the roof there flamed the word: 

Yoshiwara. . . . 

The word Yoshiwara became rockets of light which show- 
ered around him, paralysing his limbs. He sat motionless, 
covered in a cold sweat. He clawed his fingers into the leather 
of the cushions. His back was stiff, as though his spine were 
made of cold iron. His jaws chattered. 

“No— 1” said Georgi, tearing his fists down. But before 
his eyes which stared into space, the word flamed up: 

“Yoshiwara. . . . 

Music was in the air, hurled into the nocturnal streets by 
enormous loud-speakers. Wanton was the music, most heated 
of rhythm, of a shrieking, lashing gaiety. . . . 

“No— I” panted the man. Blood trickled in drops from his 
bitten lips. 

But a hundred multi-coloured rockets wrote in the velvet- 
black sky of Metropolis, the word: 

“Yoshiwara. . . . 

Georgi pushed the window open. The glorious town of 
Metropolis, dancing in the drunkenness of light, threw itself 
impetuously towards him, as though he were the only- 
beloved, the only-awaited. He leant out of the window, 
crying: 

“Yoshiwara— I” 


46 


METROPOLIS 


He fell back upon the cushions. The car turned in a 
gentle curve, round in another direction. 

A rocket shot up and wrote in the sky above Metropolis: 
Yoshiwara. . . . 


CHAPTER IV 


There was a house in the great Metropolis which was older 
than the town. Many said that it was older, even, than the 
cathedral, and, before the Archangel Michael raised his voice 
as advocate in the conflict for God, the house stood there in 
its evil gloom, defying the cathedral from out its dull eyes. 

It had lived through the time of smoke and soot. Every 
year which passed over the city seemed to creep, when dying, 
into this house, so that, at last it was a cemetery— a coffin, 
filled with dead tens of years. 

Set into the black wood of the door stood, copper-red, 
mysterious, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram. 

It was said that a magician, who came from the East (and 
in the track of whom the plague wandered) had built the 
house in seven nights. But the masons and carpenters of the 
town did not know who had mortared the bricks, nor who had 
erected the roof. No foreman’s speech and no ribboned nose- 
gay had hallowed the Builder's Feast after the pious cus- 
tom. The chronicles pf the town held no record of when 
the magician died nor of how he died. One day it occurred to 
the citizens as odd that the red shoes of the magician had so 
long shunned the abominable plaster of the town. Entrance 
was forced into the house and not a living soul was found 
inside. But the rooms, which received, neither by day nor by 
night, a ray from the great lights of the sky, seemed to be 
waiting for their master, sunken in sleep. Parchments and 
folios lay about, open, under a covering of dust, like silver- 
grey velvet. 


47 


METROPOLIS 

Set in all the doors stood, copper-red, mysterious, the seal 
of Solomon, the pentagram. 

Then came a time which pulled down antiquities. Then 
the words were spoken: The house must die. But the house 
was stronger than the words, as it was stronger than the 
centuries. With suddenly falling stones it slew those who laid 
hands on its walls. It opened the floor under their feet, drag* 
ging them down into a shaft, of which no man had previously 
had any knowledge. It was as though the plague, which had 
formerly wandered in the wake of the red shoes of the 
magician, still crouched in the corners of the narrow house, 
springing out at men from behind, to seize them by the neck. 
They died, and no doctor knew the illness. The house re- 
sisted its destruction with so great a force that word of its 
malignity went out over the borders of the city, spreading far 
over the land, that, at last, there was no honest man to be 
found who would have ventured to make war against it. Yes, 
even the thieves and the rogues, who were promised remission 
of their sentence provided that they declared themselves 
ready to pull down the magician’s house, preferred to go to 
the pillory, or even to the scaffold, rather than to enter Within 
these spiteful walls, these latchless doors, which were sealed 
with Solomon’s seal. 

The little town around the cathedral became a large town 
and grew into Metropolis, and into the centre of the world. 

One day there came to the town a man from far away, 
who saw the house and said: “I want to have that.” 

He was initiated into the story of the house. He did not 
smile. He stood by his resolution. He bought the house at 
a very low price, moved in at once and kept it unaltered. 

This man was called Rotwang. Few knew him. Only JoU 
Fredersen knew him very well. It would have been easier 
for him to have decided to fight out the quarrel about the 
cathedral with the sect of Gothics than the quarrel with 
Rotwang about the magician’s house. 

There were in Metropolis, in this city of reasoned, method* 
ical hurry, very many who would rather have gone far out 
of their way than have passed by Rotwang’s house. It 
hardly reached knee-high to the house-giants which stood 

48 


METROPOLIS 

near it. It stood at an angle to the street. To the cleanly 
town, which knew neither smoke nor soot, it was a blot and 
an annoyance. But it remained. When Rotwang left the 
house and crossed the street, which occurred but seldom, 
there were many who covertly looked at his feet, to see if, 
perhaps, he walked in red shoes. 

Before the door of this house, on which the seal ef Solomon 
glowed, stood Joh Fredersen. 

He had sent the car away and had knocked. 

He waited, then knocked again. 

A voice asked, as if the house were speaking in its sleep: 

“Who is there?” 

“Joh Fredersen,” said the man. 

The door opened. 

He entered. The door closed. He stood in darkness. But 
Joh Fredersen knew the house welJL He walked straight on, 
and as he walked, the shimmering tracks of two stepping 
feet glistened before him, along the passage, and the edge of 
the stair began to glow. Like a dog 1- showing the track, the 
glow ran on before him, up the steps, to die out behind him. 

He reached the top of the stairs and looked about him. He 
knew that many doors opened out here. But on the one 
opposite him the copper seal glowed like a distorted eye, 
which looked at him. 

He stepped up to it. The door opened before him. 

Many doors as Rotwang’s house possessed, this was the 
only one which opened itself to Joh Fredersen, although, and 
even, perhaps, because, the owner of this house knew full 
well that it always meant no mean effort for Joh Fredersen 
to cross this threshold. 

He drew in the air of the room, lingeringly, but deeply, 
as though seeking in it the trace of another breath .... 

His nonchalant hand threw his hat on a chair. Slowly, 
in sudden and mournful weariness, he let his eyes wander 
through the room. 

It was almost empty. A large, time-blackened chair, such 
as are to be found in old churches, stood before drawn cur- 
tains. These curtains covered a recess the width of the wall. 

Joh Fredersen remained standing by the door for a long 

49 


METROPOLIS 


time, without moving. He had closed his eyes. With incom- 
parable impotence he breathed in the odour of hyacinths, 
which seemed to fill the motionless air of this room. 

Without opening his eyes, swaying a little, but aim-sure, 
he walked up to the heavy, black curtains and drew them 
apart. 

Then he opened his eyes and stood quite still .... 

On a pedestal, the breadth of the wall, rested the head of 
a woman in stone .... 

It was not the work of an artist, it was the work of a man, 
who, in agonies for which the human tongue lacks words, 
had wrestled with the white stone throughout immeasurable 
days and nights until at last it seemed to realise and form the 
woman's head by itself. It was as if no tool had been at work 
here— no, it was as if a man, lying before this stone, had 
called on the name of the woman, unceasingly, with all the 
strength, with all the longing, with all the despair, of his 
brain, blood and heart, until the shapeless stone took pity on 
him letting itself turn into the image of the woman, who had 
meant to two men all heaven and all hell. 

Joh Fredersen’s eyes sank to the words which were hewn 
into the pedestal, roughly, as though chiselled with curses. 

H EL 
born 

to be my happiness, a blessing to all men, 
lost 

to Joh Fredersen 
dying 

in giving life to his son, Freder 

Yes, she died then. But Joh Fredersen knew only too well 
that she did not die from giving birth to her child. She died 
then because she had done what she had to do. She really 
died on the day upon which she went from Rotwang to Joh 
Fredersen, wondering that her feet left no bloody traces be- 
hind on the way. She had died because she was unable to 
withstand the great love of Joh Fredersen and because she 
had been forced by him to tear asunder the life of another. 

50 


METROPOLIS 


Never was the expression of deliverance at last more strong 
upon a human face than upon Hel’s face when she knew that 
she would die. 

But in the same hour the mightiest man in Metropolis had 
lain on the floor, screaming like a wild beast, the bones of 
which are being broken in its living body. 

And, on his meeting Rotwang, four weeks later, he found 
that the dense, disordered hair over the wonderful brow of 
the inventor was snow-white, and in the eyes under this brow 
the smouldering of a hatred which was very closely related 
to madness. 

In this great love, in this great hatred, the poor, dead 
Hel had remained alive to both men .... 

“You must wait a little while,” said the voice which 
sounded as though the house were talking in its sleep. 

“Listen, Rotwang,” said Joh Fredersen. “You know that 
I treat your little juggling tricks with patience, and that I 
come to you when I want anything Of you, and that you 
are the only man who can say that of himself. But you will 
never get me to join in with you when you play the fool. You 
know, too, that I have no time to waste. Don’t make ns both 
ridiculous, but cornel” 

“I told you that you would have to wait a little while,” 
explained the voice, seeming to grow more distant. 

“I shall not wait. I shall go.” 

“Do so, Joh Fredersen!” 

He wanted to do so. But the door through which he had 
entered had no key, no latch. The seal of Solomon, glowing 
copper-red, blinked at him* 

A soft, far-off voice laughed. 

Joh Fredersen had stopped still, his back to the room. A 
quiver ran down his back, running along the hanging arms 
to the clenched fists. 

“You should have your skull smashed in,” said Joh Freder- 
sen, very softly . . . “You should have your skull smashed 
in . . . that is, if it did not contain so valuable a brain . . . .” 

“You can do no more to me than you have done,” said the 
far-off voice. 

Joh Fredersen was silent. 


51 


METROPOLIS 

"Which do you think,” contined the voice, “to be more 
painful: to smash in the skull, or to tear the heart out of the 
body?” 

Joh Fredersen was silent. 

“Are your wits frozen, that you don’t answer, Joh Freder- 
sen?” 

“A brain like yours should be able to forget,” said the 
man standing at the door, staring, at Solomon’s seal. 

The soft, far-off voice laughed. 

“Forget? I have twice in my life forgotten something. . . . 
Once that Aetro-oil and quick-silver have an idiosyncracy 
as regards each other; that cost me my arm. Secondly that 
Hel was a woman ind you a man; that cost me my heart. 
The third time, I am afraid, it will cost me my head. I shall 
never again forget anything, Joh Fredersen.” 

Joh Fredersen was silent. 

The far-off voice was silent, too. 

Joh Fredersen turned round and walked to the table. He 
piled books and parchments on top of each other, sat down 
and took a piece of paper from his pocket. He laid it before 
him and looked at it. 

It was no larger than a man’s hand, bearing neither print 
nor script, being covered over and over with the tracing of 
a strange symbol and an apparently half-destroyed plan. 
Ways seemed to be indicated, seeming to be false ways, but 
they all led one way; to a place that was filled with crosses. 

Suddenly he felt, from the back, a certain coldness ap- 
proaching him. Involuntarily he held his breath. 

A hand grasped along, by his head, a graceful, skeleton 
hand. Transparent skin was- stretched over the slender joints, 
which gleamed beneath it like dull silver. Fingers, snow-white 
and fleshless, closed over the plan which lay on the table, 
and, lifting it up, took it away with it. 

Joh Fredersen swung around. He stared at the being 
which stood before him with eyes which grew glassy. 

The being was, indubitably, a woman. In the soft garment 
which it wore stood a body, like the body of a young birch 
tree, swaying on feet set fast together. But, although it was 
a woman, it was not human. The body seemed as though 

52 


METROPOLIS 


made of crystal, through which the bones shone silver. Cold 
streamed from the glazen skin which did not contain a 
drop of blood. The being held its beautiful hands pressed 
against its breast, which was motionless, with a gesture of 
determination, almost of defiance. 

But the being had no face. The beautiful curve of the 
neck bore a lump of carelessly shaped mass. The skull was 
bald, nose, lips, temples merely traced. Eyes, as though 
painted on closed lids, stared unseeingly, with an expression 
of calm madness, at the man— who did not breathe. 

“Be courteous, my parody/’ said the far-off voice, which 
sounded as though the house were talking in its sleep. 
“Greet Joh Fredersen, the Master over the great Metropolis.” 

The being bowed slowly to the man. The mad eyes 
neared him like two darting flames. The mass began to 
speak; it said in a voice full of a horrible tenderness: 

“Good evening, Joh Fredersen . . . 

Ahd these words were more alluring than a half-open 
mouth. 

“Good, my Pearll Good, my Crown-jewel I” said the far-off 
voice, full of praise and pride. 

But at the same moment the being lost its balance. It fell, 
tipping forward, towards Joh Fredersen. He stretched out 
his hands to catch it, feeling them, in the moment of contact, 
to be burnt by an unbearable coldness, the brutality of 
which brought up in him a feeling of anger and disgust. 

He pushed the being away from him and towards Rotwang, 
who was standing near him as though fallen from the air. 
Rotwang took the being by the arm. 

He shook his head. “Too violent,” he said. “Too violent. 
My beautiful parody, I fear your temperament will get you 
into much more trouble.” 

“What is that?” asked Joh Fredersen, leaning his hands 
against the edge of the table-top, which he felt behind him. 

Rotwang turned his face towards him, his glorious eyes 
glowing as watch fires glow when the wind lashes them 
with its cold lash. 

“Who is it?” he replied. “Futura . . . Parody . . . whatever 
you like to call it. Also: delusion ... In short: it is a wo- 

53 


METROPOLIS 


man. . . . Every man-creator makes himself a woman. I do hot 
believe that humbug about the first human being a man. If 
a male-god created the world (which is to be hoped, Joh 
Fredersen) then he certainly created woman first, lovingly and 
revelling in creative sport. You can test it, Joh Fredersen: 
it is faultless. A little cool— I admit, that comes of the material, 
which is my secret. But she is not yet completely finished. She 
is not yet discharged from the workshop of her creator. I can- 
not. make up my mind to do it. You understand that? Comple- 
tion means setting free. I do not want to set her free from me. 
That is why I have not yet given her a face. You must give 
her that, Joh Fredersen. For you were the one to order the 
new beings.” 

“I Ordered machine men from you, Rotwang, which I can 
use at my machines. No woman ... no plaything.” 

“No plaything, Joh Fredersen, no . . . you and I, we no 
longer play. Not for any stakes. . . . We did it once. Once and 
never again. No plaything, Joh Fredersen but a tool. Do 
you know what it means to have a woman as a tool? A 
woman like this, faultless and cool? And obedient— implicitly 
obedient. . . . Why do you fight with the Gothics and the 
monk Desertus about the cathedral? Send the woman to them 
Joh Fredersen! Send the woman to them when they are kneel- 
ing, scourging themselves. Let this faultless, cool woman walk 
through the rows of them, on her silver feet, fragrance from 
the garden of life in the folds of her garment. . . . Who in the 
world knows how the blossoms of -the tree smell, pn which the 
apple of knowledge ripened. The woman is both: Fragrance 
of the blossom and the fruit. . . . 

“Shall I explain to you the newest creation of Rotwang, the 
genius, Joh Fredersen? It will be sacrilege. But I owe it to 
you. For you kindled the idea of creating within me, too. . . . 
Shall I show you how obedient my creatures is? Give me 
what you have in your hand, Parody!” 

“Stop . . .” said Joh Fredersen rather hoarsely. But the 
infallible obedience of the creature which stood before 
the two men brooked no delay in obeying. It opened its 
hands in which the delicate bones shimmered silver, and 

54 


METROPOLIS 


handed to its creator the piece of paper which it had taken 
from the table, before Joh Fredersen’s eyes. 

“That’s trickery, Rotwang,” said Joh Fredersen. 

The great inventor looked at him. He laughed. The noise- 
less laughter drew back his mouth to- his ears. 

“No trickery, Joh Fredersen— the work of a geniusl Shall 
Futura dance to you? Shall my beautiful Parody play the 
affectionate? Or the sulky? Cleopatra of Damayanti? Shall 
she have the gestures of the Gothic Madonnas? Or the gestures 
of love of an Asiatic dancer? What hair shall I plant upon the 
skull of your tool? Shall she be modest or impudent? Excuse 
me my many words, you man of fewl I am drunk, d’you see, 
drunk with being a creator. I intoxicate myself,' I inebriate 
myself, on your astonished face! I have surpassed your ex- 
pectations, Joh Fredersen, haven’t I? And you do not know 
everything yet: my beautiful Parody can sing, too! She can 
also read! The mechanism of her brain is as infallible as 
that of your own, Joh Fredersen!” 

“If that is so,” said the Master over the great Metropolis, 
with a certain dryness in his voice, which had become quite 
hoarse, “then command her to unriddle the plan which you 
have in your hand, Rotwang . . .” 

Rotwang burst out into laughter which was like the 
laughter of a drunken man. He threw a glance at the piece 
of paper which he held spread out in his fingers, and was 
about to pass it, anticipatingly triumphant, to the being which 
stood beside him. 

But he stopped in the middle of the movement. With open 
mouth, he stared at the piece of paper, raising it nearer and 
nearer to his eyes. 

Joh Fredersen, who was watching him, bent forward. He 
wanted to say something, to ask a question. But before he 
could open his lips Rotwang threw up his head and met Joh 
Fredersen’s glance with so green a fire in his eyes that the 
Master of the great Metropolis remained dumb. 

Twice, three times did this green glow flash between the 
piece of paper and Joh Fredersen’s face. And during the 
whole time not a sound was perceptible in the room but the 

55 


METROPOLIS 


breath that gushed in heaves from Rotwang's breast as 
though from a boiling, poisoned source. 

“Where did you get the plan?” the great inventor asked 
at last. Though it was less a question than an expression 
of astonished anger. 

“That is not the point,” answered Joh Fredersen. “It is 
about this that I have come to you. There does not seem 
to be a soul in Metropolis who can make anything of it.” 
Rotwang’s laughter interrupted him. 

“Your poor scholars!” cried the laughter. “What a task you 
have set them, Joh Fredersen. How many hundredweights 
of printed paper have' you forced them to heave over. I am 
sure there is no town on the globe, from the construction of 
the old Tower of Babel onward, which they have not 
snuffled through from North to South. Oh— if you could only 
Smile, Parody! If only you already had eyes to wink at me. 
But laugh, at least, Parody! Laugh, rippingly, at the great 
scholars to whom the ground under their feet is foreign!” 
The being obeyed. It laughed, ripplingly. 

“Then you know the plan, or what it represents?” asked 
Joh Fredersen, through the laughter. 

“Yes, by my poor soul, I know it,” answered Rotwang. 
"But, by my poor soul, I am not going to tell you what it 
is until you tell me where you got the plan.” 

Joh Fredersen reflected. Rotwang did not take his gaze 
from him. “Do not try to lie to me, Joh Fredersen,” he said 
softly, and with a whimsical melancholy. 

“Somebody found the paper,” began Joh Fredersen. 

“Who— somebody?” 

“One of my foremen.” 

“Grot?” 

“Yes, Grot.” 

“Where did he find the plan?” 

“In the pocket of a workman who was killed in the acci- 
dent to the Geyser machine.” 

“Grot brought you the paper?” 

? es.” 

“And the meaning of the plan seemed to be unknown 
to him?” 


56 


METROPOLIS 


Joh Fredersen hesitated a moment with the answer. 

“The meaning— yes; but not the plan. He told me he has 
often seen this paper in the workmen’s hands, and that they 
anxiously keep it a secret, and that the men will crowd 
closely around him who holds it.” 

“So the meaning of the plan has been kept secret from 
your foreman.” 

“So it seems, for he could not explain it to me.” 

“H’m.” 

Rotwang turned to the being which was standing near 
him, with the appearance of listening intently. 

“What do you say about it, my beautiful Parody?” 

The being stood motionless. 

“Well—?” said Joh Fredersen, with a sharp expression of 
impatience. 

Rotwang looked at him, jerkily turning his great skull 
towards him. The glorious eyes crept behind their lids as 
though wishing to have nothing in common with the strong 
white teeth and the jaws of the beast of prey. But from 
beneath the almost closed lids they gazed at Joh Fredersen, 
as though they sought in his face the door to the great brain. 

“How can one bind you, Joh Fredersen,” he murmured, 
“what is a word to you— or an oath. . . . Oh God . . . you 
with your own laws. What promise would you keep if the 
breaking of it seemed expedient to you?” 

“Don’t talk rubbish, Rotwang,” said Joh Fredersen. “I 
shall hold my tongue because I still need you. I know quite 
well that the people whom we need are our solitary tyrants. 
So, if you know, speak." 

Rotwang still hesitated; but gradually a smile took pos- . 
session of his features— a good natured and mysterious smile, 
which was amusing itself at itself. 

“You are standing on the entrance,” he said. 

“What does that mean?” 

“To be taken literally, Joh Fredersen! You are standing on 
the entrance.” 

“What entrance, Rotwang? You are wasting time that does 
not belong to you . . .” 

The smile on Rotwang’s face deepened to serenity. 

57 


METROPOLIS 


“Do you recollect, Joh Fredersen, how obstinately I re- 
fused, that time, to let the underground railway be run under 
my house?” 

“Indeed I dol I still know the sum the detour cost me, also!” 

“The secret was expensive, I admit, but it was worth it. 
Just take a look at the plan, Joh Fredersen, what is that?” 

“Perhaps a flight of stairs . . .” 

“Quite certainly a flight of stairs. It is a very slovenly 
execution in the drawing as fa reality . . .” 

“So you know them?” 

“I have the honour, Joh Fredersen— yes. Now come two 
paces sideways. What is that?” 

He had taken Joh Fredersen by the arm. He felt the 
fingers of the aritificial hand pressing into his muscles like 
the claws of a bird of prey. With the right one Rotwang in- 
dicated the spot upon which Joh Fredersen had stood. 

“What is that?” he asked, shaking the hand which he 
held in his grip. 

Joh Fredersen bent down. He straightened himself up 
again. 

“A door?’' 

“Right, Joh Fredersen! A door! A perfectly fitting and well 
shutting door. The man who built this house was an orderly 
and careful person. Only once did he omit to give heed, 
and then he had to pay for it. He went down the stairs 
which are under the door, followed the careless steps and 
passages which are connected with them, and never found his 
way back. It is not easy to find, for those who lodged there 
did not care to have strangers penetrate into their domain. 
... I found my inquisitive predecessor, Joh Fredersen, and 
recognised him at once— by his pointed red shoes, which 
have preserved themselves wonderfully. As a corpse he looked 
peaceful and Christian-like, both of which he certainly was 
not in his life. The companions of his last hours probably 
contributed considerably to the conversion of the erst-while 
devil’s disciple . . .” 

He tapped with his right forefinger upon a maze of 
crosses in the centre of the plan. 

“Here he lies. Just on this spot. His skull must have en- 

58 


METROPOLIS 


closed a brain which was worthy of your own, Joh Fredersen, 
and he had to perish because he once lost his way. . . . 
What a pity for him . . 

“Where did he lose his way?” asked Joh Fredersen. 
Rotwang looked long at him before speaking. 

“In the city of graves, over which Metropolis stands,” he 
answered at last. “Deep below the moles’ tunnels of your 
underground railway, Joh Fredersen, lies the thousand-year- 
old Metropolis of the thousand-year-old dead . . .” 

Joh Fredersen was silent. His left eyebrow rose, while his 
eyes narrowed. He fixed his gaze upon Rotwang, who had 
not taken his eyes from him. 

“What is the plan of this city of graves doing in the hands 
and pockets of my workmen?” 

“That is yet to be discovered,” answered Rotwang. 

“Will you help me?” 

“Yes.” - • 

“Tonight?” 

“Very well.” 

“I shall come back after the changing of the shift.” 

“Do so, Joh Fredersen. And if you take some good ad- 
vice 
‘‘Well?” 

“Come in the uniform of your workmen, when you come 
backl” 

Joh Fredersen raised his head but the great inventor 
did not let him speak. He raised his hand as one calling for 
and admonishing to silence. 

“The skull of the man in the red shoes also enclosed a 
powerful brain, Joh Fredersen, but nevertheless, he could 
not find his way homewards from those who dwell down 
there . . 

Joh Fredersen reflected. He nodded and turned to go. 

“Be courteous, my beautiful Parody,” said Rotwang. “Open 
the doors for the Master over the great Metropolis.” 

The being glided past Joh Fredersen. He felt the breath 
of coldness which came forth from it. He saw the silent 
laughter between the half-open lips of Rotwang, the great 
inventor. He turned pale with rage, but he remained silent. 

59 


METROPOLIS 

The being stretched out the transparent hand in which 
the bones shone silver, and, touching it with its finger-tips, 
moved the seal of Solomon, which glowed copperish. 

The door yielded back. Joh Fredersen went out after the 
being, which stepped downstairs before him. 

There was no light on the stairs, nor in the narrow passage. 
But a shimmer came from the being no stronger than that 
of a green-burning candle, yet strong enough to lighten up 
the stairs and the black walls. 

At the house-door the being stopped still and waited for 
Joh Fredersen, who was walking slowly along behind it. The 
house-door opened before him, but not far enough for him 
to pass out through the opening. 

The eyes stared at him from the mass-head of the being, 
eyes as though painted on closed lids, with the expression of 
calm madness. 

“Be courteous, my beautiful Parody,” said a soft, far-off 
voice, which sounded as though the house were talking in its 
sleep. 

The being bowed. It stretched out a hand— a graceful 
skeleton hand. Transparent skin was stretched over the 
slender joints, which gleamed beneath it like dull silver. Fin- 
gers, snow-white and fleshless, opened like the petals of a 
crystal lily. 

Joh Fredersen laid his hand in it, feeling it, in the moment 
of contact, to be burnt by an unbearable coldness. He 
wanted to push the being away from him but the silver- 
crystal fingers held him fast. 

“Good-bye,” Joh Fredersen,” said the mass head, in a 
voice full of a horrible tenderness. “Give me a face soon, Joh 
Fredersen!” 

A soft far-off voice laughed, as if the house were laughing 
in its sleep. 

The hand left go, the door opened, Joh Fredersen reeled 
into the street. 

The door closed behind him. In the gloomy wood of the 
door glowed, copper-red, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram. 

When Joh Fredersen was about to enter the brain-pan of 

60 


METROPOLIS 


the New Tower of Babel Slim stood before him, seeming to 
be slimmer than ever. 

“What is it?” asked Joh Fredersen. 

Slim made to speak but at the sight of his master the 
words died on his lips. 

“Well—?” said Joh Fredersen, between his teeth. 

Slim breathed deeply. 

“I must inform you, Mr. Fredersen,” he said, “that, since 
your son left this room, he has disappeared!” 

“What does that mean? . . . disappeared!” 

“He has not gone home, and none of our men has seen 
him . . .” 

Joh Fredersen screwed up his mouth. 

“Look for him!” he said hoarsely. “What are you all here 
for? Look for him!” 

He entered the brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel. His 
first glance fell upon the clock. He stepped to the table 
and stretched out his hand to the little blue metal plate. 


CHAPTER V 


The man before the machine which was like Ganesha, the 
god with the elephant’s head, was no longer a human being. 
Merely a dripping piece of exhaustion, from the pores of 
which the last powers of volition were oozing out in large 
drops of sweat. Running eyes no longer saw the manometer. 
The hand did not hold the lever— it clawed it fast in the last 
hold which saved the mangled man-creature before it 
from falling into the crushing arms of the machine. 

The Pater-noster works of the New Tower of Babel turned 
their buckets with an easy smoothness. The eye of the little 
machine smiled softly and maliciously at the man who stood 
before it and who was now no more than a babel. 

“Father!” babbled the son of Joh Fredersen, “to-day, for 
the first time, since Metropolis stood, you have forgotten to 

61 


METROPOLIS 

let your city and your great machines roar punctually fox- 
fresh food. . . . Has Metropolis gone dumb, father? Look at usl 
Look at your machines! Your god-machines turn sick at the 
chewed-up cuds in their mouths— at the mangled food that 
we are. . . . Why do you strangle its voice to death? Will 
ten hours never, never come to an end? Our Father, which 
art in heaven— I” 

But in this moment Joh Fredersen’s fingers were pressing 
the little blue metal plate and the voice of the great Metrop- 
olis. 

“Thank you, father!” said the mangled soul before the 
machine, which was like Ganesha. He smiled. He tasted a 
salty taste on his lips and did not know if it was from blood, 
sweat or tears. From out a red mist of long-flamed, drawn-out 
clouds, fresh men shuffled on towards him. His hand slipped 
from the lever and he collapsed. Aims pulled him up and led 
him away. He turned his head aside to hide his face. 

The eye of the little machine, the soft, malicious eye, 
twinkled at him from behind. 

“Good-bye, friend,” said the little machine. 

Freder’s head fell upon his breast. He felt himself dragged 
further, heard the dull evenness of feet tramping onwards, 
felt himself tramping, a member of twelve members. The 
ground under his feet began to roll; it was drawn upwards, 
pulling him up with it. 

Doors stood open, double doors. Towards him came a 
stream of men. 

The great Metropolis was still roaring. 

Suddenly she fell dumb and in the silence Freder became 
aware of the breath of a man at his ear, and of a voice— 
merely a breath— which asked: 

“She has called. . . . Are you coming?” 

He did not know what the question meant, but he nodded. 
He wanted to get to know the ways of those who walked, as 
he, in blue linen, in the black cap, in the hard shoes. 

With tightly closed eyelids he groped on, shoulder to 
shoulder with an unknown man. 

She has called, he thought, half asleep. Who is that . . . 
she . . . ? 


62 


METROPOLIS 


He walked and walked in smouldering weariness. The 
way would never, never come to an end. He did not know 
where he was walking. He heard the tramp of those who 
were walking with him like the sound of perpetually falling 
water. 

She has called! he thought. Who is that: she, whose voice 
is so powerful that these men, exhausted to death by utter 
weariness, voluntarily throw off sleep, which is the sweetest 
thing of all to the weary— to follow her when her voice calls? 

It can’t be very much further to the centre of the earth . . . 

Still deeper— still deeper down? 

No longer any light round about, only, here and there, 
twinkling pocket torches, in men’s hands. 

At last, in the far distance, a dull shimmer. 

Have we wandered so far to walk towards the sun, thought 
Freder, and does the sun dwell in the bowels of the earth? 

The procession came to a standstill. Freder stopped too. 
He staggered against the dry, cool stones. 

Where are we, he thought— in a cave? If the sun dwells 
here, then she can’t be at home now. ... I am afraid we have 
come in vain. . . . Let us turn back, brother . . . Let us 
sleep. . . . 

He slid along the wall, fell on his knees, leant his head 
against the stone. . . . how smooth. it was. 

The murmur of human voices was around him, like the 
rustling of trees, moved by the wind. . . . 

He smiled peacefully. It’s wonderful to be tired. . . . 

Then a voice— a voice began to speak. . . . 

Oh— sweet voice, thought Freder dreamily. Tender be- 
loved voice, your voice, Virgin-mother! I have fallen asleep. 

. . . Yes, I am dreaming! I am dreaming of your voice, 
beloved! 

But a slight pain at his temple made him think: I am 
leaning my head on stone. ... I am conscious of the ^oldness 
which comes out of the stone. ... I feel coldness under my 
knees. ... so I am not sleeping— I am only dreaming. . . . sup- 
pose it is not a dream . . . ? Suppose it is reality . . . ? 

With an exertion of will which brought a groan from 
him he forced open his eyes and looked about him. 

63 


METROPOLIS 


A vault, like the vault of a sepulchre, human heads so 
closely crowded together as to produce the effect of clods 
on a freshly ploughed field. All heads turned towards one 
point: to the source of a light, as mild as God. 

Candles bjrmt with sword-like flames. Slender, lustrous 
swords of light stood in a circle around the head of a girl, 
whose voice was as the Amen of God. 

The voice spoke, but Freder did not hear the words. He 
heard nothing but a sound, the blessed melody of which was 
saturated with sweetness as is the air of a garden of blossoms 
with fragrance. And suddenly there sprang up above this 
melody the wild throb of a heart-beat. The air stormed with 
bells. The walls shook under the surf of an invisible organ. 
Weariness— exhaustion— faded out! He felt his body from 
head to foot to be one single instrument of blissfulness— all 
strings stretched to bursting point, yet tuned together into 
the purest, hottest, most radiant accord, in which his whole 
being hung, quivering. 

He longed to stroke with his hands the stones on which 
he knelt. He longed to kiss with unbounded tenderness the 
stones on which he rested his head. God— God— God- 
beat- the heart in his breast, and every throb was a thank- 
offering. He looked at the girl, and yet he did not see her. 
He saw only a shimmer; he knelt before it. 

Gracious one, formed his mouth. Mine! Mine! My beloved! 
How could the world have existed before you were? How 
must God have smiled when he created you! You are speak- 
ing?— What are you saying?— My heart is shouting within 
me— I cannot catch your words. . . t Be patient with me, 
gracious one, beloved! 

Without his being aware of it, drawn by an invisible un- 
breakable cord, he pushed himself forward on his knees, 
nearer and nearer to the shimmer which the girl’s face 
was to him. At last he was so near that he could have touched 
the hem of her dr ess with his outstretched hand. 

“Look at me. Virgin!” implored his eyes. “Mother, look 
at me!” 

But her gentle eyes looked out over him. Her lips said: 

“My brothers. ...” _ 


64 


METROPOLIS 


And stopped dumb, as though alarmed. 

Freder raised his head. Nothing had happened— nothing 
to speak of, only that the air which passed through the 
room had suddenly become audible, like a raised breath, and 
that it was cool, as though coming in through open doors. 

With a faint crackling sound the swords of flame bowed 
themselves. Then they stood still again. 

“Speak, my beloved!” said Freder’s heart. 

Yes, now she spoke. This is what she said: 

“Do you want to know how the building of the Tower of 
Babel began, and do you want to know how it ended? I see 
a man who comes from the Dawn of the World. He is as 
beautiful as the world, and has a burning heart. He loves 
to walk upon the mountains and to offer his breast unto the 
wind and to speak with the stars. He is strong and rules all 
creatures. He dreams of God and feels himself closely tied 
to him. His nights are filled with faces. 

“One hallowed hour bursts his heart. The firmament is 
above him and his friends. ‘Oh friends! Friends!’ he cries, 
pointing to the stars. ‘Great is the world and its Creator! 
Great is man! Come, let us build a tower, the top of which 
reaches the sky! And when we stand on its top, and hear 
the stars ringing above us, then let us write our creed in 
golden symbols on the top of the tower! Great is the world 
and its creator! And great is man I’ 

“And they set to, a handful of men, full of confidence, 
and they made bricks and dug up to the earth. Never have 
men worked more rapidly, for they all had one thought, one 
aim and one dream. When they rested from work in the 
evening each knew of what the other was thinking. They 
did not need speech to make themselves understood. But 
after some time they knew: The work was greater than their 
working hands. Then they enlisted new friends to their work. 
Then their work grew. It grew overwhelming. Then the 
builders sent their messengers to all four winds of the 
world and enlisted Hands, working Hands for their mighty 
work. 

“The Hands came. The Hands worked for wages. The 
Hands did not even know what they were making. None 

65 


METROPOLIS 


of those building Southwards knew one of those digging 
toward the North. The Brain which conceived the construc- 
tion of the Tower of Babel was unknown to those who built 
it. Brain and Hands were far apart and strangers. Brain and 
Hands became enemies. The pleasure of one became the 
other’s burden. The hymn of praise of one became the other’s 
curse. 

“ ‘Babel!’ shouted one, meaning: Divinity, Coronation, 
Eternal, Triumph! 

“ ‘Babell’ shouted the other, meaning: Hell, Slavery, Eter- 
nal, Damnation! 

“The same word was prayer and blasphemy. Speaking 
the same words, the men did not understand each other. 

“That men no longer understood each other, that Brain 
and Hands no longer understood each other, was to blame 
that the Tower of Babel was given up to destruction, that 
never were the words of those who had conceived it written 
on its top in golden symbols: Great is the world and its 
Creator! And great is man! 

“That Brain and Hands no longer understand each other 
will one day destroy the New Tower of Babel. 

“Brain and Hands need a mediator. The Mediator be- 
tween Brain and Hands must be the Heart. . . .” 

She was silent. A breath like a sigh came up from the 
silent lips of the listeners. 

Then one stood up slowly, resting his fists upon the 
shoulders of the man who crouched before him, and asked, 
raising his thin face with its fanatical eyes to the girl: 

“And where is our mediator, Maria?” 

The girl looked at him, and over her sweet face passed 
the gleam of a boundless confidence. 

“Wait for him,” she said. “He is sure to come.” 

A murmur ran through the rows of men. Freder bowed his 
head to the girl’s feet, His whole soul said: 

“It shall be I.” 

But she did not see him and she did not hear him. 

“Be patient, my brothers!” she said. “The way which your 
mediator must take is long. . . . There are many among you 
who cry, “Fight! Destroy!— Do not fight, my brothers, for 

66 


METROPOLIS 


that makes you to sin. Believe me: One will come, who will 
speak for you— who will be the mediator between you, the 
Hands, and the man whose Brain and Will are over you all. 
He will give you something which is more precious than 
anything which anybody could give you: To be free, with- 
out sinning.” 

She stood up from the stone upon which she had been 
sitting. A movement ran through the heads turned towards 
her. A voice was raised. The speaker was not to be seen. It 
was as if they all spoke: 

“We shall wait, Maria. But not much longer— I” 

The girl was silent. With her sad eyes she seemed to be 
seeking the speaker among the crowd. 

A man who stood before her spoke up to her: 

“And if we fight— where will you be then?” 

“With you!” said the girl, opening her hands with the 
gesture of one sacrificing. “Have you ever found me faithless?” 

“Never!” said the men. “You are like gold to us. We shall 
do what you expect of us.” 

“Thank you,” said the girl, closing her eyes. With bowed 
head she stood there, listening to the sound of retiring feet— 
feet which walked in hard shoes. 

Only when all about her had become silent and when the 
last footfall had died away she sighed and opened her eyes. 

Then she saw a man, wearing the blue linen and the 
black cap and the hard shoes, kneeling at her feet. 

She bent down. He raised his head. She looked at him. 

And then she recognised him. 

(Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed, 
devil’s-ear, one man’s hand seized another man’s arm. 

“Hush! Keep quiet!” whispered the voice, which was 
soundless and yet which had the effect of laughter— like the 
laughter of spiteful mockery.) 

The girl’s face was as a crystal, filled with snow. She 
made a movement as if for flight. But her knees would not 
obey her. Reeds which stand in troubled water do not 
tremble more than her shoulders trembled. 


67 


METROPOLIS 


“If you have come to betray us, son of Joh Fredersen, 
then you will have but little blessing from it,” she said softly, 
but in a clear voice. 

He stood up and remained standing before her. 

“Is that all the faith you have in me?” he asked gravely. 

She said nothing, but looked at him. Her eyes filled with 
tears. 

"You . . .” said the man. "What shall I call you? I do not 
know your name. I have always called you just ‘y° u> ’ 
the bad days and worse nights, for I did not know if I should 
find you again, I always called you only, ‘you-’ . . . Will you 
tell me, at last, what your name is?” 

"Maria,” answered the girl. 

“Maria. . . . That should be your name . . . you did not 
make it easy for me to find my way to you, Maria.” 

“And why did you seek your way to me? And why do 
you wear the blue linen uniform? Those condemned to wear 
it all their life long, live in an underground city, which is 
accounted a wonder of the world in all the five continents. It 
is an architectural wonder— that is true. It is light and shining 
bright and a model of tidiness. It lacks nothing but the sun— 
and the rain— and the moon by night— nothing but the sky. 
That is why the children which are bom there have their 
gnome-like faces. . . . Do you want go down into this city 
under the earth in order the more to enjoy your dwelling 
which lies so high above the great Metropolis, in the light 
of the sky? Are you wearing the uniform, which you have on 
to-day, for fun?” 

“No, Maria. I shall always wear it now.” 

“As Joh Fredersen’s son?” 

“He no longer has a son . . . unless— you, yourself, give 
him back his son.” 

(Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed 
devil’s-ear, one man’s hand was laid upon another man’s 
mouth. 

“It is written,” whispered a laugh: “Therefore shall a 
man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his 
wife . . .") 

68 


METROPOLIS 


“Won’t you understand me?” asked Freder. “Why do you 
look at me with such stern eyes? You wish me to be a medi- 
ator between Joh Fredersen and those whom you call your 
brothers. . . . There can be no mediator between heaven and 
hell who never was in heaven and hell. ... I never knew hell 
until yesterday. That is why I failed so deplorably, yesterday, 
when I spoke to my father for your brothers. Until you stood 
before me for the first time, Maria, I lived the life of a 
dearly loved son. I did not know what an unrealisable 
wish was. I knew no longing, for everything was mine. . . . 
Young as I am, I have exhausted the pleasures of the 
earth, down to the very bottom. I had an aim— a gamble 
with Death: A flight to the stars. . . . And then you came and 
showed me my brothers .... From that day on I have 
sought you. I have so longed for you that I should gladly and 
unhesitatingly have died, had somebody told me that that 
was the way to you. But as it was, I had to live and seek 
another way . . 

“To me, or to your brothers . . . p” 

“To you, Maria ... I will not make myself out to you to 
be better than I am. I want to come to you, Maria— and I 
want you ... I love mankind, not for its own sake, but for 
your sake— because you love it. I do not want to help man- 
kind for its own sake, but for your sake— because you wish 
it. Yesterday I did good to two men; I helped one whom 
my father had dismissed. And I did the work of the man, 
whose uniform I have on. . . . That was my way to you. . . . 
God bless you . . .” 

His voice failed him. The girl stepped up to him. She took 
his hands in both her hands. She gently turned the palms 
upward, and considered them, looked at them with her 
Madonna-eyes, and folded her hands tenderly around his, 
which she carefully laid together. 

“Maria,” he said, without a sound. 

She let his hands fall and raised her’s to his head. She 
laid her finger-tips on his cheeks. With her fingertips she 
stroked his eyebrows, his temples, twice, three times. 

Then he snatched her to his heart and they kissed each 
other . . . 


METROPOLIS 

He no longer felt the stones under his feet. A wave carried 
him, him and the girl whom he held clasped to him as 
though he wished to die of it— and the wave came from the 
bottom of the ocean, roaring as though the whole sea were 
an organ; and the wave was of file and flung right up to the 
heavens. 

Then sinking . . . sinking . . . endlessly gliding down- 
right down to the womb of the world, the source of the 
beginning. . . . Thirst and quenching drink . . . hunger and 
satiation . . . pain and deliverance from it . . . death and 
rebirth . . . 

“You . . said the man to the girl's lips. “You are really 
the great mediatress. . . . You are all that is most sacred on 
earth. . . . You are all goodness. . . . You are all grace. ... To 
doubt you is to doubt God . . . Maria— Maria— you 
called me— here I ami” 

(Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed 
deviTs-ear, one man leant towards another man’s ear. 

“You wanted to have the Futura's face from me. . . . There 
you have your model . . .” 

"Is that a commission?” 

“Yes.”) 

“Now you must go, Freder,” said the girl. Her Madonna 
eyes looked at him. 

"Go— and leave you here?” 

She turned grave and shook her head. 

"Nothing will happen to me,” she said. “There is not one, 
among those who know this place, whom I cannot trust 
as though he were my blood brother. But what is between 
us is nobody's affair; it would vex me to have to explain—” 
(and now she was smiling again)— "what is inexplicable. . . . 
Do vou see that?” 

“Yes,” he said. “Forgive me. . . .” 

(Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed 
devil's-ear, a man took himself away from the wall. 

“You know what you have to do,” he said in a low voice. 


70 


METROPOLIS 

‘Tes ,” came the voice of the other, idly, sleepily, out of 
the darkness. “But wait a bit, friend. ... I must ask you 
something. . . .” 

“Well?” 

“Have you forgotten your own creed?” 

For one second a lamp twinkled through the room, that 
was shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, impaling the face of 
the man, who had already turned to go, on the pointed 
needle of its brilliance. 

“That sin and suffering are twin-sisters. . . . you will be 
sinning against two people, friend. . . .” 

“What has that to do with you?” 

“Nothing. . . Or— little. Freder is Hel’s son. . . .” 

“And mine. . . .” 

“Yes. . . ” 

“It is he whom I do not wish to lose” 

“Better to sin once more?” 

“Yes.” 

“And—” 

“To suffer. Yes.” 

“Very well, friend,” and in the voice was an inaudible 
laugh of mockery: “May it happen to you according to your 
creed. ... 1” 

The girl walked through the passages that were so familiar 
to her. The bright little lamp in her hand roved over the 
roof of stone and over the stone walls, where, in niches, the 
thousand-year-old dead slept. 

The girl had never known fear of the dead; only rever- 
ence and gravity in face of their gravity. To-day she saw 
neither wall nor dead. She walked on, smiling and not know- 
ing she did it. She felt like singing. With an expression of 
happiness, which was still incredulous and yet complete, she 
said the name of her beloved over to herself. 

Quite softly: “Freder. . . .” And once more: “Freder. . . .” 
Then she raised her head, listening attentively, standing 
quite still. . . . 

It came back as a whisper: An echo?— No. 

Almost inaudibly a word was breathed: 

71 


METROPOLIS 


“Maria. . . 

She turned around, blissfully startled. Was it possible that 
he had come back. 

“Freder— I” she called. She listened. 

No answer. 

“Freder— I” 

Nothing. 

But suddenly there came a cool draught of air which 
made the hair at her neck quiver, and a hand of snow 
ran down her back. 

There came an agonized sigh— a sigh which would not 
come to an end. . . . 

The girl stood still. The bright little lamp which she 
held in her hand let its gleam play tremblingly about her 
feet. 

“Freder. . . . P” 

Now her voice, too, was only a whisper. 

No answer. But, behind her, in the depths of the passage 
she would have to pass through, a gentle, gliding slink 
became perceptible: feet in soft shoes on rough stones. . . . 

That was. . . . yes, that was strange. Nobody, apart from 
her, ever came this way. Nobody could be here. And, if 
somebody were here, then it was no friend. . . . 

Certainly nobody whom she wanted to meet. 

Should she let him by?— yes. 

A second passage opened to her left. She did not know it 
well. But she would not follow it up. She would only wait in 
it until the man outside— the man behind her— had gone by. 

She pressed herself againt the wall of the strange passage, 
keeping still and waiting quite silently. She did not breath. 
She had extinguished the lamp. She stood in utter darkness, 
immovable. 

She listened: the gliding feet were approaching. They 
walked in darkness as she stood in darkness. Now they were 
here. Now they must. . . . they must go past. . . . But they 
did not go. They stood quite still. Before the opening to the 
passage in which she stood, the feet stopped still and 
seemed to wait. 

For what. . . ? For her. . . ? 


72 


METROPOLIS 


In the complete silence the girl suddenly heard her 
own heart. . . . She heard her own heart, like pump-works, 
beating more and more quickly, throbbing more and more 
loudly. These loud throbbing heartbeats must also be heard 
by the man who kept the opening to the passage. And sup- 
pose he did not stay there any longer. . . . suppose he came 
inside. . . . she could not hear his coming, her heart throbbed 
so. 

She groped, with fumbling hand, along the stone wall. 
Without breathing, she set her feet, one before the other. . . . 
Only to get away from the entrance. . . . Away from the 
place where the other was standing. . . . 

Was she wrong? Or were the feet really coming after her? 
Soft, slinking shoes on rough stones? Now the agonised, 
heavy breathing, heavier still, and nearer .... cold breath 
on her neck. . . . Then- 

Nothing more. Silence. And waiting. And watching- 
keeping on the look-out. . . . 

Was it not as if a creature, such as the world had never 
seen: trunkless, nothing but arms, legs and head. . . . but 
what a head! God— God in heaven! . . . was crouching on the 
floor before her, knees drawn up to chin, the damp arms 
supported right and left, against the walls, near her hips, 
so that she stood defenceless, caught? Did she not see the 
passage lighted by a pale shimmer— and did not the shimmer 
come from the being’s jelly-fish head? 

“Freder!” she thought. She bit the name tightly between 
her jaws, yet heard the scream with which her heart 
screamed it. 

She threw herself forwards and felt— she was free— she 
was still free— and ran and stumbled, and pulled herself up 
again and staggered from wall to wall, knocking herself 
bloody, suddenly clutched into space, stumbled, fell to the 
ground, felt. . . . Something lay there. . . . what? No— No- 
No-! 

The lamp had long since fallen from her hand. She raised 
herself to her knees and clapped her fists to her ears, in 
order not to hear the feet, the slinking feet coming nearer. She 
knew herself to be imprisoned in darkness and yet opened 

73 


METROPOLIS 


her eyes because she could no longer bear the circles of 
fire, the wheels of flame behind her closed lids — 

And saw her own shadow thrown, gigantic, on the wall 
before her, and behind her was light, and before her lay 
a man— 

A man?— That was not a man. . . . That was the remains 
of a man, with his back half leaning against the wall, half 
slipped down, and on his skeleton feet, which almost touched 
the girl's knees, were the slender shoes, pointed and purple- 
red. . . . 

With a shriek which tore her throat, the girl threw herself 
up, backwards— and then on and on, without looking round, 
pursued by the light which lashed her own shadow in springs 
before her feet— pursued by long, soft, feathery feet— by 
feet which walked in red shoes, by the icy breath which 
blew at her back. 

She ran, screamed and ran— 

“Freder. ... I Freder. . . I" 

Her throat rattled, she fell. 

There were some stairs. . . . Crumbling stairs She 

pressed her bleeding hands, right and left, against the stone 
wall, by the stone steps. She dragged herself up. She stag- 
gered up, step by step. . . . There was the top. 

The stairs ended in a stone trap-door. 

The girl groaned: “Freder ... I” 

She stretched both fists above her. She pushed head and 
shoulders against the trap-door. 

And one more groan: “Freder. . . .” 

The door rose and fell back with a crash. 

Below— deep down— laughter. . . . 

The girl swung herself over the edge of the trapdoor. She 
ran hither and thither, with out-stretched hands. She ran 
along walls, finding no door. She saw the lustre which welled 
up from the depths. By this light she saw a door, which was 
latchless. It had neither bolt nor lock. 

In the gloomy wood glowed, copper-red, the seal of 
Solomon, the pentagram. 

The girl turned around. 


74 


METROPOLIS 

She saw a man sitting on the edge of the trap-door and 
saw his smile. 

Then it was as though she were extinguished, and she 
plunged into nothing. . . . 


CHAPTER VI 


The proprietor of Yoshiwara used to earn money in a 
variety of ways. One of them, and quite positively the most 
harmless, was to make bets that no man— be he never so 
widely travelled— was capable of guessing to what weird 
mixture of races he owed his face. So far he had won all 
such bets, and used to sweep in the money which they 
brought him with hands, the cruel beauty of which would 
not have shamed an ancestor of the Spanish Borgias, the nails 
of which, however, showed an inobliterable shimmer of blue; 
on the other hand, the politeness of his smile on such profit- 
able occasions originated unmistakably in that graceful in- 
sular world, which, from the eastern border of Asia, smiles 
gently and watchfully across at mighty America. 

There were prominent properties combined within him 
which made him appear to be a general representative of 
Great Britain and Ireland, for he was as red-haired, chaff- 
loving and with as good a head for drink as if his name had 
been McFosh, avaricious and superstitious as a Scotsman 
and— in certain circumstances, which made it requisite, of 
that highly bred obliviousness, which is a matter of will and 
a foundation stone of the British Empire. He spoke practicallly 
all living languages as though his mother had taught him 
to pray in them and his father to curse. His greed appeared 
to hail from the Levant, his contentment from China. And, 
above all this, two quiet, observant eyes watched with 
German patience and perseverance. 

As to the rest, he was called, for reasons, unknown, Sep- 
tember. 


75 


METROPOLIS 


The visitants to Yoshiwara had met September in a variety 
of emotions— from the block-headed dozing away of the 
well-contented bushman to the dance-ecstatic of the Uk- 
rainer. 

But to come upon his features in an expression of absolute 
bewilderment was reserved fpr Slim, when, on the morning 
after his having lost sight of his young master, he set throb- 
bing the massive gong which demanded entrance to Yoshi- 
wara. 

It was most unusual that the generally very obliging door 
of Yoshiwara was not opened before the fourth gong-signal; 
and that this was performed by September himself and with 
this expression of countenance deepened the impression of 
an only tolerably overcome catastrophe. Slim bowed. Sep- 
tember looked at him. A mask of brass seemed to fall over 
his face. But a chance glance at the driver of the taxi, in 
which Slim had come tore it off again. 

“Would to God your tin-kettle had gone up in the air 
before you could have brought that lunatic here yesterday 
evening,” he said. "He drove away my guests before they 
even thought of paying. The girls are huddling down in the 
comers like lumps of wet floor-cloth— that is, those who are 
not in hysterics. Unless I call in the police I might just as 
well close the house; for it doesn’t look as though that chap 
will have recovered his five senses by this evening.” 

"Of whom are you speaking, September?” asked Slim. 

September looked at him. At this moment the tiniest 
hamlet in North Siberia would have flatly refused to have 
been proclaimed the birth-place of so idiotic looking an 
individual. 

"If it is the man for whom I have come here to look,” 
continued Slim, “then I shall rid you of him in a more 
agreeable and swifter manner than the police." 

“And for what man are you looking, sir?” 

Slim hesitated. He cleared his throat slightly. “You know 
the white silk which is woven for comparatively few in 
Metropolis. . . .” 

In the long line of ancestors, the mainfold sediment of 
whom had been crystalised into September, a fur-trader 

76 


METROPOLIS 

from Tamopolis must also have been represented and he 
now smiled out from the corners of his great-grandson’s wily 
eyes. 

“Come in, sir!” the proprietor of Yoshiwara invited Slim, 
with true Singalese gentleness. 

Slim entered. September closed the door behind him. 

In the moment when the matutinal roar of the great 
Metropolis no longer bellowed up from the streets, another 
roar from inside the building became perceptible— the 
roar of a human voice, hotter than the voice of a beast of 
prey, mad-drunk with triumph. 

“Who is that?” asked Slim, involuntarily dropping his own 
voice. 

“He— I” answered September, and how he could stow 
the smooth and pointed vengefulness of whole Corsica into 
the monosyllable remained his own secret. 

Slim’s glance became uncertain, but he said nothing. He 
followed September over soft and glossy straw mats, along 
walls of oiled paper, narrowly framed in bamboo. 

Behind one of these walls the weeping of a woman was 
to be heard— monotonous, hopeless, heartbreaking, like a long 
spell of rainy days which envelope the summit of Fuji Yama. 

“That’s Yuki,” murmured September, with a fierce glance 
at the paper prison of this pitiful weeping. “She’s been 
crying since midnight, as if she wanted to be the source of 
a new salt sea. . . . This evening she will have a swollen 
potato on her face instead of a nose. . . . Who pays for it?— 
1 d „° r 

“Why is the little snowflake crying?” asked Slim, half 
thoughtlessly, for the roaring of the human voice, coming 
from the depths of the house occupied all the ears and 
attention he possessed. 

“Oh, she isn't the only one,” answered September, with 
the tolerant mien of one who owns a prosperous harbour 
tavern in Shanghai. “But she is at least tame. Plum Blossom 
has been snapping about her like a young Puma, and Miss 
Rainbow has thrown the Saki bowl at the mirror and is trying 
to cut her artery with the chips— and all on account of this 
white silk youngster.” 


77 


METROPOLIS 

The agitated expression on Slim’s face deepened. He 
shook his head. 

“How did he manage to get such a hold over them. . . 
he said, and it was not meant to be a question. 

September shrugged his shoulders. 

“Maohee. . . .” he said in a sing-song tone, as though be- 
ginning one of those Greenland fairy tales, which, the 
quicker they sent one to sleep are the more highly appre- 
ciated. 

“What is that: Maohee?” asked Slim, irritably. 

September drew his head down between his shoulders. 
The Irish and the British blood-corpuscles in his veins seemed 
to be falling out, violently: but the impenetrable Japanese 
smile covered this up with its mantle before it could grow 
dangerous. 

“You don’t know what Maohee is. . . . Not a soul in the 
great Metropolis knows. . . . No. . . . Nobody. But here 
in Yoshiwara they all know.” 

“I wish to know, too, September,” said Slim. 

Generations of Roman lackeys bowed within September 
as he said, “Certainly, sir!” But they did not get the better 
of the wink of the heavy-drinking lying grandfathers in 
Copenhagen. “Maohee, that is. . . . Isn’t it odd, that, of all 
the ten thousand who have been guests here in Yoshiwara 
and who had experienced in detail what Maohee stands 
for, outside they know nothing more about it? Don’t walk 
so fast, sir. The yelling gentleman down there won’t run 
away from us— and if I am to explain to you what Maohee 
means. . . .” 

“Drugs, I expect, September—?” 

“My dear sir, the lion is also a cat. Maohee is a drug: 
but what is a cat beside a lion? Maohee is from the other 
side of ' the earth. It is the divine, the only thing-because 
it is the only thing which makes us feel the intoxication of 
the others.” 

“The intoxication— of the others. . . . ?” repeated Slim, 
stopping still. 

September smiled the smile of Hotei the god of Happiness, 
78 


METROPOLIS 

who likes little children. He laid the hand of the Borgia, 
with the suspiciously blue shimmering nails on Slim's arm. 

“The intoxication of the others— Sir, do you know what 
that means? Not of one other— no, of the multitude which 
rolls itself into a lump, the rolled up intoxication of the 
multitude gives Maohee its friends . . 

“Has Maohee many friends, September?” 

The proprietor of Yoshiwara grinned, apocalyptically. 

“Sir, in this house there is a round room. You shall see it. 
It has not its like. It is built like a winding seashell, like a 
mammoth shell, in the windings of which thunders the surf 
of seven oceans; in these windings people crouch, so densely 
crowded that their faces appear as one face. No one knows 
the other, yet they are all friends. They all fever. They are 
all pale with expectation. They have all clasped hands. The 
trembling of those who sit right down at the bottom of the 
shell runs right through the windings of the mammoth shell, 
right up to those, who, from the gleaming top of the spiral, 
send out their own trembling towards it . . .” 

September gulped for breath. Sweat stood like a fine chain 
of beads on his brow. An international smile of insanity parted 
his prating mouth. 

“Go on, September!” said Slim. 

"On?— On?— Suddenly the rim of the shell begins to 
turn . . . gently ... ah how gently, to music such as would 
bring a tenfold murderer-bandit to sobs and his judges to 
pardon him on the scaffold— to music on hearing which 
deadly enemies kiss, beggars believe themselves to be kings, 
the hungry forget their hunger— to such music the shell 
revolves around its stationary heart, until it seems to free it- 
self from the ground and, hovering, to revolve about itself. 
The people scream— not loudly, no, no!— they scream like 
the birds that bathe in the sea. The twisted hands are 
clenched to fists. The bodies rock in one rhythm. Then comes 
the first stammer of: Maohee. . . . The stammer swells, 
becomes waves of spray, becomes a spring tide. The 
revolving shell roars: Maohee . . . Maohee ... I It is as 
though a little flame must rest on everyone’s hair parting, 
like St. Elm’s fire . . . Maohee . . . Maohee! They call on their 

79 


METROPOLIS 


god. They call on him whom the finger of the god touches 
today. . . . No one knows from where he will come today. . . . 
He is there. . . . They know he is amongst them. ... He must 
break out from the rows of them. ... He must. ... He must, 
for they call him: Maohee . . . Maoheel And suddenly— I” 

The hand of the Borgia flew up and hung in the air like 
a brown claw. 

“And suddenly a man is standing in the middle of the 
shell, in the gleaming circle, on the milk-white disc. But it is 
no man. It is the embodied conception of the intoxication of 
them all. He is not conscious of himself. ... A slight froth 
stands on his mouth, His eyes are stark and bursting and 
are yet like rushing meteors which leave waving tracks of 
fire behind them on the route from heaven to earth. . . . He 
stands and lives his intoxication. He is what his intoxication 
is. From the thousands of eyes which have cast anchor into 
his soul the power of intoxication streams into him. There is 
no delight in God’s creation which does not reveal itself, 
surmounted by the medium of these intoxicated souls. What 
he says becomes visible, what he hears becomes audible to 
all. What he feels: Power, desire, madness, is felt by them 
all. On the shimmering area, around which the shell revolves, 
to music beyond all description, one in ecstasy lives the 
thousandfold ecstasy which embodies itself in him, for 
thousands of others . . 

September stopped and smiled at Slim. 

“That, sir, is Maohee . . 

“It must indeed be a powerful drug,” said Slim with a 
feeling of dryness in his throat, “which inspires the pro- 
prietor of Yoshiwara to such a hymn. Do you think that that 
yelling individual down there would join in this song of 
praise?” 

“Ask him yourself, sir,” said September. 

He opened the door and let Slim enter. Just over the 
threshold Slim stopped, because at first he saw nothing. A 
gloom, more melancholy that the deepest darkness, spread 
over a room, the dimensions of which he could not estimate. 
The floor under his feet inclined in a' barely perceptible slope. 
Where it stopped there appeared to be gloomy emptiness. 

80 


METROPOLIS 

Right and left, spiral walls, billowing outwards, swept away 
to each side. 

That was all Slim saw. But from the empty depths before 
him came a white shimmer, no stronger than if coming from 
a field of snow. On this shimmer there floated a voice, that 
of a murderer and of one being murdered. 

Light, September!” said Slim with a gulp. An un- 
bearable feeling of thirst gnawed at his throat. 

The room slowly grew brighter, as though the light were 
coming unwillingly. Slim saw, he was standing in one of the 
windings of the round room, which was shaped like a shell. 
He was standing between the heights and the depths, 
separated by a low banister from the emptiness from which 
came the snow-like light and the murderer’s voice and the 
voice of his victim. He stepped to the banister, and leaned far 
over it. A milk-white disc, lighted from beneath and lumin- 
ous. At the edge of the disc, like a dark, rambling pattern 
on a plate-rim, women, crouching, kneeling there, in their 
gorgeous attire, as though drunken. Some had dropped their 
foreheads to the ground, their hands clutched above their 
ebony hair. Some crouched, huddled together in clumps, 
head pressed to head, symbols of fear. Some were swaying 
rhythmically from side to side as if calling on gods. Some 
were weeping. Some were as if dead. 

But they all seemed to be the hand-maids of the man 
on the snow-light illuminated disk. 

The man wore the whilte silk woven for comparatively 
few in Metropolis. He wore the soft shoes in which the be- 
loved sons of mighty fathers seemed to caress the earth. But 
the silk hung in tatters about the body of the man and the 
shoes looked as though the feet within them bled. 

“Is that the man for whom you are looking, sir?” asked 
a Levantine cousin from out September, leaning confidently 
towards slim's ear. 

Slim did not answer. He was looking at the man. 

"At least,” continued September, “it is the youngster who 
came here yesterday by the same car as you to-day. And the 
devil take him for it! He has turned my revolving shell into 
the fore-court of hell! He has been roasting souls! I have 

81 


METROPOLIS 


known Maohee-drugged beings to have fancied themselves 
Kings, Gods, Fire, and Storm— and to have forced others to 
feel themselves Kings, Gods, Fire, and Storm. I have known 
those in the ecstasy of desire to have forced women down 
to them from the highest part of the shell’s wall, that 
they, diving, like seagulls, with out-spread hands, have 
swooped to his feet, without injuring a limb, while others 
have fallen to their death. That man there was no God, no 
Storm, no Fire, and his drunkenness most certainly inspired 
him with no desire. It seems to me that he had come up 
from hell and is roaring in the intoxication of damnation. He 
did not know that the ecstasy for men who are damned is 
also damnation. . . . The fool! The prayer he is praying will 
not redeem him. He believes himself to be a machine and is 
praying to himself. He has forced the others to pray to him. 
He has ground them down. He has pounded them to a 
powder. There are many dragging themselves around Me- 
tropolis to-day who cannot comprehend why their limbs are 
as if broken . . .” 

“Be quiet, September!” said Slim hoarsely. His hand 
flew to his throat which felt like a glowing cork, like smoul- 
dering charcoal. 

September fell silent, shrugging his shoulders. Words 
seethed up from the depths like lava. 

“I am the Three-in-one— Lucifer— Belial— Satan— 1 I am 
the everlasting Death! I am the everlasting Noway! Come 
unto me—! In my hell there are many mansions! I shall 
assign them to you! I am the great king of all the damned— 1 
I am a machine! I am the tower above you all! I am a ham- 
mer, a fly-wheel, a fiery oven! I am a murderer and of what 
I murder I make no use. I want victims and victims do not 
appease me! Pray to me and know: I do not hear you! Shout 
at me: Pater-noster! Know: I am deaf!” 

Slim turned around; he saw September’s face as a chalky 
mask at his shoulder. Maybe that, among September’s an- 
cestresses there was one who hailed from an isle in the South 
sea, where gods mean little— spirits everything. 

“That's no more a man,” he whispered with ashen lips. 
“A man would have died of it long ago. . . . Do you see his 

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METROPOLIS 


arms, sir? Do you think a man can imitate the pushing of a 
machine for hours and hours at a time without its killing 
him? He is as dead as stone. If you were to call to him he’d 
collapse and break to pieces like a plaster statue.” 

It did not seem as though September’s words had pene- 
trated into Slim’s consciousness. His face wore an expression 
of loathing and suffering and he spoke as one who speaks 
with pain. 

“I hope, September, that to-night you have had your last 
opportunity of watching the effects of Maohee on your 
guests. . . .” 

September smiled his Japanese smile. 

He did not answer. 

Slim stepped up to the banister at the edge of the curve 
of the shell in which he stood. He bent down towards the 
milky disc. He cried a high sharp tone which had the effect of 
a whistle: 

“Eleven thousand eight hundred and eleven— I” 

The man on the shimmering disc swung around as though 
he had received a blow in the side. The hellish rhythm of 
his arms ceased, running itself out in vibration. The man fell 
to earth like a log and did not move again. 

Slim ran down the passage, reached the end and pushed 
asunder the circle of women, who, stiffened with shock, 
seemed to be thrown into deeper horror more by the end 
of that which they had brought to pass than by the beginning. 
He knelt down beside the man, looked him in the face and 
pushed the tattered silk away from his heart. He did not 
give his hand time to test his pulse. He lifted the man up 
and carried him out in his arms. The sighing of the women 
soughed behind him like a dense, mist-coloured curtain. 

September stepped across his path. He swept aside as 
he caught Slim’s glance at him. He ran along by him, like 
an active dog, breathing rapidly; but he said nothing. 

Slim reached the door of Yoshiwara. September, himself, 
opened it for him. Slim stepped into the street. The driver 
pulled open the door of the taxi; he looked in amazement at 
the man who hung in Slim's arms, in tatters of white silk with 
which the wind was playing, and who was more awful to 

83 


METROPOLIS 


look on than a corpse. 

The proprietor of Yoshiwara bowed repeatedly while Slim 
was climbing into the car. But Slim did not give him another 
glance. September’s face, which was as grey as steel, was 
reminiscent of the blades of those ancient swords, forged of 
Indian steel, in Shiras or Ispahan and on which, hidden by 
ornamentation, stand mocking and deadly words. 

The car glided away: September looked after it. He smiled 
the peacable smile of Eastern Asia. 

For he knew perfectly well what Slim did not know, and 
what, apart from him, nobody in Metropolis knew, that with 
the first drop of water or wine which moistened the lips of 
a human being, there disappeared even the very faintest 
memory of all which appertained to the wonders of the 
drug, Maohee. 

The car stopped before the next medical depot. Male 
nurses came and carried away the bundle of humanity, 
shivering in tatters of white silk, to the doctor on duty. Slim 
looked about him. He beckoned to a policeman who was 
stationed near the door. 

‘Take down a report,” he said. His tongue would hardly 
obey him, so parched was it with thirst. 

The policeman entered the house after him. 

“Wait I” said Slim, more with the movement of his head 
than in words. He saw a glass jug of water standing on the 
table and the coolness of the water had studded the jug 
with a thousand pearls. 

Slim drank like an animal which finds drink on coming 
from the desert. He put down the jug and shivered. A short 
shudder passed through him. 

He turned around and saw the man he had brought with 
him lying on a bed over which a young doctor was bending. 

The bps of the sick man were moistened with wine. His 
eyes stood wide open, staring up at the ceiling, tears upon 
tears running gently and incessantly from the comers of 
his eyes, down over his temples. It was as though they 
had nothing to do with the man— as though they were 
trickling from a broken vessel and could not stop trickling 
until the vessel had run quite empty. 

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METROPOLIS 

Slim looked the doctor in the face; the latter shrugged 
his shoulders. Slim bent over the prostrate man. 

"Georgi,” he said in a low voice, “can you hear me?” 

The sick man nodded; it was the shadow of a nod. 

“Do you know who I am?” 

A second nod. 

“Are you in a condition to answer two or three questions?” 
Another nod. 

“How did you get the white silk clothes?” 

For a long time he received no answer apart from the 
gentle falling of the tear drops. Then came the voice, softer 
than a whisper. 

“. . . . He changed with me. . . .” 

“Who did?” 

“Freder. . . . Joh Fredersen’s son. . . ” 

“And then, Georgi?” 

“He told me I was to wait for him. . . 

“Wait where, Georgi?” 

A long silence. And then, barely audible: 

“Ninetieth Sheet. House seven. Seventh floor. . . .” 

Slim did not question him further. He knew who lived 
there. He looked at the doctor; the latter’s face wore a com- 
pletely impenetrable expression. 

Slim drew a breath as though he were sighing. He said, 
more deploringly than inquiringly: 

“Why did you not rather go there, Georgi. . . .” 

He turned to go but stopped still as Georgi’s voice came 
wavering after him; 

“. . . . The city. ... all the lights. . . . more than 
enough money. ... It is written. . . . Forgive us our 
trespasses. . . . lead us not into temptation. . . .” 

His voice died away. His head fell to one side. He breathed 
as though his soul wept, for his eyes could do so no longer. 
The doctor cleared his throat cautiously. 

Slim raised his head as though somebody had called him, 
then dropped >'t again. 

“I shall come back again,” he said softly. “He is to remain 
under your care. . . .” 


85 


METROPOLIS 


Georgi was asleep. 

Slim left the room, followed by the policeman. 

"What do you want?” Slim asked with an absent-minded 
look at him. 

“The report, sir.” 

“What report?” 

“I was to take down a report, sir.” 

Slim looked at the policeman very attentively, almost 
meditatively. He raised his hand and rubbed it across his 
forehead. 

“A mistake,” he said. “That was a mistake. . . .” 

The policeman saluted and retired, a little puzzled, for 
he knew Slim. 

He remained standing on the same spot. Again and again 
he rubbed his forehead with the same helpless gesture. 

Then he shook his head, stepped into the car and said: 

“Ninetieth block. . . .” 


CHAPTER Vn 

“Where is Georgi?” asked Freder, his eyes wandering through 
Josaphat’s three rooms, which stretched out before him— 
beautiful, with a rather bewildering super-abundance of arm- 
chairs, divans and silk cushions, with curtains which goldenly 
obscured the light. 

“Who?” asked Josaphat, listlessly. He had waited, had 
not slept and his eyes stood excessively large in his thin, 
almost white face. His gaze, which he did not take from 
Freder, was like hands which are raised adoringly. 

"Georgi,” repeated Freder. He smiled happily with his 
tired mouth. 

“Who is that?” asked Josaphat. 

“I sent him to you.” 

“Nobody has come.” 

Freder looked at him without answering. 

“I sat all night in this chair,” continued Josaphat, mis- 
interpreting Freder 's silence. “I did not sleep a wink. I ex- 

86 


METROPOLIS 


pected you to come at any second, or a messenger to come 
from you, or that you would ring me up. I also informed 
the watchman. Nobody has come, Mr. Freder.” 

Freder still remained silent. Slowly, almost stumblingly he 
stepped over the threshold, into the room raising his right 
hand to his head, as though to take off his hat, then noticing 
that he was wearing the cap, the black cap, which pressed 
the hair tightly down, he swept it from his head; it fell to the 
ground. His hand sank from his brow, over his eyes, resting 
there a little while. Then the other joined it, as though wish- 
ing to console its sister. His form was like that of a young 
birch tree pressed sideways by a strong wind. 

Josaphat’s eyes hung on the uniform which Freder wore. 

“Mr. Freder,” he began cautiously, “how comes it that you 
are wearing these clothes?" 

Freder remained turned away from him. He took his 
hands from his eyes and pressed them to his face as though 
he felt some pain there. 

“Georgi wore them. . . ." He answered. “I gave him 
mine. . . .” 

“Then Georgi is a workman?” 

“Yes. ... I found him before the Pater-noster machine. 
I took his place and sent him to you. . . .” 

“Perhaps he’ll come yet,” answered Josaphat. 

Freder shook his head. 

“He should have been here hours ago. If he had been 
caught when leaving the New Tower of Babel, then someone 
would have come to me when I was standing before the 
machine. It is strange, but there it is; he has not come.” 

“Was there much money in the suit which you exchanged 
with Georgi?” asked Josaphat tentatively, as one who bares a 
wounded spot. 

Freder nodded. 

“Then you must not be surprised that Georgi has not 
come,” said Josaphat. But the expression of shame and pain 
on Freder’s face prevented him from continuing. 

“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Freder,” he begged. “Or lie 
down? You look so tired that it is painful to look at you.” 

“I have no time to sit down and not time to lie down, 


87 


METROPOLIS 

either,” answered Freder. He walked through the rooms, aim- 
lessly, senselessly, stopping wherever a chair, a table, offered 
him a hold. “The fact, is this, Josaphat: I told Georgi to come 
here and to wait here for me— or for a message from me. . . . 
It is a thousand to one that Slim, in searching for me, is 
already on Georgi’s track, and it's a thousand to one he gets 
out of him where I sent him. . . .” 

“And you do not want Slim to find you?” 

“He must not find me, Josaphat— not for anything on 
earth. . . .” 

The other stood silent, rather helpless. Freder looked at 
him with a trembling smile. 

“How shall we obtain money, now, Josaphat?” 

“That should offer no difficulty to Joh Fredersen’s son.” 
“More than you think, Josaphat, for I am no longer Joh 
Fredersen’s son. . . .” 

Josaphat raised his head. 

"I do not understand you,” he said, after a pause. 

“There is nothing to misunderstand, Josaphat. I have set 
myself free from my father, and am going my own way. . . .” 
The man who had been the first secretary to the Master 
over the great Metropolis held his breath back in his lungs, 
then released it in streams. 

“Will you let me tell you something, Mr. Freder?” 

“Well ” 

“One does not set oneself free from your father. It is he 
who decides whether one remains with him or must leave him. 

“There is nobody who is stronger than Joh Fredersen. Pie 
is like the earth. As regards the earth we have no will either. 
Her laws keep us eternally perpendicular to the centre of 
the earth, even if we stand on our head. . . . When Joh Freder- 
sen sets a man free it means just as much as if the earth were 
to shut off from a man her powers of attraction. It means fall- 
ing into nothing. ... Joh Fredersen can set free whom he 
may; he will never set free his son. . . .” 

“But what,” answered Freder, speaking feverishly, “if a 
man overcomes the laws of nature?” 

“Utopia, Mr. Freder.” 

“For the inventive spirit of man there is no Utopia: there 

88 


METROPOLIS 


is only a Not-yet. I have made up my mind to venture the 
path. I must take it— yes, I must take it! I do not know the 
way yet, but I shall find it because I must find it. . . .” 

“Wherever you wish, Mr. Freder— I shall go with you. . . 

“Thank youj’ said Freder, reaching out his hand. He felt 
it seized and clasped in a vice-like grip. 

“You know, Mr. Freder, don’t you—” said the strangled 
voice of Josaphat, “that everything belongs to you— every- 
thing that I am and have. ... It is not much, for I have lived 
like a madman. . . . But for to-day, and to-morrow and the 
day after to-morrow. . . .” 

Freder shook his head without losing hold of Josaphat’s 
hand. 

“No, nol” he said, a torrent of red flowing over his face. 
“One does not begin new ways like that. . . . We must try 
to find other ways. ... It will not be easy. Slim knows his 
business.” 

“Perhaps Slim could be won over to you. . . said Josaphat, 
hesitatingly. “For— strange though it may sound, he loves 
you. . . .” 

"Slim loves all his victims. Which does not prevent him, as 
the most considerate and kindly of executioners, from laying 
them before my father’s feet. He is the born tool, but the 
tool of the strongest. He would never make himself the tool 
of the weaker one, for he would thus humiliate himself. And 
you have just told me, Josaphat, how much stronger my 
father is than I. . . 

“If you were to confide yourself to one of your friends. . . .” 

“I have no friends, Josaphat.” 

Josaphat wanted to contradict, but he stopped himself. 
Freder turned his eyes towards him. He straightened himself 
up and smiled— the other’s hand still in his. 

“I have no friends, Josaphat, and, what weighs still 
more, I have no friend. I had play-fellows— sport-fellows— 
but friends? A friend? No, Josaphat! Can one confide oneself 
to somebody of whom one knows nothing but how his laugh- 
ter sounds?” 

He saw the eyes of the other fixed upon him, discerned the 
ardour in them and the pain and the truth. 

89 


METROPOLIS 


“Yes,” he said with a worried smile. “I should like to con- 
fide myself to you. ... I must confide myself to you, Josaphat. 
... I must call you ‘Friend’ and ‘Brother’. ... for I need a 
man who will go with me in trust and confidence to the world’s 
end. Will you be that man?” 

“Yes.” 

“Yes—?” He came to him and laid his hands upon his 
shoulders. He looked closely into his face. He shook him. 
“You say: ‘Yes— 1’ Do you know what that means— for you 
and for me? What a last plummet-drop that is— what a last 
anchorage? I hardly know you— I wanted to help you— I 
cannot even help you now, because I am poorer now than 
you are— but, perhaps, that is all to the good. . . . Joh Freder- 
sen’s son can, perhaps, be betrayed— but I, Josaphat? A 
man who has nothing but a will and an object? It cannot be 
worth while to betray him— eh, Josaphat?” 

“May God kill me as one kills a mangy dog. . . .” 

“That’s all right, that’s all right, . . .” Freder’s smile came 
back again and stood, clear and beautiful in his tired face. “I 
am going now, Josaphat. I want to go to my father’s mother, 
to take her -something which is very sacred to me. ... I 
shall be here again before evening. Shall I find you here 
then?” 

“Yes, Mr. Freder, most certainly!” 

They stretched out their hands towards each other. Hand 
held hand, gripped. They looked at each other. Glance held 
glance, gripped. Then they loosened their grip in silence and 
Freder went. 

A little while later (Josaphat was still standing on the same 
spot on which Freder had left him) there came a knock at 
the door. 

Though the knocking was as gentle, as modest, as the 
knocking of one who has come to beg, there was something 
in it which chased a shiver down Josaphat’s spine. He stood 
still, gazing at the door, incapable of calling out “Come in,” 
or of opening it himself. 

The knocking was repeated, becoming not in the least 
louder. It came for the third time and was still as gentle. But 

90 


METROPOLIS 


just that deepened the impression that it was inescapable, that 
it would be quite pointless to play deaf permanently. 

“Who is there?” asked Josaphat hoarsely. He knew very 
well who was standing outside. He only asked to gain time— 
to draw breath, which he badly needed. He expected no 
answer; neither did he receive one. 

The door opened. 

In the doorway stood Slim. 

They did not greet each other; neither greeted the other. 
Josaphat: because his gullet was too dry: Slim: because his 
all-observing eye had darted through the room in the second 
in which he put his foot on the threshold, and had found 
something: a black cap, lying on the floor. 

Josaphat followed Slim’s gaze with his eyes. He did not 
stir. With silent step Slim went up to the cap, stooped and 
picked it up. He twisted it gently this way and that, he 
twisted it inside out. 

In the sweat-sodden lining of the cap stood the number, 
11811 . 

Slim weighed the cap in almost affectionate hands, He 
fixed his eyes, which were as though veiled with weariness 
on Josaphat and asked, speaking in a low voice: 

“Where is Freder, Josaphat?” 

“I do not know. . . .” 

Slim smiled sleepily.. He fondled the black cap. Josaphat’s 
hoarse voice continued: 

"... But if I did know you would not get it out of me, 
anyway. . . .” 

Slim looked at Josaphat, still smiling, still fondling the 
black cap. 

"You are quite right,” said he courteously. “I beg your 
pardonl It was an idle question. Of course you will not tell me 
where Mr. Freder is. Neither, is it at all necessary. ... It is 
quite another matter. . . .” 

He pocketed the cap, having carefully rolled it up, and 
looked around the room. He went up to an armchair, stand- 
ing near a low, black, polished table. 

“You permit me?” he asked courteously, seating himself. 

Josaphat made a movement of the head, but the “Please 

91 


METROPOLIS 

do so,” dried up in his throat. He did not stir from the on* 
spot. 

You live very well here,” said Slim, leaning back and sur- 
veying the room with a sweeping movement of his head- 
“Everything of a soft, half-dark tone. The atmosphere about 
these cushions is a tepid perfume. I can well understand how 
difficult it will be for you to leave this flat.” 

“I have no such intention, however,” said Josaphat. He 
swallowed. 

Slim pressed his eye-lids together, as though he wished to 
sleep. 

"No. . . . Not yet. . . . But very soon. . . .” 

"I should not think of it,” answered Josaphat. His eyes grew 
red, and he looked at Slim, hatred smouldering in bis gaze. 

“No. . . . Not yet. . . . But very soon. . . .” 

Josaphat stood quite still: but suddenly he smote the 
air with his fist, as though beating against an invisible door. 

“What do you want exactly?” he asked pantingly. What 
is that supposed to imply? What do you want from me—?” 

It appeared at first as though Slim had not heard th© 
question. Sleepily, with closed eye-lids, he sat there, breath, 
ing inaudibly. But, as the leather of the chairback squeaked 
under Josaphat’s grasp, Slim said, very slowly, but very 
clearly: 

"I want you to tell me for what sum you will give up this 
flat, Josaphat.” 

" When?” . . 

"Immediately.” 

“. . . . What is that supposed to mean. . , . Immedi- 
ately? . . ." 

Slim opened his eyes, and* they were as cold and bright 
as a pebble in a brook. 

“Immediately means within an hour. . . . Immediately 
means long before this evening. . . .” 

A shiver ran down Josaphat’s back. The hands on his 
hanging arms slowly clenched themselves into fists. 

"Get out, sir. . . .” he said quietly. “Get out of here— I 
Now— 1 At once— 1 Immediately!—” 

The flat is very pretty,” said Slim. “You are unwilling to 

92 


METROPOLIS 


give it up. It is of value to one who knows how to appreciate 
such things. You will not have time to pack any large trunks, 
either. You can only take what you need for twenty-four 
hours. The journey— new outfit— a year’s expenses— all this 
is to be added to the sum: what is the price of your flat, 
Josaphat?” 

“I shall chuck you into the street,” stammered Josaphat 
with feverish mouth. “I shall chuck you seven stories down 
into the street— through the window, my good sir!— through 
the closed window— if you don’t get out this very secondl” 

“You love a woman. The woman does not love you. Women 
who are not in love are very expensive. You want to buy this 
woman. Very well. The threefold cost of the flat. . . . Life on 
the Adriatic coast— in Rome— on Teneriffe— on a splendid 
steamer around the world with a woman who wants to be 
bought anew every day— comprehensible, Josaphat, that the 
flat will be expensive. . . . but to tell you the truth, I must 
have it, so I must pay for it.” 

He plunged his hands into his pocket and drew out a wad 
of banknotes. He pushed it across to Josaphat over the black, 
polished mirror-like table. Josaphat clutched at it, leaving his 
nail marks behind on the table-top and threw it into Slim's 
face. He caught it with a nimble, thought-swift movement, 
and gently laid it back on the table. He laid a second one 
beside it. 

“Is that enough?” he asked sleepily. 

“No— I” shouted Josaphat’s laughter. 

“Sensible!” said Slim. “Very sensible. Why should you not 
make full use of your advantages. An opportunity like this, to 
raise your whole life by one hundred rungs, to become in- 
dependant, happy, free, the fulfilment of every wish, the 
satisfaction of every whim— to have your own, and a beautiful 
woman before you, will come only once in your life and never 
again. Seize it, Josaphat, if you are not a fool! In strict con- 
fidence: The beautiful woman of whom we spoke just 
now has already been informed and is awaiting you near 
the aeroplane which is standing ready for the journey. . . . 
Three times the price, Josaphat, if you do not keep the 
beautiful woman waiting!” 


93 


METROPOLIS 


He laid the third bundle of banknotes on the table. He 
looked at Josaphat. Josaphat’s reddened eyes devoured Iris. 
Josaphat’s hands fumbled across blindly and seized the three 
brown wads. His teeth showed white under his lips; while his 
fingers tore the notes to shreds, they seemed to be biting them 
to death. 

Slim shook his head. “That’s of. no account,” he said un- 
disturbedly. “I have a cheque-book here, some of the blank 
leaves of which bear the signature, Joh Fredersen. Let us 
write a sum on the first leaf— a sum the double of the amount 
agreed upon up to now. . . . Well, Josaphat?” 

“I will not— 1” said the other, shaken from head to foot. 

Slim smiled. 

“No,” he said. “Not yet. . . . But very soon. . . .” 

Josaphat did not answer. He was staring at the piece of 
paper, white, printed and written on, which lay before him 
on the blue-black table. He did not see the figure upon it. 
He only saw the name upon it: 

Joh Fredersen. 

The signature, as though written with the blade of an axe: 

Joh Fredersen. 

Josaphat turned his head this way and that as though he 
felt the blade of the axe at his neck. 

“No,” he croaked. “No, no, no. . . . I” 

“Not enough yet?” asked Slim. 

“Yes!” said he in a mutter. “Yes! It is enough.” 

Slim got up. Something which he had drawn from his 
pocket with the bundles of banknotes, without his having 
noticed it, slid down from his knees. 

It was a black cap, such as the workmen in Joh Fredersen’s 
works used to wear. . . . 

A howl escaped Josaphat’s lips. He threw himself down 
on both knees. He seized the black cap in both hands. He 
snatched it to his mouth. He stared at Slim. He jerked him- 
self up. He sprang, like a stag before the pack, to gain the 
door. 

But Slim got there before him. With a mighty leap he 
sprang across table and divan, rebounded against the door 
and stood before Josaphat. For the fraction of a second they 

94 


METROPOLIS 


stared each other in the face. Then Josaphat’s hands flew 
to Slim’s throat. Slim lowered his head. He threw forward 
his arms, like the grabbing arms of the octopus. They held 
each other, tightly clasped, and wrestled together, burning 
and ice-cold, raving and reflecting, teeth-grinding and silent, 
breast to breast. 

They tore themselves apart and dashed at each other. They 
fell, and, wrestling, rolled along the floor. Josaphat forced his 
opponent beneath him. Fighting, they pushed each other up. 
They stumbled and rolled over armchairs and divans. The 
beautiful room, turned into a wilderness, seemed to be too 
small for the two twisted bodies, which jerked like fishes, 
stamped like steers, struck at each other like fighting bears. 

But against Slim’s unshakeable, dreadful coldness the 
white-hot fury of his opponent could not stand its ground. 
Suddenly, as though his knee joints had been hacked 
through, Josaphat collapsed in Slim’s hands, fell on his knees 
and remained there, his back resting against an over-turoed 
armchair, staring up with glassy eyes. 

Slim loosened his hold. He looked down at him. 

“Had enough yet?” he asked, and smiled sleepily. 

Josaphat did not answer. He moved his right hand. In all 
the fury of the fight he had not lost hold of the black cap 
which Freder had worn when he came to him. 

He raised the cap painfully on to his knees, as though 
it weighed a hundredweight. He twisted it between his 
fingers. He fondled it. . . . 

“Come, Josaphat, get up!” said Slim. He spoke very gravely 
and gently and a little sadly. “May I help you? Give me 
your hands! No, no. I shall not take the cap away from 
you. ... I am afraid I was obliged to hurt you very much. It 
was no pleasure. But you forced me into it.” 

He left go of the man, who was now standing upright, and 
he looked around him with a gloomy smile. 

“A good thing we settled the price beforehand,” he said. 
“Now the flat would be considerably cheaper.” 

He sighed a little and looked at Josaphat, 

“When will you be ready to go?” 

“Now,” said Josaphat. 


95 


METROPOLIS 

“You will not take anything with you?” 

“No.” 

“You will go just as you are— with all the marks of the 
struggle, all tattered and torn?” 

“Yes.” 

“Is that courteous to the lady who is waiting for you?” 

Sight returned to Josaphat’s eyes. He turned a reddened 
gaze towards Slim. 

“If you do not want me to commit the murder on the 
woman which did not succeed on you— then send her away 
before I come. . . 

Slim was silent. He turned to go. He took the cheque, 
folded it together and put it into Josaphat’s pocket. 

Josaphat offered no resistance. 

He walked before Slim towards the door. Then he stopped 
again and looked around. 

He waved the cap which Freder had worn, in farewell 
to the room, and burst out into ceaseless laughter. He struck 
his shoulder against the door post. . . . 

Then he went out. Slim followed him. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Freder walked up the steps of the cathedral hesitatingly; 
he was walking up them for the first time. Hel, his mother, 
used often to go to the cathedral. But her son had never yet 
done so. Now he longed to see it with his mother’s eyes and 
to hear with the ears of Hel, his mother, the stony prayer of 
the pillars, each of which had its own particular voice. 

He entered the cathedral as a child, not pious, yet not 
entirely free from shyness— prepared for reverence, but fear- 
less. He heard, as Hel, his mother the Kyrie Eleison of the 
stones and the Te Deum Laudamus— the De Profundis and 
the Jubilate. And he heard, as his mother, how the powerfully 
ringing stone chair was crowned by the Amen of the cross 
vault. . . . 

96 


METROPOLIS 


He looked for Maria, who was to have waited for him on 
the belfry steps; but he could not find her. He wandered 
through the cathedral, which seemed to. be quite empty of 
people. Once he stopped. He was standing opposite Death. 

The ghostly minstrel stood in a side-niche, carved in wood, 
in hat and wide cloak, scythe on shoulder, the hour-glass 
dangling from his girdle; and the minstrel was playing on a 
bone as though on a flute. The Seven Deadly Sins were his 
following. 

Freder looked Death in the face. Then he said: 

“If you had come earlier you would not have frightened 
me. . . . Now I pray you: Keep away from me and my 
beloved!” 

But the awful flute-player seemed to be listening to nothing 
but the song he was playing upon a bone. 

Freder walked on. He came to the central nave. Before 
the high altar, over which hovered God Incarnate, a dark 
form lay stretched out upon the stones, hands clutching out to 
each side, face pressed into the coldness of the stone, as 
though the blocks must burst asunder under the pressure of 
the brow. The form wore the garment of a monk, the head 
was shaven. An incessant .trembling shook the lean body 
from shoulder to heel, and it seemed to be stiffened as 
though in a cramp. 

But suddenly the body reared up. A white flame sprang 
up: a face; black flames within it: two blazing eyes. A hand 
rose up, clutching high in the air towards the crucifix which 
hovered above the altar. 

A voice spoke, like the voice of fire: 

“I will not let thee go, God, God, except thou bless mel” 

The echo of the pillars yelled the words after him. 

The son of Joh Fredersen had never seen the man before. 
He knew, however, as soon as the flame-white face unveiled 
the black flames of its eyes to him: it was Desertus the monk, 
his father’s enemy. . . . 

Perhaps his breath had become too loud. Suddenly the 
black flame struck across at him. The monk arose slowly. He 
did not say a word. He stretched out his hand. The hand 
indicated the door. 


97 


METROPOLIS 


"Why do you sent me away, Desertus?” asked Freder. “Is 
not the house of your God open to all?” 

“Hast thou come here to seek God?” asked the rough, 
hoarse voice of the monk. 

Freder hesitated. He dropped his head. 

“No.” He answered. But his heart knew better. 

“If thou hast not come to seek God, then thou hast nothing 
to seek here,” said the monk. 

Then Joh Fredersen’s son went. 

He went out of the cathedral as one walking in his sleep. 
The daylight smote his eyes cruelly. Racked with weariness, 
worn out with grief, he walked down the steps, and aimlessly 
onwards. 

The roar of the streets wrapped itself, as a diver’s helmet, 
about his ears. He walked on in his stupefaction, as though 
between thick glass walls. He had no thought apart from 
the name of his beloved, no consciousness apart from his 
longing for her. Shivering with weariness, he thought of the 
girl’s eyes and lips, with a feeling very like homesickness. 

Ahl— brow to brow with her— then mouth to mouth- 
eyes closed— breathing. ... 

Peace . . . Peace . . . 

“Come,” said his heart. "Why do you leave me alone?” 

He walked along in a stream of people, fighting down the* 
mad desire to stop amid this stream and to ask every single 
wave, which was a human being, if it knew of Maria’s where- 
abouts, and why she had let him wait in vain. 

He came to the magician’s house. There he stopped. 

He stared at a window. 

Was he mad? 

There was Maria, standing behind the dull panes. Those 
were her blessed hands, stretched out towards him ... a 
dumb cry: “Help me— 1” 

Then the entire vision was drawn away, swallowed up 
by the blackness of the room behind it, vanishing, not leaving 
a trace, as though it had never been. Dumb, dead and evil 
stood the house of the magician there. 

Freder stood motionless. He drew a deep, deep breath. 
Then he made a leap. He stood before the door of the house. 

1984 



By George Orwell 




i 



iiwy"^ 



Part One 



1984 



Chapter i 



It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were strik- 
ing thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his 
breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly 
through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not 
quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from enter- 
ing along with him. 

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At 
one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, 
had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enor- 
mous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of 
about forty- five, with a heavy black moustache and rugged- 
ly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was 
no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was sel- 
dom working, and at present the electric current was cut 
off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive 
in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, 
and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer 
above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on 
the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster 
with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of 
those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow 
you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING 
YOU, the caption beneath it ran. 

Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of fig- 

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ures which had something to do with the production of 
pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like 
a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the 
right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice 
sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguish- 
able. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be 
dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off complete- 
ly. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, 
the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue 
overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was 
very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by 
coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the win- 
ter that had just ended. 

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world 
looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were 
whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the 
sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed 
to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were 
plastered everywhere. The blackmoustachio'd face gazed 
down from every commanding corner. There was one on 
the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS 
WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes 
looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level an- 
other poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, 
alternately covering and uncovering the single word IN- 
GSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down 
between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, 
and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the po- 
lice patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did 



1984 



not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered. 

Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was 
still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment 
of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and 
transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, 
above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by 
it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vi- 
sion which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen 
as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing 
whether you were being watched at any given moment. How 
often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on 
any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable 
that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate 
they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You 
had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in 
the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, 
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. 

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was 
safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. 
A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, 
towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, 
he thought with a sort of vague distaste — this was London, 
chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous 
of the provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some 
childhood memory that should tell him whether London 
had always been quite like this. Were there always these vis- 
tas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored 
up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with card- 
board and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy 

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garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed 
sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the wil- 
low-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places 
where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had 
sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chick- 
en-houses? But it was no use, he could not remember: 
nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright- 
lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly 
unintelligible. 

The Ministry of Truth — Minitrue, in Newspeak [New- 
speak was the official language of Oceania. For an account 
of its structure and etymology see Appendix.] — was star- 
tlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an 
enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white con- 
crete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the 
air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, 
picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three 
slogans of the Party: 

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 

The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three 
thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding 
ramifications below. Scattered about London there were 
just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. 
So completely did they dwarf the surrounding architec- 
ture that from the roof of Victory Mansions you could see 



1984 



all four of them simultaneously. They were the homes of 
the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus 
of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which 
concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and 
the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself 
with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and 
order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible 
for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, 
Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty 

The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. 
There were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been 
inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometre of it. 
It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, 
and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed- 
wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun 
nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were 
roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed 
with jointed truncheons. 

Winston turned round abruptly. He had set his features 
into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advis- 
able to wear when facing the telescreen. He crossed the 
room into the tiny kitchen. By leaving the Ministry at this 
time of day he had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen, and 
he was aware that there was no food in the kitchen except 
a hunk of dark- coloured bread which had got to be saved 
for tomorrow's breakfast. He took down from the shelf a 
bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked 
VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese 
rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved 



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himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medi- 
cine. 

Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out 
of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in 
swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back 
of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, 
the burning in his belly died down and the world began to 
look more cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled 
packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously 
held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out on to the 
floor. With the next he was more successful. He went back 
to the living-room and sat down at a small table that stood 
to the left of the telescreen. From the table drawer he took 
out a penholder, a bottle of ink, and a thick, quarto-sized 
blank book with a red back and a marbled cover. 

For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in 
an unusual position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, 
in the end wall, where it could command the whole room, 
it was in the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side 
of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now 
sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably 
been intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, 
and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside 
the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could 
be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present 
position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual ge- 
ography of the room that had suggested to him the thing 
that he was now about to do. 

But it had also been suggested by the book that he had 



1984 



just taken out of the drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful 
book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was 
of a kind that had not been manufactured for at least for- 
ty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was 
much older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of 
a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town 
(just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been 
stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess 
it. Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary 
shops ('dealing on the free market', it was called), but the 
rule was not strictly kept, because there were various things, 
such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible 
to get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance 
up and down the street and then had slipped inside and 
bought the book for two dollars fifty At the time he was not 
conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had 
carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even with nothing 
written in it, it was a compromising possession. 

The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. 
This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no 
longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain 
that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty- 
five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into 
the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen 
was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, 
and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, 
simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper 
deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being 
scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to 



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writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usu- 
al to dictate everything into the speak-write which was of 
course impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the 
pen into the ink and then faltered for just a second. A trem- 
or had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the 
decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote: 

April 4th, 1984. 

He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had de- 
scended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any 
certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that 
date, since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty-nine, 
and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but 
it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within 
a year or two. 

For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he 
writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. His mind 
hovered for a moment round the doubtful date on the page, 
and then fetched up with a bump against the Newspeak 
word DOUBLETHINK. For the first time the magnitude of 
what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you 
communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossi- 
ble. Either the future would resemble the present, in which 
case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from 
it, and his predicament would be meaningless. 

For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper. The 
telescreen had changed over to strident military music. It 
was curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the pow- 



1984 



er of expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it 
was that he had originally intended to say. For weeks past 
he had been making ready for this moment, and it had nev- 
er crossed his mind that anything would be needed except 
courage. The actual writing would be easy. All he had to 
do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless mono- 
logue that had been running inside his head, literally for 
years. At this moment, however, even the monologue had 
dried up. Moreover his varicose ulcer had begun itching 
unbearably. He dared not scratch it, because if he did so it 
always became inflamed. The seconds were ticking by. He 
was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page 
in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the 
blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the 

gin- 
Suddenly he began writing in sheer panic, only imper- 
fectly aware of what he was setting down. His small but 
childish handwriting straggled up and down the page, shed- 
ding first its capital letters and finally even its full stops: 

April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One 
very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed 
somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused 
by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with 
a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along 
in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the 
helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea 
round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though 
the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter 

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when he sank, then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a 
helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman 
might have been a Jewess sitting up in the bow with a little 
boy about three years old in her arms, little boy screaming 
with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he 
was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting 
her arms round him and comforting him although she was 
blue with fright herself all the time covering him up as much 
as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets 
off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among 
them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood, then 
there was a wonderful shot of a child's arm going up up up 
right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose 
must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from 
the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the 
house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they 
didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids they didnt it 
aint right not in front of kids it aint until the police turned 
her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened to her 
nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they 



Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffer- 
ing from cramp. He did not know what had made him pour 
out this stream of rubbish. But the curious thing was that 
while he was doing so a totally different memory had clar- 
ified itself in his mind, to the point where he almost felt 
equal to writing it down. It was, he now realized, because 
of this other incident that he had suddenly decided to come 



1984 



home and begin the diary today. 

It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if any- 
thing so nebulous could be said to happen. 

It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records De- 
partment, where Winston worked, they were dragging the 
chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them in the cen- 
tre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for 
the Two Minutes Hate. Winston was just taking his place 
in one of the middle rows when two people whom he knew 
by sight, but had never spoken to, came unexpectedly into 
the room. One of them was a girl whom he often passed in 
the corridors. He did not know her name, but he knew that 
she worked in the Fiction Department. Presumably — since 
he had sometimes seen her with oily hands and carrying a 
spanner — she had some mechanical job on one of the nov- 
el-writing machines. She was a bold-looking girl, of about 
twenty-seven, with thick hair, a freckled face, and swift, 
athletic movements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the 
Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round 
the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the 
shapeliness of her hips. Winston had disliked her from the 
very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was 
because of the atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths 
and community hikes and general clean-mindedness which 
she managed to carry about with her. He disliked nearly all 
women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was al- 
ways the women, and above all the young ones, who were 
the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers 
of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unortho- 



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doxy. But this particular girl gave him the impression of 
being more dangerous than most. Once when they passed 
in the corridor she gave him a quick sidelong glance which 
seemed to pierce right into him and for a moment had filled 
him with black terror. The idea had even crossed his mind 
that she might be an agent of the Thought Police. That, it 
was true, was very unlikely. Still, he continued to feel a pe- 
culiar uneasiness, which had fear mixed up in it as well as 
hostility, whenever she was anywhere near him. 

The other person was a man named O'Brien, a member 
of the Inner Party and holder of some post so important 
and remote that Winston had only a dim idea of its nature. 
A momentary hush passed over the group of people round 
the chairs as they saw the black overalls of an Inner Party 
member approaching. O'Brien was a large, burly man with 
a thick neck and a coarse, humorous, brutal face. In spite of 
his formidable appearance he had a certain charm of man- 
ner. He had a trick of resettling his spectacles on his nose 
which was curiously disarming — in some indefinable way, 
curiously civilized. It was a gesture which, if anyone had 
still thought in such terms, might have recalled an eigh- 
teenth-century nobleman offering his snuffbox. Winston 
had seen O'Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many 
years. He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because 
he was intrigued by the contrast between O'Brien's urbane 
manner and his prize-fighter's physique. Much more it was 
because of a secretly held belief— or perhaps not even a be- 
lief, merely a hope — that O'Brien's political orthodoxy was 
not perfect. Something in his face suggested it irresistibly. 



1984 



And again, perhaps it was not even unorthodoxy that was 
written in his face, but simply intelligence. But at any rate 
he had the appearance of being a person that you could 
talk to if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and get 
him alone. Winston had never made the smallest effort to 
verify this guess: indeed, there was no way of doing so. At 
this moment O'Brien glanced at his wrist-watch, saw that it 
was nearly eleven hundred, and evidently decided to stay in 
the Records Department until the Two Minutes Hate was 
over. He took a chair in the same row as Winston, a couple 
of places away. A small, sandy-haired woman who worked 
in the next cubicle to Winston was between them. The girl 
with dark hair was sitting immediately behind. 

The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some 
monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the 
big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set 
one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's 
neck. The Hate had started. 

As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of 
the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses 
here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired 
woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Gold- 
stein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago 
(how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of 
the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big 
Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolu- 
tionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had 
mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of 
the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was 



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none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He 
was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's pu- 
rity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, 
acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out 
of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and 
hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the 
sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps 
even — so it was occasionally rumoured — in some hiding- 
place in Oceania itself. 

Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never 
see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emo- 
tions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of 
white hair and a small goatee beard — a clever face, and yet 
somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile sil- 
liness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair 
of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, 
and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was 
delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines 
of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a 
child should have been able to see through it, and yet just 
plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that 
other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken 
in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing 
the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the imme- 
diate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating 
freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of as- 
sembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that 
the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid 
polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the ha- 



1984 



bitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained 
Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any 
Party member would normally use in real life. And all the 
while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which 
Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on 
the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the 
Eurasian army — row after row of solid-looking men with 
expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface 
of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exact- 
ly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers' boots 
formed the background to Goldstein's bleating voice. 

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncon- 
trollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half 
the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on 
the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army 
behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or 
even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger au- 
tomatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than 
either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war 
with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the 
other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein 
was hated and despised by everybody, although every day 
and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, 
in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, 
ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rub- 
bish that they were — in spite of all this, his influence never 
seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting 
to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and 
saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked 



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by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast 
shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators 
dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, 
its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered 
stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, 
of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated 
clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. 
People referred to it, if at all, simply as THE BOOK. But one 
knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither 
the Brotherhood nor THE BOOK was a subject that any or- 
dinary Party member would mention if there was a way of 
avoiding it. 

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People 
were leaping up and down in their places and shouting 
at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the mad- 
dening bleating voice that came from the screen. The 
little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and 
her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed 
fish. Even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed. He was sitting 
very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and 
quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a 
wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun cry- 
ing out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and suddenly she picked up 
a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It 
struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice contin- 
ued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he 
was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violent- 
ly against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about 
the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act 

18 1984 



a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid 
joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always 
unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, 
a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge- 
hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people 
like an electric current, turning one even against one's will 
into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that 
one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could 
be switched from one object to another like the flame of a 
blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not 
turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against 
Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such 
moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic 
on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world 
of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the 
people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed 
to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of 
Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed 
to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like 
a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite 
of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung 
about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchant- 
er, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the 
structure of civilization. 

It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's ha- 
tred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the 
sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head 
away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded 
in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to 



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the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucina- 
tions flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death 
with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake 
and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would 
ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Bet- 
ter than before, moreover, he realized WHY it was that he 
hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty 
and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and 
would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, 
which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there 
was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chas- 
tity. 

The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had 
become an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face 
changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep -face melted into 
the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, 
huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seem- 
ing to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some 
of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards 
in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh 
of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the 
face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full 
of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost 
filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was 
saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the 
sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distin- 
guishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact 
of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away 
again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out 



1984 



in bold capitals: 

WARE PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 

But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for sever- 
al seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had 
made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off im- 
mediately. The little sandy-haired woman had flung herself 
forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a 
tremulous murmur that sounded like 'My Saviour!' she ex- 
tended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her 
face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a 
prayer. 

At this moment the entire group of people broke into a 
deep, slow, rhythmical chant of 'B-BL.B-B!' — over and over 
again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'B' 
and the second — a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow 
curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed 
to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom- 
toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it 
up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of 
overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the 
wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was 
an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of conscious- 
ness by means of rhythmic noise. Winston's entrails seemed 
to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help 
sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chant- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 21 



ing of 'B-BL.B-B!' always filled him with horror. Of course 
he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. 
To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what 
everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. But 
there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the 
expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him. 
And it was exactly at this moment that the significant thing 
happened — if, indeed, it did happen. 

Momentarily he caught O'Brien's eye. O'Brien had stood 
up. He had taken off his spectacles and was in the act of 
resettling them on his nose with his characteristic gesture. 
But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, 
and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew — yes, he 
KNEW! — that O'Brien was thinking the same thing as him- 
self. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though 
their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing 
from one into the other through their eyes. 'I am with you,' 
O'Brien seemed to be saying to him. 'I know precisely what 
you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your ha- 
tred, your disgust. But don't worry, I am on your side!' And 
then the flash of intelligence was gone, and O'Brien's face 
was as inscrutable as everybody else's. 

That was all, and he was already uncertain whether it had 
happened. Such incidents never had any sequel. All that they 
did was to keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that oth- 
ers besides himself were the enemies of the Party. Perhaps 
the rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true 
after all — perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was 
impossible, in spite of the endless arrests and confessions 



1984 



and executions, to be sure that the Brotherhood was not 
simply a myth. Some days he believed in it, some days not. 
There was no evidence, only fleeting glimpses that might 
mean anything or nothing: snatches of overheard conver- 
sation, faint scribbles on lavatory walls — once, even, when 
two strangers met, a small movement of the hand which 
had looked as though it might be a signal of recognition. It 
was all guesswork: very likely he had imagined everything. 
He had gone back to his cubicle without looking at O'Brien 
again. The idea of following up their momentary contact 
hardly crossed his mind. It would have been inconceivably 
dangerous even if he had known how to set about doing it. 
For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivo- 
cal glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that 
was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which 
one had to live. 

Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out 
a belch. The gin was rising from his stomach. 

His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that 
while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as 
though by automatic action. And it was no longer the same 
cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid 
voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat 
capitals— DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH 
BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN 
WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER 

over and over again, filling half a page. 

He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was ab- 
surd, since the writing of those particular words was not 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 23 



more dangerous than the initial act of opening the diary, 
but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled 
pages and abandon the enterprise altogether. 

He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was 
useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, 
or whether he refrained from writing it, made no differ- 
ence. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did 
not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police 
would get him just the same. He had committed — would 
still have committed, even if he had never set pen to pa- 
per — the essential crime that contained all others in itself. 
Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing 
that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge success- 
fully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they 
were bound to get you. 

It was always at night — the arrests invariably happened 
at night. The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shak- 
ing your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of 
hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there 
was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disap- 
peared, always during the night. Your name was removed 
from the registers, every record of everything you had ever 
done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied 
and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: VA- 
PORIZED was the usual word. 

For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He be- 
gan writing in a hurried untidy scrawl: 

theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the back of the 

24 1984 



neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you 
in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother 

He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and 
laid down the pen. The next moment he started violently. 
There was a knocking at the door. 

Already! He sat as still as a mouse, in the futile hope that 
whoever it was might go away after a single attempt. But no, 
the knocking was repeated. The worst thing of all would be 
to delay. His heart was thumping like a drum, but his face, 
from long habit, was probably expressionless. He got up and 
moved heavily towards the door. 



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Chapter 2 



As he put his hand to the door-knob Winston saw that 
he had left the diary open on the table. DOWN WITH 
BIG BROTHER was written all over it, in letters almost big 
enough to be legible across the room. It was an inconceiv- 
ably stupid thing to have done. But, he realized, even in his 
panic he had not wanted to smudge the creamy paper by 
shutting the book while the ink was wet. 

He drew in his breath and opened the door. Instantly 
a warm wave of relief flowed through him. A colourless, 
crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair and a lined face, 
was standing outside. 

'Oh, comrade,' she began in a dreary, whining sort of 
voice, 'I thought I heard you come in. Do you think you 
could come across and have a look at our kitchen sink? It's 
got blocked up and ' 

It was Mrs Parsons, the wife of a neighbour on the same 
floor. ('Mrs' was a word somewhat discountenanced by the 
Party — you were supposed to call everyone 'comrade' — 
but with some women one used it instinctively.) She was 
a woman of about thirty, but looking much older. One had 
the impression that there was dust in the creases of her face. 
Winston followed her down the passage. These amateur re- 
pair jobs were an almost daily irritation. Victory Mansions 
were old flats, built in 1930 or thereabouts, and were falling 



1984 



to pieces. The plaster flaked constantly from ceilings and 
walls, the pipes burst in every hard frost, the roof leaked 
whenever there was snow, the heating system was usually 
running at half steam when it was not closed down alto- 
gether from motives of economy. Repairs, except what you 
could do for yourself, had to be sanctioned by remote com- 
mittees which were liable to hold up even the mending of a 
window-pane for two years. 

'Of course it's only because Tom isn't home,' said Mrs 
Parsons vaguely. 

The Parsons' flat was bigger than Winston's, and dingy 
in a different way. Everything had a battered, trampled-on 
look, as though the place had just been visited by some large 
violent animal. Games impedimenta — hockey-sticks, box- 
ing-gloves, a burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned 
inside out — lay all over the floor, and on the table there was 
a litter of dirty dishes and dog-eared exercise-books. On 
the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League and the 
Spies, and a full-sized poster of Big Brother. There was the 
usual boiled-cabbage smell, common to the whole building, 
but it was shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which — 
one knew this at the first sniff, though it was hard to say 
how — was the sweat of some person not present at the mo- 
ment. In another room someone with a comb and a piece of 
toilet paper was trying to keep tune with the military music 
which was still issuing from the telescreen. 

'It's the children,' said Mrs Parsons, casting a half-ap- 
prehensive glance at the door. 'They haven't been out today. 
And of course ' 



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She had a habit of breaking off her sentences in the mid- 
dle. The kitchen sink was full nearly to the brim with filthy 
greenish water which smelt worse than ever of cabbage. 
Winston knelt down and examined the angle-joint of the 
pipe. He hated using his hands, and he hated bending down, 
which was always liable to start him coughing. Mrs Parsons 
looked on helplessly. 

'Of course if Tom was home he'd put it right in a mo- 
ment,' she said. 'He loves anything like that. He's ever so 
good with his hands, Tom is.' 

Parsons was Winston's fellow- employee at the Minis- 
try of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing 
stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms — one of those 
completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, 
more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the 
Party depended. At thirty-five he had just been unwilling- 
ly evicted from the Youth League, and before graduating 
into the Youth League he had managed to stay on in the 
Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. At the Ministry 
he was employed in some subordinate post for which in- 
telligence was not required, but on the other hand he was 
a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other 
committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spon- 
taneous demonstrations, savings campaigns, and voluntary 
activities generally. He would inform you with quiet pride, 
between whiffs of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance 
at the Community Centre every evening for the past four 
years. An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of uncon- 
scious testimony to the strenuousness of his life, followed 



1984 



him about wherever he went, and even remained behind 
him after he had gone. 

'Have you got a spanner?' said Winston, fiddling with the 
nut on the angle-joint. 

'A spanner,' said Mrs Parsons, immediately becoming 
invertebrate. 'I don't know, I'm sure. Perhaps the children — 

There was a trampling of boots and another blast on the 
comb as the children charged into the living-room. Mrs 
Parsons brought the spanner. Winston let out the water 
and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair that had 
blocked up the pipe. He cleaned his fingers as best he could 
in the cold water from the tap and went back into the other 
room. 

'Up with your hands!' yelled a savage voice. 

A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up 
from behind the table and was menacing him with a toy 
automatic pistol, while his small sister, about two years 
younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood. 
Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, 
and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies. 
Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an un- 
easy feeling, so vicious was the boy's demeanour, that it was 
not altogether a game. 

'You're a traitor!' yelled the boy. 'You're a thought- crimi- 
nal! You're a Eurasian spy! I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize you, 
I'll send you to the salt mines!' 

Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting 
'Traitor!' and 'Thought- criminal!' the little girl imitating 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 29 



her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly 
frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will 
soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculat- 
ing ferocity in the boy's eye, a quite evident desire to hit or 
kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big 
enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he 
was holding, Winston thought. 

Mrs Parsons' eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the 
children, and back again. In the better light of the living- 
room he noticed with interest that there actually was dust 
in the creases of her face. 

"They do get so noisy' she said. 'They're disappointed 
because they couldn't go to see the hanging, that's what it 
is. I'm too busy to take them, and Tom won't be back from 
work in time.' 

'Why can't we go and see the hanging?' roared the boy in 
his huge voice. 

'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!' 
chanted the little girl, still capering round. 

Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to 
be hanged in the Park that evening, Winston remembered. 
This happened about once a month, and was a popular spec- 
tacle. Children always clamoured to be taken to see it. He 
took his leave of Mrs Parsons and made for the door. But he 
had not gone six steps down the passage when something 
hit the back of his neck an agonizingly painful blow. It was 
as though a red-hot wire had been jabbed into him. He spun 
round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back 
into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult. 



1984 



'Goldstein!' bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. 
But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless 
fright on the woman's greyish face. 

Back in the flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen 
and sat down at the table again, still rubbing his neck. The 
music from the telescreen had stopped. Instead, a clipped 
military voice was reading out, with a sort of brutal relish, 
a description of the armaments of the new Floating For- 
tress which had just been anchored between Iceland and 
the Faroe Islands. 

With those children, he thought, that wretched wom- 
an must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and 
they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of 
unorthodoxy Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. 
What was worst of all was that by means of such organi- 
zations as the Spies they were systematically turned into 
ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them 
no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the 
Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and every- 
thing connected with it. The songs, the processions, the 
banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the 
yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother — it was all a 
sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned 
outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreign- 
ers, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost 
normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own 
children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed 
in which 'The Times' did not carry a paragraph describing 
how some eavesdropping little sneak — 'child hero' was the 



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phrase generally used — had overheard some compromising 
remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police. 

The sting of the catapult bullet had worn off. He picked 
up his pen half-heartedly, wondering whether he could find 
something more to write in the diary. Suddenly he began 
thinking of O'Brien again. 

Years ago — how long was it? Seven years it must be — he 
had dreamed that he was walking through a pitch-dark 
room. And someone sitting to one side of him had said as 
he passed: 'We shall meet in the place where there is no 
darkness.' It was said very quietly, almost casually — a state- 
ment, not a command. He had walked on without pausing. 
What was curious was that at the time, in the dream, the 
words had not made much impression on him. It was only 
later and by degrees that they had seemed to take on signifi- 
cance. He could not now remember whether it was before 
or after having the dream that he had seen O'Brien for the 
first time, nor could he remember when he had first identi- 
fied the voice as O'Brien's. But at any rate the identification 
existed. It was O'Brien who had spoken to him out of the 
dark. 

Winston had never been able to feel sure — even after this 
morning's flash of the eyes it was still impossible to be sure 
whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy. Nor did it even 
seem to matter greatly. There was a link of understanding 
between them, more important than affection or partisan- 
ship. 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' 
he had said. Winston did not know what it meant, only that 
in some way or another it would come true. 



1984 



The voice from the telescreen paused. A trumpet call, 
clear and beautiful, floated into the stagnant air. The voice 
continued raspingly: 

'Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this 
moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South 
India have won a glorious victory. I am authorized to say 
that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war 
within measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash — 



Bad news coming, thought Winston. And sure enough, 
following on a gory description of the annihilation of a 
Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and pris- 
oners, came the announcement that, as from next week, the 
chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to 
twenty. 

Winston belched again. The gin was wearing off, leaving 
a deflated feeling. The telescreen — perhaps to celebrate the 
victory, perhaps to drown the memory of the lost chocolate — 
crashed into 'Oceania, 'tis for thee'. You were supposed to 
stand to attention. However, in his present position he was 
invisible. 

'Oceania, 'tis for thee' gave way to lighter music. Win- 
ston walked over to the window, keeping his back to the 
telescreen. The day was still cold and clear. Somewhere far 
away a rocket bomb exploded with a dull, reverberating 
roar. About twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on 
London at present. 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 33 



Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to 
and fro, and the word INGSOC fitfully appeared and van- 
ished. Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak, 
doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as though 
he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in 
a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He 
was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. 
What certainty had he that a single human creature now 
living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the 
dominion of the Party would not endure FOR EVER? Like 
an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Minis- 
try of Truth came back to him: 

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 

He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, 
too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, 
and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Broth- 
er. Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on 
stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and 
on the wrappings of a cigarette packet — everywhere. Al- 
ways the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. 
Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, 
in the bath or in bed — no escape. Nothing was your own ex- 
cept the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. 

The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of 
the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on 



1984 



them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress. His heart 
quailed before the enormous pyramidal shape. It was too 
strong, it could not be stormed. A thousand rocket bombs 
would not batter it down. He wondered again for whom he 
was writing the diary. For the future, for the past — for an 
age that might be imaginary. And in front of him there lay 
not death but annihilation. The diary would be reduced 
to ashes and himself to vapour. Only the Thought Police 
would read what he had written, before they wiped it out of 
existence and out of memory. How could you make appeal 
to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anony- 
mous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically 
survive? 

The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten min- 
utes. He had to be back at work by fourteen-thirty 

Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put 
new heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth 
that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, 
in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was 
not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you 
carried on the human heritage. He went back to the table, 
dipped his pen, and wrote: 

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is 
free, when men are different from one another and do not 
live alone — to a time when truth exists and what is done 
cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the 
age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of 
doublethink — greetings! 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 35 



He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him that 
it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate 
his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. The conse- 
quences of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote: 

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death. 

Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became 
important to stay alive as long as possible. Two fingers of his 
right hand were inkstained. It was exactly the kind of detail 
that might betray you. Some nosing zealot in the Ministry 
(a woman, probably: someone like the little sandy-haired 
woman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Depart- 
ment) might start wondering why he had been writing 
during the lunch interval, why he had used an old-fash- 
ioned pen, WHAT he had been writing — and then drop a 
hint in the appropriate quarter. He went to the bathroom 
and carefully scrubbed the ink away with the gritty dark- 
brown soap which rasped your skin like sandpaper and was 
therefore well adapted for this purpose. 

He put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless 
to think of hiding it, but he could at least make sure whether 
or not its existence had been discovered. A hair laid across 
the page- ends was too obvious. With the tip of his finger he 
picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and depos- 
ited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be 
shaken off if the book was moved. 



36 1984 



Chapter 3 



Winston was dreaming of his mother. 
He must, he thought, have been ten or elev- 
en years old when his mother had disappeared. She was 
a tall, statuesque, rather silent woman with slow move- 
ments and magnificent fair hair. His father he remembered 
more vaguely as dark and thin, dressed always in neat dark 
clothes (Winston remembered especially the very thin soles 
of his father's shoes) and wearing spectacles. The two of 
them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the 
first great purges of the fifties. 

At this moment his mother was sitting in some place 
deep down beneath him, with his young sister in her arms. 
He did not remember his sister at all, except as a tiny, feeble 
baby, always silent, with large, watchful eyes. Both of them 
were looking up at him. They were down in some subter- 
ranean place — the bottom of a well, for instance, or a very 
deep grave — but it was a place which, already far below him, 
was itself moving downwards. They were in the saloon of 
a sinking ship, looking up at him through the darkening 
water. There was still air in the saloon, they could still see 
him and he them, but all the while they were sinking down, 
down into the green waters which in another moment must 
hide them from sight for ever. He was out in the light and 
air while they were being sucked down to death, and they 



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were down there because he was up here. He knew it and 
they knew it, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. 
There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, 
only the knowledge that they must die in order that he 
might remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoid- 
able order of things. 

He could not remember what had happened, but he knew 
in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and 
his sister had been sacrificed to his own. It was one of those 
dreams which, while retaining the characteristic dream 
scenery, are a continuation of one's intellectual life, and 
in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still 
seem new and valuable after one is awake. The thing that 
now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother's death, 
nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a 
way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, be- 
longed to the ancient time, to a time when there was still 
privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a 
family stood by one another without needing to know the 
reason. His mother's memory tore at his heart because she 
had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish 
to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not re- 
member how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of 
loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he 
saw, could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred, 
and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex 
sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his 
mother and his sister, looking up at him through the green 
water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking. 

38 1984 



Suddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a 
summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded 
the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred 
so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain 
whether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his wak- 
ing thoughts he called it the Golden Country. It was an old, 
rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot-track wandering across it 
and a molehill here and there. In the ragged hedge on the 
opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were 
swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring 
in dense masses like women's hair. Somewhere near at hand, 
though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream 
where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow 
trees. 

The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across 
the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off 
her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body 
was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, in- 
deed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that 
instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had 
thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness 
it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system 
of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the 
Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a sin- 
gle splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture 
belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the 
word 'Shakespeare' on his lips. 

The telescreen was giving forth an ear-splitting whistle 
which continued on the same note for thirty seconds. It 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 39 



was nought seven fifteen, getting-up time for office workers. 
Winston wrenched his body out of bed — naked, for a mem- 
ber of the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons 
annually, and a suit of pyjamas was 600 — and seized a din- 
gy singlet and a pair of shorts that were lying across a chair. 
The Physical Jerks would begin in three minutes. The next 
moment he was doubled up by a violent coughing fit which 
nearly always attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied 
his lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing 
again by lying on his back and taking a series of deep gasps. 
His veins had swelled with the effort of the cough, and the 
varicose ulcer had started itching. 

'Thirty to forty group!' yapped a piercing female voice. 
'Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to 
forties!' 

Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, 
upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but 
muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already ap- 
peared. 

'Arms bending and stretching!' she rapped out. 'Take 
your time by me. ONE, two, three, four! ONE, two, three, 
four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! ONE, two, 
three four! ONE two, three, four!...' 

The pain of the coughing fit had not quite driven out of 
Winston's mind the impression made by his dream, and the 
rhythmic movements of the exercise restored it somewhat. 
As he mechanically shot his arms back and forth, wearing 
on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was consid- 
ered proper during the Physical Jerks, he was struggling 



1984 



to think his way backward into the dim period of his early 
childhood. It was extraordinarily difficult. Beyond the late 
fifties everything faded. When there were no external re- 
cords that you could refer to, even the outline of your own 
life lost its sharpness. You remembered huge events which 
had quite probably not happened, you remembered the 
detail of incidents without being able to recapture their at- 
mosphere, and there were long blank periods to which you 
could assign nothing. Everything had been different then. 
Even the names of countries, and their shapes on the map, 
had been different. Airstrip One, for instance, had not been 
so called in those days: it had been called England or Brit- 
ain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been 
called London. 

Winston could not definitely remember a time when his 
country had not been at war, but it was evident that there 
had been a fairly long interval of peace during his child- 
hood, because one of his early memories was of an air raid 
which appeared to take everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was 
the time when the atomic bomb had fallen on Colchester. 
He did not remember the raid itself, but he did remember 
his father's hand clutching his own as they hurried down, 
down, down into some place deep in the earth, round and 
round a spiral staircase which rang under his feet and which 
finally so wearied his legs that he began whimpering and 
they had to stop and rest. His mother, in her slow, dreamy 
way, was following a long way behind them. She was car- 
rying his baby sister — or perhaps it was only a bundle of 
blankets that she was carrying: he was not certain whether 



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his sister had been born then. Finally they had emerged into 
a noisy, crowded place which he had realized to be a Tube 
station. 

There were people sitting all over the stone-flagged floor, 
and other people, packed tightly together, were sitting on 
metal bunks, one above the other. Winston and his mother 
and father found themselves a place on the floor, and near 
them an old man and an old woman were sitting side by 
side on a bunk. The old man had on a decent dark suit and 
a black cloth cap pushed back from very white hair: his 
face was scarlet and his eyes were blue and full of tears. He 
reeked of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his skin in place 
of sweat, and one could have fancied that the tears welling 
from his eyes were pure gin. But though slightly drunk he 
was also suffering under some grief that was genuine and 
unbearable. In his childish way Winston grasped that some 
terrible thing, something that was beyond forgiveness and 
could never be remedied, had just happened. It also seemed 
to him that he knew what it was. Someone whom the old 
man loved — a little granddaughter, perhaps — had been 
killed. Every few minutes the old man kept repeating: 

'We didn't ought to 'ave trusted 'em. I said so, Ma, didn't I? 
That's what comes of trusting 'em. I said so all along. We 
didn't ought to 'ave trusted the buggers' 

But which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted 
Winston could not now remember. 

Since about that time, war had been literally continu- 



1984 



ous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the 
same war. For several months during his childhood there 
had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of 
which he remembered vividly But to trace out the history 
of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any 
given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since 
no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention 
of any other alignment than the existing one. At this mo- 
ment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at 
war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no pub- 
lic or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three 
powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. 
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since 
Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with 
Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge 
which he happened to possess because his memory was not 
satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of part- 
ners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: 
therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The 
enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and 
it followed that any past or future agreement with him was 
impossible. 

The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thou- 
sandth time as he forced his shoulders painfully backward 
(with hands on hips, they were gyrating their bodies from 
the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be good for the 
back muscles) — the frightening thing was that it might all 
be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and 
say of this or that event, IT NEVER HAPPENED— that, 



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surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? 

The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance 
with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had 
been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years 
ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own 
consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. 
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — 
if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into 
history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the 
Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present 
controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature al- 
terable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was 
true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All 
that was needed was an unending series of victories over 
your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in New- 
speak, 'doublethink'. 

'Stand easy!' barked the instructress, a little more genial- 

iy- 

Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled 
his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrin- 
thine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to 
be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling care- 
fully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions 
which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory 
and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, 
to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe 
that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the 
guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary 
to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the 



1984 



moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget 
it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the pro- 
cess itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to 
induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become 
unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. 
Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the 
use of doublethink. 

The instructress had called them to attention again. 'And 
now let's see which of us can touch our toes!' she said en- 
thusiastically. 'Right over from the hips, please, comrades. 
ONE-two! ONE-two!...' 

Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains 
all the way from his heels to his buttocks and often ended by 
bringing on another coughing fit. The half-pleasant qual- 
ity went out of his meditations. The past, he reflected, had 
not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For 
how could you establish even the most obvious fact when 
there existed no record outside your own memory? He tried 
to remember in what year he had first heard mention of 
Big Brother. He thought it must have been at some time in 
the sixties, but it was impossible to be certain. In the Party 
histories, of course, Big Brother figured as the leader and 
guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days. His 
exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until 
already they extended into the fabulous world of the forties 
and the thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylin- 
drical hats still rode through the streets of London in great 
gleaming motor-cars or horse carriages with glass sides. 
There was no knowing how much of this legend was true 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 45 



and how much invented. Winston could not even remem- 
ber at what date the Party itself had come into existence. He 
did not believe he had ever heard the word Ingsoc before 
1960, but it was possible that in its Oldspeak form — 'Eng- 
lish Socialism', that is to say — it had been current earlier. 
Everything melted into mist. Sometimes, indeed, you could 
put your finger on a definite lie. It was not true, for example, 
as was claimed in the Party history books, that the Party 
had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since 
his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing. There 
was never any evidence. Just once in his whole life he had 
held in his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the 
falsification of an historical fact. And on that occasion 

'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. 
'6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do 
better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! THAT'S 
better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and 
watch me.' 

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's 
body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Nev- 
er show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker 
of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while 
the instructress raised her arms above her head and — one 
could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and 
efficiency — bent over and tucked the first joint of her fin- 
gers under her toes. 

'THERE, comrades! THAT'S how I want to see you do- 
ing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four 
children. Now look.' She bent over again. 'You see MY 

46 1984 



knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,' she add- 
ed as she straightened herself up. 'Anyone under forty- five 
is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have 
the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can 
all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And 
the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what THEY 
have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade, 
that's MUCH better,' she added encouragingly as Winston, 
with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with 
knees unbent, for the first time in several years. 



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Chapter 4 



With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the 
nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from 
uttering when his day's work started, Winston pulled the 
speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, 
and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped 
together four small cylinders of paper which had already 
flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side 
of his desk. 

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To 
the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for writ- 
ten messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in 
the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large 
oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the 
disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or 
tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in ev- 
ery room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some 
reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one 
knew that any document was due for destruction, or even 
when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an 
automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole 
and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a 
current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were 
hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. 

Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had 



1984 



unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, 
in the abbreviated jargon — not actually Newspeak, but con- 
sisting largely of Newspeak words — which was used in the 
Ministry for internal purposes. They ran: 

times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify 

times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify 

current issue 

times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify 

times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs 
unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling 

With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the 
fourth message aside. It was an intricate and responsible job 
and had better be dealt with last. The other three were rou- 
tine matters, though the second one would probably mean 
some tedious wading through lists of figures. 

Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and 
called for the appropriate issues of 'The Times', which slid 
out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. 
The messages he had received referred to articles or news 
items which for one reason or another it was thought neces- 
sary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For 
example, it appeared from 'The Times' of the seventeenth 
of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous 
day, had predicted that the South Indian front would re- 
main quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 49 



launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian 
Higher Command had launched its offensive in South In- 
dia and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary 
to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a 
way as to make him predict the thing that had actually hap- 
pened. Or again, "The Times' of the nineteenth of December 
had published the official forecasts of the output of various 
classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, 
which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year 
Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual out- 
put, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every 
instance grossly wrong. Winston's job was to rectify the 
original figures by making them agree with the later ones. 
As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error 
which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a 
time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a 
promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that 
there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 
1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration 
was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end 
of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute 
for the original promise a warning that it would probably 
be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April. 

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, 
he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate 
copy of "The Times' and pushed them into the pneumatic 
tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possi- 
ble unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and 
any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into 



1984 



the memory hole to be devoured by the flames. 

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the 
pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did 
know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which 
happened to be necessary in any particular number of 'The 
Times' had been assembled and collated, that number would 
be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected 
copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of con- 
tinuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but 
to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, 
sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of lit- 
erature or documentation which might conceivably hold 
any political or ideological significance. Day by day and 
almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. 
In this way every prediction made by the Party could be 
shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor 
was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which 
conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to 
remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped 
clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In 
no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, 
to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest 
section of the Records Department, far larger than the one 
on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons 
whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of 
books, newspapers, and other documents which had been 
superseded and were due for destruction. A number of 'The 
Times' which might, because of changes in political align- 
ment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have 



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been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing 
its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. 
Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, 
and were invariably reissued without any admission that 
any alteration had been made. Even the written instruc- 
tions which Winston received, and which he invariably got 
rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or 
implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always 
the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquota- 
tions which it was necessary to put right in the interests of 
accuracy. 

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry 
of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the 
substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of 
the material that you were dealing with had no connexion 
with anything in the real world, not even the kind of con- 
nexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just 
as much a fantasy in their original version as in their recti- 
fied version. A great deal of the time you were expected to 
make them up out of your head. For example, the Minis- 
try of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots 
for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was 
given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting 
the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, 
so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been 
overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no near- 
er the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. 
Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, 
nobody knew how many had been produced, much less 



1984 



cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical 
numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps 
half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was 
with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything 
faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the 
date of the year had become uncertain. 

Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding 
cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark- 
chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, 
with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very 
close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of 
trying to keep what he was saying a secret between himself 
and the telescreen. He looked up, and his spectacles darted 
a hostile flash in Winston's direction. 

Winston hardly knew Tillotson, and had no idea what 
work he was employed on. People in the Records Depart- 
ment did not readily talk about their jobs. In the long, 
windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and its end- 
less rustle of papers and hum of voices murmuring into 
speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom Win- 
ston did not even know by name, though he daily saw them 
hurrying to and fro in the corridors or gesticulating in the 
Two Minutes Hate. He knew that in the cubicle next to him 
the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, sim- 
ply at tracking down and deleting from the Press the names 
of people who had been vaporized and were therefore con- 
sidered never to have existed. There was a certain fitness in 
this, since her own husband had been vaporized a couple 
of years earlier. And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffec- 



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tual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy 
ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and 
metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions — defin- 
itive texts, they were called — of poems which had become 
ideologically offensive, but which for one reason or another 
were to be retained in the anthologies. And this hall, with 
its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one sub-section, a 
single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records 
Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms 
of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. 
There were the huge printing-shops with their sub-editors, 
their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped 
studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele- 
programmes section with its engineers, its producers, and 
its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitat- 
ing voices. There were the armies of reference clerks whose 
job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals 
which were due for recall. There were the vast repositories 
where the corrected documents were stored, and the hid- 
den furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And 
somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the di- 
recting brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid 
down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this 
fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, 
and the other rubbed out of existence. 

And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a 
single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job 
was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens 
of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen 



1984 



programmes, plays, novels — with every conceivable kind of 
information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to 
a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from 
a child's spelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary. And the 
Ministry had not only to supply the multifarious needs of 
the party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower 
level for the benefit of the proletariat. There was a whole 
chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian lit- 
erature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here 
were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost 
nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational 
five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimen- 
tal songs which were composed entirely by mechanical 
means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a ver- 
sificator. There was even a whole sub-section — Pornosec, it 
was called in Newspeak — engaged in producing the lowest 
kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed packets 
and which no Party member, other than those who worked 
on it, was permitted to look at. 

Three messages had slid out of the pneumatic tube while 
Winston was working, but they were simple matters, and 
he had disposed of them before the Two Minutes Hate in- 
terrupted him. When the Hate was over he returned to 
his cubicle, took the Newspeak dictionary from the shelf, 
pushed the speakwrite to one side, cleaned his spectacles, 
and settled down to his main job of the morning. 

Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most 
of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also 
jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in 



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them as in the depths of a mathematical problem — delicate 
pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you 
except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your 
estimate of what the Party wanted you to say Winston was 
good at this kind of thing. On occasion he had even been 
entrusted with the rectification of "The Times' leading arti- 
cles, which were written entirely in Newspeak. He unrolled 
the message that he had set aside earlier. It ran: 

times 3.12.83 reportingbb dayorder doubleplusungood refs 
unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling 

In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might be ren- 
dered: 

The reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in 'The Times' 
of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes 
references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it in full and 
submit your draft to higher authority before filing. 

Winston read through the offending article. Big Broth- 
er's Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted 
to praising the work of an organization known as FFCC, 
which supplied cigarettes and other comforts to the sailors 
in the Floating Fortresses. A certain Comrade Withers, a 
prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out 
for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of 
Conspicuous Merit, Second Class. 

Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved 



1984 



with no reasons given. One could assume that Withers and 
his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no 
report of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. That 
was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offend- 
ers to be put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great 
purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of 
traitors and thought- criminals who made abject confession 
of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special 
show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of 
years. More commonly, people who had incurred the dis- 
pleasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never 
heard of again. One never had the smallest clue as to what 
had happened to them. In some cases they might not even 
be dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Win- 
ston, not counting his parents, had disappeared at one time 
or another. 

Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In the 
cubicle across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouch- 
ing secretively over his speakwrite. He raised his head for 
a moment: again the hostile spectacle-flash. Winston won- 
dered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same 
job as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of 
work would never be entrusted to a single person: on the 
other hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to ad- 
mit openly that an act of fabrication was taking place. Very 
likely as many as a dozen people were now working away 
on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And 
presently some master brain in the Inner Party would se- 
lect this version or that, would re-edit it and set in motion 



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the complex processes of cross-referencing that would be 
required, and then the chosen lie would pass into the per- 
manent records and become truth. 

Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. 
Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big 
Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordi- 
nate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been 
suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps — what was 
likeliest of all — the thing had simply happened because 
purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the me- 
chanics of government. The only real clue lay in the words 
'refs unpersons', which indicated that Withers was already 
dead. You could not invariably assume this to be the case 
when people were arrested. Sometimes they were released 
and allowed to remain at liberty for as much as a year or 
two years before being executed. Very occasionally some 
person whom you had believed dead long since would make 
a ghostly reappearance at some public trial where he would 
implicate hundreds of others by his testimony before van- 
ishing, this time for ever. Withers, however, was already an 
UNPERSON. He did not exist: he had never existed. Win- 
ston decided that it would not be enough simply to reverse 
the tendency of Big Brother's speech. It was better to make 
it deal with something totally unconnected with its origi- 
nal subject. 

He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of 
traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too ob- 
vious, while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph 
of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might 



1984 



complicate the records too much. What was needed was a 
piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, 
ready made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogil- 
vy, who had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances. 
There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order 
for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file 
Party member whose life and death he held up as an exam- 
ple worthy to be followed. Today he should commemorate 
Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person 
as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of 
faked photographs would soon bring him into existence. 

Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speak- 
write towards him and began dictating in Big Brother's 
familiar style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, 
because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly 
answering them ('What lessons do we learn from this fact, 
comrades? The lesson — which is also one of the fundamen- 
tal principles of Ingsoc — that,' etc., etc.), easy to imitate. 

At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys 
except a drum, a sub-machine gun, and a model helicopter. 
At six — a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules — he 
had joined the Spies, at nine he had been a troop leader. At 
eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police 
after overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to 
have criminal tendencies. At seventeen he had been a dis- 
trict organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen 
he had designed a hand-grenade which had been adopted 
by the Ministry of Peace and which, at its first trial, had 
killed thirty-one Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twen- 



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ty-three he had perished in action. Pursued by enemy jet 
planes while flying over the Indian Ocean with important 
despatches, he had weighted his body with his machine gun 
and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches 
and all — an end, said Big Brother, which it was impossible 
to contemplate without feelings of envy. Big Brother added a 
few remarks on the purity and single-mindedness of Com- 
rade Ogilvy's life. He was a total abstainer and a nonsmoker, 
had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, 
and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the 
care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty- four-hour- 
a-day devotion to duty. He had no subjects of conversation 
except the principles of Ingsoc, and no aim in life except 
the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the hunting- down of 
spies, saboteurs, thoughtcriminals, and traitors generally. 

Winston debated with himself whether to award Com- 
rade Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit: in the end he 
decided against it because of the unnecessary cross-refer- 
encing that it would entail. 

Once again he glanced at his rival in the opposite cubicle. 
Something seemed to tell him with certainty that Tillotson 
was busy on the same job as himself. There was no way of 
knowing whose job would finally be adopted, but he felt a 
profound conviction that it would be his own. Comrade 
Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. It struck 
him as curious that you could create dead men but not liv- 
ing ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the 
present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of 
forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentical- 



1984 



ly, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius 
Caesar. 



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Chapter 5 



In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the 
lunch queue jerked slowly forward. The room was al- 
ready very full and deafeningly noisy. From the grille at the 
counter the steam of stew came pouring forth, with a sour 
metallic smell which did not quite overcome the fumes of 
Victory Gin. On the far side of the room there was a small 
bar, a mere hole in the wall, where gin could be bought at 
ten cents the large nip. 

'Just the man I was looking for,' said a voice at Winston's 
back. 

He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in 
the Research Department. Perhaps 'friend' was not exact- 
ly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you 
had comrades: but there were some comrades whose society 
was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a 
specialist in Newspeak. Indeed, he was one of the enormous 
team of experts now engaged in compiling the Eleventh 
Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. He was a tiny creature, 
smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large, protuber- 
ant eyes, at once mournful and derisive, which seemed to 
search your face closely while he was speaking to you. 

'I wanted to ask you whether you'd got any razor blades,' 
he said. 

'Not one!' said Winston with a sort of guilty haste. 'I've 



1984 



tried all over the place. They don't exist any longer.' 

Everyone kept asking you for razor blades. Actually he 
had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. There 
had been a famine of them for months past. At any given 
moment there was some necessary article which the Par- 
ty shops were unable to supply. Sometimes it was buttons, 
sometimes it was darning wool, sometimes it was shoelaces; 
at present it was razor blades. You could only get hold of 
them, if at all, by scrounging more or less furtively on the 
'free' market. 

'I've been using the same blade for six weeks,' he added 
untruthfully. 

The queue gave another jerk forward. As they halted he 
turned and faced Syme again. Each of them took a greasy 
metal tray from a pile at the end of the counter. 

'Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?' said 
Syme. 

'I was working,' said Winston indifferently. 'I shall see it 
on the flicks, I suppose.' 

A very inadequate substitute,' said Syme. 

His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. 'I know 
you,' the eyes seemed to say, 'I see through you. I know very 
well why you didn't go to see those prisoners hanged.' In 
an intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. He 
would talk with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of he- 
licopter raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions 
of thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the 
Ministry of Love. Talking to him was largely a matter of 
getting him away from such subjects and entangling him, 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 63 



if possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he 
was authoritative and interesting. Winston turned his head 
a little aside to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes. 

'It was a good hanging,' said Syme reminiscently 'I think 
it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them 
kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking right 
out, and blue — a quite bright blue. That's the detail that ap- 
peals to me.' 

'Nex', please!' yelled the white-aproned prole with the la- 
dle. 

Winston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. 
On to each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch — a 
metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a 
cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one 
saccharine tablet. 

"There's a table over there, under that telescreen,' said 
Syme. 'Let's pick up a gin on the way' 

The gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs. 
They threaded their way across the crowded room and un- 
packed their trays on to the metal-topped table, on one 
corner of which someone had left a pool of stew, a filthy 
liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit. Winston 
took up his mug of gin, paused for an instant to collect his 
nerve, and gulped the oily-tasting stuff down. When he 
had winked the tears out of his eyes he suddenly discov- 
ered that he was hungry. He began swallowing spoonfuls of 
the stew, which, in among its general sloppiness, had cubes 
of spongy pinkish stuff which was probably a preparation 
of meat. Neither of them spoke again till they had emptied 

64 1984 



their pannikins. From the table at Winston's left, a little 
behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and contin- 
uously, a harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, 
which pierced the general uproar of the room. 

'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising 
his voice to overcome the noise. 

'Slowly' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinat- 
ing.' 

He had brightened up immediately at the mention of 
Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk 
of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, 
and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without 
shouting. 

"The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. 
'We're getting the language into its final shape— the shape 
it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When 
we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it 
all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is 
inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying 
words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're 
cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edi- 
tion won't contain a single word that will become obsolete 
before the year 2050.' 

He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple 
of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of ped- 
ant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his 
eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost 
dreamy. 

'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 65 



the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there 
are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't 
only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, 
what justification is there for a word which is simply the 
opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite 
in itself. Take 'good', for instance. If you have a word like 
'good', what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' 
will do just as well — better, because it's an exact opposite, 
which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger ver- 
sion of 'good', what sense is there in having a whole string 
of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all 
the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'double- 
plusgood' if you want something stronger still. Of course 
we use those forms already, but in the final version of New- 
speak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion 
of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words — 
in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, 
Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added 
as an afterthought. 

A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at 
the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately 
detected a certain lack of enthusiasm. 

'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' 
he said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still 
thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that 
you write in 'The Times' occasionally. They're good enough, 
but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick 
to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of 
meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of 



1984 



words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in 
the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?' 

Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympa- 
thetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit 
off another fragment of the dark- coloured bread, chewed it 
briefly, and went on: 

'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to 
narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make 
thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no 
words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever 
be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its 
meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings 
rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, 
we're not far from that point. But the process will still be 
continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer 
and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a 
little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or ex- 
cuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question 
of self-discipline, reality- control. But in the end there won't 
be any need even for that. The Revolution will be com- 
plete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and 
Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satis- 
faction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the 
year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will 
be alive who could understand such a conversation as we 
are having now?' 

'Except ' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped. 

It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the 
proles,' but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that 

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this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, how- 
ever, had divined what he was about to say 

"The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. 'By 
2050 — earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak 
will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will 
have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, By- 
ron — they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely 
changed into something different, but actually changed 
into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even 
the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will 
change. How could you have a slogan like 'freedom is slav- 
ery' when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The 
whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will 
be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means 
not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is uncon- 
sciousness.' 

One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep 
conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He 
sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not 
like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in 
his face. 

Winston had finished his bread and cheese. He turned 
a little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At 
the table on his left the man with the strident voice was 
still talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was 
perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back 
to Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly 
agreeing with everything that he said. From time to time 
Winston caught some such remark as 'I think you're so right, 



1984 



I do so agree with you', uttered in a youthful and rather silly 
feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an in- 
stant, even when the girl was speaking. Winston knew the 
man by sight, though he knew no more about him than that 
he held some important post in the Fiction Department. He 
was a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and a 
large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and 
because of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles 
caught the light and presented to Winston two blank discs 
instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible, was that from 
the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth it was 
almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once 
Winston caught a phrase — complete and final elimination 
of Goldsteinism' — jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, 
all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid. For the rest it 
was just a noise, a quack- quack- quacking. And yet, though 
you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you 
could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might 
be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures 
against thought- criminals and saboteurs, he might be ful- 
minating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he 
might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar 
front — it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could 
be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure 
Ingsoc. As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving 
rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that 
this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It 
was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. 
The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 69 



it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in 
unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck. 

Syme had fallen silent for a moment, and with the han- 
dle of his spoon was tracing patterns in the puddle of stew. 
The voice from the other table quacked rapidly on, easily 
audible in spite of the surrounding din. 

"There is a word in Newspeak,' said Syme, 'I don't know 
whether you know it: DUCKSPEAK, to quack like a duck. It 
is one of those interesting words that have two contradic- 
tory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied 
to someone you agree with, it is praise.' 

Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston 
thought again. He thought it with a kind of sadness, al- 
though well knowing that Syme despised him and slightly 
disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as 
a thought- criminal if he saw any reason for doing so. There 
was something subtly wrong with Syme. There was some- 
thing that he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving 
stupidity. You could not say that he was unorthodox. He be- 
lieved in the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big Brother, 
he rejoiced over victories, he hated heretics, not merely with 
sincerity but with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness 
of information, which the ordinary Party member did not 
approach. Yet a faint air of disreputability always clung to 
him. He said things that would have been better unsaid, he 
had read too many books, he frequented the Chestnut Tree 
Cafe, haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law, 
not even an unwritten law, against frequenting the Chest- 
nut Tree Cafe, yet the place was somehow ill-omened. The 



1984 



old, discredited leaders of the Party had been used to gather 
there before they were finally purged. Goldstein himself, it 
was said, had sometimes been seen there, years and decades 
ago. Syme's fate was not difficult to foresee. And yet it was 
a fact that if Syme grasped, even for three seconds, the na- 
ture of his, Winston's, secret opinions, he would betray him 
instantly to the Thought Police. So would anybody else, for 
that matter: but Syme more than most. Zeal was not enough. 
Orthodoxy was unconsciousness. 

Syme looked up. 'Here comes Parsons,' he said. 

Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add, 'that 
bloody fool'. Parsons, Winston's fellow-tenant at Victory 
Mansions, was in fact threading his way across the room — 
a tubby, middle-sized man with fair hair and a froglike face. 
At thirty- five he was already putting on rolls of fat at neck 
and waistline, but his movements were brisk and boyish. 
His whole appearance was that of a little boy grown large, so 
much so that although he was wearing the regulation over- 
alls, it was almost impossible not to think of him as being 
dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirt, and red neckerchief 
of the Spies. In visualizing him one saw always a picture 
of dimpled knees and sleeves rolled back from pudgy fore- 
arms. Parsons did, indeed, invariably revert to shorts when 
a community hike or any other physical activity gave him 
an excuse for doing so. He greeted them both with a cheery 
'Hullo, hullo!' and sat down at the table, giving off an in- 
tense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture stood out all over 
his pink face. His powers of sweating were extraordinary. 
At the Community Centre you could always tell when he 



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had been playing table-tennis by the dampness of the bat 
handle. Syme had produced a strip of paper on which there 
was a long column of words, and was studying it with an 
ink-pencil between his fingers. 

'Look at him working away in the lunch hour,' said Par- 
sons, nudging Winston. 'Keenness, eh? What's that you've 
got there, old boy? Something a bit too brainy for me, I ex- 
pect. Smith, old boy, I'll tell you why I'm chasing you. It's 
that sub you forgot to give me.' 

'Which sub is that?' said Winston, automatically feel- 
ing for money. About a quarter of one's salary had to be 
earmarked for voluntary subscriptions, which were so nu- 
merous that it was difficult to keep track of them. 

'For Hate Week. You know — the house-by-house fund. 
I'm treasurer for our block. We're making an all-out effort — 
going to put on a tremendous show. I tell you, it won't be my 
fault if old Victory Mansions doesn't have the biggest outfit 
of flags in the whole street. Two dollars you promised me.' 

Winston found and handed over two creased and filthy 
notes, which Parsons entered in a small notebook, in the 
neat handwriting of the illiterate. 

'By the way, old boy' he said. 'I hear that little beggar of 
mine let fly at you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him 
a good dressing-down for it. In fact I told him I'd take the 
catapult away if he does it again.' 

'I think he was a little upset at not going to the execution,' 
said Winston. 

'Ah, well — what I mean to say, shows the right spirit, 
doesn't it? Mischievous little beggars they are, both of them, 



1984 



but talk about keenness! All they think about is the Spies, 
and the war, of course. D'you know what that little girl of 
mine did last Saturday, when her troop was on a hike out 
Berkhamsted way? She got two other girls to go with her, 
slipped off from the hike, and spent the whole afternoon 
following a strange man. They kept on his tail for two hours, 
right through the woods, and then, when they got into Am- 
ersham, handed him over to the patrols.' 

'What did they do that for?' said Winston, somewhat tak- 
en aback. Parsons went on triumphantly: 

'My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent — 
might have been dropped by parachute, for instance. But 
here's the point, old boy. What do you think put her on to 
him in the first place? She spotted he was wearing a funny 
kind of shoes — said she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes 
like that before. So the chances were he was a foreigner. 
Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?' 

'What happened to the man?' said Winston. 

Ah, that I couldn't say, of course. But I wouldn't be alto- 
gether surprised if ' Parsons made the motion of aiming 

a rifle, and clicked his tongue for the explosion. 

'Good,' said Syme abstractedly, without looking up from 
his strip of paper. 

'Of course we can't afford to take chances,' agreed Win- 
ston dutifully. 

'What I mean to say, there is a war on,' said Parsons. 

As though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call float- 
ed from the telescreen just above their heads. However, it 
was not the proclamation of a military victory this time, but 



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merely an announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. 

'Comrades!' cried an eager youthful voice. 'Attention, 
comrades! We have glorious news for you. We have won the 
battle for production! Returns now completed of the output 
of all classes of consumption goods show that the standard 
of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the past 
year. All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible 
spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of 
factories and offices and paraded through the streets with 
banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, 
happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon us. 
Here are some of the completed figures. Foodstuffs ' 

The phrase 'our new, happy life' recurred several times. It 
had been a favourite of late with the Ministry of Plenty. Par- 
sons, his attention caught by the trumpet call, sat listening 
with a sort of gaping solemnity, a sort of edified boredom. 
He could not follow the figures, but he was aware that they 
were in some way a cause for satisfaction. He had lugged out 
a huge and filthy pipe which was already half full of charred 
tobacco. With the tobacco ration at 100 grammes a week it 
was seldom possible to fill a pipe to the top. Winston was 
smoking a Victory Cigarette which he held carefully hori- 
zontal. The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he 
had only four cigarettes left. For the moment he had shut his 
ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that 
streamed out of the telescreen. It appeared that there had 
even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising 
the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only 
yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ra- 



1984 



tion was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it 
possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four 
hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons swallowed it easily, 
with the stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature at the 
other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a fu- 
rious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone 
who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty 
grammes. Syme, too — in some more complex way, involv- 
ing doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, ALONE 
in the possession of a memory? 

The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the tele- 
screen. As compared with last year there was more food, 
more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cook- 
ing-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more 
books, more babies — more of everything except disease, 
crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, 
everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards. 
As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up his spoon 
and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled 
across the table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pat- 
tern. He meditated resentfully on the physical texture of 
life. Had it always been like this? Had food always tasted 
like this? He looked round the canteen. A low-ceilinged, 
crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of innu- 
merable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed 
so close together that you sat with elbows touching; bent 
spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy, 
grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad 
gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Al- 



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ways in your stomach and in your skin there was a sort of 
protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something 
that you had a right to. It was true that he had no memories 
of anything greatly different. In any time that he could ac- 
curately remember, there had never been quite enough to 
eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that were not 
full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety, 
rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to 
pieces, bread dark- coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tast- 
ing, cigarettes insufficient — nothing cheap and plentiful 
except synthetic gin. And though, of course, it grew worse 
as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this was NOT the 
natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the dis- 
comfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the 
stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the 
cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to piec- 
es, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one feel 
it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral 
memory that things had once been different? 

He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was 
ugly, and would still have been ugly even if dressed other- 
wise than in the uniform blue overalls. On the far side of the 
room, sitting at a table alone, a small, curiously beetle-like 
man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes darting sus- 
picious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought 
Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the 
physical type set up by the Party as an ideal — tall muscu- 
lar youths and deep -bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, 
sunburnt, carefree— existed and even predominated. Ac- 

76 1984 



tually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in 
Airstrip One were small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curi- 
ous how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: 
little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with 
short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable 
faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to 
flourish best under the dominion of the Party. 

The announcement from the Ministry of Plenty ended 
on another trumpet call and gave way to tinny music. Par- 
sons, stirred to vague enthusiasm by the bombardment of 
figures, took his pipe out of his mouth. 

"The Ministry of Plenty's certainly done a good job this 
year,' he said with a knowing shake of his head. 'By the way, 
Smith old boy, I suppose you haven't got any razor blades 
you can let me have?' 

'Not one,' said Winston. 'I've been using the same blade 
for six weeks myself 

'Ah, well — just thought I'd ask you, old boy' 

'Sorry' said Winston. 

The quacking voice from the next table, temporarily si- 
lenced during the Ministry's announcement, had started up 
again, as loud as ever. For some reason Winston suddenly 
found himself thinking of Mrs Parsons, with her wispy hair 
and the dust in the creases of her face. Within two years 
those children would be denouncing her to the Thought 
Police. Mrs Parsons would be vaporized. Syme would be 
vaporized. Winston would be vaporized. O'Brien would 
be vaporized. Parsons, on the other hand, would never be 
vaporized. The eyeless creature with the quacking voice 



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would never be vaporized. The little beetle-like men who 
scuttle so nimbly through the labyrinthine corridors of 
Ministries they, too, would never be vaporized. And the girl 
with dark hair, the girl from the Fiction Department — she 
would never be vaporized either. It seemed to him that he 
knew instinctively who would survive and who would per- 
ish: though just what it was that made for survival, it was 
not easy to say. 

At this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with 
a violent jerk. The girl at the next table had turned partly 
round and was looking at him. It was the girl with dark hair. 
She was looking at him in a sidelong way, but with curious 
intensity. The instant she caught his eye she looked away 
again. 

The sweat started out on Winston's backbone. A horri- 
ble pang of terror went through him. It was gone almost at 
once, but it left a sort of nagging uneasiness behind. Why 
was she watching him? Why did she keep following him 
about? Unfortunately he could not remember whether she 
had already been at the table when he arrived, or had come 
there afterwards. But yesterday, at any rate, during the Two 
Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind him when 
there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real 
object had been to listen to him and make sure whether he 
was shouting loudly enough. 

His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was 
not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it 
was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger 
of all. He did not know how long she had been looking at 



1984 



him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was 
possible that his features had not been perfectly under con- 
trol. It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander 
when you were in any public place or within range of a tele- 
screen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous 
tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to 
yourself— anything that carried with it the suggestion of 
abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to 
wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredu- 
lous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself 
a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in New- 
speak: FACECRIME, it was called. 

The girl had turned her back on him again. Perhaps after 
all she was not really following him about, perhaps it was 
coincidence that she had sat so close to him two days run- 
ning. His cigarette had gone out, and he laid it carefully on 
the edge of the table. He would finish smoking it after work, 
if he could keep the tobacco in it. Quite likely the person 
at the next table was a spy of the Thought Police, and quite 
likely he would be in the cellars of the Ministry of Love 
within three days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted. 
Syme had folded up his strip of paper and stowed it away in 
his pocket. Parsons had begun talking again. 

'Did I ever tell you, old boy' he said, chuckling round the 
stem of his pipe, 'about the time when those two nippers 
of mine set fire to the old market-woman's skirt because 
they saw her wrapping up sausages in a poster of B.B.? 
Sneaked up behind her and set fire to it with a box of match- 
es. Burned her quite badly, I believe. Little beggars, eh? But 



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keen as mustard! That's a first-rate training they give them 
in the Spies nowadays — better than in my day, even. What 
d'you think's the latest thing they've served them out with? 
Ear trumpets for listening through keyholes! My little girl 
brought one home the other night — tried it out on our sit- 
ting-room door, and reckoned she could hear twice as much 
as with her ear to the hole. Of course it's only a toy, mind 
you. Still, gives 'em the right idea, eh?' 

At this moment the telescreen let out a piercing whistle. 
It was the signal to return to work. All three men sprang to 
their feet to join in the struggle round the lifts, and the re- 
maining tobacco fell out of Winston's cigarette. 



1984 



Chapter 6 



w 



inston was writing in his diary: 



It was three years ago. It was on a dark evening, in a 
narrow side-street near one of the big railway stations. She 
was standing near a doorway in the wall, under a street lamp 
that hardly gave any light. She had a young face, painted 
very thick. It was really the paint that appealed to me, the 
whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips. Party 
women never paint their faces. There was nobody else in the 
street, and no telescreens. She said two dollars. I 

For the moment it was too difficult to go on. He shut his 
eyes and pressed his fingers against them, trying to squeeze 
out the vision that kept recurring. He had an almost over- 
whelming temptation to shout a string of filthy words at the 
top of his voice. Or to bang his head against the wall, to kick 
over the table, and hurl the inkpot through the window — to 
do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black 
out the memory that was tormenting him. 

Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous 
system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to 
translate itself into some visible symptom. He thought of 
a man whom he had passed in the street a few weeks back; 
a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thir- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 81 



ty-five to forty, tallish and thin, carrying a brief-case. They 
were a few metres apart when the left side of the man's face 
was suddenly contorted by a sort of spasm. It happened 
again just as they were passing one another: it was only a 
twitch, a quiver, rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter, 
but obviously habitual. He remembered thinking at the 
time: That poor devil is done for. And what was frighten- 
ing was that the action was quite possibly unconscious. The 
most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep. There 
was no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see. 
He drew his breath and went on writing: 

/ went with her through the doorway and across a backyard 
into a basement kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, 
and a lamp on the table, turned down very low. She 

His teeth were set on edge. He would have liked to spit. 
Simultaneously with the woman in the basement kitchen 
he thought of Katharine, his wife. Winston was married — 
had been married, at any rate: probably he still was married, 
so far as he knew his wife was not dead. He seemed to 
breathe again the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitch- 
en, an odour compounded of bugs and dirty clothes and 
villainous cheap scent, but nevertheless alluring, because 
no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be imag- 
ined as doing so. Only the proles used scent. In his mind the 
smell of it was inextricably mixed up with fornication. 

When he had gone with that woman it had been his first 
lapse in two years or thereabouts. Consorting with prosti- 



1984 



tutes was forbidden, of course, but it was one of those rules 
that you could occasionally nerve yourself to break. It was 
dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter. To be 
caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced- 
labour camp: not more, if you had committed no other 
offence. And it was easy enough, provided that you could 
avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters swarmed 
with women who were ready to sell themselves. Some could 
even be purchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were 
not supposed to drink. Tacitly the Party was even inclined 
to encourage prostitution, as an outlet for instincts which 
could not be altogether suppressed. Mere debauchery did 
not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless 
and only involved the women of a submerged and despised 
class. The unforgivable crime was promiscuity between 
Party members. But — though this was one of the crimes 
that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed 
to — it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually hap- 
pening. 

The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and 
women from forming loyalties which it might not be able 
to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all 
pleasure from the sexual act. Not love so much as eroti- 
cism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it. 
All marriages between Party members had to be approved 
by a committee appointed for the purpose, and — though 
the principle was never clearly stated — permission was al- 
ways refused if the couple concerned gave the impression 
of being physically attracted to one another. The only rec- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 83 



ognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the 
service of the Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on 
as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an en- 
ema. This again was never put into plain words, but in an 
indirect way it was rubbed into every Party member from 
childhood onwards. There were even organizations such 
as the Junior Anti-Sex League, which advocated complete 
celibacy for both sexes. All children were to be begotten 
by artificial insemination (ARTSEM, it was called in New- 
speak) and brought up in public institutions. This, Winston 
was aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but some- 
how it fitted in with the general ideology of the Party. The 
Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be 
killed, then to distort it and dirty it. He did not know why 
this was so, but it seemed natural that it should be so. And 
as far as the women were concerned, the Party's efforts were 
largely successful. 

He thought again of Katharine. It must be nine, ten — 
nearly eleven years since they had parted. It was curious 
how seldom he thought of her. For days at a time he was ca- 
pable of forgetting that he had ever been married. They had 
only been together for about fifteen months. The Party did 
not permit divorce, but it rather encouraged separation in 
cases where there were no children. 

Katharine was a tall, fair-haired girl, very straight, with 
splendid movements. She had a bold, aquiline face, a face 
that one might have called noble until one discovered that 
there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it. Very early 
in her married life he had decided — though perhaps it was 



1984 



only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most 
people — that she had without exception the most stupid, 
vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had 
not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there 
was no imbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable 
of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her. 'The hu- 
man sound-track' he nicknamed her in his own mind. Yet 
he could have endured living with her if it had not been for 
just one thing — sex. 

As soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiff- 
en. To embrace her was like embracing a jointed wooden 
image. And what was strange was that even when she was 
clasping him against her he had the feeling that she was si- 
multaneously pushing him away with all her strength. The 
rigidity of her muscles managed to convey that impres- 
sion. She would lie there with shut eyes, neither resisting 
nor co-operating but SUBMITTING. It was extraordinari- 
ly embarrassing, and, after a while, horrible. But even then 
he could have borne living with her if it had been agreed 
that they should remain celibate. But curiously enough it 
was Katharine who refused this. They must, she said, pro- 
duce a child if they could. So the performance continued to 
happen, once a week quite regulariy, whenever it was not 
impossible. She even used to remind him of it in the morn- 
ing, as something which had to be done that evening and 
which must not be forgotten. She had two names for it. One 
was 'making a baby', and the other was 'our duty to the Par- 
ty' (yes, she had actually used that phrase). Quite soon he 
grew to have a feeling of positive dread when the appointed 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 85 



day came round. But luckily no child appeared, and in the 
end she agreed to give up trying, and soon afterwards they 
parted. 

Winston sighed inaudibly He picked up his pen again 
and wrote: 

She threw herself down on the bed, and at once, without any 
kind of preliminary in the most coarse, horrible way you can 
imagine, pulled up her skirt. I 

He saw himself standing there in the dim lamplight, 
with the smell of bugs and cheap scent in his nostrils, and 
in his heart a feeling of defeat and resentment which even 
at that moment was mixed up with the thought of Kath- 
arine's white body, frozen for ever by the hypnotic power 
of the Party. Why did it always have to be like this? Why 
could he not have a woman of his own instead of these filthy 
scuffles at intervals of years? But a real love affair was an al- 
most unthinkable event. The women of the Party were all 
alike. Chastity was as deep ingrained in them as Party loy- 
alty. By careful early conditioning, by games and cold water, 
by the rubbish that was dinned into them at school and in 
the Spies and the Youth League, by lectures, parades, songs, 
slogans, and martial music, the natural feeling had been 
driven out of them. His reason told him that there must be 
exceptions, but his heart did not believe it. They were all im- 
pregnable, as the Party intended that they should be. And 
what he wanted, more even than to be loved, was to break 
down that wall of virtue, even if it were only once in his 



1984 



whole life. The sexual act, successfully performed, was re- 
bellion. Desire was thoughtcrime. Even to have awakened 
Katharine, if he could have achieved it, would have been 
like a seduction, although she was his wife. 

But the rest of the story had got to be written down. He 
wrote: 

/ turned up the lamp. When I saw her in the light 

After the darkness the feeble light of the paraffin lamp 
had seemed very bright. For the first time he could see the 
woman properly. He had taken a step towards her and then 
halted, full of lust and terror. He was painfully conscious of 
the risk he had taken in coming here. It was perfectly pos- 
sible that the patrols would catch him on the way out: for 
that matter they might be waiting outside the door at this 
moment. If he went away without even doing what he had 
come here to do ! 

It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed. 
What he had suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the 
woman was OLD. The paint was plastered so thick on her 
face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard 
mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly 
dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, 
revealing nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no 
teeth at all. 

He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting: 

When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 87 



years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same. 

He pressed his ringers against his eyelids again. He had 
written it down at last, but it made no difference. The thera- 
py had not worked. The urge to shout filthy words at the top 
of his voice was as strong as ever. 



1984 



Chapter 7 



' If there is hope,' wrote Winston, 'it lies in the proles.' 

If there was hope, it MUST lie in the proles, because 
only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per 
cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to de- 
stroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be 
overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, 
had no way of coming together or even of identifying one 
another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just 
possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members 
could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. 
Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflexion of the voice, 
at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, 
if only they could somehow become conscious of their own 
strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only 
to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. 
If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow 
morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do 

it? And yet ! 

He remembered how once he had been walking down 
a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of 
voices women's voices — had burst from a side-street a little 
way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and de- 
spair, a deep, loud 'Oh-o-o-o-oh!' that went humming on 
like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It's start- 



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ed! he had thought. A riot! The proles are breaking loose 
at last! When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob 
of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls 
of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had 
been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. But at this 
moment the general despair broke down into a multitude 
of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the stalls 
had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy 
things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult 
to get. Now the supply had unexpectedly given out. The 
successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were 
trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of 
others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper 
of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere 
in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloat- 
ed women, one of them with her hair coming down, had 
got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it 
out of one another's hands. For a moment they were both 
tugging, and then the handle came off. Winston watched 
them disgustedly. And yet, just for a moment, what almost 
frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few 
hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout 
like that about anything that mattered? 
He wrote: 

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until 
after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. 

That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcrip- 

90 1984 



tion from one of the Party textbooks. The Party claimed, of 
course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. Before 
the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the 
capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had 
been forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work 
in the coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been 
sold into the factories at the age of six. But simultaneous- 
ly, true to the Principles of doublethink, the Party taught 
that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in 
subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple 
rules. In reality very little was known about the proles. It 
was not necessary to know much. So long as they contin- 
ued to work and breed, their other activities were without 
importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose 
upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of 
life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral 
pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they 
went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blos- 
soming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at 
twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the 
most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home 
and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, foot- 
ball, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon 
of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. 
A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among 
them, spreading false rumours and marking down and 
eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of 
becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctri- 
nate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable 



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that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that 
was required of them was a primitive patriotism which 
could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make 
them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And 
even when they became discontented, as they sometimes 
did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without 
general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific 
grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice. 
The great majority of proles did not even have telescreens in 
their homes. Even the civil police interfered with them very 
little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a 
whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, 
drug-peddlers, and racketeers of every description; but 
since it all happened among the proles themselves, it was 
of no importance. In all questions of morals they were al- 
lowed to follow their ancestral code. The sexual puritanism 
of the Party was not imposed upon them. Promiscuity went 
unpunished, divorce was permitted. For that matter, even 
religious worship would have been permitted if the proles 
had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. They were 
beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it: 'Proles and 
animals are free.' 

Winston reached down and cautiously scratched his 
varicose ulcer. It had begun itching again. The thing you 
invariably came back to was the impossibility of knowing 
what life before the Revolution had really been like. He took 
out of the drawer a copy of a children's history textbook 
which he had borrowed from Mrs Parsons, and began copy- 
ing a passage into the diary: 



1984 



In the old days (it ran), before the glorious Revolution, 
London was not the beautiful city that we know today. It 
was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly anybody 
had enough to eat and where hundreds and thousands of 
poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to 
sleep under. Children no older than you had to work twelve 
hours a day for cruel masters who flogged them with whips 
if they worked too slowly and fed them on nothing but stale 
breadcrusts and water. But in among all this terrible poverty 
there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were 
lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to 
look after them. These rich men were called capitalists. They 
were fat, ugly men with wicked faces, like the one in the 
picture on the opposite page. You can see that he is dressed in 
a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, 
shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. 
This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was 
allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the 
world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the 
land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If 
anyone disobeyed them they could throw them into prison, or 
they could take his job away and starve him to death. When 
any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and 
bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as 'Sir'. The 
chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and 

But he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be 
mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in 
their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the 

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cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's Banquet, and the prac- 
tice of kissing the Pope's toe. There was also something 
called the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, which would probably 
not be mentioned in a textbook for children. It was the law 
by which every capitalist had the right to sleep with any 
woman working in one of his factories. 

How could you tell how much of it was lies? It MIGHT 
be true that the average human being was better off now 
than he had been before the Revolution. The only evidence 
to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the 
instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were in- 
tolerable and that at some other time they must have been 
different. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing 
about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but 
simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you 
looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies 
that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals 
that the Party was trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even 
for a Party member, were neutral and non-political, a mat- 
ter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on 
the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine 
tablet, saving a cigarette end. The ideal set up by the Par- 
ty was something huge, terrible, and glittering — a world of 
steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying 
weapons — a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching for- 
ward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and 
shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, 
triumphing, persecuting — three hundred million people all 
with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities 



1984 



where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, 
in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always 
of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of 
London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and 
mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman 
with lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a 
blocked waste-pipe. 

He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Day 
and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics 
proving that people today had more food, more clothes, 
better houses, better recreations — that they lived longer, 
worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, hap- 
pier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of 
fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or dis- 
proved. The Party claimed, for example, that today 40 per 
cent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it 
was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The Party 
claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per 
thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 — 
and so it went on. It was like a single equation with two 
unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in 
the history books, even the things that one accepted with- 
out question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might 
never have been any such law as the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, 
or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as 
a top hat. 

Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the era- 
sure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his 
life he had possessed— AFTER the event: that was what 



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counted — concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of fal- 
sification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as 
thirty seconds. In 1973, it must have been — at any rate, it 
was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted. 
But the really relevant date was seven or eight years earlier. 
The story really began in the middle sixties, the period of 
the great purges in which the original leaders of the Revolu- 
tion were wiped out once and for all. By 1970 none of them 
was left, except Big Brother himself. All the rest had by that 
time been exposed as traitors and counter-revolutionar- 
ies. Goldstein had fled and was hiding no one knew where, 
and of the others, a few had simply disappeared, while the 
majority had been executed after spectacular public trials 
at which they made confession of their crimes. Among the 
last survivors were three men named Jones, Aaronson, and 
Rutherford. It must have been in 1965 that these three had 
been arrested. As often happened, they had vanished for a 
year or more, so that one did not know whether they were 
alive or dead, and then had suddenly been brought forth 
to incriminate themselves in the usual way. They had con- 
fessed to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the 
enemy was Eurasia), embezzlement of public funds, the 
murder of various trusted Party members, intrigues against 
the leadership of Big Brother which had started long before 
the Revolution happened, and acts of sabotage causing the 
death of hundreds of thousands of people. After confess- 
ing to these things they had been pardoned, reinstated in 
the Party, and given posts which were in fact sinecures but 
which sounded important. All three had written long, ab- 

96 1984 



ject articles in "The Times', analysing the reasons for their 
defection and promising to make amends. 

Some time after their release Winston had actually seen 
all three of them in the Chestnut Tree Cafe. He remembered 
the sort of terrified fascination with which he had watched 
them out of the corner of his eye. They were men far old- 
er than himself, relics of the ancient world, almost the last 
great figures left over from the heroic days of the Party. The 
glamour of the underground struggle and the civil war still 
faintly clung to them. He had the feeling, though already at 
that time facts and dates were growing blurry, that he had 
known their names years earlier than he had known that of 
Big Brother. But also they were outlaws, enemies, untouch- 
ables, doomed with absolute certainty to extinction within 
a year or two. No one who had once fallen into the hands 
of the Thought Police ever escaped in the end. They were 
corpses waiting to be sent back to the grave. 

There was no one at any of the tables nearest to them. It 
was not wise even to be seen in the neighbourhood of such 
people. They were sitting in silence before glasses of the gin 
flavoured with cloves which was the speciality of the cafe. 
Of the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance had most 
impressed Winston. Rutherford had once been a famous 
caricaturist, whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame 
popular opinion before and during the Revolution. Even 
now, at long intervals, his cartoons were appearing in The 
Times. They were simply an imitation of his earlier manner, 
and curiously lifeless and unconvincing. Always they were 
a rehashing of the ancient themes — slum tenements, starv- 

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ing children, street battles, capitalists in top hats — even on 
the barricades the capitalists still seemed to cling to their 
top hats an endless, hopeless effort to get back into the past. 
He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy grey hair, 
his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At 
one time he must have been immensely strong; now his 
great body was sagging, sloping, bulging, falling away in 
every direction. He seemed to be breaking up before one's 
eyes, like a mountain crumbling. 

It was the lonely hour of fifteen. Winston could not 
now remember how he had come to be in the cafe at such 
a time. The place was almost empty. A tinny music was 
trickling from the telescreens. The three men sat in their 
corner almost motionless, never speaking. Uncommanded, 
the waiter brought fresh glasses of gin. There was a chess- 
board on the table beside them, with the pieces set out but 
no game started. And then, for perhaps half a minute in all, 
something happened to the telescreens. The tune that they 
were playing changed, and the tone of the music changed 
too. There came into it — but it was something hard to de- 
scribe. It was a peculiar, cracked, braying, jeering note: in 
his mind Winston called it a yellow note. And then a voice 
from the telescreen was singing: 

Under the spreading chestnut tree 
I sold you and you sold me: 
There lie they, and here lie we 
Under the spreading chestnut tree. 



1984 



The three men never stirred. But when Winston glanced 
again at Rutherford's ruinous face, he saw that his eyes 
were full of tears. And for the first time he noticed, with a 
kind of inward shudder, and yet not knowing AT WHAT 
he shuddered, that both Aaronson and Rutherford had bro- 
ken noses. 

A little later all three were re- arrested. It appeared that 
they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very mo- 
ment of their release. At their second trial they confessed to 
all their old crimes over again, with a whole string of new 
ones. They were executed, and their fate was recorded in 
the Party histories, a warning to posterity. About five years 
after this, in 1973, Winston was unrolling a wad of docu- 
ments which had just flopped out of the pneumatic tube on 
to his desk when he came on a fragment of paper which 
had evidently been slipped in among the others and then 
forgotten. The instant he had flattened it out he saw its sig- 
nificance. It was a half-page torn out of 'The Times' of about 
ten years earlier — the top half of the page, so that it included 
the date — and it contained a photograph of the delegates at 
some Party function in New York. Prominent in the middle 
of the group were Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. There 
was no mistaking them, in any case their names were in the 
caption at the bottom. 

The point was that at both trials all three men had con- 
fessed that on that date they had been on Eurasian soil. They 
had flown from a secret airfield in Canada to a rendezvous 
somewhere in Siberia, and had conferred with members of 
the Eurasian General Staff, to whom they had betrayed im- 

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portant military secrets. The date had stuck in Winston's 
memory because it chanced to be midsummer day; but the 
whole story must be on record in countless other places as 
well. There was only one possible conclusion: the confes- 
sions were lies. 

Of course, this was not in itself a discovery. Even at that 
time Winston had not imagined that the people who were 
wiped out in the purges had actually committed the crimes 
that they were accused of. But this was concrete evidence; 
it was a fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil bone 
which turns up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geo- 
logical theory. It was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if 
in some way it could have been published to the world and 
its significance made known. 

He had gone straight on working. As soon as he saw what 
the photograph was, and what it meant, he had covered it 
up with another sheet of paper. Luckily, when he unrolled 
it, it had been upside-down from the point of view of the 
telescreen. 

He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back 
his chair so as to get as far away from the telescreen as pos- 
sible. To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and 
even your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: 
but you could not control the beating of your heart, and 
the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He 
let what he judged to be ten minutes go by, tormented all 
the while by the fear that some accident — a sudden draught 
blowing across his desk, for instance — would betray him. 
Then, without uncovering it again, he dropped the photo- 



1984 



graph into the memory hole, along with some other waste 
papers. Within another minute, perhaps, it would have 
crumbled into ashes. 

That was ten — eleven years ago. Today, probably, he 
would have kept that photograph. It was curious that the 
fact of having held it in his fingers seemed to him to make 
a difference even now, when the photograph itself, as well 
as the event it recorded, was only memory. Was the Party's 
hold upon the past less strong, he wondered, because a piece 
of evidence which existed no longer HAD ONCE existed? 

But today, supposing that it could be somehow resur- 
rected from its ashes, the photograph might not even be 
evidence. Already, at the time when he made his discov- 
ery, Oceania was no longer at war with Eurasia, and it must 
have been to the agents of Eastasia that the three dead men 
had betrayed their country. Since then there had been oth- 
er changes — two, three, he could not remember how many. 
Very likely the confessions had been rewritten and rewritten 
until the original facts and dates no longer had the small- 
est significance. The past not only changed, but changed 
continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of 
nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why 
the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advan- 
tages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate 
motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and 
wrote: 

/ understand HOW: I do not understand WHY. 



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He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, 
whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was 
simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of 
madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, 
to believe that the past is inalterable. He might be ALONE 
in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the 
thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the 
horror was that he might also be wrong. 

He picked up the children's history book and looked at 
the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. 
The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though 
some huge force were pressing down upon you — something 
that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your 
brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, 
almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the 
Party would announce that two and two made five, and you 
would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should 
make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position 
demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the 
very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their 
philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And 
what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for 
thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after 
all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that 
the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchange- 
able? If both the past and the external world exist only in 
the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then? 

But no! His courage seemed suddenly to stiffen of its 
own accord. The face of O'Brien, not called up by any obvi- 



1984 



ous association, had floated into his mind. He knew, with 
more certainty than before, that O'Brien was on his side. 
He was writing the diary for O'Brien — TO O'Brien: it was 
like an interminable letter which no one would ever read, 
but which was addressed to a particular person and took its 
colour from that fact. 

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and 
ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart 
sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against 
him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would over- 
throw him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would 
not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he 
was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The 
obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Tru- 
isms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws 
do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsup- 
ported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that 
he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting 
forth an important axiom, he wrote: 

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If 
that is granted, all else follows. 



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Chapter 8 



From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of 
roasting coffee — real coffee, not Victory Coffee — came 
floating out into the street. Winston paused involuntarily. 
For perhaps two seconds he was back in the half-forgotten 
world of his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut 
off the smell as abruptly as though it had been a sound. 

He had walked several kilometres over pavements, and 
his varicose ulcer was throbbing. This was the second time 
in three weeks that he had missed an evening at the Com- 
munity Centre: a rash act, since you could be certain that 
the number of your attendances at the Centre was care- 
fully checked. In principle a Party member had no spare 
time, and was never alone except in bed. It was assumed 
that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would 
be taking part in some kind of communal recreation: to do 
anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a 
walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was 
a word for it in Newspeak: OWNLIFE, it was called, mean- 
ing individualism and eccentricity. But this evening as he 
came out of the Ministry the balminess of the April air had 
tempted him. The sky was a warmer blue than he had seen it 
that year, and suddenly the long, noisy evening at the Cen- 
tre, the boring, exhausting games, the lectures, the creaking 
camaraderie oiled by gin, had seemed intolerable. On im- 



1984 



pulse he had turned away from the bus-stop and wandered 
off into the labyrinth of London, first south, then east, then 
north again, losing himself among unknown streets and 
hardly bothering in which direction he was going. 

'If there is hope,' he had written in the diary, 'it lies in 
the proles.' The words kept coming back to him, statement 
of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity. He was some- 
where in the vague, brown-coloured slums to the north and 
east of what had once been Saint Pancras Station. He was 
walking up a cobbled street of little two-storey houses with 
battered doorways which gave straight on the pavement 
and which were somehow curiously suggestive of ratholes. 
There were puddles of filthy water here and there among the 
cobbles. In and out of the dark doorways, and down narrow 
alley- ways that branched off on either side, people swarmed 
in astonishing numbers — girls in full bloom, with crude- 
ly lipsticked mouths, and youths who chased the girls, and 
swollen waddling women who showed you what the girls 
would be like in ten years' time, and old bent creatures shuf- 
fling along on splayed feet, and ragged barefooted children 
who played in the puddles and then scattered at angry yells 
from their mothers. Perhaps a quarter of the windows in 
the street were broken and boarded up. Most of the people 
paid no attention to Winston; a few eyed him with a sort of 
guarded curiosity. Two monstrous women with brick-red 
forearms folded across their aprons were talking outside a 
doorway. Winston caught scraps of conversation as he ap- 
proached. 

"Yes,' I says to 'er, 'that's all very well,' I says. 'But if you'd 



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of been in my place you'd of done the same as what I done. 
It's easy to criticize,' I says, 'but you ain't got the same prob- 
lems as what I got." 

'Ah,' said the other, 'that's jest it. That's jest where it is.' 

The strident voices stopped abruptly. The women stud- 
ied him in hostile silence as he went past. But it was not 
hostility, exactly; merely a kind of wariness, a momentary 
stiffening, as at the passing of some unfamiliar animal. The 
blue overalls of the Party could not be a common sight in 
a street like this. Indeed, it was unwise to be seen in such 
places, unless you had definite business there. The patrols 
might stop you if you happened to run into them. 'May I see 
your papers, comrade? What are you doing here? What time 
did you leave work? Is this your usual way home?' — and so 
on and so forth. Not that there was any rule against walking 
home by an unusual route: but it was enough to draw atten- 
tion to you if the Thought Police heard about it. 

Suddenly the whole street was in commotion. There 
were yells of warning from all sides. People were shooting 
into the doorways like rabbits. A young woman leapt out 
of a doorway a little ahead of Winston, grabbed up a tiny 
child playing in a puddle, whipped her apron round it, and 
leapt back again, all in one movement. At the same instant a 
man in a concertina-like black suit, who had emerged from 
a side alley, ran towards Winston, pointing excitedly to the 
sky. 

'Steamer!' he yelled. 'Look out, guv'nor! Bang over'ead! 
Lay down quick!' 

'Steamer' was a nickname which, for some reason, the 



1984 



proles applied to rocket bombs. Winston promptly flung 
himself on his face. The proles were nearly always right 
when they gave you a warning of this kind. They seemed 
to possess some kind of instinct which told them several 
seconds in advance when a rocket was coming, although 
the rockets supposedly travelled faster than sound. Win- 
ston clasped his forearms above his head. There was a roar 
that seemed to make the pavement heave; a shower of light 
objects pattered on to his back. When he stood up he found 
that he was covered with fragments of glass from the near- 
est window. 

He walked on. The bomb had demolished a group of 
houses 200 metres up the street. A black plume of smoke 
hung in the sky, and below it a cloud of plaster dust in which 
a crowd was already forming around the ruins. There was a 
little pile of plaster lying on the pavement ahead of him, and 
in the middle of it he could see a bright red streak. When he 
got up to it he saw that it was a human hand severed at the 
wrist. Apart from the bloody stump, the hand was so com- 
pletely whitened as to resemble a plaster cast. 

He kicked the thing into the gutter, and then, to avoid 
the crowd, turned down a side-street to the right. With- 
in three or four minutes he was out of the area which the 
bomb had affected, and the sordid swarming life of the 
streets was going on as though nothing had happened. It 
was nearly twenty hours, and the drinking-shops which the 
proles frequented (pubs', they called them) were choked 
with customers. From their grimy swing doors, endlessly 
opening and shutting, there came forth a smell of urine, 



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sawdust, and sour beer. In an angle formed by a projecting 
house-front three men were standing very close togeth- 
er, the middle one of them holding a folded- up newspaper 
which the other two were studying over his shoulder. Even 
before he was near enough to make out the expression on 
their faces, Winston could see absorption in every line of 
their bodies. It was obviously some serious piece of news 
that they were reading. He was a few paces away from them 
when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men were 
in violent altercation. For a moment they seemed almost on 
the point of blows. 

'Can't you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you 
no number ending in seven ain't won for over fourteen 
months!' 

'Yes, it 'as, then!' 

'No, it 'as not! Back 'ome I got the 'ole lot of 'em for over 
two years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes 'em down 
reg'lar as the clock. An' I tell you, no number ending in 
seven ' 

'Yes, a seven 'AS won! I could pretty near tell you the 
bleeding number. Four oh seven, it ended in. It were in Feb- 
ruary — second week in February' 

'February your grandmother! I got it all down in black 
and white. An' I tell you, no number ' 

'Oh, pack it in!' said the third man. 

They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked 
back when he had gone thirty metres. They were still ar- 
guing, with vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its 
weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event 



1984 



to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable 
that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lot- 
tery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining 
alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their 
intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, 
even people who could barely read and write seemed capa- 
ble of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. 
There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by 
selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had 
nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was 
managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (in- 
deed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were 
largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, 
the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In 
the absence of any real intercommunication between one 
part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to ar- 
range. 

But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling 
on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: 
it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on 
the pavement that it became an act of faith. The street into 
which he had turned ran downhill. He had a feeling that he 
had been in this neighbourhood before, and that there was 
a main thoroughfare not far away. From somewhere ahead 
there came a din of shouting voices. The street took a sharp 
turn and then ended in a flight of steps which led down into 
a sunken alley where a few stall-keepers were selling tired- 
looking vegetables. At this moment Winston remembered 
where he was. The alley led out into the main street, and 



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down the next turning, not five minutes away, was the junk- 
shop where he had bought the blank book which was now 
his diary. And in a small stationer's shop not far away he 
had bought his penholder and his bottle of ink. 

He paused for a moment at the top of the steps. On the 
opposite side of the alley there was a dingy little pub whose 
windows appeared to be frosted over but in reality were 
merely coated with dust. A very old man, bent but active, 
with white moustaches that bristled forward like those of a 
prawn, pushed open the swing door and went in. As Win- 
ston stood watching, it occurred to him that the old man, 
who must be eighty at the least, had already been middle- 
aged when the Revolution happened. He and a few others 
like him were the last links that now existed with the van- 
ished world of capitalism. In the Party itself there were not 
many people left whose ideas had been formed before the 
Revolution. The older generation had mostly been wiped out 
in the great purges of the fifties and sixties, and the few who 
survived had long ago been terrified into complete intellec- 
tual surrender. If there was any one still alive who could 
give you a truthful account of conditions in the early part 
of the century, it could only be a prole. Suddenly the pas- 
sage from the history book that he had copied into his diary 
came back into Winston's mind, and a lunatic impulse took 
hold of him. He would go into the pub, he would scrape ac- 
quaintance with that old man and question him. He would 
say to him: 'Tell me about your life when you were a boy. 
What was it like in those days? Were things better than they 
are now, or were they worse?' 



1984 



Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened, 
he descended the steps and crossed the narrow street. It 
was madness of course. As usual, there was no definite rule 
against talking to proles and frequenting their pubs, but it 
was far too unusual an action to pass unnoticed. If the pa- 
trols appeared he might plead an attack of faintness, but it 
was not likely that they would believe him. He pushed open 
the door, and a hideous cheesy smell of sour beer hit him in 
the face. As he entered the din of voices dropped to about 
half its volume. Behind his back he could feel everyone eye- 
ing his blue overalls. A game of darts which was going on at 
the other end of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as 
much as thirty seconds. The old man whom he had followed 
was standing at the bar, having some kind of altercation 
with the barman, a large, stout, hook-nosed young man 
with enormous forearms. A knot of others, standing round 
with glasses in their hands, were watching the scene. 

'I arst you civil enough, didn't I?' said the old man, 
straightening his shoulders pugnaciously. 'You telling me 
you ain't got a pint mug in the 'ole bleeding boozer?' 

And what in hell's name IS a pint?' said the barman, lean- 
ing forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter. 

"Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what 
a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four 
quarts to the gallon. Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.' 

'Never heard of 'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and 
half litre — that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf 
in front of you.' 

'I likes a pint,' persisted the old man. 'You could 'a drawed 

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me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding li- 
tres when I was a young man.' 

'When you were a young man we were all living in the 
treetops,' said the barman, with a glance at the other cus- 
tomers. 

There was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused 
by Winston's entry seemed to disappear. The old man's whit- 
estubbled face had flushed pink. He turned away, muttering 
to himself, and bumped into Winston. Winston caught him 
gently by the arm. 

'May I offer you a drink?' he said. 

'You're a gent,' said the other, straightening his shoul- 
ders again. He appeared not to have noticed Winston's blue 
overalls. 'Pint!' he added aggressively to the barman. 'Pint 
of wallop.' 

The barman swished two half-litres of dark-brown beer 
into thick glasses which he had rinsed in a bucket under 
the counter. Beer was the only drink you could get in prole 
pubs. The proles were supposed not to drink gin, though in 
practice they could get hold of it easily enough. The game of 
darts was in full swing again, and the knot of men at the bar 
had begun talking about lottery tickets. Winston's presence 
was forgotten for a moment. There was a deal table under 
the window where he and the old man could talk without 
fear of being overheard. It was horribly dangerous, but at 
any rate there was no telescreen in the room, a point he had 
made sure of as soon as he came in. 

"E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man 
as he settled down behind a glass. 'A 'alf litre ain't enough. It 



1984 



don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder 
running. Let alone the price.' 

'You must have seen great changes since you were a young 
man,' said Winston tentatively. 

The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board 
to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents, as 
though it were in the bar-room that he expected the chang- 
es to have occurred. 

"The beer was better,' he said finally. 'And cheaper! When 
I was a young man, mild beer — wallop we used to call it — 
was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.' 

'Which war was that?' said Winston. 

'It's all wars,' said the old man vaguely. He took up his 
glass, and his shoulders straightened again. "Ere's wishing 
you the very best of 'ealth!' 

In his lean throat the sharp -pointed Adam's apple made 
a surprisingly rapid up-and-down movement, and the beer 
vanished. Winston went to the bar and came back with two 
more half-litres. The old man appeared to have forgotten 
his prejudice against drinking a full litre. 

'You are very much older than I am,' said Winston. 'You 
must have been a grown man before I was born. You can 
remember what it was like in the old days, before the Revo- 
lution. People of my age don't really know anything about 
those times. We can only read about them in books, and 
what it says in the books may not be true. I should like your 
opinion on that. The history books say that life before the 
Revolution was completely different from what it is now. 
There was the most terrible oppression, injustice, poverty 

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worse than anything we can imagine. Here in London, the 
great mass of the people never had enough to eat from birth 
to death. Half of them hadn't even boots on their feet. They 
worked twelve hours a day, they left school at nine, they 
slept ten in a room. And at the same time there were a very 
few people, only a few thousands — the capitalists, they were 
called — who were rich and powerful. They owned every- 
thing that there was to own. They lived in great gorgeous 
houses with thirty servants, they rode about in motor-cars 
and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne, they wore 
top hats ' 

The old man brightened suddenly. 

'Top 'ats!' he said. 'Funny you should mention 'em. The 
same thing come into my 'ead only yesterday, I dono why. I 
was jest thinking, I ain't seen a top 'at in years. Gorn right 
out, they 'ave. The last time I wore one was at my sister-in- 
law's funeral. And that was — well, I couldn't give you the 
date, but it must 'a been fifty years ago. Of course it was only 
'ired for the occasion, you understand.' 

'It isn't very important about the top hats,' said Winston 
patiently. 'The point is, these capitalists — they and a few 
lawyers and priests and so forth who lived on them — were 
the lords of the earth. Everything existed for their benefit. 
You — the ordinary people, the workers — were their slaves. 
They could do what they liked with you. They could ship 
you off to Canada like cattle. They could sleep with your 
daughters if they chose. They could order you to be flogged 
with something called a cat-o'-nine tails. You had to take 
your cap off when you passed them. Every capitalist went 



1984 



about with a gang of lackeys who ' 

The old man brightened again. 

'Lackeys!' he said. 'Now there's a word I ain't 'eard since 
ever so long. Lackeys! That reg'lar takes me back, that does. 
I recollect oh, donkey's years ago — I used to sometimes go 
to 'Yde Park of a Sunday afternoon to 'ear the blokes making 
speeches. Salvation Army, Roman Catholics, Jews, Indi- 
ans — all sorts there was. And there was one bloke — well, I 
couldn't give you 'is name, but a real powerful speaker 'e 
was. 'E didn't 'alf give it 'em! 'Lackeys!' 'e says, 'lackeys of 
the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!' Parasites — 
that was another of them. And 'yenas — 'e definitely called 
'em 'yenas. Of course 'e was referring to the Labour Party, 
you understand.' 

Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross- 
purposes. 

'What I really wanted to know was this,' he said. 'Do you 
feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those 
days? Are you treated more like a human being? In the old 
days, the rich people, the people at the top ' 

'The 'Ouse of Lords,' put in the old man reminiscently 

'The House of Lords, if you like. What I am asking is, 
were these people able to treat you as an inferior, simply 
because they were rich and you were poor? Is it a fact, for 
instance, that you had to call them 'Sir' and take off your 
cap when you passed them?' 

The old man appeared to think deeply. He drank off 
about a quarter of his beer before answering. 

'Yes,' he said. "They liked you to touch your cap to 'em. 



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It showed respect, like. I didn't agree with it, myself, but I 
done it often enough. Had to, as you might say' 

'And was it usual — I'm only quoting what I've read in his- 
tory books — was it usual for these people and their servants 
to push you off the pavement into the gutter?' 

'One of 'em pushed me once,' said the old man. 'I recol- 
lect it as if it was yesterday. It was Boat Race night — terribly 
rowdy they used to get on Boat Race night — and I bumps 
into a young bloke on Shaftesbury Avenue. Quite a gent, 
'e was — dress shirt, top 'at, black overcoat. 'E was kind of 
zig-zagging across the pavement, and I bumps into 'im acci- 
dental-like. 'E says, 'Why can't you look where you're going?' 
'e says. I say, 'Ju think you've bought the bleeding pavement?' 
'E says, 'I'll twist your bloody 'ead off if you get fresh with 
me.' I says, 'You're drunk. I'll give you in charge in 'alf a 
minute,' I says. An' if you'll believe me, 'e puts 'is 'and on my 
chest and gives me a shove as pretty near sent me under the 
wheels of a bus. Well, I was young in them days, and I was 
going to 'ave fetched 'im one, only ' 

A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old 
man's memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details. 
One could question him all day without getting any real 
information. The party histories might still be true, after a 
fashion: they might even be completely true. He made a last 
attempt. 

'Perhaps I have not made myself clear,' he said. 'What I'm 
trying to say is this. You have been alive a very long time; 
you lived half your life before the Revolution. In 1925, for 
instance, you were already grown up. Would you say from 



1984 



what you can remember, that life in 1925 was better than it 
is now, or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to 
live then or now?' 

The old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He 
finished up his beer, more slowly than before. When he 
spoke it was with a tolerant philosophical air, as though the 
beer had mellowed him. 

'I know what you expect me to say' he said. 'You expect 
me to say as I'd sooner be young again. Most people'd say 
they'd sooner be young, if you arst' 'em. You got your 'ealth 
and strength when you're young. When you get to my time 
of life you ain't never well. I suffer something wicked from 
my feet, and my bladder's jest terrible. Six and seven times 
a night it 'as me out of bed. On the other 'and, there's great 
advantages in being a old man. You ain't got the same wor- 
ries. No truck with women, and that's a great thing. I ain't 
'ad a woman for near on thirty year, if you'd credit it. Nor 
wanted to, what's more.' 

Winston sat back against the window-sill. It was no use 
going on. He was about to buy some more beer when the old 
man suddenly got up and shuffled rapidly into the stink- 
ing urinal at the side of the room. The extra half-litre was 
already working on him. Winston sat for a minute or two 
gazing at his empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet 
carried him out into the street again. Within twenty years 
at the most, he reflected, the huge and simple question, 
'Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?' would 
have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in effect 
it was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered sur- 

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vivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing 
one age with another. They remembered a million useless 
things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicy- 
cle pump, the expression on a long- dead sister's face, the 
swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago: but 
all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. 
They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not 
large ones. And when memory failed and written records 
were falsified — when that happened, the claim of the Party 
to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be 
accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could 
exist, any standard against which it could be tested. 

At this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly. 
He halted and looked up. He was in a narrow street, with a 
few dark little shops, interspersed among dwelling-houses. 
Immediately above his head there hung three discoloured 
metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded. 
He seemed to know the place. Of course! He was standing 
outside the junk-shop where he had bought the diary. 

A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a suf- 
ficiently rash act to buy the book in the beginning, and he 
had sworn never to come near the place again. And yet the 
instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander, his feet had 
brought him back here of their own accord. It was precisely 
against suicidal impulses of this kind that he had hoped to 
guard himself by opening the diary. At the same time he 
noticed that although it was nearly twenty-one hours the 
shop was still open. With the feeling that he would be less 
conspicuous inside than hanging about on the pavement, 



1984 



he stepped through the doorway. If questioned, he could 
plausibly say that he was trying to buy razor blades. 

The proprietor had just lighted a hanging oil lamp which 
gave off an unclean but friendly smell. He was a man of per- 
haps sixty, frail and bowed, with a long, benevolent nose, 
and mild eyes distorted by thick spectacles. His hair was al- 
most white, but his eyebrows were bushy and still black. His 
spectacles, his gentle, fussy movements, and the fact that he 
was wearing an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague 
air of intellectuality, as though he had been some kind of 
literary man, or perhaps a musician. His voice was soft, as 
though faded, and his accent less debased than that of the 
majority of proles. 

'I recognized you on the pavement,' he said immediately. 
'You're the gentleman that bought the young lady's keepsake 
album. That was a beautiful bit of paper, that was. Cream- 
laid, it used to be called. There's been no paper like that 
made for — oh, I dare say fifty years.' He peered at Winston 
over the top of his spectacles. 'Is there anything special I 
can do for you? Or did you just want to look round?' 

T was passing,' said Winston vaguely. T just looked in. I 
don't want anything in particular.' 

'It's just as well,' said the other, 'because I don't suppose 
I could have satisfied you.' He made an apologetic gesture 
with his softpalmed hand. 'You see how it is; an empty shop, 
you might say. Between you and me, the antique trade's just 
about finished. No demand any longer, and no stock either. 
Furniture, china, glass it's all been broken up by degrees. 
And of course the metal stuff's mostly been melted down. I 



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haven't seen a brass candlestick in years.' 

The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably 
full, but there was almost nothing in it of the slightest val- 
ue. The floorspace was very restricted, because all round 
the walls were stacked innumerable dusty picture-frames. 
In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out 
chisels, penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches 
that did not even pretend to be in going order, and other 
miscellaneous rubbish. Only on a small table in the corner 
was there a litter of odds and ends — lacquered snuffbox- 
es, agate brooches, and the like — which looked as though 
they might include something interesting. As Winston 
wandered towards the table his eye was caught by a round, 
smooth thing that gleamed softly in the lamplight, and he 
picked it up. 

It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat 
on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a 
peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the colour and 
the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the 
curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object 
that recalled a rose or a sea anemone. 

'What is it?' said Winston, fascinated. 

'That's coral, that is,' said the old man. 'It must have come 
from the Indian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in 
the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago. 
More, by the look of it.' 

'It's a beautiful thing,' said Winston. 

'It is a beautiful thing,' said the other appreciatively. 'But 
there's not many that' d say so nowadays.' He coughed. 'Now, 



1984 



if it so happened that you wanted to buy it, that'd cost you 
four dollars. I can remember when a thing like that would 
have fetched eight pounds, and eight pounds was — well, I 
can't work it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares 
about genuine antiques nowadays — even the few that's 
left?' 

Winston immediately paid over the four dollars and slid 
the coveted thing into his pocket. What appealed to him 
about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to 
possess of belonging to an age quite different from the pres- 
ent one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass that 
he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because 
of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it 
must once have been intended as a paperweight. It was very 
heavy in his pocket, but fortunately it did not make much 
of a bulge. It was a queer thing, even a compromising thing, 
for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, 
and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely 
suspect. The old man had grown noticeably more cheerful 
after receiving the four dollars. Winston realized that he 
would have accepted three or even two. 

"There's another room upstairs that you might care to 
take a look at,' he said. 'There's not much in it. Just a few 
pieces. We'll do with a light if we're going upstairs.' 

He lit another lamp, and, with bowed back, led the way 
slowly up the steep and worn stairs and along a tiny passage, 
into a room which did not give on the street but looked out 
on a cobbled yard and a forest of chimney-pots. Winston 
noticed that the furniture was still arranged as though the 



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room were meant to be lived in. There was a strip of car- 
pet on the floor, a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, 
slatternly arm-chair drawn up to the fireplace. An old-fash- 
ioned glass clock with a twelve-hour face was ticking away 
on the mantelpiece. Under the window, and occupying 
nearly a quarter of the room, was an enormous bed with 
the mattress still on it. 

'We lived here till my wife died,' said the old man half 
apologetically. 'I'm selling the furniture off by little and 
little. Now that's a beautiful mahogany bed, or at least it 
would be if you could get the bugs out of it. But I dare say 
you'd find it a little bit cumbersome.' 

He was holding the lamp high up, so as to illuminate the 
whole room, and in the warm dim light the place looked 
curiously inviting. The thought flitted through Winston's 
mind that it would probably be quite easy to rent the room 
for a few dollars a week, if he dared to take the risk. It was a 
wild, impossible notion, to be abandoned as soon as thought 
of; but the room had awakened in him a sort of nostalgia, a 
sort of ancestral memory. It seemed to him that he knew 
exactly what it felt like to sit in a room like this, in an arm- 
chair beside an open fire with your feet in the fender and a 
kettle on the hob; utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody 
watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the 
singing of the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock. 

'There's no telescreen!' he could not help murmuring. 

'Ah,' said the old man, 'I never had one of those things. 
Too expensive. And I never seemed to feel the need of it, 
somehow. Now that's a nice gateleg table in the corner there. 



1984 



Though of course you'd have to put new hinges on it if you 
wanted to use the flaps.' 

There was a small bookcase in the other corner, and 
Winston had already gravitated towards it. It contained 
nothing but rubbish. The hunting-down and destruction of 
books had been done with the same thoroughness in the 
prole quarters as everywhere else. It was very unlikely that 
there existed anywhere in Oceania a copy of a book printed 
earlier than 1960. The old man, still carrying the lamp, was 
standing in front of a picture in a rosewood frame which 
hung on the other side of the fireplace, opposite the bed. 

'Now, if you happen to be interested in old prints at all — 
— ' he began delicately. 

Winston came across to examine the picture. It was a 
steel engraving of an oval building with rectangular win- 
dows, and a small tower in front. There was a railing 
running round the building, and at the rear end there was 
what appeared to be a statue. Winston gazed at it for some 
moments. It seemed vaguely familiar, though he did not re- 
member the statue. 

'The frame's fixed to the wall,' said the old man, 'but I 
could unscrew it for you, I dare say' 

'I know that building,' said Winston finally 'It's a ruin 
now. It's in the middle of the street outside the Palace of 
Justice.' 

"That's right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in — 
oh, many years ago. It was a church at one time, St Clement 
Danes, its name was.' He smiled apologetically, as though 
conscious of saying something slightly ridiculous, and add- 



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ed: 'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's!' 

'What's that?' said Winston. 

'Oh — 'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's.' 
That was a rhyme we had when I was a little boy. How it goes 
on I don't remember, but I do know it ended up, 'Here comes 
a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop 
off your head.' It was a kind of a dance. They held out their 
arms for you to pass under, and when they came to 'Here 
comes a chopper to chop off your head' they brought their 
arms down and caught you. It was just names of churches. 
All the London churches were in it — all the principal ones, 
that is.' 

Winston wondered vaguely to what century the church 
belonged. It was always difficult to determine the age of a 
London building. Anything large and impressive, if it was 
reasonably new in appearance, was automatically claimed 
as having been built since the Revolution, while anything 
that was obviously of earlier date was ascribed to some dim 
period called the Middle Ages. The centuries of capitalism 
were held to have produced nothing of any value. One could 
not learn history from architecture any more than one 
could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memori- 
al stones, the names of streets — anything that might throw 
light upon the past had been systematically altered. 

'I never knew it had been a church,' he said. 

'There's a lot of them left, really' said the old man, 'though 
they've been put to other uses. Now, how did that rhyme go? 
Ah! I've got it! 

'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, You 



1984 



owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's ' 

there, now, that's as far as I can get. A farthing, that was 
a small copper coin, looked something like a cent.' 

'Where was St Martin's?' said Winston. 

'St Martin's? That's still standing. It's in Victory Square, 
alongside the picture gallery. A building with a kind of a tri- 
angular porch and pillars in front, and a big flight of steps.' 

Winston knew the place well. It was a museum used 
for propaganda displays of various kinds — scale models of 
rocket bombs and Floating Fortresses, waxwork tableaux il- 
lustrating enemy atrocities, and the like. 

'St Martin's-in-the-Fields it used to be called,' supple- 
mented the old man, 'though I don't recollect any fields 
anywhere in those parts.' 

Winston did not buy the picture. It would have been an 
even more incongruous possession than the glass paper- 
weight, and impossible to carry home, unless it were taken 
out of its frame. But he lingered for some minutes more, 
talking to the old man, whose name, he discovered, was not 
Weeks — as one might have gathered from the inscription 
over the shop-front — but Charrington. Mr Charrington, it 
seemed, was a widower aged sixty-three and had inhabit- 
ed this shop for thirty years. Throughout that time he had 
been intending to alter the name over the window, but had 
never quite got to the point of doing it. All the while that 
they were talking the half-remembered rhyme kept run- 
ning through Winston's head. Oranges and lemons say the 
bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the 
bells of St Martin's! It was curious, but when you said it to 



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yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the 
bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other, 
disguised and forgotten. From one ghostly steeple after an- 
other he seemed to hear them pealing forth. Yet so far as 
he could remember he had never in real life heard church 
bells ringing. 

He got away from Mr Charrington and went down the 
stairs alone, so as not to let the old man see him recon- 
noitring the street before stepping out of the door. He had 
already made up his mind that after a suitable interval — a 
month, say — he would take the risk of visiting the shop 
again. It was perhaps not more dangerous than shirking an 
evening at the Centre. The serious piece of folly had been to 
come back here in the first place, after buying the diary and 
without knowing whether the proprietor of the shop could 
be trusted. However ! 

Yes, he thought again, he would come back. He would 
buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish. He would buy the 
engraving of St Clement Danes, take it out of its frame, and 
carry it home concealed under the jacket of his overalls. He 
would drag the rest of that poem out of Mr Charrington's 
memory. Even the lunatic project of renting the room up- 
stairs flashed momentarily through his mind again. For 
perhaps five seconds exaltation made him careless, and he 
stepped out on to the pavement without so much as a pre- 
liminary glance through the window. He had even started 
humming to an improvised tune 

Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, You 
owe me three farthings, say the 



1984 



Suddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bow- 
els to water. A figure in blue overalls was coming down 
the pavement, not ten metres away. It was the girl from the 
Fiction Department, the girl with dark hair. The light was 
failing, but there was no difficulty in recognizing her. She 
looked him straight in the face, then walked quickly on as 
though she had not seen him. 

For a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. 
Then he turned to the right and walked heavily away, not 
noticing for the moment that he was going in the wrong 
direction. At any rate, one question was settled. There was 
no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him. She 
must have followed him here, because it was not credible 
that by pure chance she should have happened to be walk- 
ing on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, 
kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members 
lived. It was too great a coincidence. Whether she was really 
an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy 
actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. It was enough 
that she was watching him. Probably she had seen him go 
into the pub as well. 

It was an effort to walk. The lump of glass in his pocket 
banged against his thigh at each step, and he was half mind- 
ed to take it out and throw it away. The worst thing was the 
pain in his belly. For a couple of minutes he had the feeling 
that he would die if he did not reach a lavatory soon. But 
there would be no public lavatories in a quarter like this. 
Then the spasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind. 

The street was a blind alley. Winston halted, stood 



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for several seconds wondering vaguely what to do, then 
turned round and began to retrace his steps. As he turned 
it occurred to him that the girl had only passed him three 
minutes ago and that by running he could probably catch 
up with her. He could keep on her track till they were in 
some quiet place, and then smash her skull in with a cob- 
blestone. The piece of glass in his pocket would be heavy 
enough for the job. But he abandoned the idea immediately, 
because even the thought of making any physical effort was 
unbearable. He could not run, he could not strike a blow. 
Besides, she was young and lusty and would defend herself. 
He thought also of hurrying to the Community Centre and 
staying there till the place closed, so as to establish a partial 
alibi for the evening. But that too was impossible. A deadly 
lassitude had taken hold of him. All he wanted was to get 
home quickly and then sit down and be quiet. 

It was after twenty-two hours when he got back to the 
flat. The lights would be switched off at the main at twenty- 
three thirty. He went into the kitchen and swallowed nearly 
a teacup ful of Victory Gin. Then he went to the table in the 
alcove, sat down, and took the diary out of the drawer. But 
he did not open it at once. From the telescreen a brassy fe- 
male voice was squalling a patriotic song. He sat staring at 
the marbled cover of the book, trying without success to 
shut the voice out of his consciousness. 

It was at night that they came for you, always at night. The 
proper thing was to kill yourself before they got you. Un- 
doubtedly some people did so. Many of the disappearances 
were actually suicides. But it needed desperate courage to 



1984 



kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and 
certain poison, were completely unprocurable. He thought 
with a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessness 
of pain and fear, the treachery of the human body which 
always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when a 
special effort is needed. He might have silenced the dark- 
haired girl if only he had acted quickly enough: but precisely 
because of the extremity of his danger he had lost the power 
to act. It struck him that in moments of crisis one is nev- 
er fighting against an external enemy, but always against 
one's own body. Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull ache 
in his belly made consecutive thought impossible. And it 
is the same, he perceived, in all seemingly heroic or trag- 
ic situations. On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on 
a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are al- 
ways forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the 
universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or 
screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle 
against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stom- 
ach or an aching tooth. 

He opened the diary. It was important to write some- 
thing down. The woman on the telescreen had started a new 
song. Her voice seemed to stick into his brain like jagged 
splinters of glass. He tried to think of O'Brien, for whom, 
or to whom, the diary was written, but instead he began 
thinking of the things that would happen to him after the 
Thought Police took him away. It would not matter if they 
killed you at once. To be killed was what you expected. But 
before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everybody 



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knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had 
to be gone through: the grovelling on the floor and scream- 
ing for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth, 
and bloody clots of hair. 

Why did you have to endure it, since the end was al- 
ways the same? Why was it not possible to cut a few days 
or weeks out of your life? Nobody ever escaped detection, 
and nobody ever failed to confess. When once you had suc- 
cumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date 
you would be dead. Why then did that horror, which altered 
nothing, have to lie embedded in future time? 

He tried with a little more success than before to sum- 
mon up the image of O'Brien. 'We shall meet in the place 
where there is no darkness,' O'Brien had said to him. He 
knew what it meant, or thought he knew. The place where 
there is no darkness was the imagined future, which one 
would never see, but which, by foreknowledge, one could 
mystically share in. But with the voice from the telescreen 
nagging at his ears he could not follow the train of thought 
further. He put a cigarette in his mouth. Half the tobacco 
promptly fell out on to his tongue, a bitter dust which was 
difficult to spit out again. The face of Big Brother swam into 
his mind, displacing that of O'Brien. Just as he had done a 
few days earlier, he slid a coin out of his pocket and looked 
at it. The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but 
what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache? 
Like a leaden knell the words came back at him: 

WAR IS PEACE 

130 1984 



FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 



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Part Two 



1984 



Chapter i 



It was the middle of the morning, and Winston had left 
the cubicle to go to the lavatory. 

A solitary figure was coming towards him from the oth- 
er end of the long, brightly- lit corridor. It was the girl with 
dark hair. Four days had gone past since the evening when 
he had run into her outside the junk-shop. As she came 
nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not notice- 
able at a distance because it was of the same colour as her 
overalls. Probably she had crushed her hand while swing- 
ing round one of the big kaleidoscopes on which the plots 
of novels were 'roughed in'. It was a common accident in the 
Fiction Department. 

They were perhaps four metres apart when the girl stum- 
bled and fell almost flat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was 
wrung out of her. She must have fallen right on the injured 
arm. Winston stopped short. The girl had risen to her knees. 
Her face had turned a milky yellow colour against which 
her mouth stood out redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed 
on his, with an appealing expression that looked more like 
fear than pain. 

A curious emotion stirred in Winston's heart. In front of 
him was an enemy who was trying to kill him: in front of 
him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with 
a broken bone. Already he had instinctively started forward 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 133 



to help her. In the moment when he had seen her fall on the 
bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his 
own body. 

'You're hurt?' he said. 

'It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.' 

She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had 
certainly turned very pale. 

'You haven't broken anything?' 

'No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.' 

She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. 
She had regained some of her colour, and appeared very 
much better. 

'It's nothing,' she repeated shortly. 'I only gave my wrist a 
bit of a bang. Thanks, comrade!' 

And with that she walked on in the direction in which 
she had been going, as briskly as though it had really been 
nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much 
as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's 
face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, 
and in any case they had been standing straight in front of 
a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had 
been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for 
in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up 
the girl had slipped something into his hand. There was no 
question that she had done it intentionally. It was some- 
thing small and flat. As he passed through the lavatory door 
he transferred it to his pocket and felt it with the tips of his 
fingers. It was a scrap of paper folded into a square. 

While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little 



1984 



more fingering, to get it unfolded. Obviously there must be 
a message of some kind written on it. For a moment he was 
tempted to take it into one of the water-closets and read it 
at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew. 
There was no place where you could be more certain that 
the telescreens were watched continuously 

He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the frag- 
ment of paper casually among the other papers on the desk, 
put on his spectacles and hitched the speakwrite towards 
him. 'Five minutes,' he told himself, 'five minutes at the 
very least!' His heart bumped in his breast with frightening 
loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on 
was mere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, 
not needing close attention. 

Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some 
kind of political meaning. So far as he could see there were 
two possibilities. One, much the more likely, was that the 
girl was an agent of the Thought Police, just as he had feared. 
He did not know why the Thought Police should choose to 
deliver their messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they 
had their reasons. The thing that was written on the paper 
might be a threat, a summons, an order to commit suicide, 
a trap of some description. But there was another, wilder 
possibility that kept raising its head, though he tried vain- 
ly to suppress it. This was, that the message did not come 
from the Thought Police at all, but from some kind of un- 
derground organization. Perhaps the Brotherhood existed 
after all! Perhaps the girl was part of it! No doubt the idea 
was absurd, but it had sprung into his mind in the very in- 



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stant of feeling the scrap of paper in his hand. It was not till 
a couple of minutes later that the other, more probable ex- 
planation had occurred to him. And even now, though his 
intellect told him that the message probably meant death — 
still, that was not what he believed, and the unreasonable 
hope persisted, and his heart banged, and it was with diffi- 
culty that he kept his voice from trembling as he murmured 
his figures into the speakwrite. 

He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it 
into the pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re- 
adjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the 
next batch of work towards him, with the scrap of paper on 
top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large un- 
formed handwriting: 

I LOVE YOU. 

For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw 
the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he 
did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing 
too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, 
just to make sure that the words were really there. 

For the rest of the morning it was very difficult to work. 
What was even worse than having to focus his mind on a 
series of niggling jobs was the need to conceal his agitation 
from the telescreen. He felt as though a fire were burning 
in his belly. Lunch in the hot, crowded, noise-filled canteen 
was torment. He had hoped to be alone for a little while 
during the lunch hour, but as bad luck would have it the 

136 1984 



imbecile Parsons flopped down beside him, the tang of his 
sweat almost defeating the tinny smell of stew, and kept up 
a stream of talk about the preparations for Hate Week. He 
was particularly enthusiastic about a papier-mache model of 
Big Brother's head, two metres wide, which was being made 
for the occasion by his daughter's troop of Spies. The irri- 
tating thing was that in the racket of voices Winston could 
hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and was constantly 
having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated. Just 
once he caught a glimpse of the girl, at a table with two oth- 
er girls at the far end of the room. She appeared not to have 
seen him, and he did not look in that direction again. 

The afternoon was morebearable. Immediately after lunch 
there arrived a delicate, difficult piece of work which would 
take several hours and necessitated putting everything else 
aside. It consisted in falsifying a series of production re- 
ports of two years ago, in such a way as to cast discredit on a 
prominent member of the Inner Party, who was now under 
a cloud. This was the kind of thing that Winston was good 
at, and for more than two hours he succeeded in shutting 
the girl out of his mind altogether. Then the memory of her 
face came back, and with it a raging, intolerable desire to 
be alone. Until he could be alone it was impossible to think 
this new development out. Tonight was one of his nights at 
the Community Centre. He wolfed another tasteless meal 
in the canteen, hurried off to the Centre, took part in the 
solemn foolery of a 'discussion group', played two games 
of table tennis, swallowed several glasses of gin, and sat for 
half an hour through a lecture entitled Tngsoc in relation to 



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chess'. His soul writhed with boredom, but for once he had 
had no impulse to shirk his evening at the Centre. At the 
sight of the words I LOVE YOU the desire to stay alive had 
welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly 
seemed stupid. It was not till twenty-three hours, when he 
was home and in bed — in the darkness, where you were safe 
even from the telescreen so long as you kept silent — that he 
was able to think continuously. 

It was a physical problem that had to be solved: how to 
get in touch with the girl and arrange a meeting. He did 
not consider any longer the possibility that she might be 
laying some kind of trap for him. He knew that it was not 
so, because of her unmistakable agitation when she handed 
him the note. Obviously she had been frightened out of her 
wits, as well she might be. Nor did the idea of refusing her 
advances even cross his mind. Only five nights ago he had 
contemplated smashing her skull in with a cobblestone, but 
that was of no importance. He thought of her naked, youth- 
ful body, as he had seen it in his dream. He had imagined 
her a fool like all the rest of them, her head stuffed with lies 
and hatred, her belly full of ice. A kind of fever seized him at 
the thought that he might lose her, the white youthful body 
might slip away from him! What he feared more than any- 
thing else was that she would simply change her mind if he 
did not get in touch with her quickly. But the physical dif- 
ficulty of meeting was enormous. It was like trying to make 
a move at chess when you were already mated. Whichever 
way you turned, the telescreen faced you. Actually, all the 
possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to 

138 1984 



him within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with 
time to think, he went over them one by one, as though lay- 
ing out a row of instruments on a table. 

Obviously the kind of encounter that had happened this 
morning could not be repeated. If she had worked in the Re- 
cords Department it might have been comparatively simple, 
but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in the building 
the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going 
there. If he had known where she lived, and at what time 
she left work, he could have contrived to meet her some- 
where on her way home; but to try to follow her home was 
not safe, because it would mean loitering about outside the 
Ministry, which was bound to be noticed. As for sending 
a letter through the mails, it was out of the question. By 
a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened 
in transit. Actually, few people ever wrote letters. For the 
messages that it was occasionally necessary to send, there 
were printed postcards with long lists of phrases, and you 
struck out the ones that were inapplicable. In any case he 
did not know the girl's name, let alone her address. Final- 
ly he decided that the safest place was the canteen. If he 
could get her at a table by herself, somewhere in the middle 
of the room, not too near the telescreens, and with a suf- 
ficient buzz of conversation all round — if these conditions 
endured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to ex- 
change a few words. 

For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On 
the next day she did not appear in the canteen until he 
was leaving it, the whistle having already blown. Presum- 



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ably she had been changed on to a later shift. They passed 
each other without a glance. On the day after that she was 
in the canteen at the usual time, but with three other girls 
and immediately under a telescreen. Then for three dread- 
ful days she did not appear at all. His whole mind and body 
seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort 
of transparency, which made every movement, every sound, 
every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen 
to, an agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape 
from her image. He did not touch the diary during those 
days. If there was any relief, it was in his work, in which he 
could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a stretch. 
He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her. 
There was no enquiry he could make. She might have been 
vaporized, she might have committed suicide, she might 
have been transferred to the other end of Oceania: worst 
and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her mind 
and decided to avoid him. 

The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling 
and she had a band of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The 
relief of seeing her was so great that he could not resist star- 
ing directly at her for several seconds. On the following day 
he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her. When he came 
into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from the 
wall, and was quite alone. It was early, and the place was 
not very full. The queue edged forward till Winston was 
almost at the counter, then was held up for two minutes 
because someone in front was complaining that he had not 
received his tablet of saccharine. But the girl was still alone 



1984 



when Winston secured his tray and began to make for her 
table. He walked casually towards her, his eyes searching 
for a place at some table beyond her. She was perhaps three 
metres away from him. Another two seconds would do it. 
Then a voice behind him called, 'Smith!' He pretended not 
to hear. 'Smith!' repeated the voice, more loudly. It was no 
use. He turned round. A blond-headed, silly-faced young 
man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew, was inviting 
him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not 
safe to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not 
go and sit at a table with an unattended girl. It was too no- 
ticeable. He sat down with a friendly smile. The silly blond 
face beamed into his. Winston had a hallucination of him- 
self smashing a pick-axe right into the middle of it. The 
girl's table filled up a few minutes later. 

But she must have seen him coming towards her, and 
perhaps she would take the hint. Next day he took care to 
arrive early. Surely enough, she was at a table in about the 
same place, and again alone. The person immediately ahead 
of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like 
man with a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston 
turned away from the counter with his tray, he saw that the 
little man was making straight for the girl's table. His hopes 
sank again. There was a vacant place at a table further away, 
but something in the little man's appearance suggested 
that he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort 
to choose the emptiest table. With ice at his heart Winston 
followed. It was no use unless he could get the girl alone. 
At this moment there was a tremendous crash. The little 



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man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had gone flying, 
two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor. 
He started to his feet with a malignant glance at Winston, 
whom he evidently suspected of having tripped him up. But 
it was all right. Five seconds later, with a thundering heart, 
Winston was sitting at the girl's table. 

He did not look at her. He unpacked his tray and prompt- 
ly began eating. It was all-important to speak at once, 
before anyone else came, but now a terrible fear had taken 
possession of him. A week had gone by since she had first 
approached him. She would have changed her mind, she 
must have changed her mind! It was impossible that this af- 
fair should end successfully; such things did not happen in 
real life. He might have flinched altogether from speaking if 
at this moment he had not seen Ampleforth, the hairy-eared 
poet, wandering limply round the room with a tray, look- 
ing for a place to sit down. In his vague way Ampleforth 
was attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at 
his table if he caught sight of him. There was perhaps a min- 
ute in which to act. Both Winston and the girl were eating 
steadily. The stuff they were eating was a thin stew, actually 
a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winston began 
speaking. Neither of them looked up; steadily they spooned 
the watery stuff into their mouths, and between spoonfuls 
exchanged the few necessary words in low expressionless 
voices. 

'What time do you leave work?' 

'Eighteen-thirty' 

'Where can we meet?' 



1984 



'Victory Square, near the monument.' 

'It's full of telescreens.' 

'It doesn't matter if there's a crowd.' 

'Any signal?' 

'No. Don't come up to me until you see me among a lot 
of people. And don't look at me. Just keep somewhere near 
me.' 

'What time?' 

'Nineteen hours.' 

All right.' 

Ampleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at an- 
other table. They did not speak again, and, so far as it was 
possible for two people sitting on opposite sides of the same 
table, they did not look at one another. The girl finished her 
lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to smoke 
a cigarette. 

Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed 
time. He wandered round the base of the enormous flut- 
ed column, at the top of which Big Brother's statue gazed 
southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the 
Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, 
a few years ago) in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street 
in front of it there was a statue of a man on horseback which 
was supposed to represent Oliver Cromwell. At five minutes 
past the hour the girl had still not appeared. Again the ter- 
rible fear seized upon Winston. She was not coming, she 
had changed her mind! He walked slowly up to the north 
side of the square and got a sort of pale- coloured pleasure 
from identifying St Martin's Church, whose bells, when it 

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had bells, had chimed 'You owe me three farthings.' Then 
he saw the girl standing at the base of the monument, read- 
ing or pretending to read a poster which ran spirally up the 
column. It was not safe to go near her until some more peo- 
ple had accumulated. There were telescreens all round the 
pediment. But at this moment there was a din of shouting 
and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left. 
Suddenly everyone seemed to be running across the square. 
The girl nipped nimbly round the lions at the base of the 
monument and joined in the rush. Winston followed. As he 
ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoy 
of Eurasian prisoners was passing. 

Already a dense mass of people was blocking the south 
side of the square. Winston, at normal times the kind of 
person who gravitates to the outer edge of any kind of 
scrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forward into 
the heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm's length of 
the girl, but the way was blocked by an enormous prole and 
an almost equally enormous woman, presumably his wife, 
who seemed to form an impenetrable wall of flesh. Winston 
wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge man- 
aged to drive his shoulder between them. For a moment it 
felt as though his entrails were being ground to pulp be- 
tween the two muscular hips, then he had broken through, 
sweating a little. He was next to the girl. They were shoulder 
to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them. 

A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed 
with sub -machine guns standing upright in each corner, was 
passing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow 



1984 



men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting, jammed 
close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over 
the sides of the trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when 
a truck jolted there was a clank-clank of metal: all the pris- 
oners were wearing leg-irons. Truck-load after truck-load of 
the sad faces passed. Winston knew they were there but he 
saw them only intermittently. The girl's shoulder, and her 
arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her 
cheek was almost near enough for him to feel its warmth. 
She had immediately taken charge of the situation, just as 
she had done in the canteen. She began speaking in the 
same expressionless voice as before, with lips barely mov- 
ing, a mere murmur easily drowned by the din of voices and 
the rumbling of the trucks. 

'Can you hear me?' 

'Yes.' 

'Can you get Sunday afternoon off?' 

'Yes.' 

'Then listen carefully. You'll have to remember this. Go 
to Paddington Station ' 

With a sort of military precision that astonished him, she 
outlined the route that he was to follow. A half-hour railway 
journey; turn left outside the station; two kilometres along 
the road; a gate with the top bar missing; a path across a 
field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes; a dead 
tree with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside 
her head. 'Can you remember all that?' she murmured fi- 
nally 

'Yes.' 



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'You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate's 
got no top bar.' 

'Yes. What time?' 

'About fifteen. You may have to wait. I'll get there by an- 
other way. Are you sure you remember everything?' 

'Yes.' 

"Then get away from me as quick as you can.' 

She need not have told him that. But for the moment 
they could not extricate themselves from the crowd. The 
trucks were still filing past, the people still insatiably gap- 
ing. At the start there had been a few boos and hisses, but 
it came only from the Party members among the crowd, 
and had soon stopped. The prevailing emotion was simply 
curiosity. Foreigners, whether from Eurasia or from Easta- 
sia, were a kind of strange animal. One literally never saw 
them except in the guise of prisoners, and even as prison- 
ers one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them. 
Nor did one know what became of them, apart from the 
few who were hanged as war- criminals: the others simply 
vanished, presumably into forced-labour camps. The round 
Mogol faces had given way to faces of a more European type, 
dirty, bearded and exhausted. From over scrubby cheek- 
bones eyes looked into Winston's, sometimes with strange 
intensity, and flashed away again. The convoy was drawing 
to an end. In the last truck he could see an aged man, his 
face a mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wrists 
crossed in front of him, as though he were used to having 
them bound together. It was almost time for Winston and 
the girl to part. But at the last moment, while the crowd still 

146 1984 



hemmed them in, her hand felt for his and gave it a fleeting 
squeeze. 

It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a 
long time that their hands were clasped together. He had 
time to learn every detail of her hand. He explored the long 
fingers, the shapely nails, the work-hardened palm with its 
row of callouses, the smooth flesh under the wrist. Merely 
from feeling it he would have known it by sight. In the same 
instant it occurred to him that he did not know what colour 
the girl's eyes were. They were probably brown, but people 
with dark hair sometimes had blue eyes. To turn his head 
and look at her would have been inconceivable folly. With 
hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies, 
they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes 
of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully 
at Winston out of nests of hair. 



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Chapter 2 



Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled 
light and shade, stepping out into pools of gold wher- 
ever the boughs parted. Under the trees to the left of him 
the ground was misty with bluebells. The air seemed to kiss 
one's skin. It was the second of May. From somewhere deep- 
er in the heart of the wood came the droning of ring doves. 
He was a bit early. There had been no difficulties about 
the journey, and the girl was so evidently experienced that 
he was less frightened than he would normally have been. 
Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe place. In 
general you could not assume that you were much safer in 
the country than in London. There were no telescreens, of 
course, but there was always the danger of concealed mi- 
crophones by which your voice might be picked up and 
recognized; besides, it was not easy to make a journey by 
yourself without attracting attention. For distances of less 
than 100 kilometres it was not necessary to get your pass- 
port endorsed, but sometimes there were patrols hanging 
about the railway stations, who examined the papers of any 
Party member they found there and asked awkward ques- 
tions. However, no patrols had appeared, and on the walk 
from the station he had made sure by cautious backward 
glances that he was not being followed. The train was full 
of proles, in holiday mood because of the summery weather. 

148 1984 



The wooden-seated carriage in which he travelled was filled 
to overflowing by a single enormous family, ranging from 
a toothless great-grandmother to a month-old baby, going 
out to spend an afternoon with 'in-laws' in the country, and, 
as they freely explained to Winston, to get hold of a little 
blackmarket butter. 

The lane widened, and in a minute he came to the foot- 
path she had told him of, a mere cattle-track which plunged 
between the bushes. He had no watch, but it could not be 
fifteen yet. The bluebells were so thick underfoot that it was 
impossible not to tread on them. He knelt down and began 
picking some partly to pass the time away, but also from 
a vague idea that he would like to have a bunch of flowers 
to offer to the girl when they met. He had got together a 
big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly scent when a 
sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a 
foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best 
thing to do. It might be the girl, or he might have been fol- 
lowed after all. To look round was to show guilt. He picked 
another and another. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder. 

He looked up. It was the girl. She shook her head, evi- 
dently as a warning that he must keep silent, then parted 
the bushes and quickly led the way along the narrow track 
into the wood. Obviously she had been that way before, for 
she dodged the boggy bits as though by habit. Winston fol- 
lowed, still clasping his bunch of flowers. His first feeling 
was relief, but as he watched the strong slender body mov- 
ing in front of him, with the scarlet sash that was just tight 
enough to bring out the curve of her hips, the sense of his 



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own inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it seemed 
quite likely that when she turned round and looked at him 
she would draw back after all. The sweetness of the air and 
the greenness of the leaves daunted him. Already on the 
walk from the station the May sunshine had made him feel 
dirty and etiolated, a creature of indoors, with the sooty 
dust of London in the pores of his skin. It occurred to him 
that till now she had probably never seen him in broad day- 
light in the open. They came to the fallen tree that she had 
spoken of. The girl hopped over and forced apart the bush- 
es, in which there did not seem to be an opening. When 
Winston followed her, he found that they were in a natural 
clearing, a tiny grassy knoll surrounded by tall saplings that 
shut it in completely. The girl stopped and turned. 

'Here we are,' she said. 

He was facing her at several paces' distance. As yet he did 
not dare move nearer to her. 

T didn't want to say anything in the lane,' she went on, 
'in case there's a mike hidden there. I don't suppose there is, 
but there could be. There's always the chance of one of those 
swine recognizing your voice. We're all right here.' 

He still had not the courage to approach her. 'We're all 
right here?' he repeated stupidly. 

'Yes. Look at the trees.' They were small ashes, which at 
some time had been cut down and had sprouted up again 
into a forest of poles, none of them thicker than one's wrist. 
'There's nothing big enough to hide a mike in. Besides, I've 
been here before.' 

They were only making conversation. He had managed 



1984 



to move closer to her now. She stood before him very up- 
right, with a smile on her face that looked faintly ironical, as 
though she were wondering why he was so slow to act. The 
bluebells had cascaded on to the ground. They seemed to 
have fallen of their own accord. He took her hand. 

'Would you believe,' he said, 'that till this moment I 
didn't know what colour your eyes were?' They were brown, 
he noted, a rather light shade of brown, with dark lashes. 
'Now that you've seen what I'm really like, can you still bear 
to look at me?' 

'Yes, easily' 

'I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get 
rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth.' 

T couldn't care less,' said the girl. 

The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was 
in his his arms. At the beginning he had no feeling except 
sheer incredulity. The youthful body was strained against 
his own, the mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes! 
actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing the 
wide red mouth. She had clasped her arms about his neck, 
she was calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He 
had pulled her down on to the ground, she was utterly un- 
resisting, he could do what he liked with her. But the truth 
was that he had no physical sensation, except that of mere 
contact. All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad 
that this was happening, but he had no physical desire. It 
was too soon, her youth and prettiness had frightened him, 
he was too much used to living without women — he did 
not know the reason. The girl picked herself up and pulled 

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a bluebell out of her hair. She sat against him, putting her 
arm round his waist. 

'Never mind, dear. There's no hurry. We've got the whole 
afternoon. Isn't this a splendid hide-out? I found it when I 
got lost once on a community hike. If anyone was coming 
you could hear them a hundred metres away' 

'What is your name?' said Winston. 

'Julia. I know yours. It's Winston — Winston Smith.' 

'How did you find that out?' 

'I expect I'm better at finding things out than you are, 
dear. Tell me, what did you think of me before that day I 
gave you the note?' 

He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was 
even a sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst. 

'I hated the sight of you,' he said. 'I wanted to rape you 
and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought 
seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone. If 
you really want to know, I imagined that you had some- 
thing to do with the Thought Police.' 

The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a 
tribute to the excellence of her disguise. 

'Not the Thought Police! You didn't honestly think that?' 

'Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general 
appearance — merely because you're young and fresh and 
healthy, you understand — I thought that probably ' 

'You thought I was a good Party member. Pure in word 
and deed. Banners, processions, slogans, games, commu- 
nity hikes all that stuff. And you thought that if I had a 
quarter of a chance I'd denounce you as a thought- criminal 



1984 



and get you killed off?' 

'Yes, something of that kind. A great many young girls 
are like that, you know.' 

'It's this bloody thing that does it,' she said, ripping off 
the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging 
it on to a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had 
reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her 
overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke 
it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even be- 
fore he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very 
unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped 
in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crum- 
bly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like 
the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he 
had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The 
first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which 
he could not pin down, but which was powerful and trou- 
bling. 

'Where did you get this stuff?' he said. 

'Black market,' she said indifferently. Actually I am that 
sort of girl, to look at. I'm good at games. I was a troop -lead- 
er in the Spies. I do voluntary work three evenings a week 
for the Junior Anti-Sex League. Hours and hours I've spent 
pasting their bloody rot all over London. I always carry one 
end of a banner in the processions. I always look cheer- 
ful and I never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd, 
that's what I say. It's the only way to be safe.' 

The first fragment of chocolate had melted on Win- 
ston's tongue. The taste was delightful. But there was still 



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that memory moving round the edges of his consciousness, 
something strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape, 
like an object seen out of the corner of one's eye. He pushed 
it away from him, aware only that it was the memory of 
some action which he would have liked to undo but could 
not. 

'You are very young,' he said. 'You are ten or fifteen years 
younger than I am. What could you see to attract you in a 
man like me?' 

'It was something in your face. I thought I'd take a chance. 
I'm good at spotting people who don't belong. As soon as I 
saw you I knew you were against THEM.' 

THEM, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the 
Inner Party, about whom she talked with an open jeering 
hatred which made Winston feel uneasy, although he knew 
that they were safe here if they could be safe anywhere. A 
thing that astonished him about her was the coarseness of 
her language. Party members were supposed not to swear, 
and Winston himself very seldom did swear, aloud, at any 
rate. Julia, however, seemed unable to mention the Party, 
and especially the Inner Party, without using the kind of 
words that you saw chalked up in dripping alley-ways. He 
did not dislike it. It was merely one symptom of her revolt 
against the Party and all its ways, and somehow it seemed 
natural and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse that smells 
bad hay. They had left the clearing and were wandering 
again through the chequered shade, with their arms round 
each other's waists whenever it was wide enough to walk 
two abreast. He noticed how much softer her waist seemed 



1984 



to feel now that the sash was gone. They did not speak above 
a whisper. Outside the clearing, Julia said, it was better to 
go quietly. Presently they had reached the edge of the little 
wood. She stopped him. 

'Don't go out into the open. There might be someone 
watching. We're all right if we keep behind the boughs.' 

They were standing in the shade of hazel bushes. The 
sunlight, filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot 
on their faces. Winston looked out into the field beyond, 
and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He 
knew it by sight. An old, closebitten pasture, with a foot- 
path wandering across it and a molehill here and there. In 
the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm 
trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves 
stirred faintly in dense masses like women's hair. Surely 
somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be a stream 
with green pools where dace were swimming? 

'Isn't there a stream somewhere near here?' he whis- 
pered. 

"That's right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the next 
field, actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can 
watch them lying in the pools under the willow trees, wav- 
ing their tails.' 

'It's the Golden Country — almost,' he murmured. 

'The Golden Country?' 

'It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in 
a dream.' 

'Look!' whispered Julia. 

A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, 



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almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen 
them. It was in the sun, they in the shade. It spread out its 
wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its 
head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to 
the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In 
the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Win- 
ston and Julia clung together, fascinated. The music went on 
and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, 
never once repeating itself, almost as though the bird were 
deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped 
for a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then 
swelled its speckled breast and again burst into song. Win- 
ston watched it with a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for 
what, was that bird singing? No mate, no rival was watch- 
ing it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and 
pour its music into nothingness? He wondered whether af- 
ter all there was a microphone hidden somewhere near. He 
and Julia had spoken only in low whispers, and it would not 
pick up what they had said, but it would pick up the thrush. 
Perhaps at the other end of the instrument some small, bee- 
tle-like man was listening intently — listening to that. But 
by degrees the flood of music drove all speculations out of 
his mind. It was as though it were a kind of liquid stuff that 
poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight 
that filtered through the leaves. He stopped thinking and 
merely felt. The girl's waist in the bend of his arm was soft 
and warm. He pulled her round so that they were breast 
to breast; her body seemed to melt into his. Wherever his 
hands moved it was all as yielding as water. Their mouths 

156 1984 



clung together; it was quite different from the hard kisses 
they had exchanged earlier. When they moved their faces 
apart again both of them sighed deeply. The bird took fright 
and fled with a clatter of wings. 

Winston put his lips against her ear. 'NOW,' he whis- 
pered. 

'Not here,' she whispered back. 'Come back to the hide- 
out. It's safer.' 

Quickly, with an occasional crackle of twigs, they 
threaded their way back to the clearing. When they were 
once inside the ring of saplings she turned and faced him. 
They were both breathing fast, but the smile had reappeared 
round the corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him 
for an instant, then felt at the zipper of her overalls. And, 
yes! it was almost as in his dream. Almost as swiftly as he 
had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she 
flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture 
by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated. Her 
body gleamed white in the sun. But for a moment he did 
not look at her body; his eyes were anchored by the freckled 
face with its faint, bold smile. He knelt down before her and 
took her hands in his. 

'Have you done this before?' 

'Of course. Hundreds of times — well, scores of times, 
anyway' 

'With Party members?' 

'Yes, always with Party members.' 

'With members of the Inner Party?' 

'Not with those swine, no. But there's plenty that WOULD 



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if they got half a chance. They're not so holy as they make 
out.' 

His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished 
it had been hundreds — thousands. Anything that hinted at 
corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew, 
perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of 
strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing in- 
iquity. If he could have infected the whole lot of them with 
leprosy or syphilis, how gladly he would have done so! Any- 
thing to rot, to weaken, to undermine! He pulled her down 
so that they were kneeling face to face. 

'Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. 
Do you understand that?' 

'Yes, perfectly' 

'I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue 
to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the 
bones.' 

'Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the 
bones.' 

'You like doing this? I don't mean simply me: I mean the 
thing in itself?' 

'I adore it.' 

That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely 
the love of one person but the animal instinct, the simple 
undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear 
the Party to pieces. He pressed her down upon the grass, 
among the fallen bluebells. This time there was no difficul- 
ty Presently the rising and falling of their breasts slowed 
to normal speed, and in a sort of pleasant helplessness they 



1984 



fell apart. The sun seemed to have grown hotter. They were 
both sleepy. He reached out for the discarded overalls and 
pulled them partly over her. Almost immediately they fell 
asleep and slept for about half an hour. 

Winston woke first. He sat up and watched the freck- 
led face, still peacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her 
hand. Except for her mouth, you could not call her beauti- 
ful. There was a line or two round the eyes, if you looked 
closely. The short dark hair was extraordinarily thick and 
soft. It occurred to him that he still did not know her sur- 
name or where she lived. 

The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in 
him a pitying, protecting feeling. But the mindless tender- 
ness that he had felt under the hazel tree, while the thrush 
was singing, had not quite come back. He pulled the over- 
alls aside and studied her smooth white flank. In the old 
days, he thought, a man looked at a girl's body and saw that 
it was desirable, and that was the end of the story. But you 
could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emo- 
tion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear 
and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a 
victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a po- 
litical act. 



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Chapter 3 



^ We can come here once again,' said Julia. 'It's generally safe 
to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or 
two, of course.' 

As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She 
became alert and business-like, put her clothes on, knot- 
ted the scarlet sash about her waist, and began arranging 
the details of the journey home. It seemed natural to leave 
this to her. She obviously had a practical cunning which 
Winston lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaus- 
tive knowledge of the countryside round London, stored 
away from innumerable community hikes. The route she 
gave him was quite different from the one by which he had 
come, and brought him out at a different railway station. 
'Never go home the same way as you went out,' she said, as 
though enunciating an important general principle. She 
would leave first, and Winston was to wait half an hour be- 
fore following her. 

She had named a place where they could meet after work, 
four evenings hence. It was a street in one of the poorer 
quarters, where there was an open market which was gener- 
ally crowded and noisy. She would be hanging about among 
the stalls, pretending to be in search of shoelaces or sewing- 
thread. If she judged that the coast was clear she would blow 
her nose when he approached; otherwise he was to walk 



1984 



past her without recognition. But with luck, in the middle 
of the crowd, it would be safe to talk for a quarter of an hour 
and arrange another meeting. 

'And now I must go,' she said as soon as he had mastered 
his instructions. 'I'm due back at nineteen-thirty. I've got to 
put in two hours for the Junior Anti-Sex League, handing 
out leaflets, or something. Isn't it bloody? Give me a brush- 
down, would you? Have I got any twigs in my hair? Are you 
sure? Then good-bye, my love, good-bye!' 

She flung herself into his arms, kissed him almost vi- 
olently, and a moment later pushed her way through the 
saplings and disappeared into the wood with very little 
noise. Even now he had not found out her surname or her 
address. However, it made no difference, for it was incon- 
ceivable that they could ever meet indoors or exchange any 
kind of written communication. 

As it happened, they never went back to the clearing in 
the wood. During the month of May there was only one 
further occasion on which they actually succeeded in mak- 
ing love. That was in another hiding-place known to Julia, 
the belfry of a ruinous church in an almost- deserted stretch 
of country where an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years 
earlier. It was a good hiding-place when once you got there, 
but the getting there was very dangerous. For the rest they 
could meet only in the streets, in a different place every eve- 
ning and never for more than half an hour at a time. In the 
street it was usually possible to talk, after a fashion. As they 
drifted down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast 
and never looking at one another, they carried on a curi- 



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ous, intermittent conversation which flicked on and off like 
the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence by 
the approach of a Party uniform or the proximity of a tele- 
screen, then taken up again minutes later in the middle of 
a sentence, then abruptly cut short as they parted at the 
agreed spot, then continued almost without introduction 
on the following day Julia appeared to be quite used to this 
kind of conversation, which she called 'talking by instal- 
ments'. She was also surprisingly adept at speaking without 
moving her lips. Just once in almost a month of nightly 
meetings they managed to exchange a kiss. They were pass- 
ing in silence down a side-street (Julia would never speak 
when they were away from the main streets) when there was 
a deafening roar, the earth heaved, and the air darkened, 
and Winston found himself lying on his side, bruised and 
terrified. A rocket bomb must have dropped quite near at 
hand. Suddenly he became aware of Julia's face a few centi- 
metres from his own, deathly white, as white as chalk. Even 
her lips were white. She was dead! He clasped her against 
him and found that he was kissing a live warm face. But 
there was some powdery stuff that got in the way of his lips. 
Both of their faces were thickly coated with plaster. 

There were evenings when they reached their rendezvous 
and then had to walk past one another without a sign, be- 
cause a patrol had just come round the corner or a helicopter 
was hovering overhead. Even if it had been less dangerous, 
it would still have been difficult to find time to meet. Win- 
ston's working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, 
and their free days varied according to the pressure of work 



1984 



and did not often coincide. Julia, in any case, seldom had an 
evening completely free. She spent an astonishing amount 
of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distrib- 
uting literature for the junior Anti-Sex League, preparing 
banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings 
campaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said, it was 
camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break the 
big ones. She even induced Winston to mortgage yet an- 
other of his evenings by enrolling himself for the part-time 
munition work which was done voluntarily by zealous Par- 
ty members. So, one evening every week, Winston spent 
four hours of paralysing boredom, screwing together small 
bits of metal which were probably parts of bomb fuses, in a 
draughty, ill-lit workshop where the knocking of hammers 
mingled drearily with the music of the telescreens. 

When they met in the church tower the gaps in their 
fragmentary conversation were filled up. It was a blazing af- 
ternoon. The air in the little square chamber above the bells 
was hot and stagnant, and smelt overpoweringly of pigeon 
dung. They sat talking for hours on the dusty, twig-littered 
floor, one or other of them getting up from time to time to 
cast a glance through the arrowslits and make sure that no 
one was coming. 

Julia was twenty- six years old. She lived in a hostel with 
thirty other girls ('Always in the stink of women! How I 
hate women!' she said parenthetically), and she worked, as 
he had guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fic- 
tion Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted 
chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky elec- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 163 



trie motor. She was 'not clever', but was fond of using her 
hands and felt at home with machinery. She could describe 
the whole process of composing a novel, from the general 
directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the 
final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not in- 
terested in the finished product. She 'didn't much care for 
reading,' she said. Books were just a commodity that had to 
be produced, like jam or bootlaces. 

She had no memories of anything before the early six- 
ties and the only person she had ever known who talked 
frequently of the days before the Revolution was a grand- 
father who had disappeared when she was eight. At school 
she had been captain of the hockey team and had won the 
gymnastics trophy two years running. She had been a troop- 
leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in the Youth 
League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League. She had 
always borne an excellent character. She had even (an infal- 
lible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in 
Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which 
turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the 
proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who 
worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a 
year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with ti- 
tles like 'Spanking Stories' or 'One Night in a Girls' School', 
to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were un- 
der the impression that they were buying something illegal. 

'What are these books like?' said Winston curiously. 

'Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only 
have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course 

164 1984 



I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite 
Squad. I'm not literary, dear — not even enough for that.' 

He learned with astonishment that all the workers in 
Pornosec, except the heads of the departments, were girls. 
The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less con- 
trollable than those of women, were in greater danger of 
being corrupted by the filth they handled. 

"They don't even like having married women there,' she 
added. Girls are always supposed to be so pure. Here's one 
who isn't, anyway. 

She had had her first love-affair when she was sixteen, 
with a Party member of sixty who later committed suicide 
to avoid arrest. 'And a good job too,' said Julia, 'otherwise 
they'd have had my name out of him when he confessed.' 
Since then there had been various others. Life as she saw it 
was quite simple. You wanted a good time; 'they', meaning 
the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules 
as best you could. She seemed to think it just as natural that 
'they' should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you 
should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party, and 
said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criti- 
cism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she 
had no interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never 
used Newspeak words except the ones that had passed into 
everyday use. She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and 
refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of organized 
revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, 
struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules 
and stay alive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 165 



others like her there might be in the younger generation 
people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution, 
knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something 
unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority 
but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog. 

They did not discuss the possibility of getting married. 
It was too remote to be worth thinking about. No imagin- 
able committee would ever sanction such a marriage even 
if Katharine, Winston's wife, could somehow have been got 
rid of. It was hopeless even as a daydream. 

'What was she like, your wife?' said Julia. 

'She was — do you know the Newspeak word GOOD- 
THINKFUL? Meaning naturally orthodox, incapable of 
thinking a bad thought?' 

'No, I didn't know the word, but I know the kind of per- 
son, right enough.' 

He began telling her the story of his married life, but cu- 
riously enough she appeared to know the essential parts of 
it already. She described to him, almost as though she had 
seen or felt it, the stiffening of Katharine's body as soon 
as he touched her, the way in which she still seemed to be 
pushing him from her with all her strength, even when her 
arms were clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no 
difficulty in talking about such things: Katharine, in any 
case, had long ceased to be a painful memory and became 
merely a distasteful one. 

'I could have stood it if it hadn't been for one thing,' he 
said. He told her about the frigid little ceremony that Kath- 
arine had forced him to go through on the same night every 



1984 



week. 'She hated it, but nothing would make her stop doing 
it. She used to call it — but you'll never guess.' 

'Our duty to the Party' said Julia promptly. 

'How did you know that?' 

'I've been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for 
the over-sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it 
into you for years. I dare say it works in a lot of cases. But of 
course you can never tell; people are such hypocrites.' 

She began to enlarge upon the subject. With Julia, every- 
thing came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was 
touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness. 
Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the 
Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex 
instinct created a world of its own which was outside the 
Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if 
possible. What was more important was that sexual priva- 
tion induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could 
be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way 
she put it was: 

'When you make love you're using up energy; and after- 
wards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. 
They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be 
bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and 
down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. 
If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited 
about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two 
Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?' 

That was very true, he thought. There was a direct inti- 
mate connexion between chastity and political orthodoxy. 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 167 



For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity 
which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right 
pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and 
using it as a driving force? The sex impulse was dangerous to 
the Party, and the Party had turned it to account. They had 
played a similar trick with the instinct of parenthood. The 
family could not actually be abolished, and, indeed, people 
were encouraged to be fond of their children, in almost the 
old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were 
systematically turned against their parents and taught to 
spy on them and report their deviations. The family had 
become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was 
a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded 
night and day by informers who knew him intimately. 

Abruptly his mind went back to Katharine. Katharine 
would unquestionably have denounced him to the Thought 
Police if she had not happened to be too stupid to detect the 
unorthodoxy of his opinions. But what really recalled her 
to him at this moment was the stifling heat of the afternoon, 
which had brought the sweat out on his forehead. He began 
telling Julia of something that had happened, or rather had 
failed to happen, on another sweltering summer afternoon, 
eleven years ago. 

It was three or four months after they were married. They 
had lost their way on a community hike somewhere in Kent. 
They had only lagged behind the others for a couple of min- 
utes, but they took a wrong turning, and presently found 
themselves pulled up short by the edge of an old chalk 
quarry. It was a sheer drop of ten or twenty metres, with 



1984 



boulders at the bottom. There was nobody of whom they 
could ask the way As soon as she realized that they were 
lost Katharine became very uneasy To be away from the 
noisy mob of hikers even for a moment gave her a feeling of 
wrong-doing. She wanted to hurry back by the way they had 
come and start searching in the other direction. But at this 
moment Winston noticed some tufts of loosestrife growing 
in the cracks of the cliff beneath them. One tuft was of two 
colours, magenta and brick-red, apparently growing on the 
same root. He had never seen anything of the kind before, 
and he called to Katharine to come and look at it. 

'Look, Katharine! Look at those flowers. That clump 
down near the bottom. Do you see they're two different co- 
lours?' 

She had already turned to go, but she did rather fretfully 
come back for a moment. She even leaned out over the cliff 
face to see where he was pointing. He was standing a little 
behind her, and he put his hand on her waist to steady her. 
At this moment it suddenly occurred to him how completely 
alone they were. There was not a human creature anywhere, 
not a leaf stirring, not even a bird awake. In a place like 
this the danger that there would be a hidden microphone 
was very small, and even if there was a microphone it would 
only pick up sounds. It was the hottest sleepiest hour of the 
afternoon. The sun blazed down upon them, the sweat tick- 
led his face. And the thought struck him... 

'Why didn't you give her a good shove?' said Julia. 'I 
would have.' 

'Yes, dear, you would have. I would, if I'd been the same 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 169 



person then as I am now. Or perhaps I would — I'm not cer- 
tain.' 

'Are you sorry you didn't?' 

'Yes. On the whole I'm sorry I didn't.' 

They were sitting side by side on the dusty floor. He 
pulled her closer against him. Her head rested on his shoul- 
der, the pleasant smell of her hair conquering the pigeon 
dung. She was very young, he thought, she still expected 
something from life, she did not understand that to push an 
inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing. 

'Actually it would have made no difference,' he said. 

"Then why are you sorry you didn't do it?' 

'Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this 
game that we're playing, we can't win. Some kinds of failure 
are better than other kinds, that's all.' 

He felt her shoulders give a wriggle of dissent. She al- 
ways contradicted him when he said anything of this kind. 
She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individ- 
ual is always defeated. In a way she realized that she herself 
was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would 
catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind 
she believed that it was somehow possible to construct a se- 
cret world in which you could live as you chose. All you 
needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not un- 
derstand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the 
only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, 
that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was 
better to think of yourself as a corpse. 

'We are the dead,' he said. 



1984 



'We're not dead yet,' said Julia prosaically. 

'Not physically Six months, a year — five years, conceiv- 
ably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably 
you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it 
off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So 
long as human beings stay human, death and life are the 
same thing.' 

'Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or 
a skeleton? Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feel- 
ing: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm 
solid, I'm alive! Don't you like THIS?' 

She twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against 
him. He could feel her breasts, ripe yet firm, through her 
overalls. Her body seemed to be pouring some of its youth 
and vigour into his. 

'Yes, I like that,' he said. 

"Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear, 
we've got to fix up about the next time we meet. We may as 
well go back to the place in the wood. We've given it a good 
long rest. But you must get there by a different way this time. 
I've got it all planned out. You take the train — but look, I'll 
draw it out for you.' 

And in her practical way she scraped together a small 
square of dust, and with a twig from a pigeon's nest began 
drawing a map on the floor. 



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Chapter 4 



Winston looked round the shabby little room above Mr 
Charrington's shop. Beside the window the enormous 
bed was made up, with ragged blankets and a coverless bol- 
ster. The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was 
ticking away on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gate- 
leg table, the glass paperweight which he had bought on his 
last visit gleamed softly out of the half-darkness. 

In the fender was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan, and 
two cups, provided by Mr Charrington. Winston lit the 
burner and set a pan of water to boil. He had brought an 
envelope full of Victory Coffee and some saccharine tablets. 
The clock's hands said seventeen-twenty: it was nineteen- 
twenty really. She was coming at nineteen-thirty 

Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous, 
suicidal folly. Of all the crimes that a Party member could 
commit, this one was the least possible to conceal. Actu- 
ally the idea had first floated into his head in the form of a 
vision, of the glass paperweight mirrored by the surface of 
the gateleg table. As he had foreseen, Mr Charrington had 
made no difficulty about letting the room. He was obviously 
glad of the few dollars that it would bring him. Nor did he 
seem shocked or become offensively knowing when it was 
made clear that Winston wanted the room for the purpose 
of a love-affair. Instead he looked into the middle distance 



1984 



and spoke in generalities, with so delicate an air as to give 
the impression that he had become partly invisible. Privacy, 
he said, was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place 
where they could be alone occasionally. And when they had 
such a place, it was only common courtesy in anyone else 
who knew of it to keep his knowledge to himself. He even, 
seeming almost to fade out of existence as he did so, add- 
ed that there were two entries to the house, one of them 
through the back yard, which gave on an alley. 

Under the window somebody was singing. Winston 
peeped out, secure in the protection of the muslin curtain. 
The June sun was still high in the sky, and in the sun-filled 
court below, a monstrous woman, solid as a Norman pil- 
lar, with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped 
about her middle, was stumping to and fro between a wash- 
tub and a clothes line, pegging out a series of square white 
things which Winston recognized as babies' diapers. When- 
ever her mouth was not corked with clothes pegs she was 
singing in a powerful contralto: 

It was only an 'opeless fancy. 

It passed like an Ipril dye, 

But a look an a word an the dreams they stirred! 

They 'ave 

stolen my 'eart awye! 

The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It 
was one of countless similar songs published for the ben- 
efit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 173 



The words of these songs were composed without any hu- 
man intervention whatever on an instrument known as a 
versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the 
dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound. He could 
hear the woman singing and the scrape of her shoes on the 
flagstones, and the cries of the children in the street, and 
somewhere in the far distance a faint roar of traffic, and yet 
the room seemed curiously silent, thanks to the absence of 
a telescreen. 

Folly, folly, folly! he thought again. It was inconceiv- 
able that they could frequent this place for more than a few 
weeks without being caught. But the temptation of having a 
hiding-place that was truly their own, indoors and near at 
hand, had been too much for both of them. For some time 
after their visit to the church belfry it had been impossible 
to arrange meetings. Working hours had been drastically 
increased in anticipation of Hate Week. It was more than 
a month distant, but the enormous, complex preparations 
that it entailed were throwing extra work on to everybody. 
Finally both of them managed to secure a free afternoon on 
the same day. They had agreed to go back to the clearing 
in the wood. On the evening beforehand they met briefly 
in the street. As usual, Winston hardly looked at Julia as 
they drifted towards one another in the crowd, but from 
the short glance he gave her it seemed to him that she was 
paler than usual. 

'It's all off,' she murmured as soon as she judged it safe to 
speak. 'Tomorrow, I mean.' 

'What?' 



1984 



'Tomorrow afternoon. I can't come.' 

'Why not?' 

'Oh, the usual reason. It's started early this time.' 

For a moment he was violently angry. During the month 
that he had known her the nature of his desire for her had 
changed. At the beginning there had been little true sensu- 
ality in it. Their first love-making had been simply an act 
of the will. But after the second time it was different. The 
smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her 
skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round 
him. She had become a physical necessity, something that 
he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to. When she 
said that she could not come, he had the feeling that she was 
cheating him. But just at this moment the crowd pressed 
them together and their hands accidentally met. She gave 
the tips of his fingers a quick squeeze that seemed to in- 
vite not desire but affection. It struck him that when one 
lived with a woman this particular disappointment must be 
a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as 
he had not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him. He 
wished that they were a married couple of ten years' stand- 
ing. He wished that he were walking through the streets 
with her just as they were doing now but openly and with- 
out fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends 
for the household. He wished above all that they had some 
place where they could be alone together without feeling 
the obligation to make love every time they met. It was not 
actually at that moment, but at some time on the following 
day, that the idea of renting Mr Charrington's room had oc- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 175 



curred to him. When he suggested it to Julia she had agreed 
with unexpected readiness. Both of them knew that it was 
lunacy. It was as though they were intentionally stepping 
nearer to their graves. As he sat waiting on the edge of the 
bed he thought again of the cellars of the Ministry of Love. 
It was curious how that predestined horror moved in and 
out of one's consciousness. There it lay, fixed in future times, 
preceding death as surely as 99 precedes 100. One could not 
avoid it, but one could perhaps postpone it: and yet instead, 
every now and again, by a conscious, wilful act, one chose 
to shorten the interval before it happened. 

At this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia 
burst into the room. She was carrying a tool-bag of coarse 
brown canvas, such as he had sometimes seen her carrying 
to and fro at the Ministry. He started forward to take her in 
his arms, but she disengaged herself rather hurriedly, partly 
because she was still holding the tool-bag. 

'Half a second,' she said. 'Just let me show you what I've 
brought. Did you bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee? 
I thought you would. You can chuck it away again, because 
we shan't be needing it. Look here.' 

She fell on her knees, threw open the bag, and tumbled 
out some spanners and a screwdriver that filled the top part 
of it. Underneath were a number of neat paper packets. The 
first packet that she passed to Winston had a strange and 
yet vaguely familiar feeling. It was filled with some kind of 
heavy, sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched 
it. 

'It isn't sugar?' he said. 

176 1984 



'Real sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here's a loaf of 
bread — proper white bread, not our bloody stuff— and a lit- 
tle pot of jam. And here's a tin of milk — but look! This is the 
one I'm really proud of. I had to wrap a bit of sacking round 
it, because ' 

But she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it 
up. The smell was already filling the room, a rich hot smell 
which seemed like an emanation from his early childhood, 
but which one did occasionally meet with even now, blow- 
ing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing 
itself mysteriously in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant 
and then lost again. 

'It's coffee,' he murmured, 'real coffee.' 

'It's Inner Party coffee. There's a whole kilo here,' she 
said. 

'How did you manage to get hold of all these things?' 

'It's all Inner Party stuff. There's nothing those swine 
don't have, nothing. But of course waiters and servants and 
people pinch things, and — look, I got a little packet of tea 
as well.' 

Winston had squatted down beside her. He tore open a 
corner of the packet. 

'It's real tea. Not blackberry leaves.' 

"There's been a lot of tea about lately. They've captured In- 
dia, or something,' she said vaguely. 'But listen, dear. I want 
you to turn your back on me for three minutes. Go and sit 
on the other side of the bed. Don't go too near the window. 
And don't turn round till I tell you.' 

Winston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain. 



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Down in the yard the red-armed woman was still marching 
to and fro between the washtub and the line. She took two 
more pegs out of her mouth and sang with deep feeling: 

They sye that time 'eals all things, 

They sye you can always forget; 

But the smiles an the tears acrorss the years 

They twist my 

'eart-strings yet! 

She knew the whole drivelling song by heart, it seemed. 
Her voice floated upward with the sweet summer air, very 
tuneful, charged with a sort of happy melancholy. One had 
the feeling that she would have been perfectly content, if the 
June evening had been endless and the supply of clothes in- 
exhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging 
out diapers and singing rubbish. It struck him as a curious 
fact that he had never heard a member of the Party singing 
alone and spontaneously. It would even have seemed slightly 
unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to one- 
self. Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near 
the starvation level that they had anything to sing about. 

'You can turn round now,' said Julia. 

He turned round, and for a second almost failed to rec- 
ognize her. What he had actually expected was to see her 
naked. But she was not naked. The transformation that had 
happened was much more surprising than that. She had 
painted her face. 

She must have slipped into some shop in the proletarian 

178 1984 



quarters and bought herself a complete set of make-up ma- 
terials. Her lips were deeply reddened, her cheeks rouged, 
her nose powdered; there was even a touch of something 
under the eyes to make them brighter. It was not very skil- 
fully done, but Winston's standards in such matters were 
not high. He had never before seen or imagined a woman of 
the Party with cosmetics on her face. The improvement in 
her appearance was startling. With just a few dabs of colour 
in the right places she had become not only very much pret- 
tier, but, above all, far more feminine. Her short hair and 
boyish overalls merely added to the effect. As he took her in 
his arms a wave of synthetic violets flooded his nostrils. He 
remembered the half- darkness of a basement kitchen, and a 
woman's cavernous mouth. It was the very same scent that 
she had used; but at the moment it did not seem to matter. 

'Scent too!' he said. 

'Yes, dear, scent too. And do you know what I'm going to 
do next? I'm going to get hold of a real woman's frock from 
somewhere and wear it instead of these bloody trousers. I'll 
wear silk stockings and high-heeled shoes! In this room I'm 
going to be a woman, not a Party comrade.' 

They flung their clothes off and climbed into the huge 
mahogany bed. It was the first time that he had stripped 
himself naked in her presence. Until now he had been too 
much ashamed of his pale and meagre body, with the vari- 
cose veins standing out on his calves and the discoloured 
patch over his ankle. There were no sheets, but the blanket 
they lay on was threadbare and smooth, and the size and 
springiness of the bed astonished both of them. 'It's sure 



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to be full of bugs, but who cares?' said Julia. One never saw 
a double bed nowadays, except in the homes of the proles. 
Winston had occasionally slept in one in his boyhood: Julia 
had never been in one before, so far as she could remember. 

Presently they fell asleep for a little while. When Win- 
ston woke up the hands of the clock had crept round to 
nearly nine. He did not stir, because Julia was sleeping with 
her head in the crook of his arm. Most of her make-up had 
transferred itself to his own face or the bolster, but a light 
stain of rouge still brought out the beauty of her cheekbone. 
A yellow ray from the sinking sun fell across the foot of the 
bed and lighted up the fireplace, where the water in the pan 
was boiling fast. Down in the yard the woman had stopped 
singing, but the faint shouts of children floated in from the 
street. He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past 
it had been a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in 
the cool of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no 
clothes on, making love when they chose, talking of what 
they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply ly- 
ing there and listening to peaceful sounds outside. Surely 
there could never have been a time when that seemed ordi- 
nary? Julia woke up, rubbed her eyes, and raised herself on 
her elbow to look at the oilstove. 

'Half that water's boiled away' she said. 'I'll get up and 
make some coffee in another moment. We've got an hour. 
What time do they cut the lights off at your flats?' 

'Twenty-three thirty' 

'It's twenty-three at the hostel. But you have to get in ear- 
lier than that, because— Hi! Get out, you filthy brute!' 



1984 



She suddenly twisted herself over in the bed, seized a 
shoe from the floor, and sent it hurtling into the corner with 
a boyish jerk of her arm, exactly as he had seen her fling the 
dictionary at Goldstein, that morning during the Two Min- 
utes Hate. 

'What was it?' he said in surprise. 

'A rat. I saw him stick his beastly nose out of the wain- 
scoting. There's a hole down there. I gave him a good fright, 
anyway' 

'Rats!' murmured Winston. 'In this room!' 

'They're all over the place,' said Julia indifferently as she 
lay down again. 'We've even got them in the kitchen at the 
hostel. Some parts of London are swarming with them. Did 
you know they attack children? Yes, they do. In some of 
these streets a woman daren't leave a baby alone for two 
minutes. It's the great huge brown ones that do it. And the 
nasty thing is that the brutes always ' 

'DON'T GO ON!' said Winston, with his eyes tightly 
shut. 

'Dearest! You've gone quite pale. What's the matter? Do 
they make you feel sick?' 

'Of all horrors in the world — a rat!' 

She pressed herself against him and wound her limbs 
round him, as though to reassure him with the warmth 
of her body. He did not reopen his eyes immediately. For 
several moments he had had the feeling of being back in a 
nightmare which had recurred from time to time through- 
out his life. It was always very much the same. He was 
standing in front of a wall of darkness, and on the other 



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side of it there was something unendurable, something too 
dreadful to be faced. In the dream his deepest feeling was 
always one of self-deception, because he did in fact know 
what was behind the wall of darkness. With a deadly effort, 
like wrenching a piece out of his own brain, he could even 
have dragged the thing into the open. He always woke up 
without discovering what it was: but somehow it was con- 
nected with what Julia had been saying when he cut her 
short. 

'I'm sorry' he said, 'it's nothing. I don't like rats, that's 
all' 

'Don't worry, dear, we're not going to have the filthy 
brutes in here. I'll stuff the hole with a bit of sacking before 
we go. And next time we come here I'll bring some plaster 
and bung it up properly' 

Already the black instant of panic was half-forgotten. 
Feeling slightly ashamed of himself, he sat up against the 
bedhead. Julia got out of bed, pulled on her overalls, and 
made the coffee. The smell that rose from the saucepan was 
so powerful and exciting that they shut the window lest 
anybody outside should notice it and become inquisitive. 
What was even better than the taste of the coffee was the 
silky texture given to it by the sugar, a thing Winston had 
almost forgotten after years of saccharine. With one hand 
in her pocket and a piece of bread and jam in the other, Ju- 
lia wandered about the room, glancing indifferently at the 
bookcase, pointing out the best way of repairing the gate- 
leg table, plumping herself down in the ragged arm-chair to 
see if it was comfortable, and examining the absurd twelve- 



1984 



hour clock with a sort of tolerant amusement. She brought 
the glass paperweight over to the bed to have a look at it in a 
better light. He took it out of her hand, fascinated, as always, 
by the soft, rainwatery appearance of the glass. 

'What is it, do you think?' said Julia. 

'I don't think it's anything — I mean, I don't think it was 
ever put to any use. That's what I like about it. It's a little 
chunk of history that they've forgotten to alter. It's a mes- 
sage from a hundred years ago, if one knew how to read it.' 

'And that picture over there' — she nodded at the engrav- 
ing on the opposite wall — 'would that be a hundred years 
old?' 

'More. Two hundred, I dare say. One can't tell. It's impos- 
sible to discover the age of anything nowadays.' 

She went over to look at it. 'Here's where that brute stuck 
his nose out,' she said, kicking the wainscoting immediate- 
ly below the picture. 'What is this place? I've seen it before 
somewhere.' 

'It's a church, or at least it used to be. St Clement Danes 
its name was.' The fragment of rhyme that Mr Charrington 
had taught him came back into his head, and he added 
half-nostalgically: 'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St 
Clement's!' 

To his astonishment she capped the line: 

'You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's, 
When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey ' 

'I can't remember how it goes on after that. But anyway 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 183 



I remember it ends up, 'Here comes a candle to light you to 
bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!" 

It was like the two halves of a countersign. But there 
must be another line after 'the bells of Old Bailey'. Perhaps 
it could be dug out of Mr Charrington's memory, if he were 
suitably prompted. 

'Who taught you that?' he said. 

'My grandfather. He used to say it to me when I was a lit- 
tle girl. He was vaporized when I was eight — at any rate, he 
disappeared. I wonder what a lemon was,' she added incon- 
sequently 'I've seen oranges. They're a kind of round yellow 
fruit with a thick skin.' 

T can remember lemons,' said Winston. "They were quite 
common in the fifties. They were so sour that it set your 
teeth on edge even to smell them.' 

T bet that picture's got bugs behind it,' said Julia. 'I'll 
take it down and give it a good clean some day. I suppose 
it's almost time we were leaving. I must start washing this 
paint off. What a bore! I'll get the lipstick off your face af- 
terwards.' 

Winston did not get up for a few minutes more. The 
room was darkening. He turned over towards the light and 
lay gazing into the glass paperweight. The inexhaustibly 
interesting thing was not the fragment of coral but the in- 
terior of the glass itself. There was such a depth of it, and 
yet it was almost as transparent as air. It was as though the 
surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky, enclosing 
a tiny world with its atmosphere complete. He had the feel- 
ing that he could get inside it, and that in fact he was inside 

184 1984 



it, along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table, and 
the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself. 
The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was 
Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart 
of the crystal. 



FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 185 



Chapter 5 



Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was miss- 
ing from work: a few thoughtless people commented on 
his absence. On the next day nobody mentioned him. On 
the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the Re- 
cords Department to look at the notice-board. One of the 
notices carried a printed list of the members of the Chess 
Committee, of whom Syme had been one. It looked almost 
exactly as it had looked before — nothing had been crossed 
out — but it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme had 
ceased to exist: he had never existed. 

The weather was baking hot. In the labyrinthine Ministry 
the windowless, air-conditioned rooms kept their normal 
temperature, but outside the pavements scorched one's feet 
and the stench of the Tubes at the rush hours was a hor- 
ror. The preparations for Hate Week were in full swing, and 
the staffs of all the Ministries were working overtime. Pro- 
cessions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxworks, 
displays, film shows, telescreen programmes all had to be 
organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans 
coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs 
faked. Julia's unit in the Fiction Department had been tak- 
en off the production of novels and was rushing out a series 
of atrocity pamphlets. Winston, in addition to his regular 
work, spent long periods every day in going through back 



1984 



files of 'The Times' and altering and embellishing news 
items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night, 
when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town 
had a curiously febrile air. The rocket bombs crashed of- 
tener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance there 
were enormous explosions which no one could explain and 
about which there were wild rumours. 

The new tune which was to be the theme-song of Hate 
Week (the Hate Song, it was called) had already been com- 
posed and was being endlessly plugged on the telescreens. 
It had a savage, barking rhythm which could not exactly be 
called music, but resembled the beating of a drum. Roared 
out by hundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet, it 
was terrifying. The proles had taken a fancy to it, and in the 
midnight streets it competed with the still-popular 'It was 
only a hopeless fancy'. The Parsons children played it at all 
hours of the night and day, unbearably, on a comb and a 
piece of toilet paper. Winston's evenings were fuller than 
ever. Squads of volunteers, organized by Parsons, were pre- 
paring the street for Hate Week, stitching banners, painting 
posters, erecting flagstaff's on the roofs, and perilously sling- 
ing wires across the street for the reception of streamers. 
Parsons boasted that Victory Mansions alone would display 
four hundred metres of bunting. He was in his native ele- 
ment and as happy as a lark. The heat and the manual work 
had even given him a pretext for reverting to shorts and 
an open shirt in the evenings. He was everywhere at once, 
pushing, pulling, sawing, hammering, improvising, jolly- 
ing everyone along with comradely exhortations and giving 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 187 



out from every fold of his body what seemed an inexhaust- 
ible supply of acrid-smelling sweat. 

A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It 
had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous fig- 
ure of a Eurasian soldier, three or four metres high, striding 
forward with expressionless Mongolian face and enor- 
mous boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. From 
whatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the 
gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be point- 
ed straight at you. The thing had been plastered on every 
blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the por- 
traits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about 
the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical fren- 
zies of patriotism. As though to harmonize with the general 
mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbers 
of people than usual. One fell on a crowded film theatre in 
Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins. 
The whole population of the neighbourhood turned out for 
a long, trailing funeral which went on for hours and was in 
effect an indignation meeting. Another bomb fell on a piece 
of waste ground which was used as a playground and sever- 
al dozen children were blown to pieces. There were further 
angry demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hun- 
dreds of copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were 
torn down and added to the flames, and a number of shops 
were looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round that 
spies were directing the rocket bombs by means of wireless 
waves, and an old couple who were suspected of being of 
foreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished 



1984 



of suffocation. 

In the room over Mr Charrington's shop, when they could 
get there, Julia and Winston lay side by side on a stripped 
bed under the open window, naked for the sake of coolness. 
The rat had never come back, but the bugs had multiplied 
hideously in the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or 
clean, the room was paradise. As soon as they arrived they 
would sprinkle everything with pepper bought on the black 
market, tear off their clothes, and make love with sweating 
bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that the bugs had 
rallied and were massing for the counter-attack. 

Four, five, six — seven times they met during the month 
of June. Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at 
all hours. He seemed to have lost the need for it. He had 
grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided, leaving only 
a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits of cough- 
ing in the early morning had stopped. The process of life 
had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse 
to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of 
his voice. Now that they had a secure hiding-place, almost a 
home, it did not even seem a hardship that they could only 
meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time. What 
mattered was that the room over the junk-shop should exist. 
To know that it was there, inviolate, was almost the same as 
being in it. The room was a world, a pocket of the past where 
extinct animals could walk. Mr Charrington, thought Win- 
ston, was another extinct animal. He usually stopped to talk 
with Mr Charrington for a few minutes on his way upstairs. 
The old man seemed seldom or never to go out of doors, 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 189 



and on the other hand to have almost no customers. He 
led a ghostlike existence between the tiny, dark shop, and 
an even tinier back kitchen where he prepared his meals 
and which contained, among other things, an unbelievably 
ancient gramophone with an enormous horn. He seemed 
glad of the opportunity to talk. Wandering about among 
his worthless stock, with his long nose and thick spectacles 
and his bowed shoulders in the velvet jacket, he had always 
vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman. 
With a sort of faded enthusiasm he would finger this scrap 
of rubbish or that — a china bottle-stopper, the painted lid of 
a broken snuffbox, a pinchbeck locket containing a strand 
of some long-dead baby's hair — never asking that Winston 
should buy it, merely that he should admire it. To talk to 
him was like listening to the tinkling of a worn-out musical- 
box. He had dragged out from the corners of his memory 
some more fragments of forgotten rhymes. There was one 
about four and twenty blackbirds, and another about a cow 
with a crumpled horn, and another about the death of poor 
Cock Robin. 'It just occurred to me you might be interested,' 
he would say with a deprecating little laugh whenever he 
produced a new fragment. But he could never recall more 
than a few lines of any one rhyme. 

Both of them knew — in a way, it was never out of their 
minds that what was now happening could not last long. 
There were times when the fact of impending death seemed 
as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling to- 
gether with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned 
soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock 



1984 



is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times 
when they had the illusion not only of safety but of per- 
manence. So long as they were actually in this room, they 
both felt, no harm could come to them. Getting there was 
difficult and dangerous, but the room itself was sanctuary. 
It was as when Winston had gazed into the heart of the pa- 
perweight, with the feeling that it would be possible to get 
inside that glassy world, and that once inside it time could 
be arrested. Often they gave themselves up to daydreams of 
escape. Their luck would hold indefinitely, and they would 
carry on their intrigue, just like this, for the remainder of 
their natural lives. Or Katharine would die, and by subtle 
manoeuvrings Winston and Julia would succeed in get- 
ting married. Or they would commit suicide together. Or 
they would disappear, alter themselves out of recognition, 
learn to speak with proletarian accents, get jobs in a factory 
and live out their lives undetected in a back-street. It was 
all nonsense, as they both knew. In reality there was no es- 
cape. Even the one plan that was practicable, suicide, they 
had no intention of carrying out. To hang on from day to 
day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had 
no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one's 
lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is 
air available. 

Sometimes, too, they talked of engaging in active rebel- 
lion against the Party, but with no notion of how to take 
the first step. Even if the fabulous Brotherhood was a real- 
ity, there still remained the difficulty of finding one's way 
into it. He told her of the strange intimacy that existed, or 



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seemed to exist, between himself and O'Brien, and of the 
impulse he sometimes felt, simply to walk into O'Brien's 
presence, announce that he was the enemy of the Party, and 
demand his help. Curiously enough, this did not strike her 
as an impossibly rash thing to do. She was used to judg- 
ing people by their faces, and it seemed natural to her that 
Winston should believe O'Brien to be trustworthy on the 
strength of a single flash of the eyes. Moreover she took it 
for granted that everyone, or nearly everyone, secretly hated 
the Party and would break the rules if he thought it safe to 
do so. But she refused to believe that widespread, organized 
opposition existed or could exist. The tales about Goldstein 
and his underground army, she said, were simply a lot of 
rubbish which the Party had invented for its own purposes 
and which you had to pretend to believe in. Times beyond 
number, at Party rallies and spontaneous demonstrations, 
she had shouted at the top of her voice for the execution of 
people whose names she had never heard and in whose sup- 
posed crimes she had not the faintest belief. When public 
trials were happening she had taken her place in the detach- 
ments from the Youth League who surrounded the courts 
from morning to night, chanting at intervals 'Death to the 
traitors!' During the Two Minutes Hate she always excelled 
all others in shouting insults at Goldstein. Yet she had only 
the dimmest idea of who Goldstein was and what doctrines 
he was supposed to represent. She had grown up since the 
Revolution and was too young to remember the ideological 
battles of the fifties and sixties. Such a thing as an indepen- 
dent political movement was outside her imagination: and 



1984 



in any case the Party was invincible. It would always ex- 
ist, and it would always be the same. You could only rebel 
against it by secret disobedience or, at most, by isolated acts 
of violence such as killing somebody or blowing something 
up. 

In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and 
far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he 
happened in some connexion to mention the war against 
Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opin- 
ion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell 
daily on London were probably fired by the Government 
of Oceania itself, 'just to keep people frightened'. This was 
an idea that had literally never occurred to him. She also 
stirred a sort of envy in him by telling him that during the 
Two Minutes Hate her great difficulty was to avoid bursting 
out laughing. But she only questioned the teachings of the 
Party when they in some way touched upon her own life. 
Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply 
because the difference between truth and falsehood did not 
seem important to her. She believed, for instance, having 
learnt it at school, that the Party had invented aeroplanes. 
(In his own schooldays, Winston remembered, in the late 
fifties, it was only the helicopter that the Party claimed to 
have invented; a dozen years later, when Julia was at school, 
it was already claiming the aeroplane; one generation more, 
and it would be claiming the steam engine.) And when he 
told her that aeroplanes had been in existence before he was 
born and long before the Revolution, the fact struck her as 
totally uninteresting. After all, what did it matter who had 



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invented aeroplanes? It was rather more of a shock to him 
when he discovered from some chance remark that she did 
not remember that Oceania, four years ago, had been at war 
with Eastasia and at peace with Eurasia. It was true that she 
regarded the whole war as a sham: but apparently she had 
not even noticed that the name of the enemy had changed. 
'I thought we'd always been at war with Eurasia,' she said 
vaguely. It frightened him a little. The invention of aero- 
planes dated from long before her birth, but the switchover 
in the war had happened only four years ago, well after she 
was grown up. He argued with her about it for perhaps a 
quarter of an hour. In the end he succeeded in forcing her 
memory back until she did dimly recall that at one time 
Eastasia and not Eurasia had been the enemy. But the issue 
still struck her as unimportant. 'Who cares?' she said im- 
patiently. 'It's always one bloody war after another, and one 
knows the news is all lies anyway' 

Sometimes he talked to her of the Records Department 
and the impudent forgeries that he committed there. Such 
things did not appear to horrify her. She did not feel the 
abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of lies becom- 
ing truths. He told her the story of Jones, Aaronson, and 
Rutherford and the momentous slip of paper which he had 
once held between his fingers. It did not make much im- 
pression on her. At first, indeed, she failed to grasp the point 
of the story. 

'Were they friends of yours?' she said. 

'No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members. 
Besides, they were far older men than I was. They belonged 



1984 



to the old days, before the Revolution. I barely knew them 
by sight.' 

"Then what was there to worry about? People are being 
killed off all the time, aren't they?' 

He tried to make her understand. "This was an excep- 
tional case. It wasn't just a question of somebody being 
killed. Do you realize that the past, starting from yester- 
day, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, 
it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, 
like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost lit- 
erally nothing about the Revolution and the years before 
the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsi- 
fied, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been 
repainted, every statue and street and building has been 
renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is 
continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has 
stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which 
the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is 
falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, 
even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is 
done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside 
my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any 
other human being shares my memories. Just in that one 
instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evi- 
dence after the event — years after it.' 

And what good was that?' 

'It was no good, because I threw it away a few minutes lat- 
er. But if the same thing happened today, I should keep it.' 

'Well, I wouldn't!' said Julia. 'I'm quite ready to take 



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risks, but only for something worth while, not for bits of 
old newspaper. What could you have done with it even if 
you had kept it?' 

'Not much, perhaps. But it was evidence. It might have 
planted a few doubts here and there, supposing that I'd 
dared to show it to anybody. I don't imagine that we can 
alter anything in our own lifetime. But one can imagine lit- 
tle knots of resistance springing up here and there — small 
groups of people banding themselves together, and gradu- 
ally growing, and even leaving a few records behind, so that 
the next generations can carry on where we leave off.' 

'I'm not interested in the next generation, dear. I'm inter- 
ested in US.' 

'You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,' he told 
her. 

She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms 
round him in delight. 

In the ramifications of party doctrine she had not the 
faintest interest. Whenever he began to talk of the princi- 
ples of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, and 
the denial of objective reality, and to use Newspeak words, 
she became bored and confused and said that she never paid 
any attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it was all 
rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it? She knew when 
to cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed. If he 
persisted in talking of such subjects, she had a disconcerting 
habit of falling asleep. She was one of those people who can 
go to sleep at any hour and in any position. Talking to her, 
he realized how easy it was to present an appearance of or- 

196 1984 



thodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy 
meant. In a way, the world- view of the Party imposed itself 
most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. 
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations 
of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity 
of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently 
interested in public events to notice what was happening. 
By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply 
swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them 
no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of 
corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. 



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Chapter 6 



It had happened at last. The expected message had come. 
All his life, it seemed to him, he had been waiting for this 
to happen. 

He was walking down the long corridor at the Minis- 
try and he was almost at the spot where Julia had slipped 
the note into his hand when he became aware that some- 
one larger than himself was walking just behind him. The 
person, whoever it was, gave a small cough, evidently as a 
prelude to speaking. Winston stopped abruptly and turned. 
It was O'Brien. 

At last they were face to face, and it seemed that his only 
impulse was to run away. His heart bounded violently. He 
would have been incapable of speaking. O'Brien, however, 
had continued forward in the same movement, laying a 
friendly hand for a moment on Winston's arm, so that the 
two of them were walking side by side. He began speak- 
ing with the peculiar grave courtesy that differentiated him 
from the majority of Inner Party members. 

'I had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to you,' 
he said. 'I was reading one of your Newspeak articles in 
'The Times' the other day. You take a scholarly interest in 
Newspeak, I believe?' 

Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. 
'Hardly scholarly' he said. 'I'm only an amateur. It's not my 



1984 



subject. I have never had anything to do with the actual 
construction of the language.' 

'But you write it very elegantly' said O'Brien. "That is not 
only my own opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of 
yours who is certainly an expert. His name has slipped my 
memory for the moment.' 

Again Winston's heart stirred painfully. It was incon- 
ceivable that this was anything other than a reference to 
Syme. But Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an 
unperson. Any identifiable reference to him would have 
been mortally dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously 
have been intended as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a 
small act of thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them 
into accomplices. They had continued to stroll slowly down 
the corridor, but now O'Brien halted. With the curious, dis- 
arming friendliness that he always managed to put in to the 
gesture he resettled his spectacles on his nose. Then he went 
on: 

'What I had really intended to say was that in your article 
I noticed you had used two words which have become obso- 
lete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you 
seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?' 

'No,' said Winston. 'I didn't think it had been issued yet. 
We are still using the ninth in the Records Department.' 

'The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, 
I believe. But a few advance copies have been circulated. 
I have one myself. It might interest you to look at it, per- 
haps?' 

'Very much so,' said Winston, immediately seeing where 



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this tended. 

'Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The 
reduction in the number of verbs — that is the point that will 
appeal to you, I think. Let me see, shall I send a messenger 
to you with the dictionary? But I am afraid I invariably for- 
get anything of that kind. Perhaps you could pick it up at 
my flat at some time that suited you? Wait. Let me give you 
my address.' 

They were standing in front of a telescreen. Somewhat 
absentmindedly O'Brien felt two of his pockets and then 
produced a small leather-covered notebook and a gold 
ink-pencil. Immediately beneath the telescreen, in such a 
position that anyone who was watching at the other end of 
the instrument could read what he was writing, he scribbled 
an address, tore out the page and handed it to Winston. 

'I am usually at home in the evenings,' he said. 'If not, my 
servant will give you the dictionary' 

He was gone, leaving Winston holding the scrap of paper, 
which this time there was no need to conceal. Nevertheless 
he carefully memorized what was written on it, and some 
hours later dropped it into the memory hole along with a 
mass of other papers. 

They had been talking to one another for a couple of 
minutes at the most. There was only one meaning that the 
episode could possibly have. It had been contrived as a way 
of letting Winston know O'Brien's address. This was neces- 
sary, because except by direct enquiry it was never possible 
to discover where anyone lived. There were no directories 
of any kind. 'If you ever want to see me, this is where I can 



1984 



be found,' was what O'Brien had been saying to him. Per- 
haps there would even be a message concealed somewhere 
in the dictionary. But at any rate, one thing was certain. The 
conspiracy that he had dreamed of did exist, and he had 
reached the outer edges of it. 

He knew that sooner or later he would obey O'Brien's 
summons. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps after a long de- 
lay — he was not certain. What was happening was only the 
working-out of a process that had started years ago. The 
first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the sec- 
ond had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from 
thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last 
step was something that would happen in the Ministry of 
Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the be- 
ginning. But it was frightening: or, more exactly, it was like 
a foretaste of death, like being a little less alive. Even while 
he was speaking to O'Brien, when the meaning of the words 
had sunk in, a chilly shuddering feeling had taken posses- 
sion of his body. He had the sensation of stepping into the 
dampness of a grave, and it was not much better because 
he had always known that the grave was there and waiting 
for him. 



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Chapter 7 



Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears. Ju- 
lia rolled sleepily against him, murmuring something 
that might have been 'What's the matter?' 

'I dreamt — ' he began, and stopped short. It was too com- 
plex to be put into words. There was the dream itself, and 
there was a memory connected with it that had swum into 
his mind in the few seconds after waking. 

He lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden in the atmo- 
sphere of the dream. It was a vast, luminous dream in which 
his whole life seemed to stretch out before him like a land- 
scape on a summer evening after rain. It had all occurred 
inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass 
was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything 
was flooded with clear soft light in which one could see into 
interminable distances. The dream had also been compre- 
hended by — indeed, in some sense it had consisted in — a 
gesture of the arm made by his mother, and made again 
thirty years later by the Jewish woman he had seen on the 
news film, trying to shelter the small boy from the bullets, 
before the helicopter blew them both to pieces. 

'Do you know,' he said, 'that until this moment I believed 
I had murdered my mother?' 

'Why did you murder her?' said Julia, almost asleep. 

'I didn't murder her. Not physically' 



1984 



In the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his 
mother, and within a few moments of waking the cluster 
of small events surrounding it had all come back. It was a 
memory that he must have deliberately pushed out of his 
consciousness over many years. He was not certain of the 
date, but he could not have been less than ten years old, pos- 
sibly twelve, when it had happened. 

His father had disappeared some time earlier, how much 
earlier he could not remember. He remembered better the 
rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical 
panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, 
the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proc- 
lamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in 
shirts all the same colour, the enormous queues outside 
the bakeries, the intermittent machine-gun fire in the dis- 
tance — above all, the fact that there was never enough to 
eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys 
in scrounging round dustbins and rubbish heaps, picking 
out the ribs of cabbage leaves, potato peelings, sometimes 
even scraps of stale breadcrust from which they carefully 
scraped away the cinders; and also in waiting for the pass- 
ing of trucks which travelled over a certain route and were 
known to carry cattle feed, and which, when they jolted 
over the bad patches in the road, sometimes spilt a few frag- 
ments of oil-cake. 

When his father disappeared, his mother did not show 
any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came 
over her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless. 
It was evident even to Winston that she was waiting for 



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something that she knew must happen. She did everything 
that was needed — cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, 
swept the floor, dusted the mantelpiece — always very slowly 
and with a curious lack of superfluous motion, like an art- 
ist's lay- figure moving of its own accord. Her large shapely 
body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness. For hours 
at a time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nurs- 
ing his young sister, a tiny, ailing, very silent child of two 
or three, with a face made simian by thinness. Very occa- 
sionally she would take Winston in her arms and press him 
against her for a long time without saying anything. He was 
aware, in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this 
was somehow connected with the never-mentioned thing 
that was about to happen. 

He remembered the room where they lived, a dark, close- 
smelling room that seemed half filled by a bed with a white 
counterpane. There was a gas ring in the fender, and a shelf 
where food was kept, and on the landing outside there was 
a brown earthenware sink, common to several rooms. He 
remembered his mother's statuesque body bending over the 
gas ring to stir at something in a saucepan. Above all he 
remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid 
battles at mealtimes. He would ask his mother naggingly, 
over and over again, why there was not more food, he would 
shout and storm at her (he even remembered the tones of 
his voice, which was beginning to break prematurely and 
sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or he would attempt 
a snivelling note of pathos in his efforts to get more than his 
share. His mother was quite ready to give him more than 



1984 



his share. She took it for granted that he, 'the boy', should 
have the biggest portion; but however much she gave him 
he invariably demanded more. At every meal she would be- 
seech him not to be selfish and to remember that his little 
sister was sick and also needed food, but it was no use. He 
would cry out with rage when she stopped ladling, he would 
try to wrench the saucepan and spoon out of her hands, he 
would grab bits from his sister's plate. He knew that he was 
starving the other two, but he could not help it; he even felt 
that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger in his bel- 
ly seemed to justify him. Between meals, if his mother did 
not stand guard, he was constantly pilfering at the wretched 
store of food on the shelf. 

One day a chocolate-ration was issued. There had been 
no such issue for weeks or months past. He remembered 
quite clearly that precious little morsel of chocolate. It was a 
two-ounce slab (they still talked about ounces in those days) 
between the three of them. It was obvious that it ought to 
be divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he 
were listening to somebody else, Winston heard himself 
demanding in a loud booming voice that he should be giv- 
en the whole piece. His mother told him not to be greedy. 
There was a long, nagging argument that went round and 
round, with shouts, whines, tears, remonstrances, bargain- 
ings. His tiny sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, 
exactly like a baby monkey, sat looking over her shoulder at 
him with large, mournful eyes. In the end his mother broke 
off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave it to Winston, 
giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold 

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of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was. 
Winston stood watching her for a moment. Then with a 
sudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of chocolate 
out of his sister's hand and was fleeing for the door. 

'Winston, Winston!' his mother called after him. 'Come 
back! Give your sister back her chocolate!' 

He stopped, but did not come back. His mother's anx- 
ious eyes were fixed on his face. Even now he was thinking 
about the thing, he did not know what it was that was on 
the point of happening. His sister, conscious of having been 
robbed of something, had set up a feeble wail. His mother 
drew her arm round the child and pressed its face against 
her breast. Something in the gesture told him that his sis- 
ter was dying. He turned and fled down the stairs, with the 
chocolate growing sticky in his hand. 

He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured 
the chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and 
hung about in the streets for several hours, until hunger 
drove him home. When he came back his mother had dis- 
appeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. 
Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his 
sister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother's 
overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty 
that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she 
had merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his 
sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, 
to one of the colonies for homeless children (Reclamation 
Centres, they were called) which had grown up as a result 
of the civil war, or she might have been sent to the labour 



1984 



camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or 
other to die. 

The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the en- 
veloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole 
meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to 
another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother 
had sat on the dingy whitequilted bed, with the child cling- 
ing to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath 
him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking 
up at him through the darkening water. 

He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. 
Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself 
into a more comfortable position. 

'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,' she 
said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.' 

'Yes. But the real point of the story ' 

From her breathing it was evident that she was going 
off to sleep again. He would have liked to continue talking 
about his mother. He did not suppose, from what he could 
remember of her, that she had been an unusual woman, still 
less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of 
nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that 
she obeyed were private ones. Her feelings were her own, 
and could not be altered from outside. It would not have 
occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby 
becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, 
and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him 
love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother 
had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed 



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nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert 
the child's death or her own; but it seemed natural to her to 
do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the 
little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the 
bullets than a sheet of paper. The terrible thing that the Par- 
ty had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere 
feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing 
you of all power over the material world. When once you 
were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, 
what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no dif- 
ference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you 
nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted 
clean out of the stream of history. And yet to the people 
of only two generations ago this would not have seemed 
all-important, because they were not attempting to alter 
history. They were governed by private loyalties which they 
did not question. What mattered were individual relation- 
ships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, 
a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. 
The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in 
this condition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or 
an idea, they were loyal to one another. For the first time in 
his life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely 
as an inert force which would one day spring to life and re- 
generate the world. The proles had stayed human. They had 
not become hardened inside. They had held on to the primi- 
tive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious 
effort. And in thinking this he remembered, without appar- 
ent relevance, how a few weeks ago he had seen a severed 



1984 



hand lying on the pavement and had kicked it into the gut- 
ter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk. 

"The proles are human beings,' he said aloud. 'We are not 
human.' 

'Why not?' said Julia, who had woken up again. 

He thought for a little while. 'Has it ever occurred to you,' 
he said, 'that the best thing for us to do would be simply to 
walk out of here before it's too late, and never see each other 
again?' 

'Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I'm 
not going to do it, all the same.' 

'We've been lucky' he said 'but it can't last much longer. 
You're young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep 
clear of people like me, you might stay alive for another fifty 
years.' 

'No. I've thought it all out. What you do, I'm going to do. 
And don't be too downhearted. I'm rather good at staying 
alive.' 

'We may be together for another six months — a year — 
there's no knowing. At the end we're certain to be apart. Do 
you realize how utterly alone we shall be? When once they 
get hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that 
either of us can do for the other. If I confess, they'll shoot 
you, and if I refuse to confess, they'll shoot you just the same. 
Nothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying, will 
put off your death for as much as five minutes. Neither of us 
will even know whether the other is alive or dead. We shall 
be utterly without power of any kind. The one thing that 
matters is that we shouldn't betray one another, although 



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even that can't make the slightest difference.' 

'If you mean confessing,' she said, 'we shall do that, right 
enough. Everybody always confesses. You can't help it. They 
torture you.' 

'I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. 
What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If 
they could make me stop loving you — that would be the 
real betrayal.' 

She thought it over. 'They can't do that,' she said final- 
ly 'It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say 
anything — ANYTHING — but they can't make you believe 
it. They can't get inside you.' 

'No,' he said a little more hopefully, 'no; that's quite true. 
They can't get inside you. If you can FEEL that staying hu- 
man is worth while, even when it can't have any result 
whatever, you've beaten them.' 

He thought of the telescreen with its never- sleeping ear. 
They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your 
head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness 
they had never mastered the secret of finding out what an- 
other human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true 
when you were actually in their hands. One did not know 
what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was pos- 
sible to guess: tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that 
registered your nervous reactions, gradual wearing- down 
by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning. 
Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be 
tracked down by enquiry, they could be squeezed out of you 
by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay 



1984 



human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could 
not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not alter 
them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in 
the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or 
thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysteri- 
ous even to yourself, remained impregnable. 



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Chapter 8 



They had done it, they had done it at last! 
The room they were standing in was long-shaped and 
softly lit. The telescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the 
richness of the dark-blue carpet gave one the impression of 
treading on velvet. At the far end of the room O'Brien was 
sitting at a table under a green-shaded lamp, with a mass of 
papers on either side of him. He had not bothered to look up 
when the servant showed Julia and Winston in. 

Winston's heart was thumping so hard that he doubted 
whether he would be able to speak. They had done it, they 
had done it at last, was all he could think. It had been a rash 
act to come here at all, and sheer folly to arrive together; 
though it was true that they had come by different routes 
and only met on O'Brien's doorstep. But merely to walk into 
such a place needed an effort of the nerve. It was only on 
very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-plac- 
es of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into the quarter 
of the town where they lived. The whole atmosphere of the 
huge block of flats, the richness and spaciousness of every- 
thing, the unfamiliar smells of good food and good tobacco, 
the silent and incredibly rapid lifts sliding up and down, the 
white-jacketed servants hurrying to and fro — everything 
was intimidating. Although he had a good pretext for com- 
ing here, he was haunted at every step by the fear that a 



1984 



black-uniformed guard would suddenly appear from round 
the corner, demand his papers, and order him to get out. 
O'Brien's servant, however, had admitted the two of them 
without demur. He was a small, dark-haired man in a white 
jacket, with a diamond- shaped, completely expressionless 
face which might have been that of a Chinese. The passage 
down which he led them was softly carpeted, with cream- 
papered walls and white wainscoting, all exquisitely clean. 
That too was intimidating. Winston could not remember 
ever to have seen a passageway whose walls were not grimy 
from the contact of human bodies. 

O'Brien had a slip of paper between his fingers and 
seemed to be studying it intently. His heavy face, bent down 
so that one could see the line of the nose, looked both for- 
midable and intelligent. For perhaps twenty seconds he sat 
without stirring. Then he pulled the speakwrite towards 
him and rapped out a message in the hybrid jargon of the 
Ministries: 

'Items one comma five comma seven approved fullwise 
stop suggestion contained item six doubleplus ridiculous 
verging crimethink cancel stop unproceed construction-wise 
antegetting plusfull estimates machinery overheads stop end 
message.' 

He rose deliberately from his chair and came towards 
them across the soundless carpet. A little of the official at- 
mosphere seemed to have fallen away from him with the 
Newspeak words, but his expression was grimmer than 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 213 



usual, as though he were not pleased at being disturbed. The 
terror that Winston already felt was suddenly shot through 
by a streak of ordinary embarrassment. It seemed to him 
quite possible that he had simply made a stupid mistake. 
For what evidence had he in reality that O'Brien was any 
kind of political conspirator? Nothing but a flash of the eyes 
and a single equivocal remark: beyond that, only his own 
secret imaginings, founded on a dream. He could not even 
fall back on the pretence that he had come to borrow the 
dictionary, because in that case Julia's presence was impos- 
sible to explain. As O'Brien passed the telescreen a thought 
seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed 
a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had 
stopped. 

Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. 
Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken 
aback to be able to hold his tongue. 

'You can turn it off!' he said. 

'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that privi- 
lege.' 

He was opposite them now. His solid form towered 
over the pair of them, and the expression on his face was 
still indecipherable. He was waiting, somewhat sternly, for 
Winston to speak, but about what? Even now it was quite 
conceivable that he was simply a busy man wondering ir- 
ritably why he had been interrupted. Nobody spoke. After 
the stopping of the telescreen the room seemed deadly si- 
lent. The seconds marched past, enormous. With difficulty 
Winston continued to keep his eyes fixed on O'Brien's. Then 



1984 



suddenly the grim face broke down into what might have 
been the beginnings of a smile. With his characteristic ges- 
ture O'Brien resettled his spectacles on his nose. 

'Shall I say it, or will you?' he said. 

'I will say it,' said Winston promptly. 'That thing is really 
turned off?' 

'Yes, everything is turned off. We are alone.' 

'We have come here because ' 

He paused, realizing for the first time the vagueness of 
his own motives. Since he did not in fact know what kind 
of help he expected from O'Brien, it was not easy to say why 
he had come here. He went on, conscious that what he was 
saying must sound both feeble and pretentious: 

'We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some 
kind of secret organization working against the Party, and 
that you are involved in it. We want to join it and work for it. 
We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles 
of Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals. We are also adulter- 
ers. I tell you this because we want to put ourselves at your 
mercy. If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other 
way, we are ready' 

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, with the 
feeling that the door had opened. Sure enough, the little yel- 
low-faced servant had come in without knocking. Winston 
saw that he was carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses. 

'Martin is one of us,' said O'Brien impassively. 'Bring 
the drinks over here, Martin. Put them on the round table. 
Have we enough chairs? Then we may as well sit down and 
talk in comfort. Bring a chair for yourself, Martin. This is 



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business. You can stop being a servant for the next ten min- 
utes.' 

The little man sat down, quite at his ease, and yet still 
with a servant-like air, the air of a valet enjoying a priv- 
ilege. Winston regarded him out of the corner of his eye. 
It struck him that the man's whole life was playing a part, 
and that he felt it to be dangerous to drop his assumed per- 
sonality even for a moment. O'Brien took the decanter by 
the neck and filled up the glasses with a dark-red liquid. It 
aroused in Winston dim memories of something seen long 
ago on a wall or a hoarding — a vast bottle composed of elec- 
tric lights which seemed to move up and down and pour its 
contents into a glass. Seen from the top the stuff looked al- 
most black, but in the decanter it gleamed like a ruby. It had 
a sour-sweet smell. He saw Julia pick up her glass and sniff 
at it with frank curiosity. 

'It is called wine,' said O'Brien with a faint smile. 'You 
will have read about it in books, no doubt. Not much of it 
gets to the Outer Party, I am afraid.' His face grew solemn 
again, and he raised his glass: 'I think it is fitting that we 
should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To Em- 
manuel Goldstein.' 

Winston took up his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine 
was a thing he had read and dreamed about. Like the glass 
paperweight or Mr Charrington's half- remembered rhymes, 
it belonged to the vanished, romantic past, the olden time 
as he liked to call it in his secret thoughts. For some reason 
he had always thought of wine as having an intensely sweet 
taste, like that of blackberry jam and an immediate intoxi- 



1984 



eating effect. Actually, when he came to swallow it, the stuff 
was distinctly disappointing. The truth was that after years 
of gin-drinking he could barely taste it. He set down the 
empty glass. 

"Then there is such a person as Goldstein?' he said. 

'Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do 
not know.' 

'And the conspiracy — the organization? Is it real? It is not 
simply an invention of the Thought Police?' 

'No, it is real. The Brotherhood, we call it. You will never 
learn much more about the Brotherhood than that it exists 
and that you belong to it. I will come back to that pres- 
ently' He looked at his wrist-watch. 'It is unwise even for 
members of the Inner Party to turn off the telescreen for 
more than half an hour. You ought not to have come here 
together, and you will have to leave separately. You, com- 
rade' — he bowed his head to Julia — 'will leave first. We have 
about twenty minutes at our disposal. You will understand 
that I must start by asking you certain questions. In general 
terms, what are you prepared to do?' 

Anything that we are capable of,' said Winston. 

O'Brien had turned himself a little in his chair so that he 
was facing Winston. He almost ignored Julia, seeming to 
take it for granted that Winston could speak for her. For a 
moment the lids flitted down over his eyes. He began asking 
his questions in a low, expressionless voice, as though this 
were a routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers 
were known to him already. 

'You are prepared to give your lives?' 



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'Yes.' 

'You are prepared to commit murder?' 

'Yes.' 

'To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death 
of hundreds of innocent people?' 

'Yes.' 

'To betray your country to foreign powers?' 

'Yes.' 

'You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to cor- 
rupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming 
drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal 
diseases — to do anything which is likely to cause demoral- 
ization and weaken the power of the Party?' 

'Yes.' 

'If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to 
throw sulphuric acid in a child's face — are you prepared to 
do that?' 

'Yes.' 

'You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the 
rest of your life as a waiter or a dock- worker?' 

'Yes.' 

'You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we or- 
der you to do so?' 

'Yes.' 

'You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never 
see one another again?' 

'No!' broke in Julia. 

It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before 
he answered. For a moment he seemed even to have been 



1984 



deprived of the power of speech. His tongue worked sound- 
lessly, forming the opening syllables first of one word, then 
of the other, over and over again. Until he had said it, he 
did not know which word he was going to say. 'No,' he said 
finally. 

'You did well to tell me,' said O'Brien. 'It is necessary for 
us to know everything.' 

He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice 
with somewhat more expression in it: 

'Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be 
as a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new 
identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, 
the colour of his hair — even his voice would be different. 
And you yourself might have become a different person. 
Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Some- 
times it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.' 

Winston could not help snatching another sidelong 
glance at Martin's Mongolian face. There were no scars 
that he could see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that 
her freckles were showing, but she faced O'Brien boldly. She 
murmured something that seemed to be assent. 

'Good. Then that is settled.' 

There was a silver box of cigarettes on the table. With a 
rather absent-minded air O'Brien pushed them towards the 
others, took one himself, then stood up and began to pace 
slowly to and fro, as though he could think better standing. 
They were very good cigarettes, very thick and well-packed, 
with an unfamiliar silkiness in the paper. O'Brien looked at 
his wrist-watch again. 



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'You had better go back to your Pantry, Martin,' he said. 
'I shall switch on in a quarter of an hour. Take a good look 
at these comrades' faces before you go. You will be seeing 
them again. I may not.' 

Exactly as they had done at the front door, the little man's 
dark eyes flickered over their faces. There was not a trace 
of friendliness in his manner. He was memorizing their 
appearance, but he felt no interest in them, or appeared 
to feel none. It occurred to Winston that a synthetic face 
was perhaps incapable of changing its expression. Without 
speaking or giving any kind of salutation, Martin went out, 
closing the door silently behind him. O'Brien was strolling 
up and down, one hand in the pocket of his black overalls, 
the other holding his cigarette. 

'You understand,' he said, 'that you will be fighting in 
the dark. You will always be in the dark. You will receive 
orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later 
I shall send you a book from which you will learn the true 
nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which 
we shall destroy it. When you have read the book, you will 
be full members of the Brotherhood. But between the gen- 
eral aims that we are fighting for and the immedi ate tasks 
of the moment, you will never know anything. I tell you 
that the Brotherhood exists, but I cannot tell you wheth- 
er it numbers a hundred members, or ten million. From 
your personal knowledge you will never be able to say that 
it numbers even as many as a dozen. You will have three 
or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to time 
as they disappear. As this was your first contact, it will be 



1984 



preserved. When you receive orders, they will come from 
me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it will 
be through Martin. When you are finally caught, you will 
confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little 
to confess, other than your own actions. You will not be 
able to betray more than a handful of unimportant people. 
Probably you will not even betray me. By that time I may be 
dead, or I shall have become a different person, with a dif- 
ferent face.' 

He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In 
spite of the bulkiness of his body there was a remarkable 
grace in his movements. It came out even in the gesture 
with which he thrust a hand into his pocket, or manipu- 
lated a cigarette. More even than of strength, he gave an 
impression of confidence and of an understanding tinged 
by irony. However much in earnest he might be, he had 
nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs to a fanatic. 
When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease, am- 
putated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a faint air of 
persiflage. 'This is unavoidable,' his voice seemed to say; 
'this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly. But this is 
not what we shall be doing when life is worth living again.' 
A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed out from 
Winston towards O'Brien. For the moment he had forgot- 
ten the shadowy figure of Goldstein. When you looked at 
O'Brien's powerful shoulders and his blunt- featured face, so 
ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible to believe that 
he could be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was 
not equal to, no danger that he could not foresee. Even Julia 



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seemed to be impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and 
was listening intently. O'Brien went on: 

'You will have heard rumours of the existence of the 
Brotherhood. No doubt you have formed your own picture 
of it. You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of 
conspirators, meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling mes- 
sages on walls, recognizing one another by codewords or by 
special movements of the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. 
The members of the Brotherhood have no way of recogniz- 
ing one another, and it is impossible for any one member to 
be aware of the identity of more than a few others. Gold- 
stein himself, if he fell into the hands of the Thought Police, 
could not give them a complete list of members, or any in- 
formation that would lead them to a complete list. No such 
list exists. The Brotherhood cannot be wiped out because it 
is not an organization in the ordinary sense. Nothing holds 
it together except an idea which is indestructible. You will 
never have anything to sustain you, except the idea. You 
will get no comradeship and no encouragement. When fi- 
nally you are caught, you will get no help. We never help 
our members. At most, when it is absolutely necessary that 
someone should be silenced, we are occasionally able to 
smuggle a razor blade into a prisoner's cell. You will have 
to get used to living without results and without hope. You 
will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, 
and then you will die. Those are the only results that you 
will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible 
change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the 
dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part 



1984 



in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far 
away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be 
a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to 
extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act col- 
lectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from 
individual to individual, generation after generation. In the 
face of the Thought Police there is no other way' 

He halted and looked for the third time at his wrist- 
watch. 

'It is almost time for you to leave, comrade,' he said to Ju- 
lia. 'Wait. The decanter is still half full.' 

He filled the glasses and raised his own glass by the 
stem. 

'What shall it be this time?' he said, still with the same 
faint suggestion of irony. 'To the confusion of the Thought 
Police? To the death of Big Brother? To humanity? To the 
future?' 

'To the past,' said Winston. 

'The past is more important,' agreed O'Brien gravely. 

They emptied their glasses, and a moment later Julia 
stood up to go. O'Brien took a small box from the top of a 
cabinet and handed her a flat white tablet which he told her 
to place on her tongue. It was important, he said, not to go 
out smelling of wine: the lift attendants were very obser- 
vant. As soon as the door had shut behind her he appeared 
to forget her existence. He took another pace or two up and 
down, then stopped. 

'There are details to be settled,' he said. 'I assume that 
you have a hiding-place of some kind?' 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 223 



Winston explained about the room over Mr Char- 
rington's shop. 

"That will do for the moment. Later we will arrange 
something else for you. It is important to change one's hid- 
ing-place frequently. Meanwhile I shall send you a copy of 
THE BOOK' — even O'Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to 
pronounce the words as though they were in italics — 'Gold- 
stein's book, you understand, as soon as possible. It may 
be some days before I can get hold of one. There are not 
many in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought Police 
hunt them down and destroy them almost as fast as we can 
produce them. It makes very little difference. The book is 
indestructible. If the last copy were gone, we could repro- 
duce it almost word for word. Do you carry a brief-case to 
work with you?' he added. 

'As a rule, yes.' 

'What is it like?' 

'Black, very shabby. With two straps.' 

'Black, two straps, very shabby — good. One day in the 
fairly near future — I cannot give a date — one of the messag- 
es among your morning's work will contain a misprinted 
word, and you will have to ask for a repeat. On the following 
day you will go to work without your brief-case. At some 
time during the day, in the street, a man will touch you on 
the arm and say 'I think you have dropped your brief-case.' 
The one he gives you will contain a copy of Goldstein's book. 
You will return it within fourteen days.' 

They were silent for a moment. 

'There are a couple of minutes before you need go,' said 



1984 



O'Brien. 'We shall meet again — if we do meet again ' 

Winston looked up at him. 'In the place where there is no 
darkness?' he said hesitantly. 

O'Brien nodded without appearance of surprise. 'In the 
place where there is no darkness,' he said, as though he had 
recognized the allusion. 'And in the meantime, is there any- 
thing that you wish to say before you leave? Any message? 
Any question?.' 

Winston thought. There did not seem to be any further 
question that he wanted to ask: still less did he feel any 
impulse to utter high-sounding generalities. Instead of any- 
thing directly connected with O'Brien or the Brotherhood, 
there came into his mind a sort of composite picture of the 
dark bedroom where his mother had spent her last days, 
and the little room over Mr Charrington's shop, and the 
glass paperweight, and the steel engraving in its rosewood 
frame. Almost at random he said: 

'Did you ever happen to hear an old rhyme that begins 
'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's'?' 

Again O'Brien nodded. With a sort of grave courtesy he 
completed the stanza: 

'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, 
You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's, 
When willyoupay me? say the bells of Old Bailey, 
When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.' 

'You knew the last line!' said Winston. 

'Yes, I knew the last line. And now, I am afraid, it is time 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 225 



for you to go. But wait. You had better let me give you one 
of these tablets.' 

As Winston stood up O'Brien held out a hand. His pow- 
erful grip crushed the bones of Winston's palm. At the 
door Winston looked back, but O'Brien seemed already to 
be in process of putting him out of mind. He was waiting 
with his hand on the switch that controlled the telescreen. 
Beyond him Winston could see the writing-table with its 
green-shaded lamp and the speakwrite and the wire baskets 
deep-laden with papers. The incident was closed. Within 
thirty seconds, it occurred to him, O'Brien would be back at 
his interrupted and important work on behalf of the Party. 



1984 



Chapter 9 



Winston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was 
the right word. It had come into his head spontane- 
ously. His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a 
jelly, but its translucency He felt that if he held up his hand 
he would be able to see the light through it. All the blood 
and lymph had been drained out of him by an enormous 
debauch of work, leaving only a frail structure of nerves, 
bones, and skin. All sensations seemed to be magnified. His 
overalls fretted his shoulders, the pavement tickled his feet, 
even the opening and closing of a hand was an effort that 
made his joints creak. 

He had worked more than ninety hours in five days. So 
had everyone else in the Ministry. Now it was all over, and 
he had literally nothing to do, no Party work of any descrip - 
tion, until tomorrow morning. He could spend six hours in 
the hiding-place and another nine in his own bed. Slowly, in 
mild afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy street in the 
direction of Mr Charrington's shop, keeping one eye open 
for the patrols, but irrationally convinced that this after- 
noon there was no danger of anyone interfering with him. 
The heavy brief-case that he was carrying bumped against 
his knee at each step, sending a tingling sensation up and 
down the skin of his leg. Inside it was the book, which he 
had now had in his possession for six days and had not yet 



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opened, nor even looked at. 

On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the 
speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, 
the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squeal- 
ing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding 
of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the 
booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great or- 
gasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of 
Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd 
could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-crim- 
inals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the 
proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them 
to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that 
Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was 
at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally. 

There was, of course, no admission that any change had 
taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme sud- 
denness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not 
Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a dem- 
onstration in one of the central London squares at the 
moment when it happened. It was night, and the white fac- 
es and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square 
was packed with several thousand people, including a block 
of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the 
Spies. On a scarlet- draped platform an orator of the Inner 
Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms 
and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks strag- 
gled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin 
figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the 



1984 



microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at 
the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his 
head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed 
forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, depor- 
tations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing 
of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken 
treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without 
being first convinced and then maddened. At every few mo- 
ments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the 
speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose 
uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most sav- 
age yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech 
had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a 
messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper 
was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it 
without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice 
or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but sud- 
denly the names were different. Without words said, a wave 
of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was 
at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremen- 
dous commotion. The banners and posters with which the 
square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them 
had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of 
Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude 
while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to 
shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prod- 
igies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting 
the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within 
two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping 



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the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, 
his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with 
his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage 
were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued 
exactly as before, except that the target had been changed. 

The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was 
that the speaker had switched from one line to the other ac- 
tually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without 
even breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had other 
things to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of dis- 
order while the posters were being torn down that a man 
whose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulder 
and said, 'Excuse me, I think you've dropped your brief- 
case.' He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. 
He knew that it would be days before he had an opportuni- 
ty to look inside it. The instant that the demonstration was 
over he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though the 
time was now nearly twenty-three hours. The entire staff 
of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issu- 
ing from the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, were 
hardly necessary. 

Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always 
been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political lit- 
erature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports 
and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, 
films, sound-tracks, photographs — all had to be rectified 
at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, 
it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended 
that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, 



1984 



or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence 
anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so 
because the processes that it involved could not be called 
by their true names. Everyone in the Records Department 
worked eighteen hours in the twenty-four, with two three- 
hour snatches of sleep. Mattresses were brought up from 
the cellars and pitched all over the corridors: meals con- 
sisted of sandwiches and Victory Coffee wheeled round 
on trolleys by attendants from the canteen. Each time that 
Winston broke off for one of his spells of sleep he tried to 
leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he crawled 
back sticky- eyed and aching, it was to find that another 
shower of paper cylinders had covered the desk like a snow- 
drift, halfburying the speakwrite and overflowing on to the 
floor, so that the first job was always to stack them into a 
neat enough pile to give him room to work. What was worst 
of all was that the work was by no means purely mechanical. 
Often it was enough merely to substitute one name for an- 
other, but any detailed report of events demanded care and 
imagination. Even the geographical knowledge that one 
needed in transferring the war from one part of the world 
to another was considerable. 

By the third day his eyes ached unbearably and his 
spectacles needed wiping every few minutes. It was like 
struggling with some crushing physical task, something 
which one had the right to refuse and which one was never- 
theless neurotically anxious to accomplish. In so far as he 
had time to remember it, he was not troubled by the fact that 
every word he murmured into the speakwrite, every stroke 



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of his ink-pencil, was a deliberate lie. He was as anxious as 
anyone else in the Department that the forgery should be 
perfect. On the morning of the sixth day the dribble of cyl- 
inders slowed down. For as much as half an hour nothing 
came out of the tube; then one more cylinder, then nothing. 
Everywhere at about the same time the work was easing off. 
A deep and as it were secret sigh went through the Depart- 
ment. A mighty deed, which could never be mentioned, had 
been achieved. It was now impossible for any human being 
to prove by documentary evidence that the war with Eurasia 
had ever happened. At twelve hundred it was unexpectedly 
announced that all workers in the Ministry were free till 
tomorrow morning. Winston, still carrying the brief-case 
containing the book, which had remained between his feet 
while he worked and under his body while he slept, went 
home, shaved himself, and almost fell asleep in his bath, al- 
though the water was barely more than tepid. 

With a sort of voluptuous creaking in his joints he 
climbed the stair above Mr Charrington's shop. He was 
tired, but not sleepy any longer. He opened the window, lit 
the dirty little oilstove and put on a pan of water for coffee. 
Julia would arrive presently: meanwhile there was the book. 
He sat down in the sluttish armchair and undid the straps 
of the brief-case. 

A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no 
name or title on the cover. The print also looked slightly 
irregular. The pages were worn at the edges, and fell apart, 
easily, as though the book had passed through many hands. 
The inscription on the title-page ran: 



1984 



THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF 
OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM 

by 

Emmanuel Goldstein 

Winston began reading: 

Chapter I 

Ignorance is Strength 

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end 
of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people 
in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have 
been subdivided in many ways, they have borne count- 
less different names, and their relative numbers, as well as 
their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to 
age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. 
Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable 
changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just 
as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however 
far it is pushed one way or the other. 

The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable... 

Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate 
the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was 
alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous im- 
pulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his 
hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From 
somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of chil- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 233 



dren: in the room itself there was no sound except the insect 
voice of the clock. He settled deeper into the arm-chair and 
put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss, it was eternity. 
Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one 
knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, 
he opened it at a different place and found himself at Chap- 
ter III. He went on reading: 

Chapter III 

War is Peace 

The splitting up of the world into three great super-states 
was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen 
before the middle of the twentieth century. With the ab- 
sorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by 
the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia 
and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, 
Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another de- 
cade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three 
super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they 
fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general 
they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole 
of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, 
from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the 
Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, 
Australasia, and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, 
smaller than the others and with a less definite western 
frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of 



1984 



it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion 
of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet. 

In one combination or another, these three super-states 
are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twen- 
ty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, 
annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the 
twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between 
combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no 
material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genu- 
ine ideological difference This is not to say that either the 
conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has be- 
come less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, 
war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, 
and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, 
the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals 
against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying 
alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are com- 
mitted by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious. 
But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of 
people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes com- 
paratively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, 
takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the 
average man can only guess at, or round the Floating For- 
tresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the 
centres of civilization war means no more than a contin- 
uous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional 
crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of 
deaths. War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, 
the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their 



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order of importance. Motives which were already present 
to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth 
centuury have now become dominant and are consciously 
recognized and acted upon. 

To understand the nature of the present war — for in spite 
of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is al- 
ways the same war — one must realize in the first place that 
it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three su- 
per-states could be definitively conquered even by the other 
two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their 
natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by 
its vast land spaces, Oceania by the width of the Atlantic 
and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and indus tri- 
ousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in 
a material sense, anything to fight about. With the estab- 
lishment of self-contained economies, in which production 
and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble 
for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has 
come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is 
no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of the 
three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the 
materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far 
as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for la- 
bour power. Between the frontiers of the super-states, and 
not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies 
a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazza- 
ville, Darwin, and Hong Kong, containing within it about 
a fifth of the population of the earth. It is for the posses- 
sion of these thickly-populated regions, and of the northern 

236 1984 



ice-cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling. In 
practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disput- 
ed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and 
it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sud- 
den stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of 
alignment. 

All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, 
and some of them yield important vegetable products such 
as rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to syn- 
thesize by comparatively expensive methods. But above all 
they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Which- 
ever power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries 
of the Middle East, or Southern India, or the Indonesian 
Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of scores or hun- 
dreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies. The 
inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to 
the status of slaves, pass continually from conqueror to con- 
queror, and are expended like so much coal or oil in the 
race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, 
to control more labour power, to turn out more armaments, 
to capture more territory, and so on indefinitely. It should 
be noted that the fighting never really moves beyond the 
edges of the disputed areas. The frontiers of Eurasia flow 
back and forth between the basin of the Congo and the 
northern shore of the Mediterranean; the islands of the In- 
dian Ocean and the Pacific are constantly being captured 
and recaptured by Oceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the 
dividing line between Eurasia and Eastasia is never stable; 
round the Pole all three powers lay claim to enormous terri- 



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tories which in fact are largely unihabited and unexplored: 
but the balance of power always remains roughly even, and 
the territory which forms the heartland of each super-state 
always remains inviolate. Moreover, the labour of the ex- 
ploited peoples round the Equator is not really necessary to 
the world's economy. They add nothing to the wealth of the 
world, since whatever they produce is used for purposes of 
war, and the object of waging a war is always to be in a bet- 
ter position in which to wage another war. By their labour 
the slave populations allow the tempo of continuous war- 
fare to be speeded up. But if they did not exist, the structure 
of world society, and the process by which it maintains it- 
self, would not be essentially different. 

The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance 
with the principles of DOUBLETHINK, this aim is simul- 
taneously recognized and not recognized by the directing 
brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the 
machine without raising the general standard of living. 
Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of 
what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been 
latent in industrial society. At present, when few human be- 
ings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not 
urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artifi- 
cial processes of destruction had been at work. The world 
of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with 
the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if com- 
pared with the imaginary future to which the people of that 
period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the 
vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, 

238 1984 



and efficient — a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel 
and snow-white concrete — was part of the consciousness of 
nearly every literate person. Science and technology were 
developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to 
assume that they would go on developing. This failed to 
happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a 
long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific 
and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of 
thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented 
society. As a whole the world is more primitive today than it 
was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, 
and various devices, always in some way connected with 
warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but 
experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the 
ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have nev- 
er been fully repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent 
in the machine are still there. From the moment when the 
machine first made its appearance it was clear to all think- 
ing people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore 
to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If 
the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, 
overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated 
within a few generations. And in fact, without being used 
for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process — 
by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not 
to distribute — the machine did raise the living standards 
of the average humand being very greatly over a period of 
about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the begin- 
ning of the twentieth centuries. 



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But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth 
threatened the destruction — indeed, in some sense was the 
destruction — of a hierarchical society. In a world in which 
everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a 
house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a 
motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and per- 
haps the most important form of inequality would already 
have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would 
confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine 
a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal pos- 
sessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while 
POWER remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. 
But in practice such a society could not long remain sta- 
ble. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the 
great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by 
poverty would become literate and would learn to think for 
themselves; and when once they had done this, they would 
sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no 
function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, 
a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of pov- 
erty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as 
some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth cen- 
tury dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It 
conflicted with the tendency towards mechanization which 
had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole 
world, and moreover, any country which remained indus- 
trially backward was helpless in a military sense and was 
bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more 
advanced rivals. 



1984 



Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in 
poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened 
to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism, rough- 
ly between 1920 and 1940. The economy of many countries 
was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation, capital 
equipment was not added to, great blocks of the popula- 
tion were prevented from working and kept half alive by 
State charity. But this, too, entailed military weakness, and 
since the privations it inflicted were obviously unneces- 
sary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was how 
to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing 
the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but 
they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way 
of achieving this was by continuous warfare. 

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of 
human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a 
way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, 
or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might 
otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and 
hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons 
of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still 
a convenient way of expending labour power without pro- 
ducing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, 
for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build 
several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as 
obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to any- 
body, and with further enormous labours another Floating 
Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so 
planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meet- 



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ing the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs 
of the population are always underestimated, with the re- 
sult that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities 
of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate 
policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near 
the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity 
increases the importance of small privileges and thus mag- 
nifies the distinction between one group and another. By 
the standards of the early twentieth century, even a mem- 
ber of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. 
Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large, 
well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the bet- 
ter quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or 
three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter — set him 
in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and 
the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage 
in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call 
'the proles'. The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, 
where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the dif- 
ference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time 
the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, 
makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem 
the natural, unavoidable condition of survival. 

War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruc- 
tion, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. 
In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus 
labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by 
digging holes and filling them up again, or even by produc- 
ing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. 



1984 



But this would provide only the economic and not the emo- 
tional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned 
here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unim- 
portant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the 
morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member 
is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intel- 
ligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he 
should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing 
moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In 
other words it is necessary that he should have the mental- 
ity appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether 
the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory 
is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well 
or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should ex- 
ist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires 
of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an at- 
mosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher 
up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is 
precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of 
the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administra- 
tor, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to 
know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and 
he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is 
either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite 
other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily 
neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. Mean- 
while no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his 
mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to 
end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of 



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the entire world. 

All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming 
conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by 
gradually acquiring more and more territory and so build- 
ing up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by 
the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The 
search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one 
of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive 
or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Ocea- 
nia at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost 
ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. 
The empirical method of thought, on which all the scien- 
tific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to 
the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even tech- 
nological progress only happens when its products can in 
some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In 
all the useful arts the world is either standing still or go- 
ing backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs 
while books are written by machinery. But in matters of 
vital importance — meaning, in effect, war and police espio- 
nage — the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least 
tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole 
surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the 
possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two 
great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One 
is how to discover, against his will, what another human be- 
ing is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred 
million people in a few seconds without giving warning be- 
forehand. In so far as scientific research still continues, this 



1984 



is its subject matter. The scientist of today is either a mixture 
of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary 
minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and 
tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of 
drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he 
is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such 
branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking 
of life. In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and 
in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests, 
or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the Ant- 
arctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work. Some 
are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future 
wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more 
and more powerful explosives, and more and more impen- 
etrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier 
gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in 
such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole con- 
tinents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against 
all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle 
that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine un- 
der the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base 
as a sailing-ship; others explore even remoter possibilities 
such as focusing the sun's rays through lenses suspended 
thousands of kilometres away in space, or producing artifi- 
cial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the 
earth's centre. 

But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near re- 
alization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a 
significant lead on the others. What is more remarkable is 



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that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, 
a weapon far more powerful than any that their present 
researches are likely to discover. Although the Party, ac- 
cording to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic 
bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and 
were first used on a large scale about ten years later. At that 
time some hundreds of bombs were dropped on indus- 
trial centres, chiefly in European Russia, Western Europe, 
and North America. The effect was to convince the ruling 
groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would 
mean the end of organized society, and hence of their own 
power. Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever 
made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All three 
powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store 
them up against the decisive opportunity which they all 
believe will come sooner or later. And meanwhile the art 
of war has remained almost stationary for thirty or forty 
years. Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, 
bombing planes have been largely superseded by self-pro- 
pelled projectiles, and the fragile movable battleship has 
given way to the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but 
otherwise there has been little development. The tank, the 
submarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and 
the hand grenade are still in use. And in spite of the end- 
less slaughters reported in the Press and on the telescreens, 
the desperate battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds of 
thousands or even millions of men were often killed in a 
few weeks, have never been repeated. 

None of the three super-states ever attempts any ma- 

246 1984 



noeuvre which involves the risk of serious defeat. When 
any large operation is undertaken, it is usually a surprise 
attack against an ally. The strategy that all three powers are 
following, or pretend to themselves that they are following, 
is the same. The plan is, by a combination of fighting, bar- 
gaining, and well-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a 
ring of bases completely encircling one or other of the ri- 
val states, and then to sign a pact of friendship with that 
rival and remain on peaceful terms for so many years as to 
lull suspicion to sleep. During this time rockets loaded with 
atomic bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; 
finally they will all be fired simultaneously, with effects so 
devastating as to make retaliation impossible. It will then be 
time to sign a pact of friendship with the remaining world- 
power, in preparation for another attack. This scheme, it is 
hardly necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of 
realization. Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the 
disputed areas round the Equator and the Pole: no invasion 
of enemy territory is ever undertaken. This explains the fact 
that in some places the frontiers between the superstates 
are arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the 
British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on 
the other hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its 
frontiers to the Rhine or even to the Vistula. But this would 
violate the principle, followed on all sides though never 
formulated, of cultural integrity. If Oceania were to con- 
quer the areas that used once to be known as France and 
Germany, it would be necessary either to exterminate the 
inhabitants, a task of great physical difficulty, or to assimi- 



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late a population of about a hundred million people, who, 
so far as technical development goes, are roughly on the 
Oceanic level. The problem is the same for all three super- 
states. It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there 
should be no contact with foreigners, except, to a limited 
extent, with war prisoners and coloured slaves. Even the of- 
ficial ally of the moment is always regarded with the darkest 
suspicion. War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Ocea- 
nia never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, 
and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If 
he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover 
that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of 
what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world 
in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, 
and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might 
evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however 
often Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, 
the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything ex- 
cept bombs. 

Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly 
understood and acted upon: namely, that the conditions of 
life in all three super-states are very much the same. In Oce- 
ania the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia 
it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by 
a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but 
perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citi- 
zen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets 
of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate 
them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common 

248 1984 



sense. Actually the three philosophies are barely distin- 
guishable, and the social systems which they support are 
not distinguishable at all. Everywhere there is the same py- 
ramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, 
the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare. 
It follows that the three super-states not only cannot con- 
quer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing 
so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they 
prop one another up, like three sheaves of corn. And, as 
usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are simultane- 
ously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their lives 
are dedicated to world conquest, but they also know that it 
is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and 
without victory. Meanwhile the fact that there IS no danger 
of conquest makes possible the denial of reality which is the 
special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of thought. 
Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that 
by becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed 
its character. 

In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something 
that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistak- 
able victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the 
main instruments by which human societies were kept in 
touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried 
to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but 
they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended 
to impair military efficiency So long as defeat meant the 
loss of independence, or some other result generally held 
to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be 



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serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, 
or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make 
five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they 
had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered 
sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimi- 
cal to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to 
be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly 
accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspa- 
pers and history books were, of course, always coloured and 
biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today 
would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of 
sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was 
probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars 
could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely ir- 
responsible. 

But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases 
to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such 
thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease 
and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. 
As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific 
are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are es- 
sentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show 
results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, 
is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except 
the Thought Police. Since each of the three super-states is 
unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within 
which almost any perversion of thought can be safely prac- 
tised. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of 
everyday life — the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and 



1984 



clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top - 
storey windows, and the like. Between life and death, and 
between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still 
a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the 
outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is 
like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of know- 
ing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of 
such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars 
could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers 
from starving to death in numbers large enough to be in- 
convenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same 
low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that 
minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever 
shape they choose. 

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of pre- 
vious wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles 
between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at 
such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one anoth- 
er. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up 
the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve 
the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society 
needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. 
In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although 
they might recognize their common interest and therefore 
limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one an- 
other, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In 
our own day they are not fighting against one another at 
all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own 
subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent 



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conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society 
intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become mislead- 
ing. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming 
continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure 
that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age 
and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been 
replaced by something quite different. The effect would be 
much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting 
one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each 
inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each 
would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from 
the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was 
truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. 
This — although the vast majority of Party members under- 
stand it only in a shallower sense — is the inner meaning of 
the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE. 

Winston stopped reading for a moment. Somewhere in 
remote distance a rocket bomb thundered. The blissful feel- 
ing of being alone with the forbidden book, in a room with 
no telescreen, had not worn off. Solitude and safety were 
physical sensations, mixed up somehow with the tiredness 
of his body, the softness of the chair, the touch of the faint 
breeze from the window that played upon his cheek. The 
book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In 
a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part 
of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had 
been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in or- 
der. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but 
enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-rid- 



1984 



den. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you 
what you know already. He had just turned back to Chapter 
I when he heard Julia's footstep on the stair and started out 
of his chair to meet her. She dumped her brown tool-bag on 
the floor and flung herself into his arms. It was more than a 
week since they had seen one another. 

'I've got THE BOOK,' he said as they disentangled them- 
selves. 

'Oh, you've got it? Good,' she said without much interest, 
and almost immediately knelt down beside the oil stove to 
make the coffee. 

They did not return to the subject until they had been 
in bed for half an hour. The evening was just cool enough 
to make it worth while to pull up the counterpane. From 
below came the familiar sound of singing and the scrape 
of boots on the flagstones. The brawny red-armed woman 
whom Winston had seen there on his first visit was almost a 
fixture in the yard. There seemed to be no hour of daylight 
when she was not marching to and fro between the washtub 
and the line, alternately gagging herself with clothes pegs 
and breaking forth into lusty song. Julia had settled down 
on her side and seemed to be already on the point of falling 
asleep. He reached out for the book, which was lying on the 
floor, and sat up against the bedhead. 

'We must read it,' he said. 'You too. All members of the 
Brotherhood have to read it.' 

'You read it,' she said with her eyes shut. 'Read it aloud. 
That's the best way. Then you can explain it to me as you 

go-' 



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The clock's hands said six, meaning eighteen. They had 
three or four hours ahead of them. He propped the book 
against his knees and began reading: 

Chapter I Ignorance is Strength 

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end 
of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people 
in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have 
been subdivided in many ways, they have borne count- 
less different names, and their relative numbers, as well as 
their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to 
age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. 
Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable 
changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just 
as a gyroscope will always return to equilibnum, however 
far it is pushed one way or the other 

'Julia, are you awake?' said Winston. 

'Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.' 

He continued reading: 

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcil- 
able. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The 
aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The 
aim of the Low, when they have an aim — for it is an abiding 
characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed 
by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of 
anything outside their daily lives — is to abolish all distinc- 
tions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. 
Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its 
main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods 
the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later 



1984 



there always comes a moment when they lose either their 
belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently 
or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who en- 
list the Low on their side by pretending to them that they 
are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have 
reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back 
into their old position of servitude, and themselves become 
the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one 
of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle 
begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are 
never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. 
It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history 
there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, 
in a period of decline, the average human being is physical- 
ly better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance 
in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolu- 
tion has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. 
From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has 
ever meant much more than a change in the name of their 
masters. 

By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this pat- 
tern had become obvious to many observers. There then 
rose schools of thinkers who interpreted history as a cy- 
clical process and claimed to show that inequality was the 
unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course, had 
always had its adherents, but in the manner in which it was 
now put forward there was a significant change. In the past 
the need for a hierarchical form of society had been the doc- 
trine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings 



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and aristocrats and by the priests, lawyers, and the like who 
were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been soft- 
ened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world 
beyond the grave. The Middle, so long as it was struggling 
for power, had always made use of such terms as freedom, 
justice, and fraternity Now, however, the concept of hu- 
man brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were 
not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so 
before long. In the past the Middle had made revolutions 
under the banner of equality, and then had established a 
fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown. The 
new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny be- 
forehand. Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early 
nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of 
thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, 
was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But 
in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 
onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was 
more and more openly abandoned. The new movements 
which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc 
in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as 
it is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim 
of perpetuating UNfreedom and INequality These new 
movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended 
to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. 
But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and 
freeze history at a chosen moment. The familiar pendulum 
swing was to happen once more, and then stop. As usual, 
the High were to be turned out by the Middle, who would 

256 1984 



then become the High; but this time, by conscious strategy, 
the High would be able to maintain their position perma- 
nently. 

The new doctrines arose partly because of the accu- 
mulation of historical knowledge, and the growth of the 
historical sense, which had hardly existed before the nine- 
teenth century. The cyclical movement of history was now 
intelligible, or appeared to be so; and if it was intelligible, 
then it was alterable. But the principal, underlying cause 
was that, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, 
human equality had become technically possible. It was still 
true that men were not equal in their native talents and that 
functions had to be specialized in ways that favoured some 
individuals against others; but there was no longer any real 
need for class distinctions or for large differences of wealth. 
In earlier ages, class distinctions had been not only inevi- 
table but desirable. Inequality was the price of civilization. 
With the development of machine production, however, the 
case was altered. Even if it was still necessary for human 
beings to do different kinds of work, it was no longer neces- 
sary for them to live at different social or economic levels. 
Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who 
were on the point of seizing power, human equality was no 
longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to be avert- 
ed. In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society 
was in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe it. 
The idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live 
together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and with- 
out brute labour, had haunted the human imagination for 



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thousands of years. And this vision had had a certain hold 
even on the groups who actually profited by each histori- 
cal change. The heirs of the French, English, and American 
revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about 
the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the 
law, and the like, and have even allowed their conduct to 
be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth 
decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of 
political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise 
had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became 
realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name it 
called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And 
in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 
1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some 
cases for hundreds of years — imprisonment without trial, 
the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture 
to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the depor- 
tation of whole populations— not only became common 
again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who 
considered themselves enlightened and progressive. 

It was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars, 
revolutions, and counter-revolutions in all parts of the 
world that Ingsoc and its rivals emerged as fully worked- 
out political theories. But they had been foreshadowed by 
the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which 
had appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines 
of the world which would emerge from the prevailing chaos 
had long been obvious. What kind of people would control 
this world had been equally obvious. The new aristocracy 

258 1984 



was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, 
technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, so- 
ciologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians. 
These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class 
and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped 
and brought together by the barren world of monopoly in- 
dustry and centralized government. As compared with 
their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avari- 
cious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, 
above all, more conscious of what they were doing and 
more intent on crushing opposition. This last difference was 
cardinal. By comparison with that existing today, all the 
tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The 
ruling groups were always infected to some extent by lib- 
eral ideas, and were content to leave loose ends everywhere, 
to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested in what 
their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church of 
the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of 
the reason for this was that in the past no government had 
the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. 
The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipu- 
late public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the 
process further. With the development of television, and 
the technical advance which made it possible to receive and 
transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private 
life came to an end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen 
important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for 
twenty- four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in 
the sound of official propaganda, with all other channels 



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of communication closed. The possibility of enforcing not 
only complete obedience to the will of the State, but com- 
plete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for 
the first time. 

After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, 
society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and 
Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did 
not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard 
its position. It had long been realized that the only secure 
basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are 
most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The 
so-called 'abolition of private property' which took place in 
the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the con- 
centration of property in far fewer hands than before: but 
with this difference, that the new owners were a group in- 
stead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of 
the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. 
Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, be- 
cause it controls everything, and disposes of the products 
as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was 
able to step into this commanding position almost unop- 
posed, because the whole process was represented as an act 
of collectivization. It had always been assumed that if the 
capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: 
and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated. 
Factories, mines, land, houses, transport — everything had 
been taken away from them: and since these things were 
no longer private property, it followed that they must be 
public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier So- 



1984 



cialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact 
carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with 
the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that econom- 
ic inequality has been made permanent. 

But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical soci- 
ety go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which 
a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered 
from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses 
are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented 
Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self- 
confidence and willingness to govern. These causes do not 
operate singly, and as a rule all four of them are present in 
some degree. A ruling class which could guard against all 
of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately 
the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling 
class itself. 

After the middle of the present century, the first dan- 
ger had in reality disappeared. Each of the three powers 
which now divide the world is in fact unconquerable, and 
could only become conquerable through slow demographic 
changes which a government with wide powers can easi- 
ly avert. The second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. 
The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never 
revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long 
as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, 
they never even become aware that they are oppressed. The 
recurrent economic crises of past times were totally un- 
necessary and are not now permitted to happen, but other 
and equally large dislocations can and do happen without 



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having political results, because there is no way in which 
discontent can become articulate. As for the problem of 
over-production, which has been latent in our society since 
the development of machine technique, it is solved by the 
device of continuous warfare (see Chapter III), which is 
also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary 
pitch. From the point of view of our present rulers, there- 
fore, the only genuine dangers are the splitting- off of a new 
group of able, under- employed, power-hungry people, and 
the growth of liberalism and scepticism in their own ranks. 
The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem 
of continuously moulding the consciousness both of the 
directing group and of the larger executive group that lies 
immediately below it. The consciousness of the masses 
needs only to be influenced in a negative way. 

Given this background, one could infer, if one did not 
know it already, the general structure of Oceanic society. At 
the apex of the pyramid comes Big Brother. Big Brother is in- 
fallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, 
every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all 
wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly 
from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen 
Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the 
telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, 
and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he 
was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party choos- 
es to exhibit itself to the world. His function is to act as a 
focusing point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which 
are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an 



1984 



organization. Below Big Brother comes the Inner Party. Its 
numbers limited to six millions, or something less than 
2 per cent of the population of Oceania. Below the Inner 
Party comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is de- 
scribed as the brain of the State, may be justly likened to the 
hands. Below that come the dumb masses whom we habitu- 
ally refer to as 'the proles', numbering perhaps 85 per cent of 
the population. In the terms of our earlier classification, the 
proles are the Low: for the slave population of the equatori- 
al lands who pass constantly from conqueror to conqueror, 
are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure. 

In principle, membership of these three groups is not he- 
reditary. The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not 
born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the 
Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen. Nor is 
there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination 
of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Ameri- 
cans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest 
ranks of the Party, and the administrators of any area are 
always drawn from the inhabitants of that area. In no part 
of Oceania do the inhabitants have the feeling that they are 
a colonial population ruled from a distant capital. Ocea- 
nia has no capital, and its titular head is a person whose 
whereabouts nobody knows. Except that English is its chief 
LINGUA FRANCA and Newspeak its official language, it is 
not centralized in any way. Its rulers are not held together 
by blood-ties but by adherence to a common doctrine. It 
is true that our society is stratified, and very rigidly strat- 
ified, on what at first sight appear to be hereditary lines. 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 263 



There is far less to-and-fro movement between the differ- 
ent groups than happened under capitalism or even in the 
pre-industrial age. Between the two branches of the Party 
there is a certain amount of interchange, but only so much 
as will ensure that weaklings are excluded from the Inner 
Party and that ambitious members of the Outer Party are 
made harmless by allowing them to rise. Proletarians, in 
practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The 
most gifted among them, who might possibly become nu- 
clei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought 
Police and eliminated. But this state of affairs is not neces- 
sarily permanent, nor is it a matter of principle. The Party 
is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not aim 
at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if 
there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the 
top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new 
generation from the ranks of the proletariat. In the crucial 
years, the fact that the Party was not a hereditary body did 
a great deal to neutralize opposition. The older kind of So- 
cialist, who had been trained to fight against something 
called 'class privilege' assumed that what is not hereditary 
cannot be permanent. He did not see that the continuity 
of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to 
reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been short- 
lived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic 
Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands 
of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son 
inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and 
a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A 

264 1984 



ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its 
successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating 
its blood but with perpetuating itself. WHO wields power 
is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure 
remains always the same. 

All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes 
that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the 
mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of pres- 
ent-day society from being perceived. Physical rebellion, or 
any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at present not 
possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left 
to themselves, they will continue from generation to gener- 
ation and from century to century, working, breeding, and 
dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without 
the power of grasping that the world could be other than it 
is. They could only become dangerous if the advance of in- 
dustrial technique made it necessary to educate them more 
highly; but, since military and commercial rivalry are no 
longer important, the level of popular education is actually 
declining. What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, 
is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted 
intellectual liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party 
member, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation 
of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be toler- 
ated. 

A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye 
of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be 
sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, 
working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 265 



without warning and without knowing that he is being in- 
spected. Nothing that he does is indifferent. His friendships, 
his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, 
the expression of his face when he is alone, the words he 
mutters in sleep, even the characteristic movements of his 
body, are all jealously scrutinized. Not only any actual mis- 
demeanour, but any eccentricity, however small, any change 
of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be 
the symptom of an inner struggle, is certain to be detected. 
He has no freedom of choice in any direction whatever. On 
the other hand his actions are not regulated by law or by any 
clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania there is 
no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean 
certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless 
purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations 
are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have ac- 
tually been committed, but are merely the wiping- out of 
persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in 
the future. A Party member is required to have not only the 
right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs 
and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and 
could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions 
inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in 
Newspeak a GOODTHINKER), he will in all circumstanc- 
es know, without taking thought, what is the true belief or 
the desirable emotion. But in any case an elaborate men- 
tal training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself 
round the Newspeak words CRIMESTOP, BLACKWHITE, 
and DOUBLETHINK, makes him unwilling and unable to 



1984 



think too deeply on any subject whatever. 

A Party member is expected to have no private emotions 
and no respites from enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a 
continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal 
traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before 
the power and wisdom of the Party. The discontents pro- 
duced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned 
outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes 
Hate, and the speculations which might possibly induce a 
sceptical or rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his 
early acquired inner discipline. The first and simplest stage 
in the discipline, which can be taught even to young chil- 
dren, is called, in Newspeak, CRIMESTOP CRIMESTOP 
means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, 
at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the 
power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logi- 
cal errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if 
they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled 
by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a 
heretical direction. CRIMESTOP, in short, means protec- 
tive stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, 
orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one's 
own mental processes as complete as that of a contortion- 
ist over his body. Oceanic society rests ultimately on the 
belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is 
infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent 
and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwea- 
rying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of 
facts. The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many 

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 267 



Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradicto- 
ry meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of 
impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of 
the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal 
willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline 
demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that 
black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and 
to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This de- 
mands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible 
by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, 
and which is known in Newspeak as DOUBLETHINK. 

The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, 
one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precaution- 
ary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like 
the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly be- 
cause he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut 
off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign 
countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that 
he is better off than his ancestors and that the average lev- 
el of material comfort is constantly rising. But by far the 
more important reason for the readjustment of the past is 
the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not 
merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind 
must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that 
the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also 
that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can 
ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's 
policy, is a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia 
or Eastasia (whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then 



1984 



that country must always have been the enemy. And if the 
facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered. Thus his- 
tory is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification 
of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as neces- 
sary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression 
and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love. 

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. 
Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but 
survive only in written records and in human memories. 
The past is whatever the records and the memories agree 
upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records 
and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it 
follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make 
it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never 
has been altered in any specific instance. For when it has 
been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, 
then this new version IS the past, and no different past can 
ever have existed. This holds good even when, as often hap- 
pens, the same event has to be altered out of recognition 
several times in the course of a year. At all times the Party 
is in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute 
can never have been different from what it is now. It will 
be seen that the control of the past depends above all on 
the training of memory. To make sure that all written re- 
cords agree with the orthodoxy of the moment is merely 
a mechanical act. But it is also necessary to REMEMBER 
that events happened in the desired manner. And if it is 
necessary to rearrange one's memories or to tamper with 
written records, then it is necessary to FORGET that one 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 269 



has done so. The trick of doing this can be learned like any 
other mental technique. It is learned by the majority of Par- 
ty members, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well 
as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, 'reality 
control'. In Newspeak it is called DOUBLETHINK, though 
DOUBLETHINK comprises much else as well. 

DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two 
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and ac- 
cepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which 
direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows 
that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of 
DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not 
violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not 
be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be 
unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and 
hence of guilt. DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of In- 
gsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious 
deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes 
with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genu- 
inely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become 
inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, 
to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, 
to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while 
to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is 
indispensably necessary. Even in using the word DOUBLE- 
THINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. For 
by using the word one admits that one is tampering with 
reality; by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this 
knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one 



1984 



leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of DOU- 
BLETHINK that the Party has been able — and may, for all 
we know, continue to be able for thousands of years — to ar- 
rest the course of history. 

All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because 
they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became 
stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to chang- 
ing circumstances, and were overthrown; or they became 
liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should 
have used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, 
that is to say, either through consciousness or through un- 
consciousness. It is the achievement of the Party to have 
produced a system of thought in which both conditions can 
exist simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual basis 
could the dominion of the Party be made permanent. If one 
is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dis- 
locate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to 
combine a belief in one's own infallibility with the Power to 
learn from past mistakes. 

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of 
DOUBLETHINK are those who invented DOUBLETHINK 
and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In 
our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is 
happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the 
world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the 
greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane. One 
clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increas- 
es in intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose 
attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the sub- 



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ject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the 
war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and 
fro over their bodies like a tidal wave. Which side is win- 
ning is a matter of complete indifference to them. They are 
aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they 
will be doing the same work as before for new masters who 
treat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly 
more favoured workers whom we call 'the proles' are only 
intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary 
they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but 
when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for 
long periods that the war is happening. It is in the ranks of 
the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war 
enthusiasm is found. World- conquest is believed in most 
firmly by those who know it to be impossible. This peculiar 
linking-together of opposites — knowledge with ignorance, 
cynicism with fanaticism — is one of the chief distinguish- 
ing marks of Oceanic society. The official ideology abounds 
with contradictions even when there is no practical reason 
for them. Thus, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle 
for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it 
chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches a 
contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries 
past, and it dresses its members in a uniform which was at 
one time peculiar to manual workers and was adopted for 
that reason. It systematically undermines the solidarity of 
the family, and it calls its leader by a name which is a direct 
appeal to the sentiment of family loyalty. Even the names of 
the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort 



1984 



of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The 
Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of 
Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the 
Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions 
are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypoc- 
risy; they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK. For 
it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be 
retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cy- 
cle be broken. If human equality is to be for ever averted — if 
the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places 
permanently — then the prevailing mental condition must 
be controlled insanity. 

But there is one question which until this moment we 
have almost ignored. It is; WHY should human equality be 
averted? Supposing that the mechanics of the process have 
been rightly described, what is the motive for this huge, 
accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular 
moment of time? 

Here we reach the central secret. As we have seen, the 
mystique of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, de- 
pends upon DOUBLETHINK But deeper than this lies the 
original motive, the never- questioned instinct that first led 
to the seizure of power and brought DOUBLETHINK, the 
Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other nec- 
essary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive 
really consists... 

Winston became aware of silence, as one becomes aware 
of a new sound. It seemed to him that Julia had been very 
still for some time past. She was lying on her side, na- 



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ked from the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed on 
her hand and one dark lock tumbling across her eyes. Her 
breast rose and fell slowly and regularly. 

'Julia.' 

No answer. 

'Julia, are you awake?' 

No answer. She was asleep. He shut the book, put it care- 
fully on the floor, lay down, and pulled the coverlet over 
both of them. 

He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret. 
He understood HOW; he did not understand WHY. Chap- 
ter I, like Chapter III, had not actually told him anything 
that he did not know, it had merely systematized the knowl- 
edge that he possessed already. But after reading it he knew 
better than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority, 
even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was 
truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth 
even against the whole world, you were not mad. A yellow 
beam from the sinking sun slanted in through the window 
and fell across the pillow. He shut his eyes. The sun on his 
face and the girl's smooth body touching his own gave him 
a strong, sleepy, confident feeling. He was safe, everything 
was all right. He fell asleep murmuring 'Sanity is not sta- 
tistical,' with the feeling that this remark contained in it a 
profound wisdom. 

When he woke it was with the sensation of having slept 
for a long time, but a glance at the old-fashioned clock told 
him that it was only twenty-thirty He lay dozing for a while; 



1984 



then the usual deep-lunged singing struck up from the yard 
below: 

'It was only an 'opeless fancy, 

It passed like an Ipril dye, 

But a look an a word an the dreams they stirred 

They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!' 

The driveling song seemed to have kept its popularity. 
You still heard it all over the place. It had outlived the Hate 
Song. Julia woke at the sound, stretched herself luxuriously, 
and got out of bed. 

'I'm hungry' she said. 'Let's make some more coffee. 
Damn! The stove's gone out and the water's cold.' She picked 
the stove up and shook it. 'There's no oil in it.' 

'We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.' 

'The funny thing is I made sure it was full. I'm going to 
put my clothes on,' she added. 'It seems to have got colder.' 

Winston also got up and dressed himself. The indefati- 
gable voice sang on: 

"Ihey sye that time 'eals all things, 

They sye you can always forget; 

But the smiles an the tears acrorss the years 

They twist my 'eart-strings yet!' 

As he fastened the belt of his overalls he strolled across 
to the window. The sun must have gone down behind the 
houses; it was not shining into the yard any longer. The flag- 

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stones were wet as though they had just been washed, and 
he had the feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh 
and pale was the blue between the chimney-pots. Tireless- 
ly the woman marched to and fro, corking and uncorking 
herself, singing and falling silent, and pegging out more di- 
apers, and more and yet more. He wondered whether she 
took in washing for a living or was merely the slave of twen- 
ty or thirty grandchildren. Julia had come across to his side; 
together they gazed down with a sort of fascination at the 
sturdy figure below. As he looked at the woman in her char- 
acteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching up for the line, 
her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him 
for the first time that she was beautiful. It had never before 
occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up 
to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, 
roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain like an 
over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and after 
all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a 
block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same re- 
lation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why 
should the fruit be held inferior to the flower? 

'She's beautiful,' he murmured. 

'She's a metre across the hips, easily' said Julia. 

'That is her style of beauty' said Winston. 

He held Julia's supple waist easily encircled by his arm. 
From the hip to the knee her flank was against his. Out of 
their bodies no child would ever come. That was the one 
thing they could never do. Only by word of mouth, from 
mind to mind, could they pass on the secret. The woman 

276 1984 



down there had no mind, she had only strong arms, a warm 
heart, and a fertile belly. He wondered how many children 
she had given birth to. It might easily be fifteen. She had 
had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wild-rose 
beauty and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized 
fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life 
had been laundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweep- 
ing, polishing, mending, scrubbing, laundering, first for 
children, then for grandchildren, over thirty unbroken 
years. At the end of it she was still singing. The mystical 
reverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with 
the aspect of the pale, cloudless sky, stretching away behind 
the chimney-pots into interminable distance. It was curi- 
ous to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in 
Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under 
the sky were also very much the same — everywhere, all over 
the world, hundreds of thousands of millions of people just 
like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held 
apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the 
same — people who had never learned to think but who were 
storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power 
that would one day overturn the world. If there was hope, 
it lay in the proles! Without having read to the end of THE 
BOOK, he knew that that must be Goldstein's final message. 
The future belonged to the proles. And could he be sure that 
when their time came the world they constructed would not 
be just as alien to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the 
Party? Yes, because at the least it would be a world of sanity. 
Where there is equality there can be sanity. Sooner or later 



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it would happen, strength would change into consciousness. 
The proles were immortal, you could not doubt it when you 
looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end their 
awakening would come. And until that happened, though it 
might be a thousand years, they would stay alive against all 
the odds, like birds, passing on from body to body the vital- 
ity which the Party did not share and could not kill. 

'Do you remember,' he said, 'the thrush that sang to us, 
that first day, at the edge of the wood?' 

'He wasn't singing to us,' said Julia. 'He was singing to 
please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.' 

The birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing. 
All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa 
and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond 
the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villag- 
es of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and 
Japan — everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable 
figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling 
from birth to death and still singing. Out of those mighty 
loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You 
were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in 
that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the 
body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two 
make four. 

'We are the dead,' he said. 

'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully. 

'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them. 

They sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have 
turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of 

278 1984 



Julia's eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear 
of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, 
almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath. 

'You are the dead,' repeated the iron voice. 

'It was behind the picture,' breathed Julia. 

'It was behind the picture,' said the voice. 'Remain exactly 
where you are. Make no movement until you are ordered.' 

It was starting, it was starting at last! They could do noth- 
ing except stand gazing into one another's eyes. To run for 
life, to get out of the house before it was too late — no such 
thought occurred to them. Unthinkable to disobey the iron 
voice from the wall. There was a snap as though a catch had 
been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture 
had fallen to the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it. 

'Now they can see us,' said Julia. 

'Now we can see you,' said the voice. 'Stand out in the 
middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands 
behind your heads. Do not touch one another.' 

They were not touching, but it seemed to him that he 
could feel Julia's body shaking. Or perhaps it was merely 
the shaking of his own. He could just stop his teeth from 
chattering, but his knees were beyond his control. There 
was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and 
outside. The yard seemed to be full of men. Something was 
being dragged across the stones. The woman's singing had 
stopped abruptly. There was a long, rolling clang, as though 
the washtub had been flung across the yard, and then a con- 
fusion of angry shouts which ended in a yell of pain. 

"The house is surrounded,' said Winston. 



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"The house is surrounded,' said the voice. 

He heard Julia snap her teeth together. 'I suppose we may 
as well say good-bye,' she said. 

'You may as well say good-bye,' said the voice. And then 
another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice which 
Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck 
in; 'And by the way, while we are on the subject, 'Here comes 
a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop 
off your head'!' 

Something crashed on to the bed behind Winston's back. 
The head of a ladder had been thrust through the window 
and had burst in the frame. Someone was climbing through 
the window. There was a stampede of boots up the stairs. 
The room was full of solid men in black uniforms, with iron- 
shod boots on their feet and truncheons in their hands. 

Winston was not trembling any longer. Even his eyes he 
barely moved. One thing alone mattered; to keep still, to 
keep still and not give them an excuse to hit you! A man 
with a smooth prize-fighter's jowl in which the mouth was 
only a slit paused opposite him balancing his truncheon 
meditatively between thumb and forefinger. Winston met 
his eyes. The feeling of nakedness, with one's hands behind 
one's head and one's face and body all exposed, was almost 
unbearable. The man protruded the tip of a white tongue, 
licked the place where his lips should have been, and then 
passed on. There was another crash. Someone had picked 
up the glass paperweight from the table and smashed it to 
pieces on the hearth-stone. 

The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sug- 



1984 



ar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, 
thought Winston, how small it always was! There was a gasp 
and a thump behind him, and he received a violent kick on 
the ankle which nearly flung him off his balance. One of the 
men had smashed his fist into Julia's solar plexus, doubling 
her up like a pocket ruler. She was thrashing about on the 
floor, fighting for breath. Winston dared not turn his head 
even by a millimetre, but sometimes her livid, gasping face 
came within the angle of his vision. Even in his terror it was 
as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly 
pain which nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to 
get back her breath. He knew what it was like; the terrible, 
agonizing pain which was there all the while but could not 
be suffered yet, because before all else it was necessary to 
be able to breathe. Then two of the men hoisted her up by 
knees and shoulders, and carried her out of the room like a 
sack. Winston had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yel- 
low and contorted, with the eyes shut, and still with a smear 
of rouge on either cheek; and that was the last he saw of 
her. 

He stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts 
which came of their own accord but seemed totally uninter- 
esting began to flit through his mind. He wondered whether 
they had got Mr Charrington. He wondered what they had 
done to the woman in the yard. He noticed that he bad- 
ly wanted to urinate, and felt a faint surprise, because he 
had done so only two or three hours ago. He noticed that 
the clock on the mantelpiece said nine, meaning twenty- 
one. But the light seemed too strong. Would not the light 



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be fading at twenty- one hours on an August evening? He 
wondered whether after all he and Julia had mistaken the 
time — had slept the clock round and thought it was twen- 
ty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the 
following morning. But he did not pursue the thought fur- 
ther. It was not interesting. 

There ws another, lighter step in the passage. Mr 
Charrington came into the room. The demeanour of 
the black-uniformed men suddenly became more sub- 
dued. Something had also changed in Mr Charrington's 
appearance. His eye fell on the fragments of the glass pa- 
perweight. 

'Pick up those pieces,' he said sharply. 

A man stooped to obey. The cockney accent had disap- 
peared; Winston suddenly realized whose voice it was that 
he had heard a few moments ago on the telescreen. Mr Char- 
rington was still wearing his old velvet jacket, but his hair, 
which had been almost white, had turned black. Also he was 
not wearing his spectacles. He gave Winston a single sharp 
glance, as though verifying his identity, and then paid no 
more attention to him. He was still recognizable, but he was 
not the same person any longer. His body had straightened, 
and seemed to have grown bigger. His face had undergone 
only tiny changes that had nevertheless worked a complete 
transformation. The black eyebrows were less bushy, the 
wrinkles were gone, the whole lines of the face seemed to 
have altered; even the nose seemed shorter. It was the alert, 
cold face of a man of about five-and-thirty It occurred to 
Winston that for the first time in his life he was looking, 



1984 



with knowledge, at a member of the Thought Police. 



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Part Three 



284 1984 



Chapter i 



He did not know where he was. Presumably he was in 
the Ministry of Love, but there was no way of mak- 
ing certain. He was in a high- ceilinged windowless cell with 
walls of glittering white porcelain. Concealed lamps flood- 
ed it with cold light, and there was a low, steady humming 
sound which he supposed had something to do with the 
air supply. A bench, or shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran 
round the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end op- 
posite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat. There 
were four telescreens, one in each wall. 

There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there 
ever since they had bundled him into the closed van and 
driven him away. But he was also hungry, with a gnaw- 
ing, unwholesome kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four 
hours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six. He still did 
not know, probably never would know, whether it had been 
morning or evening when they arrested him. Since he was 
arrested he had not been fed. 

He sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his 
hands crossed on his knee. He had already learned to sit 
still. If you made unexpected movements they yelled at you 
from the telescreen. But the craving for food was growing 
upon him. What he longed for above all was a piece of bread. 
He had an idea that there were a few breadcrumbs in the 

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pocket of his overalls. It was even possible — he thought this 
because from time to time something seemed to tickle his 
leg — that there might be a sizeable bit of crust there. In the 
end the temptation to find out overcame his fear; he slipped 
a hand into his pocket. 

'Smith!' yelled a voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith 
W.! Hands out of pockets in the cells!' 

He sat still again, his hands crossed on his knee. Be- 
fore being brought here he had been taken to another place 
which must have been an ordinary prison or a temporary 
lock-up used by the patrols. He did not know how long he 
had been there; some hours at any rate; with no clocks and 
no daylight it was hard to gauge the time. It was a noisy, evil- 
smelling place. They had put him into a cell similar to the 
one he was now in, but filthily dirty and at all times crowded 
by ten or fifteen people. The majority of them were common 
criminals, but there were a few political prisoners among 
them. He had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty 
bodies, too preoccupied by fear and the pain in his belly to 
take much interest in his surroundings, but still noticing 
the astonishing difference in demeanour between the Party 
prisoners and the others. The Party prisoners were always 
silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals seemed to 
care nothing for anybody. They yelled insults at the guards, 
fought back fiercely when their belongings were impound- 
ed, wrote obscene words on the floor, ate smuggled food 
which they produced from mysterious hiding-places in their 
clothes, and even shouted down the telescreen when it tried 
to restore order. On the other hand some of them seemed 



1984 



to be on good terms with the guards, called them by nick- 
names, and tried to wheedle cigarettes through the spyhole 
in the door. The guards, too, treated the common criminals 
with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle 
them roughly. There was much talk about the forced-labour 
camps to which most of the prisoners expected to be sent. 
It was 'all right' in the camps, he gathered, so long as you 
had good contacts and knew the ropes. There was bribery, 
favouritism, and racketeering of every kind, there was ho- 
mosexuality and prostitution, there was even illicit alcohol 
distilled from potatoes. The positions of trust were given 
only to the common criminals, especially the gangsters and 
the murderers, who formed a sort of aristocracy. All the 
dirty jobs were done by the politicals. 

There was a constant come-and-go of prisoners of every 
description: drug-peddlers, thieves, bandits, black-mar- 
keteers, drunks, prostitutes. Some of the drunks were so 
violent that the other prisoners had to combine to sup- 
press them. An enormous wreck of a woman, aged about 
sixty, with great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white 
hair which had come down in her struggles, was carried in, 
kicking and shouting, by four guards, who had hold of her 
one at each corner. They wrenched off the boots with which 
she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down 
across Winston's lap, almost breaking his thigh-bones. The 
woman hoisted herself upright and followed them out with 
a yell of 'F bastards!' Then, noticing that she was sit- 
ting on something uneven, she slid off Winston's knees on 
to the bench. 

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'Beg pardon, dearie,' she said. 'I wouldn't 'a sat on you, 
only the buggers put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady, 
do they?' She paused, patted her breast, and belched. 'Par- 
don,' she said, 'I ain't meself, quite.' 

She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor. 

"Ihass better,' she said, leaning back with closed eyes. 
'Never keep it down, thass what I say. Get it up while it's 
fresh on your stomach, like.' 

She revived, turned to have another look at Winston and 
seemed immediately to take a fancy to him. She put a vast 
arm round his shoulder and drew him towards her, breath- 
ing beer and vomit into his face. 

"Wass your name, dearie?' she said. 

'Smith,' said Winston. 

'Smith?' said the woman. "Thass funny. My name's Smith 
too. Why' she added sentimentally, T might be your moth- 
er!' 

She might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was 
about the right age and physique, and it was probable that 
people changed somewhat after twenty years in a forced-la- 
bour camp. 

No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent 
the ordinary criminals ignored the Party prisoners. "The 
polITS,' they called them, with a sort of uninterested con- 
tempt. The Party prisoners seemed terrified of speaking to 
anybody, and above all of speaking to one another. Only 
once, when two Party members, both women, were pressed 
close together on the bench, he overheard amid the din of 
voices a few hurriedly- whispered words; and in particular a 



1984 



reference to something called 'room one-oh-one', which he 
did not understand. 

It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought 
him here. The dull pain in his belly never went away, but 
sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his 
thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. When it 
grew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his de- 
sire for food. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. 
There were moments when he foresaw the things that would 
happen to him with such actuality that his heart galloped 
and his breath stopped. He felt the smash of truncheons on 
his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself 
grovelling on the floor, screaming for mercy through bro- 
ken teeth. He hardly thought of Julia. He could not fix his 
mind on her. He loved her and would not betray her; but 
that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arith- 
metic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly even wondered 
what was happening to her. He thought oftener of O'Brien, 
with a flickering hope. O'Brien might know that he had 
been arrested. The Brotherhood, he had said, never tried to 
save its members. But there was the razor blade; they would 
send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps 
five seconds before the guard could rush into the cell. The 
blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, 
and even the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. 
Everything came back to his sick body, which shrank trem- 
bling from the smallest pain. He was not certain that he 
would use the razor blade even if he got the chance. It was 
more natural to exist from moment to moment, accepting 



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another ten minutes' life even with the certainty that there 
was torture at the end of it. 

Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain 
bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but 
he always lost count at some point or another. More often he 
wondered where he was, and what time of day it was. At one 
moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside, 
and at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. In 
this place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be 
turned out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw now 
why O'Brien had seemed to recognize the allusion. In the 
Ministry of Love there were no windows. His cell might be 
at the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it might 
be ten floors below ground, or thirty above it. He moved 
himself mentally from place to place, and tried to deter- 
mine by the feeling of his body whether he was perched 
high in the air or buried deep underground. 

There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel 
door opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uni- 
formed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished 
leather, and whose pale, straight-featured face was like a 
wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He mo- 
tioned to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they 
were leading. The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. 
The door clanged shut again. 

Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from 
side to side, as though having some idea that there was an- 
other door to go out of, and then began to wander up and 
down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston's presence. 



1984 



His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre 
above the level of Winston's head. He was shoeless; large, 
dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He 
was also several days away from a shave. A scrubby beard 
covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of 
ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and 
nervous movements. 

Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He 
must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the tele- 
screen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the 
bearer of the razor blade. 

Ampleforth,' he said. 

There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth 
paused, mildly startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly 
on Winston. 

Ah, Smith!' he said. 'You too!' 

'What are you in for?' 

'To tell you the truth — ' He sat down awkwardly on the 
bench opposite Winston. 'There is only one offence, is there 
not?' he said. 

And have you committed it?' 

Apparently I have.' 

He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for 
a moment, as though trying to remember something. 

'These things happen,' he began vaguely. 'I have been 
able to recall one instance — a possible instance. It was an 
indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive 
edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word 'God' to 
remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!' he added al- 



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most indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. 'It was 
impossible to change the line. The rhyme was 'rod". Do you 
realize that there are only twelve rhymes to 'rod' in the en- 
tire language? For days I had racked my brains. There WAS 
no other rhyme.' 

The expression on his face changed. The annoyance 
passed out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. 
A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has 
found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and 
scrubby hair. 

'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole his- 
tory of English poetry has been determined by the fact that 
the English language lacks rhymes?' 

No, that particular thought had never occurred to Win- 
ston. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very 
important or interesting. 

'Do you know what time of day it is?' he said. 

Ampleforth looked startled again. 'I had hardly thought 
about it. They arrested me — it could be two days ago — per- 
haps three.' His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he 
half expected to find a window somewhere. 'There is no dif- 
ference between night and day in this place. I do not see 
how one can calculate the time.' 

They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without 
apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be 
silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed. Ampleforth, 
too large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted 
from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round one 
knee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to 



1984 



keep still. Time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour — it was 
difficult to judge. Once more there was a sound of boots 
outside. Winston's entrails contracted. Soon, very soon, 
perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp of boots 
would mean that his own turn had come. 

The door opened. The cold-faced young officer stepped 
into the cell. With a brief movement of the hand he indi- 
cated Ampleforth. 

'Room 101,' he said. 

Ampleforth marched clumsily out between the guards, 
his face vaguely perturbed, but uncomprehending. 

What seemed like a long time passed. The pain in Win- 
ston's belly had revived. His mind sagged round and round 
on the same trick, like a ball falling again and again into 
the same series of slots. He had only six thoughts. The pain 
in his belly; a piece of bread; the blood and the screaming; 
O'Brien; Julia; the razor blade. There was another spasm in 
his entrails, the heavy boots were approaching. As the door 
opened, the wave of air that it created brought in a power- 
ful smell of cold sweat. Parsons walked into the cell. He was 
wearing khaki shorts and a sports-shirt. 

This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness. 

'YOU here!' he said. 

Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was 
neither interest nor surprise, but only misery. He began 
walking jerkily up and down, evidently unable to keep still. 
Each time he straightened his pudgy knees it was apparent 
that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring 
look, as though he could not prevent himself from gazing at 

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something in the middle distance. 

'What are you in for?' said Winston. 

'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The 
tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of 
his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word 
could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston 
and began eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll 
shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you 
haven't actually done anything — only thoughts, which you 
can't help? I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust 
them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? YOU 
know what kind of chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. 
Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the 
Party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years, don't you think? Or 
even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty 
useful in a labour- camp. They wouldn't shoot me for going 
off the rails just once?' 

'Are you guilty?' said Winston. 

'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance 
at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest 
an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew calm- 
er, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. 
'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said senten- 
tiously 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your 
even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my 
sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to 
do my bit — never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. 
And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what 
they heard me saying?' 



1984 



He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medi- 
cal reasons to utter an obscenity. 

"Down with Big Brother!' Yes, I said that! Said it over 
and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm 
glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know 
what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribu- 
nal? 'Thank you,' I'm going to say, 'thank you for saving me 
before it was too late." 

'Who denounced you?' said Winston. 

'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of 
doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I 
was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. 
Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any 
grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her 
up in the right spirit, anyway' 

He made a few more jerky movements up and down, 
several times, casting a longing glance at the lavatory pan. 
Then he suddenly ripped down his shorts. 

'Excuse me, old man,' he said. T can't help it. It's the wait- 
ing.' 

He plumped his large posterior into the lavatory pan. 
Winston covered his face with his hands. 

'Smith!' yelled the voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith 
W! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells.' 

Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the lavatory, 
loudly and abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was 
defective and the cell stank abominably for hours after- 
wards. 

Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went, 



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mysteriously. One, a woman, was consigned to 'Room 101', 
and, Winston noticed, seemed to shrivel and turn a differ- 
ent colour when she heard the words. A time came when, if 
it had been morning when he was brought here, it would be 
afternoon; or if it had been afternoon, then it would be mid- 
night. There were six prisoners in the cell, men and women. 
All sat very still. Opposite Winston there sat a man with a 
chinless, toothy face exactly like that of some large, harm- 
less rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at the 
bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he had little 
stores of food tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted 
timorously from face to face and turned quickly away again 
when he caught anyone's eye. 

The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in 
whose appearance sent a momentary chill through Win- 
ston. He was a commonplace, mean-looking man who 
might have been an engineer or technician of some kind. 
But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. It 
was like a skull. Because of its thinness the mouth and eyes 
looked disproportionately large, and the eyes seemed filled 
with a murderous, unappeasable hatred of somebody or 
something. 

The man sat down on the bench at a little distance from 
Winston. Winston did not look at him again, but the tor- 
mented, skull-like face was as vivid in his mind as though 
it had been straight in front of his eyes. Suddenly he real- 
ized what was the matter. The man was dying of starvation. 
The same thought seemed to occur almost simultaneously 
to everyone in the cell. There was a very faint stirring all 

296 1984 



the way round the bench. The eyes of the chinless man kept 
flitting towards the skull-faced man, then turning guiltily 
away, then being dragged back by an irresistible attraction. 
Presently he began to fidget on his seat. At last he stood up, 
waddled clumsily across the cell, dug down into the pocket 
of his overalls, and, with an abashed air, held out a grimy 
piece of bread to the skull-faced man. 

There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen. 
The chinless man jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man 
had quickly thrust his hands behind his back, as though 
demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift. 

'Bumstead!' roared the voice. '2713 Bumstead J.! Let fall 
that piece of bread!' 

The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the 
floor. 

'Remain standing where you are,' said the voice. 'Face the 
door. Make no movement.' 

The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were 
quivering uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the 
young officer entered and stepped aside, there emerged 
from behind him a short stumpy guard with enormous 
arms and shoulders. He took his stand opposite the chin- 
less man, and then, at a signal from the officer, let free a 
frightful blow, with all the weight of his body behind it, full 
in the chinless man's mouth. The force of it seemed almost 
to knock him clear of the floor. His body was flung across 
the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory seat. 
For a moment he lay as though stunned, with dark blood 
oozing from his mouth and nose. A very faint whimper- 



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ing or squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came out of 
him. Then he rolled over and raised himself unsteadily on 
hands and knees. Amid a stream of blood and saliva, the 
two halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth. 

The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their 
knees. The chinless man climbed back into his place. Down 
one side of his face the flesh was darkening. His mouth had 
swollen into a shapeless cherry- coloured mass with a black 
hole in the middle of it. 

From time to time a little blood dripped on to the breast 
of his overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from face to face, 
more guiltily than ever, as though he were trying to discov- 
er how much the others despised him for his humiliation. 

The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indi- 
cated the skull-faced man. 

'Room 101,' he said. 

There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man 
had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with 
his hand clasped together. 

'Comrade! Officer!' he cried. 'You don't have to take me to 
that place! Haven't I told you everything already? What else 
is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess, 
nothing! Just tell me what it is and I'll confess straight off. 
Write it down and I'll sign it — anything! Not room 101!' 

'Room 101,' said the officer. 

The man's face, already very pale, turned a colour Win- 
ston would not have believed possible. It was definitely, 
unmistakably, a shade of green. 

'Do anything to me!' he yelled. 'You've been starving me 

298 1984 



for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. 
Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else 
you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you 
anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to 
them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them 
isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and 
cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and 
watch it. But not Room 101!' 

'Room 101,' said the officer. 

The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners, 
as though with some idea that he could put another victim 
in his own place. His eyes settled on the smashed face of the 
chinless man. He flung out a lean arm. 

'That's the one you ought to be taking, not me!' he shout- 
ed. 'You didn't hear what he was saying after they bashed 
his face. Give me a chance and I'll tell you every word of it. 
HE'S the one that's against the Party, not me.' The guards 
stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a shriek. 'You 
didn't hear him!' he repeated. 'Something went wrong with 
the telescreen. HE'S the one you want. Take him, not me!' 

The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the 
arms. But just at this moment he flung himself across the 
floor of the cell and grabbed one of the iron legs that sup- 
ported the bench. He had set up a wordless howling, like an 
animal. The guards took hold of him to wrench him loose, 
but he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps 
twenty seconds they were hauling at him. The prisoners sat 
quiet, their hands crossed on their knees, looking straight 
in front of them. The howling stopped; the man had no 



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breath left for anything except hanging on. Then there was 
a different kind of cry. A kick from a guard's boot had bro- 
ken the fingers of one of his hands. They dragged him to 
his feet. 

'Room 101,' said the officer. 

The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head 
sunken, nursing his crushed hand, all the fight had gone 
out of him. 

A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the 
skull-faced man was taken away, it was morning: if morn- 
ing, it was afternoon. Winston was alone, and had been 
alone for hours. The pain of sitting on the narrow bench 
was such that often he got up and walked about, unreproved 
by the telescreen. The piece of bread still lay where the chin- 
less man had dropped it. At the beginning it needed a hard 
effort not to look at it, but presently hunger gave way to 
thirst. His mouth was sticky and evil-tasting. The hum- 
ming sound and the unvarying white light induced a sort 
of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head. He would get 
up because the ache in his bones was no longer bearable, 
and then would sit down again almost at once because he 
was too dizzy to make sure of staying on his feet. Whenever 
his physical sensations were a little under control the ter- 
ror returned. Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of 
O'Brien and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor 
blade might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever 
fed. More dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other 
she was suffering perhaps far worse than he. She might be 
screaming with pain at this moment. He thought: 'If I could 



1984 



save Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I 
would.' But that was merely an intellectual decision, taken 
because he knew that he ought to take it. He did not feel it. 
In this place you could not feel anything, except pain and 
foreknowledge of pain. Besides, was it possible, when you 
were actually suffering it, to wish for any reason that your 
own pain should increase? But that question was not an- 
swerable yet. 

The boots were approaching again. The door opened. 
O'Brien came in. 

Winston started to his feet. The shock of the sight had 
driven all caution out of him. For the first time in many 
years he forgot the presence of the telescreen. 

"They've got you too!' he cried. 

'They got me a long time ago,' said O'Brien with a mild, 
almost regretful irony. He stepped aside. From behind him 
there emerged a broad-chested guard with a long black 
truncheon in his hand. 

'You know this, Winston,' said O'Brien. 'Don't deceive 
yourself. You did know it — you have always known it.' 

Yes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no 
time to think of that. All he had eyes for was the truncheon 
in the guard's hand. It might fall anywhere; on the crown, 
on the tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on the elbow 

The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost para- 
lysed, clasping the stricken elbow with his other hand. 
Everything had exploded into yellow light. Inconceivable, 
inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain! The 
light cleared and he could see the other two looking down 



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at him. The guard was laughing at his contortions. One 
question at any rate was answered. Never, for any reason 
on earth, could you wish for an increase of pain. Of pain 
you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing 
in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain 
there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as 
he writhed on the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled 
left arm. 



1984 



Chapter 2 



He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed, ex- 
cept that it was higher off the ground and that he was 
fixed down in some way so that he could not move. Light 
that seemed stronger than usual was falling on his face. 
O'Brien was standing at his side, looking down at him in- 
tently. At the other side of him stood a man in a white coat, 
holding a hypodermic syringe. 

Even after his eyes were open he took in his surround- 
ings only gradually. He had the impression of swimming up 
into this room from some quite different world, a sort of un- 
derwater world far beneath it. How long he had been down 
there he did not know. Since the moment when they arrest- 
ed him he had not seen darkness or daylight. Besides, his 
memories were not continuous. There had been times when 
consciousness, even the sort of consciousness that one has 
in sleep, had stopped dead and started again after a blank 
interval. But whether the intervals were of days or weeks or 
only seconds, there was no way of knowing. 

With that first blow on the elbow the nightmare had 
started. Later he was to realize that all that then happened 
was merely a preliminary, a routine interrogation to which 
nearly all prisoners were subjected. There was a long range 
of crimes — espionage, sabotage, and the like — to which ev- 
eryone had to confess as a matter of course. The confession 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 303 



was a formality, though the torture was real. How many 
times he had been beaten, how long the beatings had con- 
tinued, he could not remember. Always there were five or 
six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. Some- 
times it was fists, sometimes it was truncheons, sometimes 
it was steel rods, sometimes it was boots. There were times 
when he rolled about the floor, as shameless as an animal, 
writhing his body this way and that in an endless, hopeless 
effort to dodge the kicks, and simply inviting more and yet 
more kicks, in his ribs, in his belly, on his elbows, on his 
shins, in his groin, in his testicles, on the bone at the base 
of his spine. There were times when it went on and on un- 
til the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to him not 
that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not 
force himself into losing consciousness. There were times 
when his nerve so forsook him that he began shouting for 
mercy even before the beating began, when the mere sight 
of a fist drawn back for a blow was enough to make him 
pour forth a confession of real and imaginary crimes. There 
were other times when he started out with the resolve of 
confessing nothing, when every word had to be forced out 
of him between gasps of pain, and there were times when he 
feebly tried to compromise, when he said to himself: T will 
confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the pain becomes 
unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I 
will tell them what they want.' Sometimes he was beaten till 
he could hardly stand, then flung like a sack of potatoes on 
to the stone floor of a cell, left to recuperate for a few hours, 
and then taken out and beaten again. There were also longer 



1984 



periods of recovery. He remembered them dimly, because 
they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. He remembered 
a cell with a plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out from the 
wall, and a tin wash-basin, and meals of hot soup and bread 
and sometimes coffee. He remembered a surly barber arriv- 
ing to scrape his chin and crop his hair, and businesslike, 
unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse, tapping 
his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers 
over him in search for broken bones, and shooting needles 
into his arm to make him sleep. 

The beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a 
threat, a horror to which he could be sent back at any mo- 
ment when his answers were unsatisfactory. His questioners 
now were not ruffians in black uniforms but Party intellec- 
tuals, little rotund men with quick movements and flashing 
spectacles, who worked on him in relays over periods which 
lasted — he thought, he could not be sure — ten or twelve 
hours at a stretch. These other questioners saw to it that he 
was in constant slight pain, but it was not chiefly pain that 
they relied on. They slapped his face, wrung his ears, pulled 
his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to 
urinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran 
with water; but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him 
and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning. Their real 
weapon was the merciless questioning that went on and on, 
hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twist- 
ing everything that he said, convicting him at every step of 
lies and self-contradiction until he began weeping as much 
from shame as from nervous fatigue. Sometimes he would 



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weep half a dozen times in a single session. Most of the time 
they screamed abuse at him and threatened at every hesita- 
tion to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes 
they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, 
appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and 
ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough 
loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil 
he had done. When his nerves were in rags after hours of 
questioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivel- 
ling tears. In the end the nagging voices broke him down 
more completely than the boots and fists of the guards. He 
became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed, 
whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to 
find out what they wanted him to confess, and then confess 
it quickly, before the bullying started anew. He confessed 
to the assassination of eminent Party members, the dis- 
tribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public 
funds, sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He 
confessed that he had been a spy in the pay of the Easta- 
sian government as far back as 1968. He confessed that he 
was a religious believer, an admirer of capitalism, and a sex- 
ual pervert. He confessed that he had murdered his wife, 
although he knew, and his questioners must have known, 
that his wife was still alive. He confessed that for years he 
had been in personal touch with Goldstein and had been 
a member of an underground organization which had in- 
cluded almost every human being he had ever known. It 
was easier to confess everything and implicate everybody. 
Besides, in a sense it was all true. It was true that he had 

306 1984 



been the enemy of the Party, and in the eyes of the Party 
there was no distinction between the thought and the deed. 

There were also memories of another kind. They stood 
out in his mind disconnectedly, like pictures with black- 
ness all round them. 

He was in a cell which might have been either dark or 
light, because he could see nothing except a pair of eyes. 
Near at hand some kind of instrument was ticking slow- 
ly and regularly. The eyes grew larger and more luminous. 
Suddenly he floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and 
was swallowed up. 

He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under 
dazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials. 
There was a tramp of heavy boots outside. The door clanged 
open. The waxed-faced officer marched in, followed by two 
guards. 

'Room 101,' said the officer. 

The man in the white coat did not turn round. He did not 
look at Winston either; he was looking only at the dials. 

He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre 
wide, full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter 
and shouting out confessions at the top of his voice. He was 
confessing everything, even the things he had succeeded 
in holding back under the torture. He was relating the en- 
tire history of his life to an audience who knew it already. 
With him were the guards, the other questioners, the men 
in white coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr Charrington, all rolling 
down the corridor together and shouting with laughter. 
Some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in the fu- 



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ture had somehow been skipped over and had not happened. 
Everything was all right, there was no more pain, the last 
detail of his life was laid bare, understood, forgiven. 

He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-cer- 
tainty that he had heard O'Brien's voice. All through his 
interrogation, although he had never seen him, he had had 
the feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It 
was O'Brien who was directing everything. It was he who 
set the guards on to Winston and who prevented them from 
killing him. It was he who decided when Winston should 
scream with pain, when he should have a respite, when he 
should be fed, when he should sleep, when the drugs should 
be pumped into his arm. It was he who asked the ques- 
tions and suggested the answers. He was the tormentor, he 
was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend. 
And once — Winston could not remember whether it was 
in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment 
of wakefulness — a voice murmured in his ear: 'Don't wor- 
ry, Winston; you are in my keeping. For seven years I have 
watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall 
save you, I shall make you perfect.' He was not sure whether 
it was O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had 
said to him, 'We shall meet in the place where there is no 
darkness,' in that other dream, seven years ago. 

He did not remember any ending to his interrogation. 
There was a period of blackness and then the cell, or room, 
in which he now was had gradually materialized round him. 
He was almost flat on his back, and unable to move. His 
body was held down at every essential point. Even the back 

308 1984 



of his head was gripped in some manner. O'Brien was look- 
ing down at him gravely and rather sadly. His face, seen 
from below, looked coarse and worn, with pouches under 
the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was older 
than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight 
or fifty. Under his hand there was a dial with a lever on top 
and figures running round the face. 

'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would 
be here.' 

'Yes,' said Winston. 

Without any warning except a slight movement of 
O'Brien's hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a 
frightening pain, because he could not see what was hap- 
pening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was 
being done to him. He did not know whether the thing was 
really happening, or whether the effect was electrically pro- 
duced; but his body was being wrenched out of shape, the 
joints were being slowly torn apart. Although the pain had 
brought the sweat out on his forehead, the worst of all was 
the fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his 
teeth and breathed hard through his nose, trying to keep 
silent as long as possible. 

'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that in 
another moment something is going to break. Your especial 
fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental 
picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid 
dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it 
not, Winston?' 

Winston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on 



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the dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it 
had come. 

'That was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the num- 
bers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please 
remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in 
my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to what- 
ever degree I choose? If you tell me any lies, or attempt to 
prevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level 
of intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you 
understand that?' 

'Yes,' said Winston. 

O'Brien's manner became less severe. He resettled his 
spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and 
down. When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He 
had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to 
explain and persuade rather than to punish. 

'I am taking trouble with you, Winston,' he said, 'because 
you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the 
matter with you. You have known it for years, though you 
have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally de- 
ranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable 
to remember real events and you persuade yourself that you 
remember other events which never happened. Fortunately 
it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because 
you did not choose to. There was a small effort of the will 
that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well aware, 
you are clinging to your disease under the impression that 
it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, 
which power is Oceania at war with?' 



1984 



'When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.' 

'With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at 
war with Eastasia, has it not?' 

Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to 
speak and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes 
away from the dial. 

"The truth, please, Winston. YOUR truth. Tell me what 
you think you remember.' 

'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, 
we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance 
with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for 
four years. Before that ' 

O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand. 

'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a 
very serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, 
three one-time Party members named Jones, Aaronson, 
and Rutherford — men who were executed for treachery 
and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession — 
were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You 
believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evi- 
dence proving that their confessions were false. There was 
a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination. 
You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It 
was a photograph something like this.' 

An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between 
O'Brien's fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the 
angle of Winston's vision. It was a photograph, and there 
was no question of its identity. It was THE photograph. It 
was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, 

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and Rutherford at the party function in New York, which 
he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly de- 
stroyed. For only an instant it was before his eyes, then it 
was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he 
had seen it! He made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench 
the top half of his body free. It was impossible to move so 
much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he 
had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the 
photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it. 

'It exists!' he cried. 

'No,' said O'Brien. 

He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole 
in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the 
frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm 
air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away 
from the wall. 

'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does 
not exist. It never existed.' 

'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I re- 
member it. You remember it.' 

'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien. 

Winston's heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a 
feeling of deadly helplessness. If he could have been certain 
that O'Brien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. 
But it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgot- 
ten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have 
forgotten his denial of remembering it, and forgotten the 
act of forgetting. How could one be sure that it was simple 
trickery? Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could 



1984 



really happen: that was the thought that defeated him. 

O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More 
than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a 
wayward but promising child. 

"There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the 
past,' he said. 'Repeat it, if you please.' 

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls 
the present controls the past," repeated Winston obedient- 

"Who controls the present controls the past," said 
O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. 'Is it your 
opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?' 

Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Win- 
ston. His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not 
know whether 'yes' or 'no' was the answer that would save 
him from pain; he did not even know which answer he be- 
lieved to be the true one. 

O'Brien smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician, Win- 
ston,' he said. 'Until this moment you had never considered 
what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does 
the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or 
other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still 
happening?' 

'No.' 

"Then where does the past exist, if at all?' 

'In records. It is written down.' 

'In records. And ?' 

'In the mind. In human memories.' 

'In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all 



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records, and we control all memories. Then we control the 
past, do we not?' 

'But how can you stop people remembering things?' cried 
Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. 'It is invol- 
untary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? 
You have not controlled mine!' 

O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on 
the dial. 

'On the contrary' he said, 'YOU have not controlled it. 
That is what has brought you here. You are here because 
you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would 
not make the act of submission which is the price of san- 
ity You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only 
the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe 
that reality is something objective, external, existing in its 
own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self- 
evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you 
see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same 
thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not ex- 
ternal. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. 
Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and 
in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, 
which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds 
to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except 
by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact 
that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self- 
destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself 
before you can become sane.' 

He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what 



1984 



he had been saying to sink in. 

'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your dia- 
ry, 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make 
four'?' 

'Yes,' said Winston. 

O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, 
with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. 

'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?' 

'Four.' 

'And if the party says that it is not four but five — then 
how many?' 

'Four.' 

The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial 
had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over 
Winston's body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again 
in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could 
not stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still ex- 
tended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only 
slightly eased. 

'How many fingers, Winston?' 

'Four.' 

The needle went up to sixty. 

'How many fingers, Winston?' 

'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!' 

The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at 
it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. 
The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, 
blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four. 

'How many fingers, Winston?' 

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'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!' 

'How many fingers, Winston?' 

'Five! Five! Five!' 

'No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think 
there are four. How many fingers, please?' 

'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop 
the pain!' 

Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his 
shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few sec- 
onds. The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. 
He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth 
were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For 
a moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously com- 
forted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the 
feeling that O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was 
something that came from outside, from some other source, 
and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it. 

'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently. 

'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing 
what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.' 

Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Some- 
times they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. 
You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.' 

He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbs 
tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the 
trembling had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold. 
O'Brien motioned with his head to the man in the white 
coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. 
The man in the white coat bent down and looked closely 

316 1984 



into Winston's eyes, felt his pulse, laid an ear against his 
chest, tapped here and there, then he nodded to O'Brien. 

'Again,' said O'Brien. 

The pain flowed into Winston's body. The needle must be 
at seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He 
knew that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that 
mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was 
over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or 
not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien 
had drawn back the lever. 

'How many fingers, Winston?' 

'Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. 
I am trying to see five.' 

'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or 
really to see them?' 

'Really to see them.' 

Again,' said O'Brien. 

Perhaps the needle was eighty — ninety. Winston could 
not intermittently remember why the pain was happening. 
Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to 
be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disap- 
pearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was 
trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew 
only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was 
somehow due to the mysterious identity between five and 
four. The pain died down again. When he opened his eyes 
it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing. In- 
numerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming 
past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut 



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his eyes again. 

'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?' 

'I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do that 
again. Four, five, six — in all honesty I don't know.' 

'Better,' said O'Brien. 

A needle slid into Winston's arm. Almost in the same in- 
stant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body. 
The pain was already half-forgotten. He opened his eyes 
and looked up gratefully at O'Brien. At sight of the heavy, 
lined face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart seemed to 
turn over. If he could have moved he would have stretched 
out a hand and laid it on O'Brien's arm. He had never loved 
him so deeply as at this moment, and not merely because 
he had stopped the pain. The old feeling, that at bottom it 
did not matter whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy, 
had come back. O'Brien was a person who could be talked 
to. Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be 
understood. O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of luna- 
cy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him 
to his death. It made no difference. In some sense that went 
deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or 
other, although the actual words might never be spoken, 
there was a place where they could meet and talk. O'Brien 
was looking down at him with an expression which suggest- 
ed that the same thought might be in his own mind. When 
he spoke it was in an easy, conversational tone. 

'Do you know where you are, Winston?' he said. 

'I don't know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.' 

'Do you know how long you have been here?' 

318 1984 



'I don't know. Days, weeks, months — I think it is 
months.' 

'And why do you imagine that we bring people to this 
place?' 

'To make them confess.' 

'No, that is not the reason. Try again.' 

'To punish them.' 

'No!' exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed extraor- 
dinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and 
animated. 'No! Not merely to extract your confession, not to 
punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? 
To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Win- 
ston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves 
our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid 
crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested 
in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not 
merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you un- 
derstand what I mean by that?' 

He was bending over Winston. His face looked enormous 
because of its nearness, and hideously ugly because it was 
seen from below. Moreover it was filled with a sort of exal- 
tation, a lunatic intensity. Again Winston's heart shrank. If 
it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into the 
bed. He felt certain that O'Brien was about to twist the dial 
out of sheer wantonness. At this moment, however, O'Brien 
turned away. He took a pace or two up and down. Then he 
continued less vehemently: 

'The first thing for you to understand is that in this place 
there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious 

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persecutions of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the 
Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out to eradicate heresy, and 
ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned at the 
stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that? Because 
the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed 
them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed 
them because they were unrepentant. Men were dying be- 
cause they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally 
all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the 
Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century, 
there were the totalitarians, as they were called. There were 
the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. The Rus- 
sians persecuted heresy more cruelly than the Inquisition 
had done. And they imagined that they had learned from 
the mistakes of the past; they knew, at any rate, that one 
must not make martyrs. Before they exposed their victims 
to public trial, they deliberately set themselves to destroy 
their dignity. They wore them down by torture and solitude 
until they were despicable, cringing wretches, confessing 
whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselves 
with abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another, 
whimpering for mercy. And yet after only a few years the 
same thing had happened over again. The dead men had 
become martyrs and their degradation was forgotten. Once 
again, why was it? In the first place, because the confessions 
that they had made were obviously extorted and untrue. We 
do not make mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that 
are uttered here are true. We make them true. And above 
all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must 



1984 



stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston. 
Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out 
from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and 
pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you, 
not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You 
will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You 
will never have existed.' 

Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a 
momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as though 
Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large ugly face 
came nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed. 

'You are thinking,' he said, 'that since we intend to de- 
stroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can 
make the smallest difference — in that case, why do we go to 
the trouble of interrogating you first? That is what you were 
thinking, was it not?' 

'Yes,' said Winston. 

O'Brien smiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern, 
Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not 
tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors 
of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor 
even with the most abject submission. When finally you 
surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not 
destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he re- 
sists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture 
his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all 
illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in ap- 
pearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one 
of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that 



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an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, 
however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant 
of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the 
heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his 
heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges 
could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked 
down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the 
brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old 
despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The command of the total- 
itarians was 'Thou shalt". Our command is 'THOU ART". 
No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against 
us. Everyone is washed clean. Even those three miserable 
traitors in whose innocence you once believed — Jones, Aar- 
onson, and Rutherford — in the end we broke them down. I 
took part in their interrogation myself. I saw them gradu- 
ally worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping — and in 
the end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence. 
By the time we had finished with them they were only the 
shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sor- 
row for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was 
touching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shot 
quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still 
clean.' 

His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the 
lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face. He is not pretend- 
ing, thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he believes 
every word he says. What most oppressed him was the con- 
sciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched 
the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out 



1984 



of the range of his vision. O'Brien was a being in all ways 
larger than himself. There was no idea that he had ever had, 
or could have, that O'Brien had not long ago known, ex- 
amined, and rejected. His mind CONTAINED Winston's 
mind. But in that case how could it be true that O'Brien was 
mad? It must be he, Winston, who was mad. O'Brien halted 
and looked down at him. His voice had grown stern again. 

'Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston, 
however completely you surrender to us. No one who has 
once gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let 
you live out the natural term of your life, still you would 
never escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever. 
Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to 
the point from which there is no coming back. Things will 
happen to you from which you could not recover, if you 
lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of 
ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside 
you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, 
or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or in- 
tegrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and 
then we shall fill you with ourselves.' 

He paused and signed to the man in the white coat. 
Winston was aware of some heavy piece of apparatus being 
pushed into place behind his head. O'Brien had sat down 
beside the bed, so that his face was almost on a level with 
Winston's. 

'Three thousand,' he said, speaking over Winston's head 
to the man in the white coat. 

Two soft pads, which felt slightly moist, clamped them- 



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selves against Winston's temples. He quailed. There was 
pain coming, a new kind of pain. O'Brien laid a hand reas- 
suringly, almost kindly, on his. 

"This time it will not hurt,' he said. 'Keep your eyes fixed 
on mine.' 

At this moment there was a devastating explosion, or what 
seemed like an explosion, though it was not certain whether 
there was any noise. There was undoubtedly a blinding flash 
of light. Winston was not hurt, only prostrated. Although 
he had already been lying on his back when the thing hap- 
pened, he had a curious feeling that he had been knocked 
into that position. A terrific painless blow had flattened him 
out. Also something had happened inside his head. As his 
eyes regained their focus he remembered who he was, and 
where he was, and recognized the face that was gazing into 
his own; but somewhere or other there was a large patch 
of emptiness, as though a piece had been taken out of his 
brain. 

'It will not last,' said O'Brien. 'Look me in the eyes. What 
country is Oceania at war with?' 

Winston thought. He knew what was meant by Oceania 
and that he himself was a citizen of Oceania. He also re- 
membered Eurasia and Eastasia; but who was at war with 
whom he did not know. In fact he had not been aware that 
there was any war. 

'I don't remember.' 

'Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Do you remember that 
now?' 

'Yes.' 



1984 



'Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Since the 
beginning of your life, since the beginning of the Party, 
since the beginning of history, the war has continued with- 
out a break, always the same war. Do you remember that?' 

'Yes.' 

'Eleven years ago you created a legend about three men 
who had been condemned to death for treachery. You pre- 
tended that you had seen a piece of paper which proved 
them innocent. No such piece of paper ever existed. You in- 
vented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember 
now the very moment at which you first invented it. Do you 
remember that?' 

'Yes.' 

'Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you. You saw 
five fingers. Do you remember that?' 

'Yes.' 

O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the 
thumb concealed. 

'There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?' 

'Yes.' 

And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the 
scenery of his mind changed. He saw five fingers, and there 
was no deformity. Then everything was normal again, and 
the old fear, the hatred, and the bewilderment came crowd- 
ing back again. But there had been a moment — he did not 
know how long, thirty seconds, perhaps — of luminous cer- 
tainty, when each new suggestion of O'Brien's had filled up 
a patch of emptiness and become absolute truth, and when 
two and two could have been three as easily as five, if that 



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were what was needed. It had faded but before O'Brien had 
dropped his hand; but though he could not recapture it, he 
could remember it, as one remembers a vivid experience at 
some period of one's life when one was in effect a different 
person. 

'You see now,' said O'Brien, 'that it is at any rate possi- 
ble.' 

'Yes,' said Winston. 

O'Brien stood up with a satisfied air. Over to his left 
Winston saw the man in the white coat break an ampoule 
and draw back the plunger of a syringe. O'Brien turned to 
Winston with a smile. In almost the old manner he resettled 
his spectacles on his nose. 

'Do you remember writing in your diary' he said, 'that 
it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since 
I was at least a person who understood you and could be 
talked to? You were right. I enjoy talking to you. Your mind 
appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you 
happen to be insane. Before we bring the session to an end 
you can ask me a few questions, if you choose.' 

'Any question I like?' 

'Anything.' He saw that Winston's eyes were upon the 
dial. 'It is switched off. What is your first question?' 

'What have you done with Julia?' said Winston. 

O'Brien smiled again. 'She betrayed you, Winston. Im- 
mediately — unreservedly. I have seldom seen anyone come 
over to us so promptly. You would hardly recognize her if 
you saw her. All her rebelliousness, her deceit, her folly, her 
dirty- mindedness — everything has been burned out of her. 

326 1984 



It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case.' 

'You tortured her?' 

O'Brien left this unanswered. 'Next question,' he said. 

'Does Big Brother exist?' 

'Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the 
embodiment of the Party.' 

'Does he exist in the same way as I exist?' 

'You do not exist,' said O'Brien. 

Once again the sense of helplessness assailed him. He 
knew, or he could imagine, the arguments which proved 
his own nonexistence; but they were nonsense, they were 
only a play on words. Did not the statement, 'You do not ex- 
ist', contain a logical absurdity? But what use was it to say 
so? His mind shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable, 
mad arguments with which O'Brien would demolish him. 

'I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my 
own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and 
legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid 
object can occupy the same point simultaneously. In that 
sense, does Big Brother exist?' 

'It is of no importance. He exists.' 

'Will Big Brother ever die?' 

'Of course not. How could he die? Next question.' 

'Does the Brotherhood exist?' 

"That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set 
you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to 
be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the 
answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it 
will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.' 



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Winston lay silent. His breast rose and fell a little faster. 
He still had not asked the question that had come into his 
mind the first. He had got to ask it, and yet it was as though 
his tongue would not utter it. There was a trace of amuse- 
ment in O'Brien's face. Even his spectacles seemed to wear 
an ironical gleam. He knows, thought Winston suddenly, 
he knows what I am going to ask! At the thought the words 
burst out of him: 

'What is in Room 101?' 

The expression on O'Brien's face did not change. He an- 
swered drily: 

'You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone 
knows what is in Room 101.' 

He raised a finger to the man in the white coat. Evidently 
the session was at an end. A needle jerked into Winston's 
arm. He sank almost instantly into deep sleep. 



1984 



Chapter 3 



^ There are three stages in your reintegration,' said O'Brien. 
"There is learning, there is understanding, and there is ac- 
ceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second stage.' 

As always, Winston was lying flat on his back. But of late 
his bonds were looser. They still held him to the bed, but 
he could move his knees a little and could turn his head 
from side to side and raise his arms from the elbow. The 
dial, also, had grown to be less of a terror. He could evade its 
pangs if he was quick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he 
showed stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes 
they got through a whole session without use of the dial. 
He could not remember how many sessions there had been. 
The whole process seemed to stretch out over a long, indefi- 
nite time — weeks, possibly — and the intervals between the 
sessions might sometimes have been days, sometimes only 
an hour or two. 

'As you lie there,' said O'Brien, 'y ou have often won- 
dered — you have even asked me — why the Ministry of Love 
should expend so much time and trouble on you. And when 
you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the 
same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the So- 
ciety you lived in, but not its underlying motives. Do you 
remember writing in your diary, 'I understand HOW: I do 
not understand WHY'? It was when you thought about 



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'why' that you doubted your own sanity. You have read THE 
BOOK, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell 
you anything that you did not know already?' 

'You have read it?' said Winston. 

'I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No 
book is produced individually, as you know.' 

'Is it true, what it says?' 

'As description, yes. The programme it sets forth is non- 
sense. The secret accumulation of knowledge — a gradual 
spread of enlightenment — ultimately a proletarian rebel- 
lion — the overthrow of the Party. You foresaw yourself that 
that was what it would say. It is all nonsense. The proletar- 
ians will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. 
They cannot. I do not have to tell you the reason: you know 
it already. If you have ever cherished any dreams of violent 
insurrection, you must abandon them. There is no way in 
which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is 
for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.' 

He came closer to the bed. 'For ever!' he repeated. 'And 
now let us get back to the question of 'how' and 'why". You 
understand well enough HOW the Party maintains itself 
in power. Now tell me WHY we cling to power. What is 
our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,' he 
added as Winston remained silent. 

Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another mo- 
ment or two. A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. 
The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into 
O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'Brien would say. 
That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only 



1984 



for the good of the majority. That it sought power because 
men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could 
not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over 
and systematically deceived by others who were stronger 
than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between 
freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of man- 
kind, happiness was better. That the party was the eternal 
guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good 
might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of oth- 
ers. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing 
was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You 
could see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thou- 
sand times better than Winston he knew what the world 
was really like, in what degradation the mass of human be- 
ings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept 
them there. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it 
made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. 
What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who 
is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments 
a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy? 

'You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly. 
You believe that human beings are not fit to govern them- 
selves, and therefore ' 

He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot 
through his body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial 
up to thirty-five. 

'That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' he said. You should 
know better than to say a thing like that.' 

He pulled the lever back and continued: 



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'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. 
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not 
interested in the good of others; we are interested solely 
in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: 
only power, pure power. What pure power means you will 
understand presently. We are different from all the oligar- 
chies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All 
the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cow- 
ards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian 
Communists came very close to us in their methods, but 
they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. 
They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had 
seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that 
just round the corner there lay a paradise where human be- 
ings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know 
that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relin- 
quishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not 
establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; 
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictator- 
ship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of 
torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you 
begin to understand me?' 

Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the 
tiredness of O'Brien's face. It was strong and fleshy and bru- 
tal, it was full of intelligence and a sort of controlled passion 
before which he felt himself helpless; but it was tired. There 
were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from the 
cheekbones. O'Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing 
the worn face nearer. 



1984 



'You are thinking,' he said, 'that my face is old and tired. 
You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even 
able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not un- 
derstand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The 
weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you 
die when you cut your fingernails?' 

He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and 
down again, one hand in his pocket. 

'We are the priests of power,' he said. 'God is power. But 
at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. 
It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. 
The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. 
The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an 
individual. You know the Party slogan: 'Freedom is Slavery". 
Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is 
freedom. Alone — free — the human being is always defeated. 
It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, 
which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make com- 
plete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, 
if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, 
then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for 
you to realize is that power is power over human beings. 
Over the body — but, above all, over the mind. Power over 
matter — external reality, as you would call it — is not impor- 
tant. Already our control over matter is absolute.' 

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a vio- 
lent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely 
succeeded in wrenching his body painfully. 

'But how can you control matter?' he burst out. 'You don't 



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even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are 
disease, pain, death ' 

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We 
control matter because we control the mind. Reality is in- 
side the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is 
nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation — any- 
thing. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish 
to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You 
must get rid of those nineteenth- century ideas about the 
laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.' 

'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. 
What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered 
them yet.' 

'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. 
And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can 
shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.' 

'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is 
tiny — helpless! How long has he been in existence? For mil- 
lions of years the earth was uninhabited.' 

'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How 
could it be older? Nothing exists except through human 
consciousness.' 

'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals — 
mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which 
lived here long before man was ever heard of 

'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. 
Nineteenth- century biologists invented them. Before man 
there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, 
there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.' 



1984 



'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! 
Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of 
our reach for ever.' 

'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are 
bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we 
wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the cen- 
tre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.' 

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time 
he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though an- 
swering a spoken objection: 

'For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When 
we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we of- 
ten find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round 
the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of ki- 
lometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond 
us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be 
near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose 
our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgot- 
ten doublethink?' 

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, 
the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he 
knew, he KNEW, that he was in the right. The belief that 
nothing exists outside your own mind — surely there must 
be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not 
been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name 
for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the 
corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him. 

T told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not 
your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 335 



solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Col- 
lective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in 
fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,' he added 
in a different tone. 'The real power, the power we have to 
fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over 
men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air 
of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does 
one man assert his power over another, Winston?' 

Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said. 

'Exactly By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. 
Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obey- 
ing your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain 
and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces 
and putting them together again in new shapes of your own 
choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we 
are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonis- 
tic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear 
and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being 
trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE 
merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be 
progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed 
that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded 
upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions ex- 
cept fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything 
else we shall destroy — everything. Already we are break- 
ing down the habits of thought which have survived from 
before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child 
and parent, and between man and man, and between man 
and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend 

336 1984 



any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and 
no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at 
birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be 
eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the 
renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our 
neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loy- 
alty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, 
except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, ex- 
cept the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will 
be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipo- 
tent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no 
distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no 
curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing 
pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, 
Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, 
constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Al- 
ways, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, 
the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If 
you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping 
on a human face — for ever.' 

He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. 
Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed 
again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be 
frozen. O'Brien went on: 

And remember that it is for ever. The face will always 
be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of so- 
ciety, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and 
humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone 
since you have been in our hands — all that will continue, 



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and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tor- 
tures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. 
It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. 
The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: 
the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Gold- 
stein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every 
moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat 
upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I 
have played out with you during seven years will be played 
out over and over again generation after generation, always 
in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our 
mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible — and 
in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to 
our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are pre- 
paring, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph 
after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, 
pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can 
see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end 
you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, wel- 
come it, become part of it.' 

Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 
'You can't!' he said weakly. 

'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?' 

'You could not create such a world as you have just de- 
scribed. It is a dream. It is impossible.' 

'Why?' 

'It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred 
and cruelty. It would never endure.' 

'Why not?' 

338 1984 



'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would 
commit suicide.' 

'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is 
more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, 
what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose 
to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the 
tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what 
difference would it make? Can you not understand that the 
death of the individual is not death? The party is immor- 
tal.' 

As usual, the voice had battered Winston into helpless- 
ness. Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his 
disagreement O'Brien would twist the dial again. And yet 
he could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with 
nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of 
what O'Brien had said, he returned to the attack. 

'I don't know — I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Some- 
thing will defeat you. Life will defeat you.' 

'We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imag- 
ining that there is something called human nature which 
will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But 
we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or 
perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the prole- 
tarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out 
of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity 
is the Party. The others are outside — irrelevant.' 

'I don't care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later 
they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear 
you to pieces.' 



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'Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any 
reason why it should?' 

'No. I believe it. I KNOW that you will fail. There is 
something in the universe — I don't know, some spirit, some 
principle — that you will never overcome.' 

'Do you believe in God, Winston?' 

'No.' 

'Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?' 

'I don't know. The spirit of Man.' 

'And do you consider yourself a man?' 

'Yes.' 

'If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your 
kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand 
that you are ALONE? You are outside history, you are non- 
existent.' His manner changed and he said more harshly: 
And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our 
lies and our cruelty?' 

'Yes, I consider myself superior.' 

O'Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. 
After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his 
own. It was a sound-track of the conversation he had had 
with O'Brien, on the night when he had enrolled himself in 
the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, 
to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prosti- 
tution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol 
in a child's face. O'Brien made a small impatient gesture, 
as though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth 
making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped. 

'Get up from that bed,' he said. 



1984 



The bonds had loosened themselves. Winston lowered 
himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily. 

'You are the last man,' said O'Brien. 'You are the guard- 
ian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as you are. 
Take off your clothes.' 

Winston undid the bit of string that held his overalls to- 
gether. The zip fastener had long since been wrenched out of 
them. He could not remember whether at any time since his 
arrest he had taken off all his clothes at one time. Beneath 
the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish rags, 
just recognizable as the remnants of underclothes. As he 
slid them to the ground he saw that there was a three-sided 
mirror at the far end of the room. He approached it, then 
stopped short. An involuntary cry had broken out of him. 

'Go on,' said O'Brien. 'Stand between the wings of the 
mirror. You shall see the side view as well' 

He had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed, 
grey- coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards 
him. Its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely 
the fact that he knew it to be himself. He moved closer to 
the glass. The creature's face seemed to be protruded, be- 
cause of its bent carriage. A forlorn, jailbird's face with a 
nobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a crooked 
nose, and battered-looking cheekbones above which his 
eyes were fierce and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the 
mouth had a drawn-in look. Certainly it was his own face, 
but it seemed to him that it had changed more than he had 
changed inside. The emotions it registered would be differ- 
ent from the ones he felt. He had gone partially bald. For the 



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first moment he had thought that he had gone grey as well, 
but it was only the scalp that was grey. Except for his hands 
and a circle of his face, his body was grey all over with an- 
cient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there 
were the red scars of wounds, and near the ankle the vari- 
cose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling 
off it. But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of 
his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a 
skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker 
than the thighs. He saw now what O'Brien had meant about 
seeing the side view. The curvature of the spine was aston- 
ishing. The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to 
make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be 
bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he 
would have said that it was the body of a man of sixty, suf- 
fering from some malignant disease. 

'You have thought sometimes,' said O'Brien, 'that my 
face — the face of a member of the Inner Party — looks old 
and worn. What do you think of your own face?' 

He seized Winston's shoulder and spun him round so 
that he was facing him. 

'Look at the condition you are in!' he said. 'Look at this 
filthy grime all over your body. Look at the dirt between 
your toes. Look at that disgusting running sore on your leg. 
Do you know that you stink like a goat? Probably you have 
ceased to notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do you see? I 
can make my thumb and forefinger meet round your bicep. 
I could snap your neck like a carrot. Do you know that you 
have lost twenty-five kilograms since you have been in our 



1984 



hands? Even your hair is coming out in handfuls. Look!' He 
plucked at Winston's head and brought away a tuft of hair. 
'Open your mouth. Nine, ten, eleven teeth left. How many 
had you when you came to us? And the few you have left are 
dropping out of your head. Look here!' 

He seized one of Winston's remaining front teeth be- 
tween his powerful thumb and forefinger. A twinge of pain 
shot through Winston's jaw. O'Brien had wrenched the 
loose tooth out by the roots. He tossed it across the cell. 

'You are rotting away' he said; 'you are falling to pieces. 
What are you? A bag of filth. Now turn around and look 
into that mirror again. Do you see that thing facing you? 
That is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity. 
Now put your clothes on again.' 

Winston began to dress himself with slow stiff move- 
ments. Until now he had not seemed to notice how thin and 
weak he was. Only one thought stirred in his mind: that he 
must have been in this place longer than he had imagined. 
Then suddenly as he fixed the miserable rags round himself 
a feeling of pity for his ruined body overcame him. Before 
he knew what he was doing he had collapsed on to a small 
stool that stood beside the bed and burst into tears. He was 
aware of his ugliness, his gracelessness, a bundle of bones in 
filthy underclothes sitting weeping in the harsh white light: 
but he could not stop himself. O'Brien laid a hand on his 
shoulder, almost kindly. 

'It will not last for ever,' he said. 'You can escape from it 
whenever you choose. Everything depends on yourself 

'You did it!' sobbed Winston. 'You reduced me to this 



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state. 

'No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you 
accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was 
all contained in that first act. Nothing has happened that 
you did not foresee.' 

He paused, and then went on: 

'We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. 
You have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the 
same state. I do not think there can be much pride left in 
you. You have been kicked and flogged and insulted, you 
have screamed with pain, you have rolled on the floor in 
your own blood and vomit. You have whimpered for mercy, 
you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think 
of a single degradation that has not happened to you?' 

Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were 
still oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O'Brien. 

'I have not betrayed Julia,' he said. 

O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully. 'No,' he said; 
'no; that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia.' 

The peculiar reverence for O'Brien, which nothing 
seemed able to destroy, flooded Winston's heart again. How 
intelligent, he thought, how intelligent! Never did O'Brien 
fail to understand what was said to him. Anyone else on 
earth would have answered promptly that he HAD be- 
trayed Julia. For what was there that they had not screwed 
out of him under the torture? He had told them everything 
he knew about her, her habits, her character, her past life; 
he had confessed in the most trivial detail everything that 
had happened at their meetings, all that he had said to her 



1984 



and she to him, their black-market meals, their adulteries, 
their vague plottings against the Party — everything. And 
yet, in the sense in which he intended the word, he had not 
betrayed her. He had not stopped loving her; his feelings to- 
wards her had remained the same. O'Brien had seen what 
he meant without the need for explanation. 

'Tell me,' he said, 'how soon will they shoot me?' 
'It might be a long time,' said O'Brien. 'You are a difficult 
case. But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or 
later. In the end we shall shoot you.' 



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Chapter 4 



He was much better. He was growing fatter and stronger 
every day, if it was proper to speak of days. 

The white light and the humming sound were the same 
as ever, but the cell was a little more comfortable than the 
others he had been in. There was a pillow and a mattress on 
the plank bed, and a stool to sit on. They had given him a 
bath, and they allowed him to wash himself fairly frequent- 
ly in a tin basin. They even gave him warm water to wash 
with. They had given him new underclothes and a clean suit 
of overalls. They had dressed his varicose ulcer with sooth- 
ing ointment. They had pulled out the remnants of his teeth 
and given him a new set of dentures. 

Weeks or months must have passed. It would have been 
possible now to keep count of the passage of time, if he had 
felt any interest in doing so, since he was being fed at what 
appeared to be regular intervals. He was getting, he judged, 
three meals in the twenty-four hours; sometimes he won- 
dered dimly whether he was getting them by night or by day. 
The food was surprisingly good, with meat at every third 
meal. Once there was even a packet of cigarettes. He had 
no matches, but the never-speaking guard who brought his 
food would give him a light. The first time he tried to smoke 
it made him sick, but he persevered, and spun the packet out 
for a long time, smoking half a cigarette after each meal. 

346 1984 



They had given him a white slate with a stump of pencil 
tied to the corner. At first he made no use of it. Even when 
he was awake he was completely torpid. Often he would lie 
from one meal to the next almost without stirring, some- 
times asleep, sometimes waking into vague reveries in which 
it was too much trouble to open his eyes. He had long grown 
used to sleeping with a strong light on his face. It seemed 
to make no difference, except that one's dreams were more 
coherent. He dreamed a great deal all through this time, 
and they were always happy dreams. He was in the Golden 
Country, or he was sitting among enormous glorious, sunlit 
ruins, with his mother, with Julia, with O'Brien — not do- 
ing anything, merely sitting in the sun, talking of peaceful 
things. Such thoughts as he had when he was awake were 
mostly about his dreams. He seemed to have lost the power 
of intellectual effort, now that the stimulus of pain had been 
removed. He was not bored, he had no desire for conversa- 
tion or distraction. Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or 
questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, 
was completely satisfying. 

By degrees he came to spend less time in sleep, but he still 
felt no impulse to get off the bed. All he cared for was to lie 
quiet and feel the strength gathering in his body. He would 
finger himself here and there, trying to make sure that it 
was not an illusion that his muscles were growing round- 
er and his skin tauter. Finally it was established beyond a 
doubt that he was growing fatter; his thighs were now defi- 
nitely thicker than his knees. After that, reluctantly at first, 
he began exercising himself regularly. In a little while he 



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could walk three kilometres, measured by pacing the cell, 
and his bowed shoulders were growing straighter. He at- 
tempted more elaborate exercises, and was astonished and 
humiliated to find what things he could not do. He could 
not move out of a walk, he could not hold his stool out at 
arm's length, he could not stand on one leg without falling 
over. He squatted down on his heels, and found that with 
agonizing pains in thigh and calf he could just lift himself 
to a standing position. He lay flat on his belly and tried to 
lift his weight by his hands. It was hopeless, he could not 
raise himself a centimetre. But after a few more days — a few 
more mealtimes — even that feat was accomplished. A time 
came when he could do it six times running. He began to 
grow actually proud of his body, and to cherish an inter- 
mittent belief that his face also was growing back to normal. 
Only when he chanced to put his hand on his bald scalp did 
he remember the seamed, ruined face that had looked back 
at him out of the mirror. 

His mind grew more active. He sat down on the plank 
bed, his back against the wall and the slate on his knees, 
and set to work deliberately at the task of re-educating him- 
self. 

He had capitulated, that was agreed. In reality, as he saw 
now, he had been ready to capitulate long before he had 
taken the decision. From the moment when he was inside 
the Ministry of Love — and yes, even during those minutes 
when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron voice 
from the telescreen told them what to do — he had grasped 
the frivolity, the shallowness of his attempt to set himself 

348 1984 



up against the power of the Party. He knew now that for 
seven years the Thought Police had watched him like a bee- 
tle under a magnifying glass. There was no physical act, no 
word spoken aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of 
thought that they had not been able to infer. Even the speck 
of whitish dust on the cover of his diary they had careful- 
ly replaced. They had played sound-tracks to him, shown 
him photographs. Some of them were photographs of Julia 
and himself. Yes, even... He could not fight against the Party 
any longer. Besides, the Party was in the right. It must be 
so; how could the immortal, collective brain be mistaken? 
By what external standard could you check its judgements? 
Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning 

to think as they thought. Only ! 

The pencil felt thick and awkward in his fingers. He be- 
gan to write down the thoughts that came into his head. He 
wrote first in large clumsy capitals: 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it: 

TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE 

But then there came a sort of check. His mind, as though 
shying away from something, seemed unable to concen- 
trate. He knew that he knew what came next, but for the 
moment he could not recall it. When he did recall it, it was 
only by consciously reasoning out what it must be: it did not 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 349 



come of its own accord. He wrote: 
GOD IS POWER 

He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past 
never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. 
Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Aar- 
onson, and Rutherford were guilty of the crimes they were 
charged with. He had never seen the photograph that dis- 
proved their guilt. It had never existed, he had invented it. 
He remembered remembering contrary things, but those 
were false memories, products of self-deception. How easy it 
all was! Only surrender, and everything else followed. It was 
like swimming against a current that swept you backwards 
however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to 
turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. 
Nothing had changed except your own attitude: the predes- 
tined thing happened in any case. He hardly knew why he 
had ever rebelled. Everything was easy, except ! 

Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Na- 
ture were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I 
wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could float off this floor like 
a soap bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he THINKS he 
floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see 
him do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump 
of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the 
thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We 
imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought un- 
der instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that 



1984 



somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world 
where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a 
world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through 
our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever 
happens in all minds, truly happens. 

He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he 
was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realized, never- 
theless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The 
mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous 
thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, 
instinctive. CRIMESTOP, they called it in Newspeak. 

He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He pre- 
sented himself with propositions — 'the Party says the earth 
is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water' — and 
trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the ar- 
guments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed 
great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arith- 
metical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement 
as 'two and two make five' were beyond his intellectual 
grasp. It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability 
at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and 
at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors. 
Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult 
to attain. 

All the while, with one part of his mind, he wondered 
how soon they would shoot him. 'Everything depends on 
yourself,' O'Brien had said; but he knew that there was no 
conscious act by which he could bring it nearer. It might 
be ten minutes hence, or ten years. They might keep him 



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for years in solitary confinement, they might send him to 
a labour-camp, they might release him for a while, as they 
sometimes did. It was perfectly possible that before he was 
shot the whole drama of his arrest and interrogation would 
be enacted all over again. The one certain thing was that 
death never came at an expected moment. The tradition — 
the unspoken tradition: somehow you knew it, though you 
never heard it said — was that they shot you from behind; 
always in the back of the head, without warning, as you 
walked down a corridor from cell to cell. 

One day — but 'one day' was not the right expression; just 
as probably it was in the middle of the night: once — he fell 
into a strange, blissful reverie. He was walking down the 
corridor, waiting for the bullet. He knew that it was com- 
ing in another moment. Everything was settled, smoothed 
out, reconciled. There were no more doubts, no more argu- 
ments, no more pain, no more fear. His body was healthy 
and strong. He walked easily, with a joy of movement and 
with a feeling of walking in sunlight. He was not any longer 
in the narrow white corridors in the Ministry of Love, he 
was in the enormous sunlit passage, a kilometre wide, down 
which he had seemed to walk in the delirium induced by 
drugs. He was in the Golden Country, following the foot- 
track across the old rabbit- cropped pasture. He could feel 
the short springy turf under his feet and the gentle sun- 
shine on his face. At the edge of the field were the elm trees, 
faintly stirring, and somewhere beyond that was the stream 
where the dace lay in the green pools under the willows. 

Suddenly he started up with a shock of horror. The 



1984 



sweat broke out on his backbone. He had heard himself cry 
aloud: 

'Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!' 

For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucina- 
tion of her presence. She had seemed to be not merely with 
him, but inside him. It was as though she had got into the 
texture of his skin. In that moment he had loved her far 
more than he had ever done when they were together and 
free. Also he knew that somewhere or other she was still 
alive and needed his help. 

He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself. 
What had he done? How many years had he added to his 
servitude by that moment of weakness? 

In another moment he would hear the tramp of boots 
outside. They could not let such an outburst go unpunished. 
They would know now, if they had not known before, that 
he was breaking the agreement he had made with them. He 
obeyed the Party, but he still hated the Party. In the old 
days he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an appear- 
ance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further: 
in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep 
the inner heart inviolate. He knew that he was in the wrong, 
but he preferred to be in the wrong. They would understand 
that — O'Brien would understand it. It was all confessed in 
that single foolish cry. 

He would have to start all over again. It might take years. 
He ran a hand over his face, trying to familiarize himself 
with the new shape. There were deep furrows in the cheeks, 
the cheekbones felt sharp, the nose flattened. Besides, since 



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last seeing himself in the glass he had been given a complete 
new set of teeth. It was not easy to preserve inscrutabili- 
ty when you did not know what your face looked like. In 
any case, mere control of the features was not enough. For 
the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret 
you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the 
while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let 
it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could 
be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think 
right; he must feel right, dream right. And all the while he 
must keep his hatred locked up inside him like a ball of 
matter which was part of himself and yet unconnected with 
the rest of him, a kind of cyst. 

One day they would decide to shoot him. You could not 
tell when it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand 
it should be possible to guess. It was always from behind, 
walking down a corridor. Ten seconds would be enough. In 
that time the world inside him could turn over. And then 
suddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his 
step, without the changing of a line in his face — suddenly 
the camouflage would be down and bang! would go the bat- 
teries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an enormous 
roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would 
go the bullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown 
his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it. The hereti- 
cal thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their 
reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in their own 
perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom. 

He shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting 



1984 



an intellectual discipline. It was a question of degrading 
himself, mutilating himself. He had got to plunge into the 
filthiest of filth. What was the most horrible, sickening thing 
of all? He thought of Big Brother. The enormous face (be- 
cause of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought 
of it as being a metre wide), with its heavy black moustache 
and the eyes that followed you to and fro, seemed to float 
into his mind of its own accord. What were his true feelings 
towards Big Brother? 

There was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage. The 
steel door swung open with a clang. O'Brien walked into 
the cell. Behind him were the waxen-faced officer and the 
black-uniformed guards. 

'Get up,' said O'Brien. 'Come here.' 

Winston stood opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's 
shoulders between his strong hands and looked at him 
closely. 

'You have had thoughts of deceiving me,' he said. "That 
was stupid. Stand up straighter. Look me in the face.' 

He paused, and went on in a gentler tone: 

'You are improving. Intellectually there is very little 
wrong with you. It is only emotionally that you have failed 
to make progress. Tell me, Winston — and remember, no 
lies: you know that I am always able to detect a lie — tell me, 
what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?' 

T hate him.' 

'You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you 
to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not 
enough to obey him: you must love him.' 



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He released Winston with a little push towards the 
guards. 

'Room 101,' he said. 



356 1984 



Chapter 5 



At each stage of his imprisonment he had known, or 
seemed to know, whereabouts he was in the window- 
less building. Possibly there were slight differences in the air 
pressure. The cells where the guards had beaten him were 
below ground level. The room where he had been interro- 
gated by O'Brien was high up near the roof. This place was 
many metres underground, as deep down as it was possible 
to go. 

It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But 
he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that 
there were two small tables straight in front of him, each 
covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two 
from him, the other was further away, near the door. He 
was strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could 
move nothing, not even his head. A sort of pad gripped his 
head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of 
him. 

For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and 
O'Brien came in. 

'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 
101. 1 told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone 
knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing 
in the world.' 

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying some- 



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thing made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set 
it down on the further table. Because of the position in 
which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what 
the thing was. 

"The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from 
individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by 
fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. 
There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even 
fatal' 

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a 
better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire 
cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the 
front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, 
with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or 
four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was 
divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there 
was some kind of creature in each. They were rats. 

'In your case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world 
happens to be rats.' 

A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain 
what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his 
first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of 
the mask- like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into 
him. His bowels seemed to turn to water. 

'You can't do that!' he cried out in a high cracked voice. 
'You couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible.' 

'Do you remember,' said O'Brien, 'the moment of pan- 
ic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of 
blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. 

358 1984 



There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. 
You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag 
it into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side 
of the wall' 

'O'Brien!' said Winston, making an effort to control his 
voice. 'You know this is not necessary. What is it that you 
want me to do?' 

O'Brien made no direct answer. When he spoke it was 
in the schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected. 
He looked thoughtfully into the distance, as though he were 
addressing an audience somewhere behind Winston's back. 

'By itself,' he said, 'pain is not always enough. There 
are occasions when a human being will stand out against 
pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is 
something unendurable — something that cannot be con- 
templated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you 
are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a 
rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not coward- 
ly to fill your lungs with air. It is merely an instinct which 
cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the rats. For you, 
they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you 
cannot withstand, even if you wished to. You will do what 
is required of you.' 

'But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't know 
what it is?' 

O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the 
nearer table. He set it down carefully on the baize cloth. 
Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears. He had the 
feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He was in the middle 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 359 



of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with sunlight, 
across which all sounds came to him out of immense dis- 
tances. Yet the cage with the rats was not two metres away 
from him. They were enormous rats. They were at the age 
when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown 
instead of grey. 

'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audi- 
ence, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of 
that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the 
poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare 
not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. 
The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time 
they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dy- 
ing people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing 
when a human being is helpless.' 

There was an outburst of squeals from the cage. It seemed 
to reach Winston from far away. The rats were fighting; they 
were trying to get at each other through the partition. He 
heard also a deep groan of despair. That, too, seemed to 
come from outside himself. 

O'Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed 
something in it. There was a sharp click. Winston made 
a frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair. It was 
hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was held im- 
movably. O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a 
metre from Winston's face. 

T have pressed the first lever,' said O'Brien. 'You under- 
stand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over 
your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, 

360 1984 



the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will 
shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap 
through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore 
straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Some- 
times they burrow through the cheeks and devour the 
tongue.' 

The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a 
succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in 
the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his 
panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left — to 
think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty odour of 
the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convul- 
sion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. 
Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a 
screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutch- 
ing an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. 
He must interpose another human being, the BODY of an- 
other human being, between himself and the rats. 

The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out 
the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of 
hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming 
now. One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an 
old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink 
hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston 
could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black 
panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless. 

'It was a common punishment in Imperial China,' said 
O'Brien as didactically as ever. 

The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 361 



cheek. And then — no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny 
fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had 
suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just 
ONE person to whom he could transfer his punishment — 
ONE body that he could thrust between himself and the 
rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over. 

'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care 
what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. 
Not me! Julia! Not me!' 

He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away 
from the rats. He was still strapped in the chair, but he had 
fallen through the floor, through the walls of the build- 
ing, through the earth, through the oceans, through the 
atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the 
stars — always away, away, away from the rats. He was light 
years distant, but O'Brien was still standing at his side. 
There was still the cold touch of wire against his cheek. But 
through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another 
metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut 
and not open. 



362 1984 



Chapter 6 



The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight 
slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It 
was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from 
the telescreens. 

Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty 
glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed 
him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCH- 
ING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and 
filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few 
drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It 
was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the 
cafe. 

Winston was listening to the telescreen. At present only 
music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that 
at any moment there might be a special bulletin from the 
Ministry of Peace. The news from the African front was dis- 
quieting in the extreme. On and off he had been worrying 
about it all day. A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with 
Eurasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was 
moving southward at terrifying speed. The mid-day bulle- 
tin had not mentioned any definite area, but it was probable 
that already the mouth of the Congo was a battlefield. Braz- 
zaville and Leopoldville were in danger. One did not have 
to look at the map to see what it meant. It was not merely 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 363 



a question of losing Central Africa: for the first time in the 
whole war, the territory of Oceania itself was menaced. 

A violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of undif- 
ferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again. 
He stopped thinking about the war. In these days he could 
never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few 
moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it 
at a gulp. As always, the gin made him shudder and even 
retch slightly. The stuff was horrible. The cloves and sac- 
charine, themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way, 
could not disguise the flat oily smell; and what was worst 
of all was that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night 
and day, was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the 
smell of those 

He never named them, even in his thoughts, and so 
far as it was possible he never visualized them. They were 
something that he was half-aware of, hovering close to his 
face, a smell that clung to his nostrils. As the gin rose in 
him he belched through purple lips. He had grown fatter 
since they released him, and had regained his old colour — 
indeed, more than regained it. His features had thickened, 
the skin on nose and cheekbones was coarsely red, even 
the bald scalp was too deep a pink. A waiter, again unbid- 
den, brought the chessboard and the current issue of 'The 
Times', with the page turned down at the chess problem. 
Then, seeing that Winston's glass was empty, he brought the 
gin bottle and filled it. There was no need to give orders. 
They knew his habits. The chessboard was always waiting 
for him, his corner table was always reserved; even when 

364 1984 



the place was full he had it to himself, since nobody cared 
to be seen sitting too close to him. He never even bothered 
to count his drinks. At irregular intervals they presented 
him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was the bill, 
but he had the impression that they always undercharged 
him. It would have made no difference if it had been the 
other way about. He had always plenty of money nowadays. 
He even had a job, a sinecure, more highly-paid than his old 
job had been. 

The music from the telescreen stopped and a voice took 
over. Winston raised his head to listen. No bulletins from 
the front, however. It was merely a brief announcement 
from the Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding quarter, it ap- 
peared, the Tenth Three-Year Plan's quota for bootlaces had 
been overfulfilled by 98 per cent. 

He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It 
was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'White to 
play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the por- 
trait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a 
sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so 
arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of the 
world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, 
unvarying triumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed 
back at him, full of calm power. White always mates. 

The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a dif- 
ferent and much graver tone: 'You are warned to stand by 
for an important announcement at fifteen-thirty Fifteen- 
thirty! This is news of the highest importance. Take care 
not to miss it. Fifteen-thirty!' The tinkling music struck up 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 365 



again. 

Winston's heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the 
front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was com- 
ing. All day, with little spurts of excitement, the thought 
of a smashing defeat in Africa had been in and out of his 
mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarm- 
ing across the never-broken frontier and pouring down 
into the tip of Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not 
been possible to outflank them in some way? The outline of 
the West African coast stood out vividly in his mind. He 
picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. 
THERE was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black 
horde racing southward he saw another force, mysteriously 
assembled, suddenly planted in their rear, cutting their co- 
munications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he 
was bringing that other force into existence. But it was nec- 
essary to act quickly. If they could get control of the whole 
of Africa, if they had airfields and submarine bases at the 
Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It might mean anything: 
defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the destruc- 
tion of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary 
medley of feeling — but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it 
was successive layers of feeling, in which one could not say 
which layer was undermost — struggled inside him. 

The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its 
place, but for the moment he could not settle down to se- 
rious study of the chess problem. His thoughts wandered 
again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in 
the dust on the table: 

366 1984 



2+2=5 

"They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could 
get inside you. 'What happens to you here is FOR EVER,' 
O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, 
your own acts, from which you could never recover. Some- 
thing was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out. 

He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was 
no danger in it. He knew as though instinctively that they 
now took almost no interest in his doings. He could have 
arranged to meet her a second time if either of them had 
wanted to. Actually it was by chance that they had met. It 
was in the Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the 
earth was like iron and all the grass seemed dead and there 
was not a bud anywhere except a few crocuses which had 
pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He 
was hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes 
when he saw her not ten metres away from him. It struck 
him at once that she had changed in some ill-defined way. 
They almost passed one another without a sign, then he 
turned and followed her, not very eagerly. He knew that 
there was no danger, nobody would take any interest in him. 
She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the 
grass as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to re- 
sign herself to having him at her side. Presently they were in 
among a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for 
concealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. 
It was vilely cold. The wind whistled through the twigs and 
fretted the occasional, dirty-looking crocuses. He put his 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 367 



arm round her waist. 

There was no telescreen, but there must be hidden 
microphones: besides, they could be seen. It did not mat- 
ter, nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the 
ground and done THAT if they had wanted to. His flesh 
froze with horror at the thought of it. She made no response 
whatever to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to dis- 
engage herself. He knew now what had changed in her. Her 
face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden 
by the hair, across her forehead and temple; but that was not 
the change. It was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in 
a surprising way, had stiffened. He remembered how once, 
after the explosion of a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag 
a corpse out of some ruins, and had been astonished not 
only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its rigidity 
and awkwardness to handle, which made it seem more like 
stone than flesh. Her body felt like that. It occurred to him 
that the texture of her skin would be quite different from 
what it had once been. 

He did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As they 
walked back across the grass, she looked directly at him for 
the first time. It was only a momentary glance, full of con- 
tempt and dislike. He wondered whether it was a dislike that 
came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also 
by his bloated face and the water that the wind kept squeez- 
ing from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by 
side but not too close together. He saw that she was about 
to speak. She moved her clumsy shoe a few centimetres and 
deliberately crushed a twig. Her feet seemed to have grown 

368 1984 



broader, he noticed. 

'I betrayed you,' she said baldly. 

'I betrayed you,' he said. 

She gave him another quick look of dislike. 

'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something 
something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. 
And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody 
else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, 
afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it 
to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't 
true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think 
there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite 
ready to save yourself that way. You WANT it to happen to 
the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. 
All you care about is yourself 

All you care about is yourself,' he echoed. 

And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other 
person any longer.' 

'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.' 

There did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind 
plastered their thin overalls against their bodies. Almost at 
once it became embarrassing to sit there in silence: besides, 
it was too cold to keep still. She said something about catch- 
ing her Tube and stood up to go. 

'We must meet again,' he said. 

'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again.' 

He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace 
behind her. They did not speak again. She did not actually 
try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 369 



prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind 
that he would accompany her as far as the Tube station, but 
suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed 
pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire 
not so much to get away from Julia as to get back to the 
Chestnut Tree Cafe, which had never seemed so attractive 
as at this moment. He had a nostalgic vision of his corner 
table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the ever- 
flowing gin. Above all, it would be warm in there. The next 
moment, not altogether by accident, he allowed himself to 
become separated from her by a small knot of people. He 
made a halfhearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down, 
turned, and made off in the opposite direction. When he 
had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not 
crowded, but already he could not distinguish her. Any one 
of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers. Perhaps 
her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable 
from behind. 

At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean 
it.' He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished 
it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered 
over to the 

Something changed in the music that trickled from the 
telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came 
into it. And then — perhaps it was not happening, perhaps 
it was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound — a 
voice was singing: 

'Under the spreading chestnut tree 

370 1984 



/ sold you and you sold me ' 

The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed 
that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle. 

He took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew 
not less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank. 
But it had become the element he swam in. It was his life, 
his death, and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him 
into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every 
morning. When he woke, seldom before eleven hundred, 
with gummed-up eyelids and fiery mouth and a back that 
seemed to be broken, it would have been impossible even 
to rise from the horizontal if it had not been for the bottle 
and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the 
midday hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, lis- 
tening to the telescreen. From fifteen to closing-time he 
was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree. No one cared what he 
did any longer, no whistle woke him, no telescreen admon- 
ished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week, he went to a 
dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of Truth and 
did a little work, or what was called work. He had been ap- 
pointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had 
sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing 
with minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the 
Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were 
engaged in producing something called an Interim Report, 
but what it was that they were reporting on he had never 
definitely found out. It was something to do with the ques- 
tion of whether commas should be placed inside brackets, 

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or outside. There were four others on the committee, all of 
them persons similar to himself. There were days when they 
assembled and then promptly dispersed again, frankly ad- 
mitting to one another that there was not really anything to 
be done. But there were other days when they settled down 
to their work almost eagerly, making a tremendous show 
of entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda 
which were never finished — when the argument as to what 
they were supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily 
involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over definitions, 
enormous digressions, quarrels — threats, even, to appeal to 
higher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out 
of them and they would sit round the table looking at one 
another with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow. 

The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised 
his head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely 
changing the music. He had the map of Africa behind his 
eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a black 
arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow hori- 
zontally eastward, across the tail of the first. As though for 
reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face in the 
portrait. Was it conceivable that the second arrow did not 
even exist? 

His interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of 
gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move. 
Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because 

Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a 
candle-lit room with a vast white- counterpaned bed, and 
himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking 



1984 



a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting 
opposite him and also laughing. 

It must have been about a month before she disappeared. 
It was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hun- 
ger in his belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for 
her had temporarily revived. He remembered the day well, 
a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down 
the window-pane and the light indoors was too dull to read 
by. The boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped 
bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined and griz- 
zled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room 
pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscot- 
ing until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the 
younger child wailed intermittently. In the end his mother 
said, 'Now be good, and I'll buy you a toy. A lovely toy — 
you'll love it'; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a 
little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby, 
and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit 
of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell 
of the damp cardboard. It was a miserable outfit. The board 
was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill- cut that 
they would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the 
thing sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a 
piece of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon 
he was wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tid- 
dly-winks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came 
slithering down the snakes again, almost to the starting- 
point. They played eight games, winning four each. His tiny 
sister, too young to understand what the game was about, 



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had sat propped up against a bolster, laughing because the 
others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had all 
been happy together, as in his earlier childhood. 

He pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false 
memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally. 
They did not matter so long as one knew them for what they 
were. Some things had happened, others had not happened. 
He turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white 
knight again. Almost in the same instant it dropped on to 
the board with a clatter. He had started as though a pin had 
run into him. 

A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bul- 
letin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call 
preceded the news. A sort of electric drill ran through the 
cafe. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their 
ears. 

The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of 
noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the tele- 
screen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a 
roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the 
streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was 
issuing from the telescreen to realize that it had all hap- 
pened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had 
secretly assembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the 
white arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments 
of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: 
'Vast strategic manoeuvre — perfect co-ordination — utter 
rout — half a million prisoners — complete demoraliza- 
tion — control of the whole of Africa — bring the war within 



1984 



measurable distance of its end — victory — greatest victory 
in human history — victory, victory, victory!' 

Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive move- 
ments. He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind 
he was running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds 
outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the 
portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the 
world! The rock against which the hordes of Asia dashed 
themselves in vain! He thought how ten minutes ago — yes, 
only ten minutes — there had still been equivocation in 
his heart as he wondered whether the news from the front 
would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Eur- 
asian army that had perished! Much had changed in him 
since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the final, in- 
dispensable, healing change had never happened, until this 
moment. 

The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its 
tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting 
outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning 
back to their work. One of them approached with the gin 
bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no at- 
tention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or 
cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, 
with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in 
the public dock, confessing everything, implicating every- 
body. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with 
the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at 
his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain. 

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had tak- 



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en him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the 
dark moustache. cruel, needless misunderstanding! O 
stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin- 
scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was 
all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. 
He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother. 

THE END 

APPENDIX. 

The Principles of Newspeak 

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and 
had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, 
or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet 
anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of commu- 
nication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles 
in 'The Times' were written in it, but this was a TOUR DE 
FORCE which could only be carried out by a specialist. It 
was expected that Newspeak would have finally supersed- 
ed Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by 
about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadi- 
ly, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and 
grammatical constructions more and more in their every- 
day speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the 
Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was 
a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words 
and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed 
later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in 
the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are con- 
cerned here. 

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a 

376 1984 



medium of expression for the world-view and mental hab- 
its proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other 
modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when 
Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak 
forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging 
from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthink- 
able, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its 
vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and of- 
ten very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party 
member could properly wish to express, while excluding 
all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at 
them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the 
invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating unde- 
sirable words and by stripping such words as remained of 
unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all second- 
ary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word 
FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in 
such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or "This field 
is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of 
'politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and in- 
tellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and 
were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the 
suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vo- 
cabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that 
could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak 
was designed not to extend but to DIMINISH the range of 
thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting 
the choice of words down to a minimum. 

Newspeak was founded on the English language as we 



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now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when 
not containing newly- created words, would be barely intel- 
ligible to an English-speaker of our own day Newspeak 
words were divided into three distinct classes, known as 
the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary (also called compound 
words), and the C vocabulary. It will be simpler to discuss 
each class separately, but the grammatical peculiarities of 
the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to the 
A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three 
categories. 

THE A VOCABULARY. The A vocabulary consisted 
of the words needed for the business of everyday life — for 
such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's 
clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, garden- 
ing, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely 
of words that we already possess words like HIT, RUN, 
DOG, TREE, SUGAR, HOUSE, FIELD— but in compari- 
son with the present-day English vocabulary their number 
was extremely small, while their meanings were far more 
rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had 
been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a 
Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound 
expressing ONE clearly understood concept. It would have 
been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary 
purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was 
intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usu- 
ally involving concrete objects or physical actions. 

The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding pe- 
culiarities. The first of these was an almost complete 

378 1984 



interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any 
word in the language (in principle this applied even to very 
abstract words such as IF or WHEN) could be used either 
as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and 
the noun form, when they were of the same root, there was 
never any variation, this rule of itself involving the de- 
struction of many archaic forms. The word THOUGHT, 
for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was tak- 
en by THINK, which did duty for both noun and verb. No 
etymological principle was followed here: in some cases it 
was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in oth- 
er cases the verb. Even where a noun and verb of kindred 
meaning were not etymologically connected, one or other 
of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, 
no such word as CUT, its meaning being sufficiently cov- 
ered by the noun-verb KNIFE. Adjectives were formed by 
adding the suffix -FUL to the noun-verb, and adverbs by 
adding -WISE. Thus for example, SPEEDFUL meant 'rapid' 
and SPEEDWISE meant 'quickly. Certain of our present- 
day adjectives, such as GOOD, STRONG, BIG, BLACK, 
SOFT, were retained, but their total number was very small. 
There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival 
meaning could be arrived at by adding -FUL to a noun-verb. 
None of the now- existing adverbs was retained, except for a 
very few already ending in -WISE: the -WISE termination 
was invariable. The word WELL, for example, was replaced 
by GOODWISE. 

In addition, any word — this again applied in principle 
to every word in the language — could be negatived by add- 



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ing the affix UN-, or could be strengthened by the affix 
PLUS-, or, for still greater emphasis, DOUBLEPLUS-. Thus, 
for example, UNCOLD meant 'warm', while PLUSCOLD 
and DOUBLEPLUSCOLD meant, respectively, 'very cold' 
and 'superlatively cold'. It was also possible, as in present- 
day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by 
prepositional affixes such as ANTE-, POST-, UP-, DOWN-, 
etc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about 
an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, 
the word GOOD, there was no need for such a word as BAD, 
since the required meaning was equally well — indeed, bet- 
ter — expressed by UNGOOD. All that was necessary, in 
any case where two words formed a natural pair of oppo- 
sites, was to decide which of them to suppress. DARK, for 
example, could be replaced by UNLIGHT, or LIGHT by 
UNDARK, according to preference. 

The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak gram- 
mar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which 
are mentioned below all inflexions followed the same rules. 
Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were 
the same and ended in -ED. The preterite of STEAL was 
STEALED, the preterite of THINK was THINKED, and 
so on throughout the language, all such forms as SWAM, 
GAVE, BROUGHT, SPOKE, TAKEN, etc., being abolished. 
All plurals were made by adding -S or -ES as the case might 
be. The plurals OF MAN, OX, LIFE, were MANS, OXES, 
LIFES. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by 
adding -ER, -EST (GOOD, GOODER, GOODEST), ir- 
regular forms and the MORE, MOST formation being 

380 1984 



suppressed. 

The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect 
irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstra- 
tive adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed 
their ancient usage, except that WHOM had been scrapped 
as unnecessary, and the SHALL, SHOULD tenses had been 
dropped, all their uses being covered by WILL and WOULD. 
There were also certain irregularities in word-formation 
arising out of the need for rapid and easy speech. A word 
which was difficult to utter, or was liable to be incorrectly 
heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word; occasionally 
therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were insert- 
ed into a word or an archaic formation was retained. But 
this need made itself felt chiefly in connexion with the B 
vocabulary. WHY so great an importance was attached to 
ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in this essay. 

THE B VOCABULARY. The B vocabulary consisted of 
words which had been deliberately constructed for political 
purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every 
case a political implication, but were intended to impose 
a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them. 
Without a full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc 
it was difficult to use these words correctly. In some cases 
they could be translated into Oldspeak, or even into words 
taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually demanded 
a long paraphrase and always involved the loss of certain 
overtones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, of- 
ten packing whole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and 
at the same time more accurate and forcible than ordinary 

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language. 

The B words were in all cases compound words. [Com- 
pound words such as SPEAKWRITE, were of course to be 
found in the A vocabulary, but these were merely convenient 
abbreviations and had no special ideologcal colour.] They 
consisted of two or more words, or portions of words, weld- 
ed together in an easily pronounceable form. The resulting 
amalgam was always a noun-verb, and inflected according 
to the ordinary rules. To take a single example: the word 
GOODTHINK, meaning, very roughly, 'orthodoxy, or, if 
one chose to regard it as a verb, 'to think in an orthodox 
manner'. This inflected as follows: noun-verb, GOOD- 
THINK; past tense and past participle, GOODTHINKED; 
present participle, GOOD-THINKING; adjective, GOOD- 
THINKFUL; adverb, GOODTHINKWISE; verbal noun, 
GOODTHINKER. 

The B words were not constructed on any etymological 
plan. The words of which they were made up could be any 
parts of speech, and could be placed in any order and muti- 
lated in any way which made them easy to pronounce while 
indicating their derivation. In the word CRIMETHINK 
(thought crime), for instance, the THINK came second, 
whereas in THINKPOL (Thought Police) it came first, 
and in the latter word POLICE had lost its second syllable. 
Because of the great difficulty in securing euphony, irregu- 
lar formations were commoner in the B vocabulary than 
in the A vocabulary. For example, the adjective forms of 
MINITRUE, MINIPAX, and MINILUV were, respectively, 
MINITRUTHFUL, MINIPEACEFUL, and MINILOVELY, 

382 1984 



simply because -TRUEFUL, -PAXFUL, and -LOVEFUL 
were slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle, however, 
all B words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the 
same way. 

Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings, 
barely intelligible to anyone who had not mastered the 
language as a whole. Consider, for example, such a typical 
sentence from a 'Times' leading article as OLDTHINKERS 
UNBELLYFEEL INGSOC. The shortest rendering that one 
could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose 
ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full 
emotional understanding of the principles of English So- 
cialism.' But this is not an adequate translation. To begin 
with, in order to grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak 
sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea 
of what is meant by INGSOC. And in addition, only a per- 
son thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the 
full force of the word BELLYFEEL, which implied a blind, 
enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the 
word OLDTHINK, which was inextricably mixed up with 
the idea of wickedness and decadence. But the special func- 
tion of certain Newspeak words, of which OLDTHINK 
was one, was not so much to express meanings as to de- 
stroy them. These words, necessarily few in number, had 
had their meanings extended until they contained within 
themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were 
sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could 
now be scrapped and forgotten. The greatest difficulty fac- 
ing the compilers of the Newspeak Dictionary was not to 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 383 



invent new words, but, having invented them, to make sure 
what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of 
words they cancelled by their existence. 

As we have already seen in the case of the word FREE, 
words which had once borne a heretical meaning were 
sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only 
with the undesirable meanings purged out of them. Count- 
less other words such as HONOUR, JUSTICE, MORALITY, 
INTERNATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY, SCIENCE, and 
RELIGION had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket words 
covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All 
words grouping themselves round the concepts of liber- 
ty and equality, for instance, were contained in the single 
word CRIMETHINK, while all words grouping themselves 
round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were 
contained in the single word OLDTHINK. Greater preci- 
sion would have been dangerous. What was required in a 
Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient 
Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all na- 
tions other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did 
not need to know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris, 
Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the like: probably the less he knew 
about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew Jehovah 
and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, 
that all gods with other names or other attributes were false 
gods. In somewhat the same way, the party member knew 
what constituted right conduct, and in exceedingly vague, 
generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from 
it were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely 

384 1984 



regulated by the two Newspeak words SEXCRIME (sex- 
ual immorality) and GOODSEX (chastity). SEXCRIME 
covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It covered fornica- 
tion, adultery, homosexuality, and other perversions, and, 
in addition, normal intercourse practised for its own sake. 
There was no need to enumerate them separately, since they 
were all equally culpable, and, in principle, all punishable 
by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific 
and technical words, it might be necessary to give special- 
ized names to certain sexual aberrations, but the ordinary 
citizen had no need of them. He knew what was meant by 
GOODSEX — that is to say, normal intercourse between 
man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, 
and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all 
else was SEXCRIME. In Newspeak it was seldom possible to 
follow a heretical thought further than the perception that 
it WAS heretical: beyond that point the necessary words 
were nonexistent. 

No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. 
A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance, 
as JOYCAMP (forced-labour camp) or MINIPAX Minis- 
try of Peace, i.e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact 
opposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on 
the other hand, displayed a frank and contemptuous un- 
derstanding of the real nature of Oceanic society. An 
example was PROLEFEED, meaning the rubbishy enter- 
tainment and spurious news which the Party handed out 
to the masses. Other words, again, were ambivalent, hav- 
ing the connotation 'good' when applied to the Party and 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 385 



'bad' when applied to its enemies. But in addition there were 
great numbers of words which at first sight appeared to be 
mere abbreviations and which derived their ideological co- 
lour not from their meaning, but from their structure. 

So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or 
might have political significance of any kind was fitted into 
the B vocabulary. The name of every organization, or body 
of people, or doctrine, or country, or institution, or public 
building, was invariably cut down into the familiar shape; 
that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest 
number of syllables that would preserve the original deri- 
vation. In the Ministry of Truth, for example, the Records 
Department, in which Winston Smith worked, was called 
RECDEP, the Fiction Department was called FICDEP, the 
Teleprogrammes Department was called TELEDEP, and so 
on. This was not done solely with the object of saving time. 
Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, tele- 
scoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic 
features of political language; and it had been noticed that 
the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most 
marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organi- 
zations. Examples were such words as NAZI, GESTAPO, 
COMINTERN, INPRECORR, AGITPROP. In the begin- 
ning the practice had been adopted as it were instinctively, 
but in Newspeak it was used with a conscious purpose. It 
was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one nar- 
rowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of 
the associations that would otherwise cling to it. The words 
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, for instance, call up 

386 1984 



a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red 
flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The 
word COMINTERN, on the other hand, suggests merely a 
tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doc- 
trine. It refers to something almost as easily recognized, 
and as limited in purpose, as a chair or a table. COMIN- 
TERN is a word that can be uttered almost without taking 
thought, whereas COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL is 
a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least mo- 
mentarily. In the same way, the associations called up by a 
word like MINITRUE are fewer and more controllable than 
those called up by MINISTRY OF TRUTH. This accounted 
not only for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but 
also for the almost exaggerated care that was taken to make 
every word easily pronounceable. 

In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration 
other than exactitude of meaning. Regularity of grammar 
was always sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And 
rightly so, since what was required, above all for political 
purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable mean- 
ing which could be uttered rapidly and which roused the 
minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind. The words of the 
B vocabulary even gained in force from the fact that nearly 
all of them were very much alike. Almost invariably these 
words— GOODTHINK, MINIPAX, PROLEFEED, SEX- 
CRIME, JOYCAMP, INGSOC, BELLYFEEL, THINKPOL, 
and countless others — were words of two or three syllables, 
with the stress distributed equally between the first syllable 
and the last. The use of them encouraged a gabbling style of 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 387 



speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And this was ex- 
actly what was aimed at. The intention was to make speech, 
and especially speech on any subject not ideologically neu- 
tral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness. For 
the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or 
sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party 
member called upon to make a political or ethical judge- 
ment should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as 
automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets. His 
training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an al- 
most foolproof instrument, and the texture of the words, 
with their harsh sound and a certain wilful ugliness which 
was in accord with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process 
still further. 

So did the fact of having very few words to choose from. 
Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, 
and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised. 
Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages 
in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every 
year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area 
of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ulti- 
mately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from 
the larynx without involving the higher brain centres at 
all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word 
DUCKSPEAK, meaning 'to quack like a duck'. Like various 
other words in the B vocabulary, DUCKSPEAK was ambiv- 
alent in meaning. Provided that the opinions which were 
quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but 
praise, and when 'The Times' referred to one of the orators 



1984 



of the Party as a DOUBLEPLUSGOOD DUCKSPEAKER it 
was paying a warm and valued compliment. 

THE C VOCABULARY. The C vocabulary was supple- 
mentary to the others and consisted entirely of scientific 
and technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms 
in use today, and were constructed from the same roots, but 
the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip 
them of undesirable meanings. They followed the same 
grammatical rules as the words in the other two vocabu- 
laries. Very few of the C words had any currency either in 
everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific work- 
er or technician could find all the words he needed in the 
list devoted to his own speciality, but he seldom had more 
than a smattering of the words occurring in the other lists. 
Only a very few words were common to all lists, and there 
was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a 
habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its 
particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for 'Sci- 
ence', any meaning that it could possibly bear being already 
sufficiently covered by the word INGSOC. 

From the foregoing account it will be seen that in New- 
speak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very 
low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course pos- 
sible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of 
blasphemy. It would have been possible, for example, to say 
BIG BROTHER IS UNGOOD. But this statement, which 
to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a self-evident absur- 
dity, could not have been sustained by reasoned argument, 
because the necessary words were not available. Ideas inim- 

FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook.com 389 



ical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless 
form, and could only be named in very broad terms which 
lumped together and condemned whole groups of heresies 
without defining them in doing so. One could, in fact, only 
use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by illegitimately 
translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For ex- 
ample, ALL MANS ARE EQUAL was a possible Newspeak 
sentence, but only in the same sense in which ALL MEN 
ARE REDHAIRED is a possible Oldspeak sentence. It did 
not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a palpa- 
ble untruth — i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or 
strength. The concept of political equality no longer existed, 
and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged 
out of the word EQUAL. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still 
the normal means of communication, the danger theo- 
retically existed that in using Newspeak words one might 
remember their original meanings. In practice it was not 
difficult for any person well grounded in DOUBLETHINK 
to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even 
the possibility of such a lapse would have vaished. A per- 
son growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would 
no more know that EQUAL had once had the second- 
ary meaning of 'politically equal', or that FREE had once 
meant 'intellectually free', than for instance, a person who 
had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary 
meanings attaching to QUEEN and ROOK. There would 
be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his 
power to commit, simply because they were nameless and 
therefore unimaginable. And it was to be foreseen that with 



1984 



the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics of 
Newspeak would become more and more pronounced — its 
words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings more and 
more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper 
uses always diminishing. 

When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, 
the last link with the past would have been severed. History 
had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature 
of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored, 
and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak 
it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments, 
even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible 
and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any pas- 
sage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to 
some technical process or some very simple everyday ac- 
tion, or was already orthodox (GOODTHINKFUL would 
be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this 
meant that no book written before approximately 1960 
could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature 
could only be subjected to ideological translation — that is, 
alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example 
the well-known passage from the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence: 

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, 
THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY 
ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN 
INALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE 
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 391 



THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE 
INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR POWERS 
FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED. THAT 
WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES 
DESTRUCTIVE OF THOSE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE 
PEOPLE WALTER OR ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE 
NEW GOVERNMENT... 

It would have been quite impossible to render this into 
Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The 
nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the 
whole passage up in the single word CRIMETHINK. A full 
translation could only be an ideological translation, where- 
by Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on 
absolute government. 

A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, al- 
ready being transformed in this way. Considerations of 
prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of cer- 
tain historical figures, while at the same time bringing 
their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. 
Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, By- 
ron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of 
translation: when the task had been completed, their orig- 
inal writings, with all else that survived of the literature 
of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were 
a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that 
they would be finished before the first or second decade of 
the twenty-first century. There were also large quantities of 
merely utilitarian literature — indispensable technical man- 



1984 



uals, and the like — that had to be treated in the same way. It 
was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work 
of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been 
fixed for so late a date as 2050. 



Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 



Alexander Merow 



Prey World 



Citizen 1-564398B-278843 



Novel 



Parti 



Prey World 



Chapters 



Foreword 5 

Citizen 1-564398B-278843 7 

Automated Trial 23 

Big Eye 31 

The Change 49 

Outsourced 56 

World Peace in Ivas? 82 

Rebellion and Fresh Snow 98 

Procrastination is the Thief of Time! 116 

Aux Champs-Elysees 139 

The Lull before the Storm 155 

Bomb-happy... 171 

Red Moon 178 

With him 193 



Prey World - Citizen 1-564398B-278843 



Content 

The year 2028. Mankind is in the stranglehold of a 
worldwide surveillance state. Frank Kohlhaas, a petty 
citizen, lives a cheerless life, working as an agency worker 
in a steel plant. 

One day, he gets into a conflict with the tyrannical system, 
because of an unfortunate accident. An automated trail 
convicts him to five years of imprisonment and Frank 
disappears in a detention centre, where he suffers under a 
cruel system of brainwashing and reeducation. 
After eight months of pain, the authorities decide to transfer 
him to another prison. On the way there, something 
unexpected happens. Suddenly everything changes and the 
young man finds himself caught between the fronts... 



Foreword 



This is the English version of the first book of Alexander 

Merow's "Prey World" series. The novel was translated by 

Thorsten Weber - and the whole procedure entailed a lot of 

work. But it was also really funny. 

It is not a professional translation and the translator is not a 

"native speaker" or English teacher. He is just a guy who 

loves science-fiction and dystopias. So try not to laugh at 

some of the translated phrases, or the wrath of a real freak 

will come over you! 

Nevertheless, we thought that would be a good idea to 

translate this interesting, courageous and critical novel into 

the English language. At the same time it will also enable 

English speaking people to join Alexander Merow's growing 

audience. 

"Prey World" is neither an ordinary book nor light 

entertainment. There is already plenty of "light 

entertainment" in our times - far too much. On the other 

hand, there are not enough books like "Prey World". Books 

that make you think about the world we live in. And it is 

important that people begin to think. 

The author has already found numerous interested readers 

all over Germany, and we hope, he will find additional 

readers in the English-speaking countries. We would also 

be glad, if a "real" mother-tongue speaker were to edit this 

English version one day. 

Some readers compare "Prey World" with George Orweirs 

"1984", the classic among the dystopic novels. Others see 

elements of Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" in it. 

However, critical thinkers and friends of so called 

"conspiracy theories" will have their fun with "Prey World". Is 



Alexander Merow' s vision of the future really realistic at all? 
A worldwide surveillance state? A World Government under 
the control of a ruthless secret society? We will see! 

And always remember... 

"Only a fool would think that "Prey World" is nothing 
but fiction!" (Alexander Merow) 



Have fun! 



Alexander Merow and Thorsten Weber, Berlin 201 1 
E-mail: A.Merow@gmx.de 



"Maybe it is nothing but madness and suicide. Maybe it will 
not change the world, but this is not important for me. 
Nevertheless, it will change something for me! 
I have suffered too much to humble myself anymore. They 
have told us to humble ourselves - since the kindergarten. 
Shut up! Consume! Obey! Endure! Believe everything! 
Watch shit! Buy shit! Eat shit! Turn the other cheek! 
What has become of us? Why have we become sheep? 
Why do we endure this all without doing something? Why 
has nobody the guts to act? 

Thorsten's books were a real eye-opener to me! Now, I 
know who they are and what they plan for us all. And I can't 
forget what they have done to me. They call us "cattle". 
Okay, then I will be the black sheep in the flock. And the 
black sheep will fight back now! And it does not fear the 
butcher anymore, because even a butcher can be killed. 
Franky, the little black sheep, will make them pay now! And 
I hope that the flock of white sheep will wake up some day." 

P.S.: If I don't come back, please give this book to Julia... 

Diary entry of Frank Kohlhaas, 17.02.2029 



Citizen 1-564398B-278843 



Frank Kohlhaas, who was called citizen 1-564398B-278843 
in his everyday life, because this was his official 
administrative code, was already dreaming of the 
unpleasant smell in the hall of his flat, reminding him of 
rotten eggs. In his mind, shortly before 5.00 o'clock in the 
morning - soon the dream would be terminated by the 
alarm - Frank was on a walk through a sunny valley. But 
even at this beautiful place, the moldy smell was still 
pervasive, so that Frank wondered, how such a beautiful 
valley could smell so repulsive. 

When the alarm-clock rang, it quickly became clear that the 
sunny valley was just fantasy, although the smell was real. 
The noise was shrill and Frank awoke swearing. Now he 
had to get up, put on his clothes, have a hasty breakfast 
and walk to the production complex 42-B. 
„Damn!", hissed the unshaven man as he moved his not 
excessively tall, but amazingly strong body from his cheaply 
produced bed. 

„Hmmmhaaa!", yawned Frank, shuffling through his still dark 
apartment to the next room, where a dirty kitchen was 
waiting for him. The citizen tore open the refrigerator door 
and chocked down a cheese sandwich, the meager left- 
overs from yesterday's supper. 

The water kettle was started with a loud whoosh and, after a 
few minustes, supplied hot water for a cup of instant coffee. 
„Nnnhhaa!", uttered the young man, a statement, that could 
be interpreted in many ways at this early hour, and could 
have referred to his life situation in general. At 5.27 o'clock, 
Frank closed the battered door behind himself and walked 
listlessly down the dark corridor on his way to descend the 



even darker stairway. The source of that foul stench, that 

had been torturing Frank's nose for days, was somewhere 

here. Perhaps one of the other tenants, damn idiot, had left 

his garbage in the corridor. 

J don't know...", he muttered. 

Each morning it was the same old story: „Rising, eating, 

walking, slogging away...", as Kohlhaas always said. 

In the past years, he had learned to hate his life. He was 25 

years old now, living in a more than shabby flat on the 

outskirts of the former FRG capital, Berlin, working for 

modest wages as a temporary help in a steel plant. In 

former times, he had wanted to study, but this issue was 

over - for reasons that Frank never mentioned. 

Actually, he was not dumb, but, according to his own words, 

he couldn't hack it yet. However, the job at the steel plant 

was better than nothing, because it gave him the chance to 

earn some money and to survive - an advantage that was 

not enjoyed by millions of Germans in the year 2027. 

As he now groped along again on this particular morning, 

step by step towards the plant, he passed demolished 

houses in the twilight and crowds of homeless people lying 

in masses in the dark corners of the streets. 

„What would be, if I simply didn't care about the 

consequences and went home again, got back into my bed 

and just slept until tomorrow?", he thought sometimes. 

„What would it be like if I just packed my bags and 

disappeared from this rotten city, this scruffy country?", he 

asked himself occasionally. 

But where was it any different? He should enjoy, what he 

had - he'd got a job and didn't go hungry. That was at least 

something, thought Frank. 

After the worker had gone through a very long and dark 

underpass without giving a Globe coin to the drunken 

beggar there, the production complex came into Frank's 



vision. It was 5.53 in the morning and the workers for the 
early shift stood there waiting, smoking, jawing. 
When the factory gates finally opened at 6 o'clock, about 
200 workers poured through them like a viscous mash. Most 
of them were not in any rush to begin their work, but it had 
to be, there was no other way. 
"No alternative!", as Frank always said. 
After ten hours, they went back home again. All were dirty 
and tired, but happy that the work was over for the day. 
Frank crept through the corridor on his floor, which was still 
dim even by day, and unlocked the door of his apartment. 
There were no new messages on the Scanchip and that 
was good, because it were usually only calculations: 
electricity, water and such things. Frank had placed the 
television in his bedroom the day before, so if he couldn't 
fall asleep, he could turn it on. The program did not interest 
him, but with the sound of anyone talking, he didn't feel so 
alone in this dark block of flats. 

Kohlhaas just knew his neighbours from brief encounters. 
Many of them only left their apartments to go to work and 
some of them had become serious boozers in recent years. 
From time to time someone would bawl from his balcony or 
accosted people, passing "his block" - but after a while, 
everyone was sleeping. 

Citizen 1-564398B-278843 watched television till 22.37 
o'clock: the news („War of the global armed forces against 
dangerous terrorists in Iran"), talk shows, easy 
entertainment on all fronts, warnings of the second dog flu 
epidemic and the necessity for the immediate compulsory 
inoculation. Then he fell asleep, although meanwhile the 
foul smell from outside seemed to have lodged itself in his 
pillow.... 

Next day... 



10 



„Good morning, Frank!", muttered Dirk Weber, one of the 
foremen. „Good morning, Dirk!", answered Frank listlessly. It 
was 6.03 o'clock, the morning shift began. A-341, this was 
the designation of the young man as worker and temporary 
help in the steel plant, gave his helping hands for many 
operational steps till the clock indicated 10.30. 
Now it was time for a short lunch, and when Frank 
unwraped his only bun which was covered with a piece of 
salami, he did not suspect, that an unpleasant stroke of fate 
would wait for him in the following minutes. 
Since approximately half a year, the production complex' 
administration had arranged the singing of the "One-World- 
Song", due to a new international regulation, before every 
lunch time in each production complex - for the increase of 
work moral and to strengthen the international doctrine of 
„peace, freedom, prosperity and equality" that was 
propagated by the World Government since 2018. The 
official of the "Ministry for Production Supervision", stationed 
in this enterprise, Mr. Gert Sasse, who was mostly in his 
office above the factory building, had conscientiously come 
down to the workers to sing the "One-World-Song" with 
them. It was always the same. 

..Workers, now is lunch time! But we will sing first!", he 
shouted through the hall and the steel workers formed to a 
bored line, in order to enjoy the short break after the 
singing: 

"We are the children of One-World and we are all equal! 

We love our One-World, the great realm of peace! 

We don't know any classes, we don't know any races..." 

Frank heard ever more rarely on the text in the last weeks, 
didn't move his lips and stared at the ceiling of the dirty 
production hall. ..Hurry up!", he thought and boredly scraped 



11 



with his left foot over the dusty ground. Then the singing 

was over. 

„Gosh! This stupid song is really getting on my nerves!", 

said the labourer very quietly to himself. 

„AH right, men! That could be done - halfway! Enjoy your 

meal!", called the official of the "Ministry for Production 

Supervision" and A-341 looked forward to a hungry bite in 

his softened roll. 

But while his teeth eagerly crushed the salty piece of 

salami, he was hit by an angry look of Mr. Sasse. The 

supervisor narrowed his eyes to slits and looked like an 

aggressive bulldog. 

„A-341! Yes, you! Come to me! Hurry!", he roared at the top 

of his lungs. 

This got Frank's adrenalin flowing. He didn't need quarrel at 

work anymore. 

„Come on, A-341!", yelled Mr. Sasse, waving the worker 

nearer. Kohlhaas followed the order immediately. 

„l am just a fool for you, isn't it?", hissed the man. 

„Eh...no! Of course not, Sir. ..eh. ..Mr. Sasse!", stammered 

Frank. 

J fail to see what you mean...", he added stumbling. 

„How I mean this, you idiot?", screamed the official with a 

look which gave the young man the biggest possible 

uneasiness. A malicious silence prevailed for several 

oppressive seconds. Meanwhile, the eyes of the superior 

threateningly became smaller and bushy, black eyebrows 

were pushed over them. 

A second later, Frank saw a fist with fatty fingers fly towards 

his face. It suddenly hurt and his nasal bone reacted with a 

cracking on the punch. While some blood threads flowed 

down from his nose, A-341 heard a growl: „How I mean that, 

you numbskull?" 



12 



„lf I give the instruction that the „One-World-Song" has to be 

sung, you have to sing it too. This was an order!", 

completed Mr. Sasse his powerful argument. 

His intonation varied now between satisfaction and 

rampantly growing meanness. In the meantime, Kohlhaas 

had gone to the ground. This punch had been really hard 

and Sasse gave him another kick in the ribs now. 

„Do you understand, idiot? You probably think, that you 

have a special status here, isn't it?", he roared. 

The other workers googled at him and hid their faces behind 

their rolls. Meanwhile, Kohlhaas felt like a kicked dog, 

humiliated in front of the rest of his colleagues - what was 

very close to reality. Without considering his action, he 

jumped up and positioned himself in front of the official of 

the "Ministry for Production Supervision". 

"You can be glad, that you are my superior, otherwise I 

would break you every bone!", screamed Frank with boiling 

fury. Gert Sasse was baffled. A-341 obstinately wiped off 

the blood from his lip. 

One hour later, the worker still waited in front of the door of 
the production complex leader. Sasse was in his office and 
Frank heard him swearing and ranting. This was no good 
sign. 

„A-341, come in!", resounded the voice of the highest boss 
of this work plant over the brightly illuminated corridor. The 
young man started moving and took a seat on the chair in 
the middle of the office room. A short silence followed, then 
it began. 

J took a look on your Scanchip, A-341!", reported Mr. 
Reimers, the production complex leader. „ln the ten years of 
your activity here, you had come too late three times. Apart 
from that, this is not the first time that you make a spectacle 



13 



of yourself. You are already occured to me, because of 
subversive statements at work which can probably also be 
confirmed by your colleagues. We have even marked you 
with a blue code 67-Beta, if you didn't know it yet, A-341! 
We will examine the video tapes of your working days in this 
complex in the next days, with our new "Voice-Analysis- 
System", and Tim sure that we will find some more 
subversive statements. 

But what you have done today, is a real scandal! 
Threatening an official of the highest authority of production 
supervision. Is there just air in your head, boy? If I don't 
take drastic measures in a case like this, my superiors will 
make me a lot of problems. 

I must dismiss you, A-341! Further, I am correctly obligated, 
to react on such an unbelievable incident with a message to 
the responsible administration. Disappear now from this 
production complex, and never come back, A-341!" 
Frank Kohlhaas, the just dismissed worker, was struck 
dumb with horror. His vocal chords seemed to be rusted, his 
throat was tied and his courage was put on ice somewhere. 
He went out, just went out, pale as death, with a roaring 
head, without answering. Frank had lost his job, his source 
for subsistence. And this was no fun in these joyless days. 

Like in trance, the young man went into the changing room 
of the production complex and absently opened the baggy 
sheet door of his spint. ..Dismissal" - this word sounded like 
the cut of a razor in the ear of each listener in this time. It 
was related to the word ..liquidation", because it was the 
destruction of the social existence. Being dismissed meant 
to get no more Globes, as the international currency was 
called since the year 2018. If Frank would not find a new 
employment as soon as possible, he could lose his 
apartment, his food and finally also his life. Any social 



14 



security, warranted by the state, had completely been 
abolished since the total collapse of world economy in 
winter 2012/13. And it was more than difficult, to find work in 
a time, in which the industrial production in old Central and 
Western Europe had mostly been outsourced to the Third 
World. Therefore, millions of Europeans tried to survive by 
doing extremly bad paid jobs in this dark present. They had 
nothing to lose, so they were glad about every breadline 
wage they could get. Those, who were not able to find a 
possibility to earn some money in any way, ended as 
beggars and homeless people, hanging around under 
bridges or in vacant house ruins. 

On the next day, Frank was not awaked by the shrill sound 

of his alarm, after an sorrowful and restless night, but by the 

disgusting stench which came from the stairway. The smell 

had not been liquidated by anyone - against the spirit of the 

age. 

Only in the early morning hours, he had been able to sleep 

for a while, because of his constant brooding and the 

unpleasant thoughts that had tortured him during the night. 

As first thought of the new grey day, the face of Mr. Sasse 

appeared in his head and the face of citizen 1-564398B- 

278843 changed to a hateful grimace, when he mused 

about killing the official with an iron rod. 

„This damn hybrid! If my life goes down the drain, because 

of that guy, then I will smash the skull of this bastard before 

I go to hell!", hissed Frank, erupting in anger. 

He finally crept out of his bed and stared down at the dirty 

street in front of his apartement block. 

„Damn! What shall I do now?", he thought. J must find a 

new job, otherwise they will close the account on my 

Scanchip, because I can't pay the fucking calculations any 

longer." 



15 



After a further hour of useless musing, he left his dwelling, 

tried not to inhale too deeply on the corridor, and walked the 

dark stairs down to the ground floor. 

The elevator was defective since months and nobody 

seemed to waste a thought about repairing it. The only one, 

Frank could imagine as a potential employer in this 

hardship, was Stefan Meise, the junkdealer, an old 

schoolmate. 

Meise' s scrapyard was about half an hour foot march 

distant from Frank's apartment block. He hit the road, 

walked down the ugly street, which was covered with 

garbage, and finally reached his goal - a place full of rusty 

cars and all kinds of metal debris. 

Nevertheless, Stefan Meise was not difficult to find between 

the mountains of scrap iron. He was very tall, thick, bearded 

and looked hardly differed from what he collected and sold. 

„Hello Stefan! How are you?", welcomed him Frank quietly, 

trying to smile. 

„Oh, Frank Kohlhaas! What's up, man?", answered the thick 

junkdealer. "You haven't been here for ages!" 

"I just thought, I could visit you. Does the scrap metal trade 

still run, Stefan?", asked Frank. „You have here... eh... a lot 

of rusty stuff... Where do you find so much junk?" 

„Ha! I collect, what I can find. As all junkdealers do. Why do 

you ask me this, Frank? Can I help you?", returned Meise. 

„l have lost my job yesterday", told Frank, while the fat man 

looked at him quizzically. Then, Meise stroke with his oily, 

broad fingers over his dirty black overall. 

.That's a disaster, Frank! And now?", asked Stefan and 

shook his head. 

„Now, I'm looking for something new. Some kind of 

temporary job, you know? Perhaps, you still need another 

helping hand?", murmured the young man. 



16 



For half a minute, Meise just googled at the unemployed 

man with his yellowish, bulging eyes. Then he looked 

around and tried to give his unpleasant answer as carefully 

as possible. 

..Working for me?", he inquired. ..Thus, Frank, the situation 

is... eh. ..the times are bad. We all know this, my friend. I 

almost run everything alone here and only Ralf helps me 

from time to time. This is actually enough. I don't need a 

second man, sorry!" 

Frank Kohlhaas had never been a good actor and who saw 

him now, could feel his disappointment. 

„And only for two months?", he asked. 

„l need none here, and I can't afford a second man, Frank!", 

explained the thick, filthy man and turned away. „l'm sorry, 

but I have to do some work now. No offense, but there is no 

chance for you to find work here." 

Back home, Frank hissed one of his worst curses and 

kicked against the kitchen table. He desperately scanned 

his brain for other possibilities of employment and checked 

all production complexes around Berlin in his mind. But the 

problem was, that his boss had given him a negative entry 

in his Scanchip register after the conflict with Mr. Sasse, 

what made it difficult to get a job in another steel plant. 

He still had 246 Globes on his electronic account for this 

month. More than 400 Globes he had to pay only for his 

apartment in this rotted estate of prefabricated houses. 

Time pressed now, with each day a little bit more, and the 

dark shadow of despair grew with the passing hours. It 

occupied Frank's mind like a malicious ulcer. 

After the young man had watched an extremely stupid 

sitcom, he switched off the television and tried to sleep. But 

it was only 23,00 o'clock and regrettably the exhaustion had 

not achieved the necessary level yet, to turn off Frank's 

brain and give him some peace of mind. 



17 



Several hours followed, when Frank was staring at the dark 
ceiling, cursing the production complex 42-B with all its 
superiors, supervisors and workers. 

Then the stench from the hall became noticeable to him 
again and the fog of despair in his head swelled so strongly 
that the young man thought about killing himself. 
He mused about operating the bad thoughts and concerns 
under his skullcap with a heavy-calibered shotgun which 
would completely spread his brain over the yellowed 
wallpaper behind his bedstead. And Frank Kohlhaas still 
thought about many other things in this terrible night. 
He brooded over his so far senseless life, the isolation, the 
monotonousness and the gaping abyss that waited for him 
now. Frank came to no solution in this night and not even 
the smallest glimmer of hope seemed to shine somewhere. 
Nothing. Outside it was dark. In front of the house, Frank 
could recognize a few ripped garbage bags, which already 
lay there since several weeks. Then he was finally so tired, 
that he fell asleep with his head on the window sill. 

Up to the end of the week, the search for a new job was 
unsuccessful - as he had already expected it. It seemed 
that there was no more work at all, in the periphery of 
several kilometers. Furthermore, a inquiry at the local 
administration had proven that Frank had meanwhile a 
negative entry in his Scanchip register, because of 
..disturbance of peace at the workplace". 
..Perhaps, the idea with the shotgun is not too bad at all! But 
before that, I will visit this Sasse!", grumbled Frank on 
Friday, when the short weekend for his former colleagues of 
the production complex 42-B began. 
On Saturday and Sunday, he invested his last Globes in the 
cheap liquor from the kiosk at the corner. Alone in his small, 
modestly furnished apartment, in the dark block of flats, in a 



18 



much darker time. His fate and his pain was not noticed by 

anyone else. Just like Frank Kohlhaas had never noticed 

the pain of the others who lifed their lives in their 

honeycombs, behind the shabby, gray walls of this 

plattenbau. 

If he would drink himself to death or blew his head away, he 

would soon smell like the corridor on his floor, and it would 

probably not even been noticed by his neighbors. This 

thought was somehow so sick that it elecited Frank a 

tormented smile. 

Hard alcohol had not the best reputation, but one thing was 

clear: It had already given millions of desperate people a 

good sleep. No concern could be so big, that it couldn't be 

drowned in a wave of the good and, above all, cheap booze 

from the nearby kiosk. Frank checked this old truth in a 

"self-experiment". 

„Beep! Beep! Beep!", it resounded on Monday at 6.30 

o'clock in the morning from the kitchen, where the drunk 

man had forgotten his Scanchip. „Beep! Beep! Beep!" 

An electronic woman's voice always repeated... 

„Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a 
message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!" 

„Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a 
message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!" 

„Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a 
message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!" 

„Hmmm...", hummed Frank, still a bit dazed from the night 
before. 



19 



„Damn! What?", he muttered and rolled out of his bed which 

still smelled of alcohol. 

„What the hell? Damn! Shut up!", he grunted and walked 

with a bad headache to the kitchen table. 

It lasted a little eternity until Frank had remembered the pin 

code and had found his way through the message-menu of 

the Scanchip. 

"What...?" 

"Citation? What?", whispered citizen 1-564398B-278843. He 

had to read it twice, in order to believe it. Did somebody try 

to kid him? 

„What the fuck is that?", he could only say. 

Official citation: 

Citizen 1-564398B-278843, 

You are officially cited to an automated trial on 
14.08.2027 at 8.00 o'clock. 

Accusations: 

- Massive disturbation at the workplace 

- Theoretical aggravated battery 

Appear at the mentioned time in court cell 4/211, at your 
local juridical complex. In the case of nonappearance, 
you will be punished with the deletion of your Scanchip 
or arrest! (*§127b, „Citizen Obligations and theoretical 
Sanctions") 

Official document code: 257789000-0100567- 
2345441 1 1 3-EGN-59900-4/21 1 
Culprit number: 319444-556.77 



20 



Thank you for your cooperation! 

Frank's atomised brain began to hurt and to rotate. 
..Citation? What do you want from me?" 
He was totally confused and couldn't remember any crimes 
in his past life. 

..Just because I've yelled at this damned Sasse?", he 
thought. ..This can't be true! I finally did not touch him. I 
have just lost control for some seconds. I don't understand 
this. And what the hell do they mean with ..theoretical 
aggravated battery"?" 

And there was no doubt. Frank Kohlhaas, the helping out 
citizen with the official code 1-564398B-278843, had never 
done something bad to another person. Except for the time 
in the kindergarten, back then, as he had given this stupid 
Kevin a little slap and his parents had been called to the 
authorithies. The local education officials had briefly 
become anxiously and had explanied that Frank would have 
some ..subliminal aggressions" and a ..precarious masculine 
behavior". Then they had suggested a therapy with 
tranquilizers. 

But this was many years ago. Furthermore, the therapy 
could be avoided, after the child had repetend its "sins" in 
front of a committee of psychologists and social 
pedagogues, and his parents had insured, that they would 
immediately report Frank's next "crimes", if he would 
become noticeable again in this context. 
But he never became noticeable again. He always stuck to 
the rules until this day; in the kindergarten, the elementary 
school and everywhere else. Since his fifth year of life, he 
had always been a good boy. No, he was not noticeable at 
all. And of course he was no human being with ..subliminal 
aggressions". Sometimes in his thoughts or dreams, he beat 
up a superior or an administrative coworker, but this was a 



21 



secret and Frank had never talked about his thought crimes. 
He was just "normal", as he meant. 

Apart from this, it was also the first time that the otherwise 
perfectly inconspicuous plattenbau-inhabitant Frank 
Kohlhaas had come in contact with an ..automated trial". The 
citizen had already heard about this, once in the news, 
since it had been introduced by the World Government 
three years ago. But the young man could not imagine, what 
this strange process really was. But why should a decent 
person like Frank think about such things? He had never 
become culpable and had nothing to do with criminality. 
Therefore, the accused had not the foggiest notion, what 
waited for him now and so he wasn't too much concerned 
about this citation. 

It was probably nothing but a pure formality, circumstances, 
which could be clarified. Frank had not hurt anybody and 
therefore he also could not be condemned. The young man 
had already lost his job, because of the so called 
"disturbation of peace at the workplace". There was no 
reason to be worried, thought Kohlhaas. 
Now the unemployed man absently hit the button ..Voice 
Presentation" so that the message was slowly read out by a 
computer-animated woman's voice. This was also a 
novelty. The administration had introduced the "Voice 
Presentation" some years ago, because more and more 
citizens of Berlin were illiterate, above all, the younger 
generation. So an important official message had always to 
be available in read out form. 

The rest of this day wasn't very spectacular and the 
"automated trail" was already tomorrow. ..Then I will have a 
reason to rise", said Frank to himself and grinned cynically. 
Shortly afterwards, Kohlhaas tried to call his father to ask 
him for some money, but he didn't reach anybody during 



22 



the whole day. Nevertheless, there was some more liquor in 
the kitchen. Frank decided to get royally drunk once again, 
and fell asleep at midnight. He almost forgot to set his 
alarm-clock... 



23 



Automated Trial 



Although it was August, this morning was very cold and 

dark. Frank's neck hurt and he had another headache from 

last night's drunkenness. The local juridical complex was 

over one hour foot march distant from his apartment block, 

but the citizen thought, that it could be a good idea to go 

and get some, more or less, fresh air. In addition, he could 

fight the aftereffects of his hangover. 

He hastily gulped down some toast, swallowed the 

dissolvable coffee and examined the label on the plastic can 

of the coffee powder. 

„Globe Food" was written on it and Frank could see a world 

ball. Above the globe was a pyramid with an eye on its top. 

At the bottom of the picture was the slogan: „Food for the 

people!" 

„Amusing symbol!", murmured Frank into his three-day 

beard. 

He had never noticed this logo before, although he only 

bought his food in the cheap „Globe Food" supermarkets, 

which dominated Berlin. Then the thought left his head 

again, as fast as it had come. 

The unusual cold weather let Frank shiver. A draft of fresh 
air blew through the dark stairway and temporary flushed 
away even the smell of bad eggs. In front of him, a neighbor 
walked down to the exit and Frank considered if he had 
seen the face of this man ever before. 
The man said something sounding like "Hello!", but 
Kohlhaas wasn't sure. The accused slowly walked forward 
and was still dizzy. He briefly looked at the playground in 
the yard and beheld some children who were screaming 



24 



with shrill voices in an incomprehensible language. Was it 
Turkish? Or Arabic? 

When the clock indicated 7.43, he could already recognize 

the outlines of the juridical complex from the distance. It was 

a large red building with hundreds of windows and over 30 

floors. Dozens of court cells were in front of it, one of them 

was waiting for him. The chambers, in which people could 

get their "automated trial", were made of a gray metal and 

about four meters wide, as Frank guessed from his distant 

view. 

Three other citizens already stood before them, between 

them were some police officers. Slowly he became nervous. 

Perhaps this hearing was nevertheless more unpleasantly, 

than he had imagined at first. 

Now it was necessary to pass an electrical gate, which was 

protected by a doorman in a small, brown house. The 

official gave Frank a sign to come nearer. 

„Come here!", he called. 

The young man ran forward and positioned himself in front 

of the entrance of the guardroom. 

„Scanchip!", said the doorman, holding a laser scanner in 

his hand. Wordlessly he pulled the Scanchip out of Frank's 

hand, without looking at him, and said after a short „beep" of 

his code reader: „Court cell 4/211! Hurry up! It is nearly 8.00 

o'clock! If you come too late, it will be just more expensive 

for you!" 

Frank's heart started to pound faster. Fearfully, he started 

to search the court cells, in order to find his number. The 

other accused examined him with some brief looks. 

„Row 4! Shit! I must hurry up... 211...", lamented Frank, 

becoming more and more nervous. Meanwhile, only two 

minutes remained, till his hearing would start. He began to 



25 



run and with a racing heart and an increasing headache, he 

correctly reached his court cell in time. 

Gasping for breath, he was welcomed by an electronic 

woman's voice: ..Welcome citizen 1-564398B-278843, to 

your automated trail! Please enter your culprit number on 

the display and press OK!" 

Frank pulled the Scanchip out of his trouser pocket, opened 

the message menu, and tried to enter his culprit number. A 

rarely known panic attacked him now. He looked around, 

gasping for breath again. 

..Actually, I don't have to go in this damn metal box, 

because I didn't do anything!", he whispered, but the door 

was already open. Frank's hands became sweaty, while he 

breathed louder. 

In front of him, a weakly lit up metallic hole had opened 

itself, which requested him to step forward now. 

..Come in, citizen 1-564398B-278843! Your trial is already 

running!", it resounded from a loudspeaker at the ceiling of 

the halfdark chamber. Frank Kohlhaas knew that he had no 

chance to refuse the order. It was nevertheless an official 

instruction and there was never and in no case room for a 

discussion or exception. 

He made a step forward and his knees felt more weak with 

each passing second. Then a screen flashed. The 

"automated trial" against the theoretical delinquent Frank 

Kohlhaas took its course. 

In large and bright letters, the reproaches could be read on 
the screen: 

Accusations: 

- Massive disturbation at the workplace 

- Theoretical aggravated battery 



26 



Frank swallowed and let out a big gush of air. The terribly 
sounding woman's voice, as friendly as an unnoticed virus, 
began with some remarks. A detailed description of the 
progression of events, the listing of witnesses and additional 
"sub-charges" followed, for example ..subversive statements 
at work" - and some more. 

For several minutes, the young man didn't say anything, 
and besides, nobody had asked him for his point of view, 
only the computer voice was talking, implementing and 
accusing. 

Frank's former colleagues, Schmidt, Adiguzel and Nyang, 
had confirmed the fact, that the young man had refused the 
singing of the "One-World-Song" several times and had 
even described the text as "nonsens" on 02.04.2027. 
Production supervisor Sasse had added that the aggressive 
mimic and the use of "strong vocabulary" during the 
argument in the factory, would be an evidence for Frank's 
tendency of "unnecessary analyzing of absolutely justified 
instructions" and "subliminal aggressions". 
The boss of the production complex had confirmed this too. 
Further details followed: legal regulations and regulations 
for extended and deeper instructions in the reference to the 
list and redefinition of defaults - and more. 

"You can be glad that you are my superior, otherwise I 
would break you every bone!" 

The intention of striking the superior, was more than clearly 
proven, in the eyes of the automated court. The difference 
between a (in such a way) formulated intention and an 
actually implemented act, was relatively small, according to 
the modern understanding of law which was oriented 
towards psychology and statistics. Further, the probability to 
commit this act one day in reality, had also enormously 



27 



increased, because the intention had clearly been 
formulated. (Compare: „BMI of calibration of actual, 
theoretical and probable behavior" from 02.10.2020, 
document code: V-LUN-36777192934457656-Z, (89) ") 

Frank googled at the screen like a stunned cow, which had 
walked against an electrical fence. He was not able to think 
that fast, how this computer programme made him to a 
potential interference factor, a danger for the order of the 
worldwide system, basing on freedom and humanitarianism. 
After an hour, the lecture finally came to an end. Now a new 
menu appeared on the screen. The woman's voice with the 
electronic taste kindly read out the sentences, sounding like 
sudden frost in Frank's ears: 

„lf you deny the charges, please click on NO!" 

"If you admit the charges, please klick on YES!" 

Citizen 1-564398B-278843 hesitated, perked his eyebrows 

up and tried to arrange his thoughts. 

„What is this shit? Tve done nothing wrong, nothing at all! 

This whole crap is a bad joke!", yelled Frank through the 

court cell. For a second, he thought about crushing this 

damn screen with a kick. 

„l will choose NO! I'm innocent! No! I click NO! No 

question!", he screamed angrily. 

The accused hammered on the keys in front of him and 

selected NO. Now he had to wait. The computer hummed. 

..Loading" could be seen on the screen in bright letters. 

Frank felt relieved for a short moment. 

„Now that fucking thing knows that I am innocent. I 

expressed myself clearly: NO!", he said grimly. Then he 

smiled, a bit exhausted, while the inner tension started to 



28 



die down. Shortly afterwards, he got the answer of the 
automated court computer, with metallic sound and cruelly 
combined letters on the bright screen: 

..Accused, you selected NO! This means, you deny the 
reproaches and assume our juridical system, led by 
humanistic principles, not to consider these! 
Unfortunately, we must tell you that the selection of the 
menu option NO leads, in principle, to an increased 
measure of punishment, because it shows the 
intransigence of the culprit..." 

The court decision is loaded... 

The young man paused, gaped at the screen and cursed 
quietly, while his mouth became an astonished, shocked 
hole. Frank Kohlhaas' understanding seemed to be 
blocked, briefly put on „standby". The data were too large 
and too terrible, in order to be able to be processed by his 
brain. The biological computer under his skullcap just 
seemed to fall into chaos and started to collapse. 
Then the gleeful shining screen of court cell 4/21 1 struck in 
his face with still more malice. The judgement was 
announced: 

„Citizen 1-564398B-278843! You are condemned to 5 

years of detention in a center for reeducation and 

resocialization! 

To the reason: In your case, the statistic probability for 

theoretical aggravated battery is at 78, 11%! 

The statistic probability for prospective subversive 

behavior is at 53.59% in your case! Moreover, the 

selection of the menu option NO increases the penalty. 

But you can be unconcerned. Meanwhile, there are 



29 



numerous governmental institutions, in which human 
beings like you can get modern theraphies on the 
highest level of science, in order to begin a happy and 
adapted new life in our humanistic society! We thank 
you for your understanding!" 

Frank's eyes bored into the screen and his ears roared. The 
electronic woman's voice resounded in his head like the 
echo of an atomic explosion. It became a slimy worm, which 
ate its way through his pinna towards his brain. 
„5 years of detention?", stammered the man. 
Frank tried to explain himself, that his hearing had deceived 
him, but the cruel news were also in front of his eyes. 
Unfortunately, both senses could not err. He was 
condemned. It was correct. 

Still in a condition of shock, the accused hardly noticed, 
when the electronic lock engaged behind him, blocking the 
court cell automatically. The damnation had been 
proclaimed and the trap had sprung. In the first minutes, 
Frank was much too perplex to be able to realize this. The 
despair in this early moment was far too big that it could 
give room to feelings like hate or rage. 

For this procedure, 411.66 Globes were deducted from 
Frank's Scanchip account, what was also mentioned by the 
computer voice. 

He might behave and wait, until the police officers would 
come to arrest him. Then he would be brought to a transport 
vehicle, as the computer explained. Citizen 1-564398B- 
278843 listened to these further instructions without 
showing any emotions. The condition of torpidity was too 
serious. Half an hour later, he suddenly jumped up in his 
despair, in order to cry. But a strange weakness had 



30 



captured his mind and after a short emotional outburst, 
Kohlhaas crept into a dark corner and waited. 
..Perhaps it is just a misunderstanding? It could surely be 
cleared up!", it temporarily flared up in his mind. "I must talk 
to the officials. They can. ..can help me, to find a solution. 
The computer must have erred." 

When two policemen arrived at the court cell, about one 

hour later, they already heard Frank complaing from a 

distance. 

J think, that is the loudest guy today!", sneered a 

policeman. 

"He has a real big mouth!", said the other. 

The steel door of the dark court chamber opened and 

offered a sorry sight to the policemen. But it was not a 

picture, which was strange to them. Outbreaks of accused 

people after automated trials, were nothing new for them. 

They brought Frank to one of the vehicles... 



31 



Big eye 



The transport to „Big Eye", one of the largest and most 

modern high safety prisons in the entire administrative 

sector ..Central Europe", did not last for a long time, but it 

seemed to go on forever for Frank. Mentally absent, like hit 

by an arrow full of narcotic poison, he stared vacantly into 

space. 

The police officers ignored him and talked most of the time 

about a new TV show, called „The Little Whisperer", where 

children could win prices if they uncovered "subversive 

behavior" among their relatives or neighbors. 

Actually, the young man had planned to address the police 

officers, to tell them that everything was just a judicial error, 

but he did not do it. And they did not seem to have any 

interest to make some small talk with him. 

After a while, the outlines of an enormous prison complex 

appeared on the horizon. This was „Big Eye". Frank had 

once seen a report on television about this institute, where 

only happy and healed ..patients" (this was the official 

designation) were shown to the people. Now he was on the 

way there. 

The building was surrounded by high concrete walls, which 

were provided with barbed wire and watchtowers. It had 

several floors and on an outside wall, the prisoner 

recognized the strange symbol, he had already seen before 

on the label of his coffee powder glass. 

A pyramid with an eye on its top. The sign looked somehow 

differently than the escutcheon of the "Globe Food" chain of 

stores, but nevertheless, the similarity was clear. „Big Eye" - 

the great eye. Nobody could escape from its view!", thought 

Frank, driven by fear. He should be right. 



32 



The patient finally left the transporter and the officers did not 
have to become rough this time. He followed them, was 
silent and accepted all their instructions like being on drugs. 
Dress order, behavioral code, sleeping time. He hardly 
heard on all the talk, musing about the rising nightmare 
around him. 

If he listened or not, was quite immaterial. He should remain 
here for five long years, according to an official court 
decision, and had therefore time enough to internalize the 
routine of the day to the smallest detail. After Frank had 
undressed, he received a white shirt and white trousers, just 
as white trainers. 

„You will get a new set every week!", explained one of the 
attendants. „Follow me now, citizen 1-564398B-278843! 
From now on, you are called "Patient 111-F-47" in this 
institute! Do you understand this?" Frank answered with a 
nod and followed the man. 

„Now go with the execution officials, they will bring you to 
your cell in block F. Don't make problems!" 
The new prisoner was lead many stairways up to one of the 
highest floors of the prison complex. Internally broken, he 
stared at the ground, but even in his lethargic state of 
shock, he noticed that nothing could be heard from the other 
prisoners. No discussions, no crying or any other sound. It 
was oppressing. The long corridors of „Big Eye" were 
uncanny quiet and all the numbered cell doors were made 
of extremely thick steel. The cell with the number 47, in 
block F, was provided for Frank. He tried to explain himself, 
that everything was nothing but a nightmare. It could not be 
real and soon he would wake up, in order to enjoy the 
stench from his stairway at first. He would run out of his 
apartment and loudly yell over the corridor: „Nice, that you 
are here, stench!" 



33 



Yes, he would do it, because this prison could only be a 
cruel vision in the depths of his mind, and in the next 
moment this scenario would just split like an unpleasant 
thought. But it was not like that. 

„1 1 1-F-47! Here we are! This is your cell!", one of the 
execution officials suddenly said. The sturdy man with the 
brown mustachio and the sharp-edged cheek bone entered 
an access code and the cell door opened. 
„ln there, 111-F-47!", he grunted. 

In this second, clarity returned to Frank's mind again. The 
young man abruptly realized, that he would spend the next 
five years in this room. This let his sanity splinter like glass. 
He broke down and lost consciousness. 

After an indefinite time, Frank came round again. Waked up 

by a blazing neon light, which penetrated his lids. He was 

still dazed, felt sick and the glow stabbed in his skull like a 

sharp spear. 

„Wake up, patient 111-F-47!", said a voice somewhere in 

the room. 

„Wake up, patient 111-F-47!", it resonated again. Frank 

layed with his back on a light gray plank bed of pleather and 

his headache returned with a vengeance. 

„Wake up, patient 111-F-47!" Again and again and again. 

The head of the young man hurt, as if somebody had put it 

into a vice, he was hungry and felt tired and frail. 

„l_eave me alone!", he begged and tried to turn away from 

the sharp light, but it was impossible. 

„Patient 111-F-47! Listen!", it resounded from the ceiling of 

the cell. 

Frank sat down on the edge of the plank bed and held the 

hands over his eyes. „What do you want from me?", he 

gasped. 



34 



..Welcome to your holo cell, patient 111-F-47! Don't be 
scared! You are in a mental hospital and we want to help 
you!", told the metallic woman's voice from the loudspeaker. 
..This new holo cell is a part of your therapy, patient 111-F- 
47! We use these mechanisms here in „Big Eye", helping 
you to regain the path of the adapted citizen. In this holo 
cell, all outlines just blur; it is unlimited, like our "One World", 
whose happy citizen you will be after your healing, patient 
111-F-47! 

Trust us and our newest therapy. Developed by 
philanthropists, in order to help people. This cell contains 
the freedom, because it does not know borders. It is your 
freedom to heal yourself, the freedom of your mind which 
will learn with our help!" 

Frank Kohlhaas still held his hurting head. This light was 
intolerable and it should still last weeks, until he had got 
halfway accustomed to its sharp brightness. Finally, he 
examined his new home. The room had a size of perhaps 
hundred square meters, maybe it was a bit smaller. Frank 
could hardly see the outlines of the walls or the cell door, 
because of the bright, white light. 

The glow was terrible and it penetrated his brain completely. 
Even if Frank screwed up his eyes, this unnatural brightness 
besieged his barricaded head persistently like an army. 
Frank's headache became stronger. Then he just vomited 
on his plank bed and crept into a corner. 
..Patient 111-F-47! Do you hear us? You are in a holo cell! 
Do you understand this? If so, then lift your hand!", 
demanded the loudspeaker energetically. 
The sick man signaled the fact that he had understood and 
still huddled in the corner. In the cell were no things, only 
the plank bed and a toilet at the opposite wall. Otherwise, 
here was only the biting light. 



35 



„You will get one hour of reeducation, twice a day!", 
explained the unnatural voice from the upper corner of the 
room. „The first reeducation hour begins in 30 minutes, 
patient 1 1 1 -F-47! Get ready!" 

Frank was overtaxed with this situation and dug his face, 
still hiding in the corner, behind his knees. He tried to think 
about nothing and would have done everything to switch 
that light off. But this was not within his power. As nothing in 
„Big Eye" was within his power. 

He was nothing but a white mouse here, a small laboratory 
rat in a cage, that had to endure everything the sadistic 
inventors of this so called „mental hospital" had invented. 
Shortly afterwards, the reeducation hour began, whereby 
the loudspeaker intensively explained 111-F-47 the reasons 
for his „therapy" again. It said, that they wanted to make a 
„good human being" of Frank. „A human being, which is 
human, by overcoming its humanity!" 
The brainwash lasted a whole hour, while the light burned 
and hurt more and more. Occasionally, the prisoner lost 
orientation, because the sharp light was like a white nebula. 
Frank tried to fight the pain in his head, but he was at this 
cell's mercy. Furthermore, he was in the hands of the cruel 
blaze and the metallically sounding talk of this steel 
computer woman, that tormented him. 
„l can't stand this insanity for two weeks!", said Frank to 
himself and winced. „l want it to stop! Please, God!", he 
whined. 

But God didn't hear him. The acoustic insulation of the holo 
cell was much too perfect, deep down in the prison complex 
„Big Eye". If Frank had a God here, then it was him or her or 
it, the thing behind the loudspeaker. At night, at 22.00 
o'clock, the sharp light was switched off. The whole room 
suddenly became dark then. So pitch-dark that even the 
smallest source of light did not remain. Frank couldn't see 



36 



the hand before his eyes anymore and in his head, the 
aftereffects of the blinding blaze jumped around as manifold 
colors. There was only extreme brightness or extreme 
darkness in this cell. Whoever had developed the concept of 
this instrument of torture, knew exactly, that this cruel form 
of conditioning could transform even the unruliest man to a 
willing slave, within only a short time. And so the first days 
in „Big Eye" slowly passed, leaving countless deep scars in 
the mind of the young man. But there was no escape. No 
possibility to flee, no rescue by God. Only the devil seemed 
to be interested in „Big Eye" - probably he had even 
designed this hell on earth. 

„Stand tall, patient 111-F-47! Here in „Big Eye" is no quarrel 
among the inmates, there are no rebellions and no 
annoyance - everyone remains for himself, during the entire 
term of imprisonment. You, 111-F-47, are one of the first ill 
human beings, who have the luck, to receive a therapy in a 
holo cell. We are happy for you, that the computer-assisted 
selective procedure has chosen you for this room. 
Behave willingly, be flexible and learn to respect the rules of 
the system! Not every patient here has the luck, to be 
healed a holo cell. You are one of the prototypes. Support 
the developers of this new form of healing, by helping your 
therapy to success!", it resounded through the room one 
morning. 

On other days, patient 111-F-47 was explained, how 
important it was to believe everything the media told him. 
How necessary it was, to free human beings from their 
instincts, to format and reprogram their minds so that they 
could overcome all their natural instincts. Furthermore, how 
inevitable the sedation of human beings was, so that they 
could reach a state of happiness. How important 



37 



consumption and maximization of profit were, for a 
functioning society. 

In these long weeks of isolation, the strange artificial days 
and the black unnatural nights, it was Frank's largest 
concern, not to go insane. The isolation, the boredom and, 
above all, the haunting light had soon transformed him into 
a pathetic creature. He often thought about his father and 
his sister, the only members of his family, who were still 
there. Frank's mother had died three years ago, he had 
loved her very much and with her death he had lost not only 
his biological mother, but also his best friend, his closest 
reference person in this world. The time after her death had 
been hard. Now, nobody was left to talk to. 
To his father, Rainer Kohlhaas, who lived in the eastern part 
of Berlin, Frank had had only irregular contact. Rarely, too 
rarely, he had visited him so far, if he was honest. But 
Rainer Kohlhaas was an unemotional, taciturn man, and 
each discussion with him was laborious. 
Frank and Rainer had frequently argued in former times. 
Often the father had openly shown his displeasure about 
Frank's path through life and had always upholded Frank's 
sister Martina, as the positive example. His son had hated 
these permanent comparisons, but now, all this was no 
longer important. 

From time to time he had telephoned with his older sister, 
the more successful one of the two children. Martina had 
become a teacher, had married and Frank had often envied 
her, because of her good payment. But one day, she had 
confessed to him, how fraught and exhaustive her job was. 
She just hated to work on her school. 
She teached the subjects „Biology "and ..English" at a 
school complex in Wuppertal, in the sub-district Westfalen- 
Rheinland. Martina described the situation in German 



38 



schools as more than intolerable, and Frank had the 
suspicion that she already drank and took tranquilizers. But 
she held on, for her husband and her son, the little Nico. 
However, citizen 1-564398B-278843 had seen his nephew 
only twice and had always been proud to be his uncle. 
In these terrible days, he often thought about the rest of his 
family which probably didn't know at all, that he was locked 
up here. Perhaps, they would only be surprised about the 
fact, that Frank didn't answer the telephone since weeks. 
Perhaps the police had even informed his family members - 
that he had become an offender and was a criminal now, 
and had to face his fair punishment in that prison. He just 
didn't know, but he could imagine his father's face, if he got 
that message. 

J have always said, that the boy wastes his life. Now my old 
sorrow has finally been confirmed!", he had probably 
murmured. The prisoner didn't try to think too much about 
these unpleasant things. 

„What has happened to my apartment?", he pondered. „l'm 
sure that they have already rented it to another person. This 
can be done fast if the rent can't be deducted from the 
Scanchip anymore." 

In these days, Frank could only speak with himself and tried 
to handle the pain. But it did not change anything. He had 
served only one month in this room, but Frank already got 
the feeling that he had walked from one end of hell to the 
other. 

It was not easy to persevere here. And the daily two 
reeducation hours finally became even the most interesting 
things, which happened on a day in the holo cell. After a 
while, Frank occasionally even looked forward to them. 
Nevertheless, sometimes he tried to destroy the 
loudspeaker, which hung much too high, to tear it down. 
Then he became so angry that he kicked against the walls 



39 



or bit in his underarm till it bled. Frank's lonely fight against 
windmills continued for a while in such a way. Always 
unsuccessful and ever more closer to the loss of his good 
judgement. Sometimes he cried below the loudspeaker, 
begged for grace and forgiveness and promised to follow 
each rule and each regulation for all eternity. He swore, to 
believe everything, what they told him. But nobody ever 
answered. 

When two months had passed, Frank broke out in tears 
ever more frequently or crawled under his light gray plank 
bed. He thought, that insanity had already found him and 
skid down into a state of permanent panic. Patient 111-F-47 
didn't trust his own judgement any longer and felt seperated 
from the rest of the world like by a great ocean. 
In the second month of his term of imprisonment, he made 
"insanity" to his companion. He invisaged him as another 
inmate, as a cellmate. 

A very tall guy, gaunt, with completely pale skin and deep 
furrows in the face. Also dressed in the correct white cell 
clothes of „Big Eye". However, if the "insanity" sat beside 
him on the plank bed, he unfortunately never answered. He 
just sneered at him, showing Kohlhaas his yellowish-brown 
teeth. But nevertheless, Frank told his spooky friend a lot of 
things. 

Sometimes the patient also imagined, that „Mr. Madness", 
as Frank called him after a while, snored in the complete 
darkness of the night, lying somewhere in the room. Then 
he crept over the ground and tried to find his strange 
cellmate, in order to tell to him that he might be silent. Frank 
thought about much confusing things and nobody could say, 
if the young men still knew, that it were confusing things. It 
was a nocturnal trip beyond the borders of human 
understanding, a mental journey through the darkest tunnels 



40 



of his mind. And every morning, Kohlhaas was awaked by 
that bright, hellish light again. 

..That's the army of the light particles, which destroys my 
lids with their ramming supports, piece by piece, pouring 
into my head-fortress with loud screams - slaughtering 
everything without further warning. And this cruel horde 
massacres my helpless grey cells!", said the young man, if 
he could hardly bear it. 

Then he had phases, in which he searched his body on 
diseases for hours. He found malicious knots and parasites 
everywhere. His body seemed to be full of degenerated 
pimples and strange maladies under the skin, which filled 
his mind with sorrows. 

At the end of the third month, he discovered some red 
points on the white wall behind the toilet, when he huddled 
on the ground, in order to protect himself against the 
aggressive light. Frank was sure that it were traces of blood, 
which had only provisionally been overcoated with white 
color by the prison's staff. 

Mr. Madness had no opinion about this, he just sat in the 
corner and beheld Frank sadly. Often Kohlhaas 
remembered, whether it was actually possible, to smash his 
own head against the wall or the ceramic toilet bowl so 
hardly, that this torture was over. What would happen? 
Would the attendants save him, just to let him rot here until 
doomsday? Another possibility was, to bite open his pulse 
veins. Unfortunately, there were no bedlinen or other things 
in this cell, which would have made a suicide possible. 
But each time, when Frank had these thoughts, he finally 
lost the courage to do it. Moreover, Mr. Madness always 
looked worriedly at him in these situations, still sitting in his 
corner. The light disappeared, it was 22,00 o'clock. 
Starting from the fourth month of his captivity in the holo 
cell, Frank Kohlhaas spent the most days with being just 



41 



motionless for hours, lying on his belly - under the plank 

bed. 

„May this damn light hit Mr. Madness! May he sit on the 

plank bed! I will stay here. Here, that blaze will never find 

me!", he said to himself with a lunatic smile. 

Meanwhile, Frank thought about his family more rarely. And 

what was the use anyhow? He was separated from the rest 

of the world. And his father, his sister or the little Nico, could 

not safe him from this horror. 

And as the computer-controlled woman voice had already 

explained in one of the reeducation hours: „The connections 

to family and kinship are errors of nature, and all citizens of 

the New World Order must get along without them! They 

must be corrected by modern rules. 

Interhuman relations harm the new order and obstruct the 

economic development. Humans must learn to overcome 

them. Having a family is not progressive, it restrains every 

advancement. Forget your family, because your new 

community is the community of the "One-World". You are 

part of the whole, patient 111-F-47, and the whole is a part 

of you!" 

His only entertainment in this confusing time was to 

examine the dust grains on the cell ground and Frank 

wondered how many interesting forms and colors he could 

find. 

Sometimes it was really fascinaiting for him and so he 

hardly listened, if the gentle voice of reeducation from the 

loudspeaker explained to him, why the old order of the world 

was just wrong, and the new order was good without 

exception. 

When the fifth month began, Frank suddenly became 

talkative. He talked with Mr. Madness about a lot of things 

and often his speeches lasted several hours. He invented 

lectures, which were similar to the instructions of the 



42 



reeducation hours. Meanwhile, Frank planned to reeducate 
Mr. Madness, a very important personality who had already 
visited millions of people around the world. 
Sometimes he preached the most important facts of each 
current reeducation hour, he recited them, yelled them and 
sometimes he tried to kick or beat Mr. Madness, if his pupil 
didn't show enough interest. Although, he actually viewed 
this gentleman in the corner, who sometimes also sat on his 
plank bed, as his cell comrade and friend, he had 
occasionally to give some pain to him, so that he learned. 
But all his attemps to hit the imaginary man were 
unsuccessful. After a while, Frank had kicked a little hole in 
the white wall of the holo cell - but he had never hit Mr. 
Madness. 

When another month had passed, Frank had given it up to 
convince Mr. Madness, to become also a good citizen of the 
new world state. Now he tried to memorize every single 
word of the reeducation hours and often he could 
completely repeat the first two or three minutes by heart. 
He cried, sang and howled the slogans from the 
loudspeaker like a parrot. The necessity of the registration 
of earth's population, the obligation of obeying, the 
autoregulation of economics, the inevitability of a society 
without sexes, nations and races, the necessary dissolution 
of all cultures and religions, the requirement of inhumanity 
as the basis of a new humanity. 

His memory proved, although it was already owergrown by 
a mushroom of insanity, as amazingly good. Frank saw 
himself as a learner and with bloodshot eyes he cried, while 
the loudspeaker talked: „Jawohl! This is the only truth!" 



43 



Meanwhile half a year had passed and patient 1 1 1-F-47 had 
developed many possibilities of overcoming the hours and 
days. He had even set up an own daily plan in his mind: 

- Meal 

- Learn as much words from the reeducation hour as I can 

- Explain them to Mr. Madness (however, only if he listened) 

- Investigate the fibers of the white wallpaper more exactly 

- Finding new dust particles on the ground 

- Lunch 

- Arguing with Mr. Madness 

Frank's meal rations came through a hatch in the wall three 
times a day. The inventors of the holo cell had kindly made 
certain that he had never to leave this terrible room, not 
even for the intake of food. 

Two months later, the monitoring cameras of „Big Eye", 

which always kept every corner in this big prison complex in 

sight, including room 47 in block F, saw a broken man, lying 

like dead with face down on his plank bed. 

Frank Kohlhaas, patient 111-F-47, seemed to have slipped 

into an endless lethargy. Meanwhile, he wished nothing 

more than the end of his shattered existence. 

The cruel treatment had internally destroyed him, and even 

the irrational behavior and the emotional outbreaks, which 

had kept him alive for so long, were over. 

Over eight months of holo cell had corroded his mind so 

strongly, that his body seemed to refuse its service any 

longer under such inhuman conditions. 

The sharp, malicious light, which tormented him 14 hours a 

day, hand in hand with the impenetrable darkness of the 

artificial nights, had finally crushed Frank's will to live. The 

holo cell 47 in block F, this hell chamber without windows, 



44 



with only a plank bed, a toilet and a little hatch in the white 

wall, was ultimately the winner in this war against insanity. 

Not even Frank's only friend, the mutely smiling Mr. 

Madness, had had the guts to stay here any longer - he had 

vanished. 

On 21.03.2028, the light was switched off again at 22.00 

o'clock in the evening by the computer-controlled system of 

„BigEye". 

The unconscious Frank Kohlhaas, who layed somewhere in 

this cell, down on the ground, with his face in a puddle of 

saliva, was swallowed by the darkness again. He did no 

longer notice it. 

The next day, the army of light particles started another 
great attack on Frank's head. With loud crashing it surged 
against his lids like a battering ram and awoke the halfdead 
patient again. But Frank's will was already destroyed and 
why should he be interested in another day of hundreds 
more in this holo cell. He hoped, with the still smoldering 
rest of his understanding, that he would meet death as soon 
as possible. Kohlhaas was sure, that he would praise the 
Grim Reaper like a redeemer, when he would finally come. 
On 22.03.2028 at 9.45 o'clock in the morning, the electronic 
woman voice suddenly resounded through the brightly 
illuminated cell. Frank lay on the ground like a dying animal 
and hardly heard this anymore. The small part of his brain, 
which hadn't been razed to the ground and hadn't been 
brunt by the horde of light particles yet, was briefly surprised 
for a second about the fact that there was another 
announcement after the wake-up call. Then Frank's mind 
switched off again. Nevertheless, this was unusual. 
„l_isten, patient 111-F-47! Your holo cell has been given to 
another patient by the computer-controlled administration of 
„Big Eye". You will be brought to the mental hospital "World 



45 



Peace" in Bonn, where your therapy will be continued for 
the next four years and four months. Please be 
unconcerned, your healing process will not be interrupted. A 
holo cell of the same type is available for you in "World 
Peace"!" 

The young man hardly thought about the content of the 
announcement. They should freight him, whereto they ever 
wanted. He would hopefully soon be dead and free. 

But up to the next morning, he still lived. Or better said: His 

heart refused stopping, although his owner really wished it - 

"from the heart". He hadn't moved at all, during the whole 

day and the following night, because he took his desire to 

die very seriously. 

But the three execution officials, who opened his holo cell 

punctually at 8.00 o'clock and entered the room, didn't 

understand this. They were the first human beings since 

over eight months, who visited Frank here - to bring him 

from A to B, from one hell chamber to the next. 

„The guy still breathes, but he is totally down!", said one of 

the three guards. 

„Hey! Stand up, man! Don't waste our time!", remarked 

another and kicked Frank in the back. 

„Hrrrr!", hummed the prisoner. 

„Shit, the guy is really broken! Uwe, look at this!" The third 

enforcement officer was astonished. "Bring us some 

stimulants! We need some extra help in this case!" 

One of the officials departed and came back with a cup of 

water and two red pills after a quarter of an hour. 

„Hey! Hey, 111-F-47! Open your mouth!. Yes, good boy! 

And now, down with it!", he muttered. 

Frank swallowed the pills and was able to walk after a few 

minutes. He didn't understand, what happened to him and 



46 



hardly noticed, that he was on the way to leave the 

abhorrent holo cell behind him. 

„Go! Get a grip, man! Just walk!. Yes, this is good. One foot 

before the other one! Forward!", said the guard and 

supported Frank cynically. 

Patient 111-F-47 had to be carried out of the prison building, 

more or less, because he was too weak to walk. After a 

while, the policemen simply pushed the young man forward. 

„That the guy isn't fit yet, after two pills of steroin!", 

remarked the officer with surprise. „Hurry up! The driver of 

the transporter is waiting in hall B!" 

The three man brought the picture of misery, which once 
had been called Frank Kohlhaas, with the help of steroin, a 
highly concentrated stimulant, and some beats against the 
head to the transport van. 

Frank crept over the three stages of a metal stair and sank 
down on one of the seats. His hands were secured with 
handcuffs behind his back and he stared at the ground. 
„Watch out for this guy! He is finished! Maybe he gonna 
vomit in our van! Ha, ha!", said a guard to his colleagues. 
„We will watch out for him! Don't worry!", answered one of 
the policemen with a grin. 

Next to Frank were two other officers and a further prisoner 
in the back area of the transport van. The cops were armed 
with shotguns and tied Frank, who almost slipped on the 
ground, and also the other inmate, with an additional seat 
belt. Both men could only move their legs now. 
The transport van started moving at 9.00 o'clock, and finally 
left the prison complex. Even if Frank had had the 
opportunity, to have a last look at the hated place of horror, 
which had brought him to his knees, he probably wouldn't 
have done it. First of all, the back area of the transporter, 
secured by lattices, had no windows anyway, and secondly, 



47 



patient 111-F-47 didn't care, where he would find death. If it 

was in "Big Eye" or in "World Peace" or somewhere else, 

wasn't important anymore. His only concern was, if it would 

go fast. 

After they had driven one quarter of an hour and nobody 

had spoken a word, the prisoner, sitting diagonally opposite 

to Frank, hissed: „Hey! Pssst! I am Alf! Who are you?" 

Frank ignored the question of the man. It didn't interest him, 

who still sat there. He stared at the metallic ground of the 

van's back area with blank look. 

Suddenly one of the policemen said: „Baumer, you crank! 

Stop that damn whispering! Contact among prisoners is 

against the regulations!" 

J thought, we are patients?", answered the prisoner 

sardonically, giving Frank a nod. 

Now the policeman reacted. He struck Baumer in the face 

and grumbled: „Oh, I'm sorry, asshole! I didn't want to be 

impolite." 

The prisoner swallowed some blood and saliva and looked 

at Frank with psychotic eyes. However, the young man was 

still mute and didn't mention the small sign of defiantness, 

the other prisoner had shown. 

"Alf Baumer!", he thought briefly, then his mind sank again 

into a blurred fog. 

Alfred Baumer, patient 578-H-21, was a tall man. He had a 

dark brown beard, broad shoulders and a tattoo at the neck. 

The few hasty looks, Frank had given to him, showed the 

picture of an aggressive man, who was about thirty years 

old. Above all, Alf's bright blue eyes and the large scar in 

the right half of his face were noticeable. 

How long the trip had already lasted, Kohlhaas could hardly 

say anymore. Perhaps a further quarter of an hour. Alfred 

seemed to have the things more clearly in sight. He 

hatefully stared at the police officers with his blue eyes, 



48 



baring his teeth and looking at Frank from time to time. This 
man seemed to wait for something... 



49 



The Change 



In a small forest, close to the highway BAS-74, four men 

lurked in the rainy undergrowth and peered eastwards. They 

wore camouflage clothes and their faces were hidden under 

black balaclavas. Three of them fumbled nervously with 

their assault rifles, while another man had a field glass and 

gave instructions to his comrades. 

„How much longer, Sven?", asked one of the men. 

„l will already tell you. They must soon be here! And 

remeber: Jens only shoots at the tires, the rest only shoots 

at the drivers!", answered Sven. „And don't perforate the 

back area of the van by mistake, got it?", he added. 

„The whole thing is damn risky. I hope, we will come home 

alive!", said one of the men quietly. 

„lt is too late for such thoughts now. We will just do it! Check 

your weapons!", hissed the young man with the field glass. 

The minutes passed and the four men crawled further 

forward, in the direction of the road. Sven suddenly stopped, 

waving the other men nearer. 

„Look! Over there! It's the van! Go!", he called. 

All jumped under cover and grabbed their assault rifles. The 

transport van, the four men had waited for several hours, 

came closer with medium speed. 

Another long and tense minute passed, full of doubts and 

uncertainty in the hearts of the four men. Then it began. And 

while the three policemen, who sat in the driver's cab of the 

transport van, were still grouching about the fact that they 

had to drive from Bernau to Bonn, just because of the 

transfer of only two prisoners, they suddenly saw four 

shadows, coming closer to their vehicle from the forest. 



50 



„Now! Fire!", roared the scout with the field glass and all four 

men raised their weapons in the air, rushed forward and 

sent a deafening hail of bullets to the transporter. 

„Tac! Tac! Tac! Tad", it echoed through the small forest and 

the four men continued to shoot at the windshield and the 

tires of the vehicle. 

With a loud clank, the windows of the transport van bursted 

and it turned out in hurling. Then the damaged vehicle 

stopped. 

„Kill these rats!", screamed a masked men and fired at the 

driver's cab. One of the two officials in the forepart of the 

van got a headshot and an enormous bloodstain spreaded 

over the headrest of his seat. Another policeman was also 

hit in the arm and tried to find cover behind the engine 

mount, searching for his weapon in panic. The third tore up 

the passenger door and fired wildly at the masked attackers. 

A salvo of two assault rifles finally sent him to the ground. 

Meanwhile, the four men had come so close to the vehicle, 

that they could also fire from the side at the policeman, who 

huddled between the seats. One of the men raised his rifle 

and executed the official with an angry burst. 

..Destroy the detector!", screamed one of the masked men 

and the guy, who was called Sven by the others, jumped 

forward and shot with his pistol at a radio-like thing in the 

front part of the transporter. 

„Bolt cutters! Hurry! Hurry!", he yelled and the four men ran 

to the backdoor of the vehicle. 

The sound of gunfire, coming from outside, had not been 
unnoticed by the two police officers, who guarded Frank 
Kohlhaas and Alf Baumer. Even patient 111-F-47 seemed 
to have briefly lost his mental confusion and looked around 
with surprise. 



51 



„What the hell goes on there?", said one of the officers, 

loading his shotgun. Then he opened the door of the van's 

back area. The other policeman followed him. 

„Help me out!", roared Baumer at the top of his lungs and 

gave one of the officers a kick in the abdomen. 

In the same moment, the door was broken up and light fell 

into the darkness of the back area from the outside. One of 

the guards fired out of the van and hit a masked attacker, 

who tried to enter the vehicle. The head of the man 

exploded like an overripe melon and Frank stared at a cloud 

of blood and bone fragments, while he staggered to the 

ground. 

The remaining three attackers answered with fire bursts of 

their assault rifles and killed the policeman, who stumbled 

on the street like a bleeding sieve. 

Meanwhile, Frank began to cry like a tormented child. He 

shrieked in pain and wildly pulled, in an accumulation of 

unrestrained rage, on his additional seat belt, tearing it out 

of its holder. Then Frank hit the second guard's face with a 

high kick and the man tumbled down. 

Now the inmate squealed like a pig and started then to 

laugh loudly. Finally, the laughter became an insane 

screaming. Suddenly Frank's eyes were clear and gory, and 

before the three other masked men had come into the back 

area of the vehicle, he had sent the last policeman to the 

ground with a headbutt. His hands were still bound on his 

back, but he stomped on the guard's face and the man 

broke down again. 

Frank swooped down on him and bit in his cheek like a wild 

animal. A shot from a handgun followed, which had almost 

hit the crazy Kohlhaas - then also the last policeman was 

dead. Frank howled and still kicked several times in the 

head of the dying man. The other men finally pulled him out 

of the van. His white dress was blood-smeared and Frank 



52 



reminded the masked men, who confusedly stood in front of 

him, rather of a mad butcher than a prisoner. Now he 

seemed to fall in a state of blankness again and sat down, 

totally exhausted, on the metallic stairs of the transport 

vehicle. 

„Well, what's up now, man? Come on! Or do you want to 

wait for the next policemen?", asked Alf. 

Baumer trailed him and followed the three other men into 

the forest. Now it was important to hurry, because the 

operation had lasted far too long and, moreover, such a 

slaughter hadn't been planned. 

Furthermore, they had lost a man and it was just luck that 

no other car had come along the country road, otherwise 

the bloodshed would have been much worse. The three 

disguised men and Alfred, who was trying to propel Frank, 

fastly ran through the thicket. 

„Move!", roared one of the three masked men. „Dash it! 

What are you waiting for?" 

Alf Baumer gripped Kohlhaas at the collar and ordered him 

to run faster, but the confused young man still walked slowly 

behind him. 

„lf your buddy does not hurry a little more, I will shoot him, 

Alf! I mean it!", yelled one of the three men, who was 

running ahead. 

Alfred stood before Frank, vibrated him and growled: „This 

is your only chance, you idiot! If they get you now, you are a 

dead man! Come with me, trust me!" 

Frank Kohlhaas hadn't been able to trust anyone in the last 

months and the mental bleeding, the holo cell had 

demanded of him, had been enormous. But the word „trust" 

sounded like a gentle balsam in his ears, that had only 

absorbed poison for such a long time. The fresh cold forest 

air, he was inhaling now, slowly showed him that this 

opportunity to attain freedom, should not be thrown away. 



53 



Suddenly he ran, ran and ran, catched up with the others 
and disappeared with them in the thicket of the forest. The 
five men reached a large field after some minutes, where 
were an old looking and small airplane was waiting for them. 
They jumped into the flier and shut a rusty door behind 
themselves. All were totally exhausted and wheezed loudly, 
while the plane took off. 

„Who is that guy, Alf?", asked one of the three liberators 

with an unfriendly undertone and pulled the balaclava from 

his face. The young man was blond, with short hair and a 

boyish face. 

J have no notion! He has been transported together with 

me!", answered Alf. 

„Tell us your name, man!", demanded the blond man and 

regarded Frank with a searching look. 

„Frank Kohlhaas, citizen 1-564398B-278843....", hummed 

Frank and closed his eyes. 

„Your citizen number isn't interesting for us, buddy! We 

don't need to have this shit!", hissed the young man, who 

was called Sven by the others. „We are free men and no 

slaves with citizen numbers." 

„Well, I think this man has been in a holo cell. That's the 

reason, why he is so abstracted!" Alf tried to explain. 

„Such a cell... ", stammered Frank. 

„A holo cell? That thing, which is currently tested by the 

GSA in all prisons worldwide? Really?", asked one of the 

three rebels with surprise. 

„No wonder, that you seem to be on drugs. These things are 

the worst instruments of brainwashing of our time. How long 

have you been in this hellish cell?" 

J think, since August 2027. ..leave me alone...", hummed 

Frank quietly and hid his face behind his knees again, as he 

had done it so often in the last months. Then he turned to 



54 



the side and dozed in his usual half-sleep, although the 
outdated airplane made a big noise and vibrated during the 
whole flight. 

In the year 2028, it was not easy to organize an operation 
like this, because of the almost perfect air surveillance in 
"Central Europe". However, this flier was inconspicuous, 
because it had been registered as an outdated, but 
nevertheless permitted transportation in the Baltic. If the 
plane was scanned by the computer of a satellite or an air 
surveillance station, it was just shown as the transport 
aircraft of a man called Matas Litov, a Lithuanian farmer, in 
the data bases of the European monitoring servers. 
The chip card of the plane had been changed by a highly 
gifted computer hacker, who had made it perfectly 
inconspicuous. But even the arts of this man had their limits, 
and one day the constantly improved monitoring could 
probably also recognize his tricks. 

Anyhow, the authorities hadn't been prepared for such a 
brutal attack on a prisoner transporter. And it was also just 
luck, that the operation had finally been successful. 
Frank Kohlhaas, whose citizen number was no longer of 
importance, flew with the others over Poland towards the 
the former Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 
Meanwhile, the three abolished national states had been 
summarized with other former countries of Eastern Europe 
to a single administrative sector. 

In Eastern Europe, the complete monitoring of the 
population and the entire public life was so far not as perfect 
as in North America or in Western Europe. Many states of 
Eastern Europe had refused to blindly obey the instructions 
of the World Government for a long time. This new power 
had been established in the western regions at first and so it 



55 



just took longer, until a complex monitoring network of 
western standards could be installed there. 
But the World Government also planned the same extensive 
system of total control for Eastern Europe. And it did 
everything, to build it up, as soon as possible. 
In the year 2028, the British islands were the most sharply 
supervised area of the world. Here, the doom had built up 
its first strong bastion in the past, from where it had come 
over the rest of mankind. 

In England, the World Government already tested and 
introduced the next steps for global domination. For 
example, the complete prohibition of sexual contacts 
between men and women, the total destruction of any family 
structures, and even a breeding of the population after the 
defaults of economic necessity. 

Who wanted to fight against this tyranny, was really a 
dreamer and had to have a good relationship to his maker, 
because the propability to meet him soon, was very high. 
Like Alf and his fellows, who apparently thought, that they 
could change something. Anyhow, Frank Kohlhaas was with 
them now - and enjoyed it. He was just happy to breathe 
fresh air and had the feeling, that he had been born again. 
How often he had begged the Grim Reaper to come, to end 
the torture of the holo cell. But the Gevatter apparently did 
not want him yet. Now, everything had changed... 



56 



Outsourced 



..Outsourcing" was one of the infamous terms of 

globalization, which had broken loose with all its power at 

the beginning of the 21th century. Now Frank had also been 

outsourced somehow. He had left the administrative sector 

..Central Europe" and was "stored" elsewhere. 

The old airplane flew over the area of the former state of 

Poland, over the city of Kaliningrad, the old Konigsberg, 

which had meanwhile fallen into ruins, and finally was on its 

way to the Southern Baltic, in order to land in a rural area 

north of Vilkija, in a little village called Ivas. 

The five men were exhausted and hardly noticed the 

landscape below them beyond the windows. Frank was still 

disturbed and could only occasionally understand, what was 

happening to him. He suffered under strange muscle 

cramps and was, despite his constant fatigue, not in the 

condition to sleep for longer than half an hour. 

His eyes were always half open and he felt, as if someone 

had put a bag full of cement on his head. After the airplane 

had landed, Alf helped him to step out and led him to an 

rundown house. 

„Can I sleep somewhere, or just lie down?", asked him 

Frank. 

„Yes, don't worry! I have found a place to sleep for you!", 

answered Alf and pulled the young man into the building. 

„We have to discuss something, Frank. You can rest here - 

see you later!", said Alf and showed Kohlhaas an old bed in 

an untidy and halfdark room with a dark red, peeling 

wallpaper. Frank turned to the side and tried to sleep. He 

hardly made it, but nevertheless, the young man had the 

feeling that he already felt better. After he had been in a 



57 



condition of dozing for some hours, he finally nodded off. He 
did not dream about anything. It was just black in his head. 
As black as it had always been in the holo cell, in the eight 
artificial hours of the night. 

Next day... 

„We have escaped the next cops by the skin of our teeth, as 

I think. I feel sorry for Rolf Weinert, a good man, only 29 

years old", said Alf to the others. „Thank you, that you have 

delivered me from this hell. I know, I always seem to be 

hard and tough, but I was also close to the end in "Big Eye". 

That other guy is simply wasted, but it would probably be 

the same with us all, if they would cage us in a holo cell for 

eight months. This Frank is a poor creature!" 

„We haven't planned the liberation of a second man, Alf!", 

remarked a young man with red hair. 

„So what? What should have been done? Would it have 

been right, to let this Frank just die? He would not have 

survived one more week in "World Peace", got it?", returned 

Baumer. 

„Well, actually the fate of an unknown man is not interesting 

for us. The only important thing is our own thing, okay?", 

said another man sternly. 

J will care for him. What will he do? Call the fucking 

Lithuanian police?", grumbled Alf with an angry face. 

„This is a real problem, Baumer! If the guy becomes a 

safety risk, we must kill him. You know about our rules!", 

said a blond man. 

„l know that, little boy! You don't need to tell me our 

principles! I have already joined our fight in a time, when 

you were nothing but a panty wetting baby!", hissed Alf in 

the direction of the young fighter. 



58 



„Peace, people! You were successful and you are still alive! 
Meanwhile, only the big armored busses are used for 
prisoner transports since two years. This has been an 
exception! The fact that they have used an outdated 
transport van this time, was just because only two prisoners 
had to be transferred to Bonn. And a bus would have 
exceeded the budget for such an unimportant trip. These 
new tank-like monsters are not so easy to stop. You need a 
rocket launcher or something like that, to bring them to a 
halt!", said a tall man in the background. He was perhaps 
about fifty years old. 

The man had come later to the small group. His name was 
Thorsten Wilden, a former businessman, who had fled to 
Lithuania some years ago. Slender, gray haired, with an 
oblong face and a remarkable pointed chin. The man 
seemed to be very rational and impersonal, and gave the 
impression that he had already gone through a lot of 
hardship in his life. 

..However, the boy is right. Tomorrow I want to become 
acquainted with this Frank. I hope, he won't make us 
problems here, otherwise we have no other choice than 
silencing him", said the tall man, who apparently had a 
leading position is this group of men. 
„He won't make problems! Nevertheless, the boy is totally 
exhausted!", meant Alf and rolled his eyes. 
„Where is he now?", asked Wilden. 

„ln my house. Thus, I mean, in John's house. He is 
sleeping!", muttered Alf. "I will keep him in sight and I will 
also bain for him. Is this enough now?" 
"Okay, men!", shouted the leader of the group. "In the next 
days, the good old routine in our village will return for you 
all. We have to resow and to do a lot of other work. Alf can 
help this new man to recover and I want you, to leave him 
alone with this task. By the way, HOK told me, that the 



59 



release operation has been on TV in "Central Europe", 
yesterday evening. We should watch this report, HOK has 
recorded everything!" 

"Yes, have fun with it, I go home now and want to be alone 
for the rest of the day", groaned Alf and left the room. 

Dusk was falling and Frank lay between some unwashed 
pillows. A great burden slowly fell from his soul and his 
mind, which had swollen like a red, throbbing growth. Now 
the pain began to fade away. In the next room he heard a 
rustle, shortly thereafter loud smacking and the sound of 
cutlery on a plate. Some minutes later, his sponsor entered 
the room. „You must eat something! Here!" Alf presented 
him some slices of bread and two fried sausages. 
„Thanks!", said Frank and ate slowly and leisurely. „You 
don't have to worry. Nobody can find us here. We are in 
Lithuania. Far away from Germany and this „One-World" 
cage called "Central Europe". Eat, and then I let you sleep 
again", whispered Alf, trying to calm him down. 
It was a weird situation. If Frank would have seen Alfred 
Baumer in former times on the street, then he would 
probably have gone to the other side. This tall man really 
looked boldly and violent, what he surely was, if it had to be. 
He gave the impression of the typical criminal, who had 
received a life sentence. 

Brawny, with a dark, pointed beard, a tattoo at the neck and 
a keen look. Frank Kohlhaas looked, however, rather 
harmless and even still juvenile at first sight, although his 
body was also sturdy. He had a dear face with a button 
nose and his good-natured smile was characteristic. Mostly 
Frank was kind and peaceful. 

But in the production complex 42-B, he had lost control over 
his feelings and this time had been one time to often. His life 
had almost been destroyed by the consequences of this 



60 



incident. Compared with Alf, whose face always showed 
latent rage and frustration, Frank's countenance could 
change, in a case of extreme excitement, from good- 
natured to psychopathic. If Frank was really furious, his 
green eyes started to gaze into space and he threateningly 
perked his dark, broad eyebrows up. Then he looked like a 
fanatical preacher, somehow mentally absent, with an 
indestructible will and ready for everything. 
Only a few people had ever faced this sight so far, but 
Frank's angry outbreaks had increased in the last years - 
slowly and constantly. 

Now, however, the former citizen 1-564398B-278843 was 
just glad to be with Alfred Baumer. Although it was a man, 
he didn't know at all, but who seemed to be a trustable 
person. 

Despite Alfs aggressive appearance, a honest core 
seemed to be under his hard shell. A feeling of hope 
sprouted in the heart of the young man. He clung to Alfs 
broad shoulder and murmured quietly: „Thanks, man! 
Thanks that you have liberated me! You have saved my 
life!" 

Some minutes he mutely cried in Alfs arms. Then Baumer 
pushed him back gently. „lf s okay. You are welcome here!", 
said Alf, who was simply overwhelmed with so much 
sentimentality. 

"The others have freed me from this damn prison too. "Big 
Eye" would have been my doom as well. They put me two 
years in incommunicado detention, luckily, I had not the 
pleasure to get a so called "therapy" in a holo cell. 
I would have gone to hell there, no doubt. Apart from this, 
they don't let you just go, when your time in jail is over. One 
or two are also liquidated, if their behavior analysis is too 
negative. These damn holo cells have once been an 
experiment for perfect conditioning and brainwashing. The 



61 



former "Mind Control", which the NSA, when it still had this 
name, had developed together with many other methods", 
declared Alf. "These holo cells will be used against all 
prisoners with politically incorrect tendencies one day. You 
have been one of the first human guinea pigs. It has just 
been interesting from them to analyze, how long you would 
suffer this torture. Of course, they knew that you would not 
survive this procedure!" 

"Fuck these rats!", said Frank and tried to banish the 
thoughts about the terrible time in the holo cell. 
"The entire political and historical background can't be 
explained in two sentences, above all, if you have never 
thought about it before", ended Alf his small speech. 
Frank signaled by turning around and pulling the cover over 
his head, that he wanted to sleep now. It was 21.16 o'clock 
and the young man was still exhausted and weak. He dozed 
for a while and examined the shabby, dark red wallpaper, 
then he fell in a deep and restful sleep. 

On the next morning, Frank Kohlhaas felt unusually 
recovered. He had slept over 13 hours and for the first time 
since months, he had not awoken with a start in the middle 
of the night. He yawned and noticed that Alf had put some 
fresh dresses beside his bed. 

Kohlhaas still wore his white prison clothes, which smelled 
of sweat and were still covered with dark red traces of the 
policeman's blood. 

Frank plodded out of his room and noticed that it was very 
quiet in the house. Nobody sat in the kitchen, so that he 
could look around without ruffle or excitement. Everything 
looked very poor. Dirty dishes were piled up in a rusty sink 
and in the corner of the room, an ugly mold spot was on the 
wall. Indeed, Alf lived in a hovel - if it was his house at all. 
However, his housemate seemed not to be here. The young 



62 



man walked over some old wood stairs to the upper floor, 
where he found only a few empty and poorly furnished 
rooms. One of them was full of cardboards and wooden 
boxes, almost up to the ceiling. But Alf Baumer was 
nowhere to be found. 

„Where am I here at all?", thought Frank and scratched his 
head. 

Since the escape from "Big Eye", he hadn't been in the 
condition to think about these strange men, who had 
rescued him. Who were they? 

He opened the entrance door of the house and stepped 
outside, left it open a bit, so that he could come back again, 
because he had no key for the ramshackle door. When he 
looked down the street, in which Alf s house was, Kohlhaas 
saw a lot of further hovels on each side. Some of the 
houses seemed to be empty, others had weathered fronts 
and in the gardens, a sprouting, uncontrolled growth was 
spreading everywhere. 

Some of the windows had been nailed up with rotted 
boards, probably long ago. One house had even a 
collapsed roof. In addition, here and there, one of the 
houses had been renovated again and Frank heard the 
voices of children out of a side street. He could even 
understand their language, it was German. 
Nevertheless, the sun shone on all the roofs, whether 
desolate or repaired again. But many people didn't seem to 
live in this rundown village. Finally, Frank saw two men, who 
unloaded crates out of a delivery van. A tractor rattled 
somewhere in the distance and a mature woman leaned out 
of the window in the house opposite to him. 

Frank walked down the road and came to a square, which 
probably must had been the center of the small village in 
former times. Weed sprouted out of the cracks between the 



63 



cobblestones, which covered the whole place. Here, in the 
center of this ghost town, Frank could see three old houses 
with big shopwindows. Two of the large windows were 
broken and the buildings looked dilapidated. The 
shopwindow of the other house was completely plastered 
with yellow cellotape. In the center of the square was a 
memorial stone, completely overgrown with all sorts of 
grass and bushes. It was surrounded by a wooden fence. 
Kohlhaas could hardly recognize the memorial stone and, 
apart from this, the inscription on it was in Cyrillic, so that 
the man from "Central Europe" could not read anything. 
On the stone, a soldier with a helmet and a rifle was shown. 
Nevertheless, Frank had already seen this helmet from the 
old time in a history book. Furthermore, he was able to 
decipher the years, which had been engraved on the 
memorial stone: 1941 and 1989. 

The young man continued his walk and regarded a 
moldered church, which stood next to the village square. Its 
roof was damaged and had enormous holes, bricks covered 
with moss and lichens lay in front of the rotten, wooden front 
door, that was adorned with a hardly recognizable picture. 
On the tower was a rusted cross of iron. The winged thing 
on the door of the church, which was completely overgrown 
with lichens, was probably an angel, that had symbolically 
welcomed the people at the entrance of the church in the 
old times. 

But in a world, that had been left alone by God, perhaps 
even this angel had lost his "job" one day. Frank pushed the 
large wood door to the side and climbed over a pile of 
planks, in order to reach the inner part of the old church. 
Dried out leaves, dirt and dust were everywhere on the 
ground in front of him. The benches of the old building were 
dirty and everything made the impression of being lost. The 
altar was also damaged and had small tears and cracks, 



64 



probably because of the cold of a hard winter. The visitor 

finally turned his head towards the ceiling and examined the 

wooden frescos on the walls, which also showed traces of 

decomposition. Frank beheld some angels, that were 

fighting against strange looking demons or something like 

that - creatures from hell. Other frescos depicted mother 

Maria and Jesus Christ. 

"The superstar of Christianity...", said Frank to himself and 

smiled cynically. This church appeared old and somehow 

also sublime. The chapel had possibly been built in the late 

Middle Age, but Frank did not know it for sure. He knew 

nothing about history. 

But the young man didn't care about the age of this church. 

Only one thing was true - the building touched his inner 

self, although, he never had believed in anything. 

Maybe just because it was beautiful and old. In his previous 

world, he had never beholden an old building. Gray 

plattenbauten, dirty streets, underpasses and factories were 

nothing new to him, but he had never looked at old 

churches or castles. This house of God was just like a 

memorial of a forgotten time. A time far beyond this dark 

age. 

The church had probably been the heart of this village for 

many decades or even centuries. At this place, the people 

had prayed to a higher power, begging it to take care of 

them. But in the end, it all had come differently. In the year 

2028, mankind was alone, and Frank had never noticed a 

higher power, that wanted to protect its children. 

„Father, if you exist at all, why have you left us?", said Frank 

quietly to himself and looked at the fragile ceiling of the old 

building again. Then he went back to the square. 

He walked through the hopeless village for several hours. 
Again and again, up to the other end and back. Around the 



65 



locality were fields and forests, and only a muddy street 
seemed to connect it with the rest of the world. The young 
man sat down on a bank and looked at the sky, when three 
little children, probably those, who he had already heard 
before in the side street, ran across the road in front of him. 
They briefly examined him and smiled, but Frank didn't take 
heed of them. 

Somewhere a dog barked in a house, which looked 
inhabited. He stood up and passed some vacant, rundown 
houses. This village, the renegate citizen had already 
forgotten its name, was a bleak place, as Kohlhaas thought. 
Nevertheless, he prefered this village to the rotten, former 
FRG capital Berlin, his old home. He wouldn't miss the 
criminality, the cultural and racial tensions and all the decay, 
that was typical for the shabby metropolis, where he had 
grown up. Now he was here. In this strange hicktown... 
„lvas!" Now Frank remembered the name of the village. Alf 
had said it several times. Ivas, somewhere in Lithuania. But 
what was this for a strange village? Frank Kohlhaas was 
puzzled. 

Meanwhile, he was tired and his shoes were completely 
covered with mud. He finally decided to return to Alfs 
house, because the front door was still open, although it 
was improbable, that the other villagers would steal from 
them. It was not like in Berlin. Soon the day came to an end. 
Frank didn't know yet, where he was here. 

„ln three days we must leave this house, Frank! I must leave 

it too, because it is doesn't belong to me", explained 

Baumer after a meager lunch. 

„As I already guessed. Whose house is it?" 

„lt belongs to another villager, who is currently in Minsk to 

buy some things", answered Baumer. „Wilden has said, that 

we can live here for a few days. If the owner comes back 



66 



home, we can surely move to one of the other vacant 

houses in the village." 

„What is that for a odd village?", murmured Frank. 

„Wilden will explain it to you tomorrow. Actually, he already 

wanted to talk to you today, but you were not here. You took 

a little walk, isn't it?", said Alf, whose tiredness meanwhile 

shone in his eyes. 

„Tell me, where are you from, Baumer?", asked Frank 

suddenly. 

„Well, I was born in Dortmund and have lived in some other 

cities in the Ruhrgebiet, also in Frankfurt am Main, for four 

years", said Alf and took another tea. 

„Why have they brought you to „Big Eye"?, Frank became 

curious. 

„My God, you ask a lot. But well, you will have to remain 

here in Ivas, this is hopefully obvious to you, and therefore, I 

will tell you a few things about me." 

Alfred Baumer decided to make another camomile tea and 

went to the boiler. Then he fetched a cigarette and began 

with a small lecture about his life. 

Frank actually didn't want to know all the details, but Alf 

seemed to look forward to a little speech. Now he was 

awake again. 

J had troubles with the authorities since my 16th year of life. 

I was active in various political groups, which you don't 

know, as I think. Anyhow, they are all forbidden since many 

years. 

I have already been in jail for one year in 2013 - when the 

political system of the FRG still existed. They have punished 

me for so called "opinion crimes" - because I have designed 

a few Internet sites, which were uncomfortable for the state. 

At that time, I was just 19 years old. My parents have lost 

their jobs during the great world economic crisis in 2012/13, 

and have jettisoned me after my term of imprisonment. I 



67 



have never returned back home again. Afterwards, I have 

lived with some friends, in various housing groups, and of 

course also alone. After six years, in 2020, I have joined the 

Red Moon groups, always trying to live inconspicuously. 

Nevertheless, it has gone wrong." 

„The Red Moon groups?" Frank looked surprised. „They 

were terrorists, isn't it? These guys have burned a hospital 

in Berlin, right?" 

..That's nonsense! Lies!", grumbled Alf and gave Frank an 

annoyed glance. 

„l'm sorry. They have said it on television at that time", 

remarked Frank and tried to calm down his comrade. 

„On television. ..on television...! Nevertheless, fucking 

television is even the biggest lie of that world system, man! 

Didn't you understand this yet?", grunted Baumer and felt 

accused wrongly. 

„No offense meant!", apologized Kohlhaas. 

„No, it is a lie, Frank. The Red Moon groups publicy 

protested against the World Government and united 

thousands of young people in their fight. Opponents of 

globalization, free philosophers, patriots and others. After 

that damn hospital hoax, which the media exaggerated with 

all their might, we were criminalized. It had been the work of 

the GSA, the international secret service, there is no doubt 

for me. It has not been activists of our group! However, the 

following crusade of the international media, broke the neck 

of the Red Moon organization. Tell me, why should a group 

of freedom fighters burn innocent people in a hospital?", 

asked Alf with visible rage. 

„Do you see the tattoo on my neck? This is the „Red Moon", 

the blood-red moon of the fight for liberty - our old symbol!" 

„l don't know enough about all this and I don't care...", said 

Frank. „l only know, that I hate that goddam World 



68 



Government, that terrible system - from the bottom of my 

heart!" 

„Then Ivas is the right place for you, my friend!", said Alf and 

stared at his tea cup, clenching his fist. 

„And then?", asked Frank. 

„Then? Then I was still active. After the Red Moon groups 

were forbidden worldwide, we continued our struggle in the 

underground. Finally, I was arrested during an illegal, 

spontaneous demonstration, which I have organized with 

some of my comrades. I had to go to jail again. 

My time in „Big Eye" began and I can be glad, that they did 

not find other loading material during the house search at 

that time, otherwise I would have been liquidated." 

„What material?", questioned Kohlhaas. Alfred Baumer 

looked at him and shook his head. 

„You ask very much for a man, who still was flat on his face 

a few hours ago. Never mind! That would have made me 

more than just some problems, believe me. So I was 

sentenced to nine years of detention, only because of the 

spontaneous demonstration. I would have never endured 

that. In my time as an activist of the Red Moon groups, I 

became also aquainted with some of these weird guys from 

here. They have already told me years ago, that I should 

escape from the sector "Central Europe", to come with them 

to Lithuania. 

Nevertheless, I was not willing to give up the fight in my 

homeland, because it was my aim, to liberate it from this 

global insanity. Today I say to myself, that it was just stupid 

to wait for so long. It would have been wiser to leave 

"Central Europe" in time, because the great enemy is much 

too strong in the West." 

„Well, now you are here. And me too. The best thing that 

could happen to us, Baumer. This fucked up sector "Central 



69 



Europe" shall go to hell, it shall rot forever!", hissed Frank 
and wiped off some tea drops from his lip. 
"We must not let our compatriots go to the hell! It is our 
country! No, we are not on vacation here! We just relocate 
our fight. We will only surrender, when the maggots corrode 
us in our graves!", answered Alfred and put his foot down. 
Frank was astonished and observed his partner, who 
snatched the teapot with a loud curse. "We are not on 
vacation here!" 

Frank was surprised about this statement, his housemate 
had shouted out with so much passion. What did Alf mean 
by that? 

Again, Frank Kohlhaas slept well and firmly. He had 

amazingly regenerated himself, in this short time. 

Sometimes he even felt euphoric. 

„l am not even afraid of the devil!", he thought then and 

smiled proudly. 

But it was not that simple. The aftereffects of the holo cell 

were far more malicious, than he could imagine and they 

were still there, deep in the dark corners of his brain. They 

just lay in wait and planned to erupt, in order to strangle 

Frank's peace of mind, while he was sleeping. 

Like the mourning, after the death of a beloved person, 

usually comes in waves, it was the same with the mental 

horror, the holo cell had unleashed in Frank's mind. 

The dread had only entrenched itself and waited now, in its 

fortified position, for the signal to attack Frank again. No, the 

fright wasn't gone. But in these first days of his new 

freedom, Kohlhaas had a peaceful time - so far. 

The rain pattered on the corrugated iron roof of the small 
shed in front of Frank's window, and the untiring noise 
made him wake up. It was already after ten o'clock on this 



70 



wet morning and the young man rolled from one end of the 

bed to the other. Suddenly Alf entered the room and said: 

„Good morning, Frank! Please get up! Wilden is here and he 

would like to talk to you!" 

The village boss already sat in the kitchen and sipped his 

coffee. He welcomed Frank friendly and told him to follow 

him to his house after the breakfest. Somehow, the situation 

was unpleasant for Frank, but he tried to avoid problems 

and obeyed. 

„We must talk about some things, Kohlhaas!", remarked the 

leader of the village community, who wore a long gray coat 

and a hat with a narrow brim. 

The rain had softened the muddy roads of the village, and 

Frank waded behind the somehow authoritarian and 

impressive Mr. Wilden through the dirt. After a short foot 

march, they finally came to an amazingly well renovated 

house, which was even surrounded by a beautiful garden. 

„We go upstairs!", said Wilden. 

The former entrepreneur sat down behind an adorned desk 

of dark wood and remained silent for some minutes. Frank 

took a seat on a soft armchair of black imitation leather, 

which smelled cleaned. He looked around. The room 

seemed to be an office and was in a perfect condition. 

Everywhere he could see pictures on the wall with the light 

brown wallpaper: battle paintings, framed photos of some 

great men from the old times and a lot of other things. 

„Well, Frank Kohlhaas. Do you like our village?", asked the 

gray-haired man, smiled and tried to take the uncertainty 

from his young guest. 

„Nice!", was Frank's short answer. 

„Nice!", repeated Wilden soberly. J want to make it short, 

and I will not talk around the bush", said the village boss 

and looked out the window. 



71 



Then he continued: „This village is called Ivas. It is in the 

area of the former state of Lithuania, in the southwest part 

of this actually beautiful country. It is small and insignificant. 

A small village, that has been abandoned by its former 

inhabitants under the pressure of the worldwide economic 

collapse some years ago. A ghost town, as you may know 

them from North America. 

"Aha...", said Frank. 

„This village is so small and so unimportant, that even the 

sharpest eye must look twice to see it", explained Wilden. 

..Therefore, I am safe here!", joked Frank. 

..Well, security is relative. Particularly in our time, Mr. 

Kohlhaas. Above all, nowadays!", said the host quietly. 

„But here...", remarked Frank. 

„As I already said, Frank Kohlhaas", interrupted him Wilden. 

..Today it is a benediction to be safe. You are here in Ivas, 

an insignificant village, in an also not excessively important 

country in Eastern Europe. This village is so unimportant 

that even the big eye, the eye, which can see the whole 

world and always wants to see more, did not notice it yet. 

Do you know, what this village really is, Frank?" 

„No! Just tell it to me!", Frank reacted nervously. 

..Then I want to explain it to you exactly. Where you are 

here, and with whom you are here!", answered the man with 

a serious look. ..This is no usual village in the contemplative 

Lithuania and we are no holiday community. We are rebels, 

who fight against the World Government. Ivas is one of our 

bases. Some of our men live here, with their families or 

alone. 

A few of these ramshackle houses, I had acquired for 

relatively small sums from the former Lithuanian state in the 

period of its dissolution. Finally, my fellows and me settled 

in this abandoned village. Some more men will still come 



72 



and we will establish our position here. But there is one 

important rule: Everybody has to be quiet!" 

Frank wondered. ..Rebels against the World Government?", 

he thought and beheld Wilden with surprise. 

„l think, I know, what you mean!", he said then. 

„You came to Ivas and you will stay here. We can't let you 

go, because you already know too much and this is a safety 

risk. Even if you tell just one single word about us and this 

village, we must kill you! I say it to you not as your foe. This 

is the situation, in which you are, Frank Kohlhaas!", spoke 

Wilden and nodded. „And believe me, we will not hesitate, 

to wack you immediately, if you endanger our group!", he 

said with a cold voice. 

„l understand!", Frank was more than confused. 

"But I don't want to threaten or frighten you, my friend. You 

had suffered enough and I wish you a good recovering here. 

Furthermore, I don't want to force you to join us. Just trust 

Alf, he is a man with a pure heart and could even become a 

good friend to you. Moreover, he bailes for you and told me, 

that you are a nice person", said Wilden and smiled again. 

„l want to rest, as a start, and then I will take a look at your 

organization. And believe me, I'm really grateful, because 

you saved my life. Don't worry, I would never betray you. I 

give you my oath", said Kohlhaas to the older gentleman 

and sounded resolute. 

..Trust me, Frank. You are here now, and you will find your 

peace of mind among us. And on the other hand, there is no 

turning back for you anymore. If they would ever catch you, 

you would be liquidated immediately. 

You are registered as a terrorist and a murderer, in all 

worldwide databases of any administration and authority, 

and a so called "normal life" is an illusion now. Whereby, 

however, it becomes clear at a closer look that we are the 

only ones who live a "normal life", because we are free men 



73 



and no slaves of this global system, born of terror and 

oppression", explained Wilden with a more gently becoming 

voice. 

„l wanted to thank you again...", whispered Frank quietly. 

"No problem, my young friend! I am glad about the fact, that 

Alf and the others didn't let you die", answered Wilden with 

a paternal countenance. 

The talk with the founder of this base took a long time and 

Wilden became more and more kindlier. It seemed, that the 

older gentleman, who had appeared so cold at first sight, 

would have a fancy for Frank. 

Since 2013, when the great crisis had shaken the entire 

globe and had driven millions of people into poverty, 

destroying innumerable existences and finally even leading 

to famines, this village had been left by its former 

inhabitants. 

The collapse of the economy in Lithuania had caused a 

mass exodus of young people, who had been driven by the 

illusion, to be able to find jobs in the countries of Western 

Europe. 

Villages like Ivas, which had lived on retail trade and 

agriculture to a large extent, had just collapsed, and their 

inhabitants had moved into the larger cities of the country or 

to the West. 

A ghost town had finally remained and meanwhile the rural 

areas of Eastern Europe were full of abandoned villages. 

Thorsten Wilden, the former entrepreneur from Westphalia, 

had decided in 2018, when the shadows of a global 

dictatorship had come over the former FRG, to leave his 

homeland and to acquire houses in Ivas with his last money. 

Wilden had already been registered as a political dissident 

in the databases of the secret service, even at the time of 

the FRG. He had too often been noticeable. When the 



74 



entrepreneur had stood for a political incorrect party against 

the FRG system in 2012, the media had tried to 

economically ruin him with a big campaign. The German 

had already thought about emigration in these days. But he 

had still persevered for a while, although the media had 

called up to boycott his company and his family had been 

threatened by incited fanatics. And the situation had 

continued to become worse. During the great world 

economic crisis, the entrepreneur had lost the biggest part 

of his fortune and had become a target for the political 

police of the FRG. 

Thereupon, Western and Central Europe had been shaken 

by a breakdown of the social system and racial and religious 

conflicts. Europe had finally been close to civil war. 

In the year 2018, Germany had been taken over by the 

World Government, while Wilden had escaped to Lithuania 

with his family. 

He had offered the rest of his savings and had bought some 

of the empty houses and also a few properties in Ivas, for 

relatively small sums from the collapsing Lithuanian state. 

The dying national state, which had been driven into 

complete bankruptcy by the crisis, had been glad about 

each cent that a foreign investor had given. 

In the years 2018 to 2020, the World Government had been 

established. The new rulers had promised the masses to 

master the great crisis, and had moreover seized the 

opportunity, to abolish the old states of Europe. 

Then a massive wave of liquidations of political incorrect 

persons had followed. Who had been located as a 

suspicious person, had been arrested or killed by the 

ruthless oppressors. 

Shortly afterwards, the Lodge Brothers had founded the 

international secret service, the GSA, to eliminate political 

opponents. Campaigns of mass arrests, mass liquidations, 



75 



brainwashing, terror and intimidation had been the order of 
the day in this years. Finally, the face of Europe had been 
crushed to a bloody pulp. Only in the USA, the GSA had still 
raged more effectively and had executed even larger parts 
of the population as in Europe. 

In this time of terror, Wilden had already escaped to Eastern 
Europe and had overcome the first onslaught with his family 
unharmedly. However, many of his political fellows of that 
time had disappeared in prisons or mass graves. 
Nevertheless, the terror had reached the countries of 
Eastern Europe too, but the preparatory work for a perfect 
surveillance state had only been made half-heartedly and 
languidly here. Moreover, the registration of the whole 
population wasn't as extensive as in the West yet. So the 
strike of the World Government against the nations of the 
world, had lost a lot of its power in Lithuania. 
Apart from this, Russia and the other states of Eastern 
Europe had become members of the world system in the 
year 2020, two years after the official takeover of the new 
rulrs. Here, some air for breathing had still remained. But 
the Lodge Brothers were willing to make up leeway, in the 
countries outside of North America and Western Europe. 

After these difficult facts and explanations, Frank had never 
thought about before, he was impressed by Wilden's talent 
to elucidate things. Altogether, he was fascinated by him. 
Communities of men like Ivas, had some more time to live in 
peace, but the officials even pressurized the sector "Eastern 
Europe" more and more, to create a modern system of total 
control. So also in Ivas, strictest secrecy was increasingly 
necessary to survive, and Wilden's village had ever more 
problems to keep up the image of an unimportant village, 
inhabited by some farmers. HOK or Holger K., who didn't 
betray his surname to anyone, except for Thorsten Wilden, 



76 



was one of the most important men in Ivas. The former 
computer scientist was a master in tampering scanchips 
and to rewrite registration datas of vehicles and airplanes in 
a way, that they were inconspicuous. After four hours, Frank 
Kohlhaas finally left the house of Thorsten Wilden. This new 
world really impressed him and for a man like Frank, a 
return to his old life was impossible at this point. 

When the young man came into HOK's study two days 

later, he was welcomed by a thick, burly man. The 

information scientist sat in front of a big, wireless computer, 

surrounded by a lot of crates and cardboards, which were 

repleted with all kinds of things. He looked like the typical 

computer genius and reminded Frank of a comic figure. 

HOK smiled and examined Kohlhaas from top to bottom. 

Meanwhile, he scratched his head and gabbled something. 

„You need a new Scanchip? You will get a new Scanchip! 

He, he!", said the weird computer scientist and typed on his 

keyboard. 

„Oh! I am HOK! Specialist for electronic questions and other 

problems in this beautiful village!" 

„Hello!", said Kohlhaas. 

„Oh, how good that nobody knows, how uncle HOK is really 

called. A little joke, I always like to tell", returned HOK and 

hastily waved his lower arms. „And soon, also nobody will 

know your name anymore!" 

J will always be Frank Kohlhaas!", answered the young man 

and grinned. 

„Sure! And I will be always HOK, even if I am sometimes 

Mike Weber or Enrico Althaus", said Holger K. with a 

philosophical undertone. 

„However, you will get a new Scanchip now, because 

otherwise you are just fucked up in this world." 



77 



HOK let the keys rattle and worked for the next minutes as 

under hypnosis in front of his computer screen. He visited 

various servers and data bases and explained, that it could 

last a while. Anyway, he had to generate a large number of 

new access codes and this was a lot of work. His virtual 

attacks on the secret servers of administrative districts and 

registration banks had remained unnoticed so far, and could 

not be retraced. The coding and safety precautions, which 

HOK used, were impressing and reflected the quite entitled 

paranoia in his head. 

„This computer officially stands, from its source code, in 

Patah Keadan in Malaysia. Sometimes I also attack from 

Siberia, northern China or Angola. This is always very 

funny!", gaggled the cyberfreak and smiled proudly. 

J believe you, man. But I know nothing about computers!", 

groaned Frank . 

„Code here and code there..." 

"No, does not fit..." 

"Shit! Why not?" 

"Ah.. .Okay!" 

"Well, there we have been landed..." 

"He, he, he..." 

"Well!" 

And: Go!" 

"Starting from the data..." 

"Great!" 

"Copy!" 

"Paste!" 

"Mist! Elender Mist!" 

HOK murmured and continued to swim through a sea of 

datas and facts in the international cyberspace. He vacantly 

stared at the screen and Frank was just silent. Then 

Kohlhaas finally sat down on a damaged office chair, which 

probably had already suffered under HOK's weight. 



78 



The operation lasted almost three hours. In the meantime, 
Frank had gone out of the house, to take a little walk 
through the village. When he returned, the passionate cyber 
fanatic expected him. HOK grinned from ear to ear. Then he 
theatrically made a curtsey in front of his new client: 
..Welcome citizen 08-71 1369Y-1 91 947, in our wonderful 
„One-World"! I may call you, nevertheless, here among us 
and completely unofficially, Maximilian Eberharter, okay?" 
..Sounds amusing, but good...", returned Frank. 
..Your Scanchip account has also been topped up again. 
Congratulations!" HOK seemed to be very happy. He had 
done his work like a pro. 

Referring to the general defaults for citizen registrations, 
Frank Kohlhaas was now announced as the proud owner of 
the citizen number 08-71 1369Y-1 91 947, living in Graz and 
working as an underground construction engineer. His wage 
was not bad too. Over 1300 Globes per month, he had 
never earned that much. 

Who this Maximilian Eberharter really was, Frank did not 
know and he did not ask. Perhaps the citizen number 08- 
711369Y-191947 had been discarded, because the owner 
had died. Perhaps, it was also just invented, rewritten or 
something else. HOK surely knew, what he did. 
Indeed, the computer scientist with the weird behavior and 
the emotional fluctuations, was just irreplaceable in Ivas. He 
procured official registrations for the inhabitants and topped 
up their Scanchip accounts, gave them "jobs" and secured 
their income - at least, as a computer file. This man was 
ingenious. No question! 

Additionally, the village community also subsisted on an 
own agriculture and various illegal exchanges and 
commercial transactions. It functioned better, than the new 
born citizen could ever imagine. 



79 



Nevertheless, Ivas was a dangerous place. And only, if all 
inhabitants kept their mouths shut and never boasted, an 
inconspicuous life was possible. Regarded from the outside, 
this village just appeared inconspicuously and its citizens 
were even good taxpayers, who were not noticeable to the 
tax authority of the sub-sector "Belarus-Baltic". 
From this point of view, they all were in a favorable 
situation. It would probably just become unpleasant, if an 
official would ever examine this place more exactly. But 
since the financial situation in the sub-sector was 
catastrophic and the region was in a permanent state of 
worst poverty, it was improbable, that authorities, which 
hadn't enough employees, because of staff savings, would 
ever send someone to an unimportant village like Ivas. The 
lethargic officials were just content, if the taxes were paid 
regularly. 

This mentality of indifference, which was far common in 
Eastern Europe, increasingly annoyed the powerful 
gentlemen of the World Goverment. Nevertheless, in former 
Lithuania still existed an administration, but this was not 
self-evident in other regions of the world. 
In Africa, the World Government had never tried to 
introduce a complete monitoring of the population at all, 
what was much too difficult. But from the position of the 
Lodge Brothers, this was not necessary on this continent. 
The African countries were politically insignificant and it was 
only sufficient, to recruit parts of the population as cheap 
peons for the big concerns. Furthermore, the World 
Goverment held the whole continent in an iron grip of 
dependence by indebtedness. Occupation troops enforced 
the rough adherence of the instructions from above. This 
was enough. Otherwise, the World Government only 
occasionally intervened, in order to decimate the population. 
Hunger blockades and even epidemics, made in 



80 



laboratories, ensured, that the population could not grow too 
much. Other countries, for example in Eastern Asia, were 
also controlled from the outside. The new rulers simply used 
the weapons of financial dependence, the military threat or 
economic sanctions. 

In these regions, including India and China, the Scanchip 
had been introduced as replacement for credit and identity 
card a few years ago, but the number of people in these 
countries was just too big for a close monitoring. 
Together with the downfall of formerly high technicalised 
Europe, the infrastructure in these regions slowly moldered. 
Nevertheless, the World Government also wanted to accept 
this challenge. Much still had to be done. At first, the 1.9 
billion Chinese and 1.5 billion Indians had to be decimated, 
that further political steps could follow. 
The appropriate plans for this cruel process, were already in 
the drawers of the think-tanks of the New World Order. They 
worked on it. 

In the last decades, the nations of Europe, once highly 
developed and sophisticated, above all Germany, England, 
France and Russia, had successfully been destroyed by a 
creeping procedure of decomposition by the predecessors 
of the now ruling forces. Finally, they had brought the 
Europeans to their knees. Knowing about their 
inventiveness and their ability to create high civilizations, 
they had purposefully selected the Old World as their 
primary target. And soon they had taken control of the Great 
Powers of the old age. 

And it had been the same with the North American 
continent. These regions had to be taken at first, even if it 
wasn't always easy to conquer them. But the hidden power 
behind the curtains of world policy, had acted intelligently, 
cleverly, shrewdly. There was no doubt, if one analyzed the 



81 



past. In the old age, the Europeans had been proud and 
strong, and had patronized values like freedom or 
independence. Therefore, they had to be slowly poisoned, 
as you never attack a powerful lion directly, but put it to 
sleep or sicken it first. 

It would last a long time, to describe all the procedures, 
which had made the world to the sad place that it was 
today. But it was nevertheless a cruel fact, that these once 
great old countries were in just one hand today - without 
exception. The European nations crumbled, decomposed 
and were close to total extinction. 

Foreign people were brought to these lands, and soon all 
the big centers of European civilization were a puzzle of 
different races, cultures and religions. The international 
yoke of modern slavery and the imperative to consume, 
preached by all the media of the global system, was the 
only thing, which connected them. And this had always 
been the plan. 

So the danger was avoided, that united fronts could be 
formed one day against the world dictatorship, because the 
interests and purposes in life of the numerous nation 
particles and cultural fragments were too different. It had 
worked well, the hidden forces had infiltrated the Old World 
like a virus. 

The plan had been successful and the Lodge Brothers had 
laid the foundation, for what the Elders of the New World 
Order had already prophesied long ago: The "Multicolor- 
Man". A so called "united" human, without clearly defined 
origins, torn inside his soul and groundless. 
"Will will create the Eurasian-Negroid future-race!", was the 
slogan of this new policy. So the powerful gentlemen 
worked on a creature without an own culture, without a 
higher intelligence and without an identity - the natural born 
slave. 



82 



World Peace in Ivas? 



„Not this Ronald Miller shit again!", groaned Alf on the next 
morning, as he sat in front of his laptop and watched the 
news from all over the world. On an Internet site, which was 
officially marked with a blocking note and should actually 
not be accessible for "good normal citizens", he saw the 
commemoration ceremony of a soldier of the international 
GCF troops in New York, kidnapped and shot by Iranian 
partisans. 

The video had already been shown by the official television 
stations, but the forbidden Internet site complemented it with 
some background informations and let its content appear 
differently, from what the media of the system wished. 
The World President squeezed out some crocodile tears in 
front of the cameras, which rolled along his beaked nose. 
Then he thanked the not anymore "unknown soldier" for his 
fight against terrorism, for human rights and world peace. 
The television report showed Ronald Millers crying widow, 
his newborn baby and his daughter in the kindergarten. The 
report about his sweet little children lasted a whole hour. 
The daughter told, that she liked to paint pictures with her 
wax mark pins, loved her hamster and finally cried for her 
dead father - in close up. 

The World President visited her in the kindergarten, tried to 
look affected and explained to the kindergartner, how 
important it was, to go on with the war against Islamic 
fanatics and renegade tendencies in all regions of the world. 
„Those fucking media rats should mention, that the World 
Goverment has nuked Teheran nine years ago!", screamed 
Alf furiously and banged on the table. "So they could also 
make some good video reports about crying children there!" 



83 



He turned around to Frank. „At that time, over one million 

people, women and children, were burned to ashes. The 

GCF just wiped them out, in order to make an example!" 

„l know... ", answered Kohlhaas. 

„Oh, shit! I just hate the fucking media! I would execute 

them all, if I had the chance!", he spat out. 

„lfs the usual propaganda", said Frank and went into the 

kitchen. „Calm down, Alf! Don't risk a heart attack..." 

Baumer still grumbled for a while and finally followed Frank. 

He stood before his fellow and raised the forefinger. 

„Today John comes back from Minsk", he said. „We must 

talk to Wilden, so that he tells us, where we can live here in 

the near future." 

..Living together with you? Then I will give you the 

prohibition to watch TV!", answered Frank with a smile. 

..Don't make me angry, little boy!", hissed Baumer, grinned 

villainously and made some boxing movements toward his 

interlocutor. 

The discussion with the leader of the group was short and 

factual. Wilden told them that they could move into another 

vacant house at the further end of Ivas. It was an incredible 

hovel, but at least, it had an old wood fired oven and the two 

men could even get some electricity for the barrack. 

When Frank and Alf returned to their provisional home, they 

met a probably 45 years old man in a cord sweater, 

unloading some crates from a shabby, white combi-van. 

With him was a beautiful young woman with long fair hair, 

which she had tied up to a queue. John and the woman 

welcomed them. 

„Oh, who are you? Allow me, I'm John Thorphy!", he 

introduced himself. 

..Julia Wilden!", added the blonde and smiled. 



84 



„Alfred Baumer, we don't know each other yet", answered 

Alf. 

„Eh... Frank Kohlhaas!", said the young man. 

John Thorphy had a strong English accent, which, however, 

clarified the question of his origin only superficially. 

„We lived in your house. Thank you again. We have been 

freed, straight from prison", explained Alfred. 

„No problem!", replied John and continued to unload his car. 

„rm sure that my father has organized everything correctly", 

said Julia and examined Frank with an inquiring look. 

„And how was it...?" Frank tried to begin a conversation. 

„How was what?", asked the young woman and stroked with 

her fingers through the blonde hair. Then she beheld 

Kohlhaas again. 

"Where you have been... I mean. ..your trip...?" 

"Nice!", returned Julia. 

„The man is... eh... John. ..an Englishman?", asked Frank. 

„No, and he does not like Englishmen!", he heard from Julia. 

John is an Irishman. Don't talk with him about England or 

even Englishmen..." 

"It was just a question", said Frank and looked unconfidently 

at the young beauty. 

"Okay, all questions have been answered. Now you can 

help us to unload the van", said Fraulein Wilden and kept a 

straight face. 

„No problem!", answered Baumer and waved Frank nearer. 

In the following weeks, Frank and Alf had a lot of work to do. 
Necessary renovations in their new home waited for them, 
and furthermore, Wilden gave them some more tasks, in the 
name of the community. Kohlhaas became acquainted with 
some of the other villagers and thought that most of them 
could stand him - more or less. However, a few still faced 
him with distrust and avoided to talk to the young man. 



85 



Nevertheless, the fact that he had been in a holo cell, 

caused a mixture of compassion and respect in many of the 

villagers. 

Julia Wilden mostly just ignored him and didn't seem to 

seek his proximity. He rarely saw her, even when he 

unusually often walked past Mr. Wilden's house, although it 

was located in a side road. 

„She looks good, but she is „Misses Important", the 

daughter of the great boss...", thought Frank sometimes. 

"She thinks that she is better than the rest here and she 

obviously doesn't trust me very much." 

Frank was right. Julia Wilden and also the young Sven 

belonged to those villagers, who avoided the contact with 

him. 

But Kohlhaas tried to understand the behavior of these 

people. They didn't knew him and he had only come to this 

strange place, because of luck and coincidence. What 

should he expect now? 

Prison or even liquidation would wait for them all, if he 

would prove himself as a blabber or a safety risk. So the 

fear of the unknown man wasn't unjustified. But Alfred 

Baumer and Thorsten Wilden seemed to like him. The 

village boss took every opportunity, to explain to him any 

political and historical facts. He started with world history, 

from the ancient cultures of the Indogermanics, over 

Alexander the Great, up to the present. Sometimes, 

however, even everything at the same time. 

„They could have used Wilden for the reeducation hours in 

the holo cell, apart from the fact, that he preaches the 

converse theses. Nevertheless, he talks even more than 

that computer!", said Frank to Alf once. 

Baumer admired the former entrepreneur, because of his 

universal knowledge about politics and history, but this time, 

he had to laugh about Frank's statement. So the days, 



86 



weeks and months passed in monotonousness. Often some 
of the villagers disappeared for a while. Occasionally, even 
one of the three small transport aircrafts left its hideout, in 
order to fly somewhere and to come back again a few days 
later. 

The airplanes were always hidden under camouflage nets 
or in large, old barns. Although it was not illegal to own 
them, since they had been duly registered, caution was the 
first rule in Ivas. 

In the meantime, Frank and Alf were working hard, in order 
to make their house more habitable. Wallpapers were 
procured over many detours, because there were no more 
shops in the periphery of many kilometers, which got such 
articles. At least, the most important rooms could be 
renovated. 

Similar difficulties also appeared with the building materials, 
which had often to be taken from the other vacant houses, 
for example intact bricks to repair the leaky roof. It was a 
long and toilsome work, but the two men became friends 
along the way. 

There was still only a very old wood fired oven in the biggest 
room of the house and both men became a bit nervous, 
when the thought about the coming winter of the year 2028. 
At the end of the month, Frank's sleep disturbances 
suddenly came back. He had scary nightmares, in which the 
cruel light of the holo cell tortured him again, and also Mr. 
Madness returned. 

Sometimes in these dreams, this strange man talked, and 
Frank was surprised that his voice was high and shrill. 
Baumer often woke him up, when he flailed or talked while 
he was sleeping. It was weird. Right now, where peace had 
entered his life, compared to the time in „Big Eye" even the 
idyl, the bad memories came back. Kohlhaas had thought, 
that the pain in his mind was over - but he was wrong... 



87 



One day in August, HOK stood in front of the entrance door 

on an early morning and asked Alf for Frank. Kohlhaas sat 

in the provisionally furnished kitchen and came to the door 

after a few minutes. 

„Good morning, Frank! Please come with me, immediately!", 

said HOK with a sad face. 

..What's up?", asked Frank with an uncomfortable feeling 

deep inside. 

..Hurry up! Just come with me!", answered the computer 

specialist and spreaded a disastrous atmosphere. 

Shortly afterwards, the two men went to HOK's house and 

Frank hardly noticed the warm and bright autumn sun, 

which stroked the little village on this day. HOK ran to his 

untidy office and sat down in front of his computer. 

..Please take a seat, Frank!", hummed HOK. „And try to stay 

calm, with all, I will say to you now!" 

„Tell me, what has happened?", claimed Frank with a 

mixture of impatience and deep concern, because HOK's 

countenance let expect nothing good. 

„l have examined your old Scanchip. I meant no harm by it, 

but it is an order of Wilden, concerning each new person 

that comes into our village. It is a safety precaution. The 

Scanchip is examined for suspicious sub-datas and cross 

references. I penetrated an internal data server and studied 

some not public informations, which are automatically 

collected about every citizen in the sector ..Central Europe" 

by authorities or secret services. These sub-datas contain 

many informations about a citizen's life. Of course, the 

ordinary people don't know anything about their existence. 

Okay, I have the skill to look for all this stuff. Let's see..." 

„Aha...", answered Frank with a complete lack of 

understanding. 

„An usual Scanchip has about 500 internal sub-datas and 

cross references, which can't be read by the owner, 



88 



because they are only for the authorities", explained HOK 

hastily. 

Frank's brain was tormented again with some technical 

terms of the computer language, although HOK tried to 

explain everything understandably for the layman. 

The sub-datas of each Scanchip contain a fulness of 
informations, for example: 

- Behaviour analysis at the workplace 

- State of health, for the further economic utilization 

- Income 

- Consument behaviour statistics 

- Social compatibility 

- Subversive statements at the telephone, on the internet... 

- Family members and relatives 

- Reactions on political propaganda and advertising 

- Religious faith 

- Friends and acquaintances 

- Frequentcy of contacts to friends and acquaintances 

- Sexual behavior 

There are still hundreds of further informations and details, 

but I think you know, what we are talking about", said HOK. 

„And now? What's wrong?", asked Frank quizzically. 

Just wait!", answered HOK. „l have to look for some special 

things. For example, if there is an entry like: JOS" (informer 

of the state) or „ROP" (receiver of official privileges) - what 

would mean, that you are an informer - or you have been it 

once." 

„What do you want from me? Tim no informer, man!", 

screamed Frank. 

„You don't have anything to do with such things! Your old 

Scanchip is clean, don't worry!", calmed him HOK. 



89 



„This is not the problem...", he continued. „We must be very 

careful and everybody in Ivas has to endure this process!" 

„Then you want to establish your own little surveillance state 

here, isn't it?", gnarled Frank angrily. 

„No, we do not want that!", replied HOK and seemed to feel 

ashamed. 

„l looked at the cross references, concerning your family 

members and your relatives. I'm sorry, this didn't belong to 

my tasks and I must excuse myself for that", murmured 

HOK sheepishly and stared at his keyboard. 

„And then you pretend to fight against the World 

Government! Maybe these guys were also just bored, and 

so they decided one day, to spy out all the other people!", 

grumbled Kohlhaas. 

"I'm sorry! Really!" HOK tried to calm down his angry guest. 

..Unfortunately, I have noticed something terrible on your 

Scanchip: Rainer Kohlhaas is your father, right? And 

Martina Gunther, born Kohlhaas, your sister, isn't it? 

Nico Gunther your nephew. . .? " 

..What's up with them?", asked Frank excitedly. 

„The Scanchips of Rainer Kohlhaas and Martina Gunther 

are shut down. Their citizen numbers will be assigned to 

other people in the near future...", spoke HOK quietly. 

"What?", Frank winced. 

„On the Scanchip of your father, there is an arrest note on 

09.04.2028. At the beginning of June 2028, it has finally 

been shut down. As additive there is a footnote: "ODOA" 

(official deactivation by official arrangement) and further 

„CSO" (citizen switched off). He has been liquidated!", 

explained HOK. 

..What?", cried Frank in pain. 

„lt's the same in the case of your sister. She was first 

arrested, and then liquidated. Your nephew..." HOK was 

interrupted. 



90 



„What? What's up with Nico?", gasped Frank with fright in 

his eyes. "Tell me what..." 

„He is registered here as an "orphan in national care". So he 

is still alive!" The computer scientist didn't dare to look in 

Frank's direction. 

But it didn't work. The young man was speechless with 

terror and sank back on the chair. He struggled for air and 

tried to shake off the claws of horror that griped his throat 

and took his breath away. But it was impossible. 

Within a few seconds, he fell into a black hole of despair 

and ran crying out of the house of the computer scientist. All 

the distress and the fear had returned now. They had 

spared him in the last months, to come back in this second 

in their whole, dark size. 

In the next days, Frank hardly left his sleeping room. Alf 
tried to explain to him, that the arresting of relatives or 
family members was used by the system, to lure 
disappeared offenders out of their hideouts, to make them 
ring up at home, while the telehone call was bugged, or to 
make them even visit their old homes. But Frank just told 
him to back off. 

Now the scary nights returned and the mental terror, the 
holo cell had kindled in his mind, crawled around him in the 
darkness, arm in arm in old unity with the new horrors. 
Again, the young man thought about following his parents 
and his sister to the netherworld, he mused about 
terminating his hopeless existence, but Alf stopped him from 
doing such things and cared for Frank as good as he could. 

When September brought the autumn to Ivas, Frank was 
afflicted by a strange dream one night. He could no longer 
completely remember each detail, when he woke up again 



91 



on the next morning with a bad headache, but the most 
pictures remained in his memory. 

He was a spectator in an hall, which looked very similar to a 
court room. In front of him were the judge desk and the 
dock, and only this place was lit by a lamp. The rest of the 
room remained in a hazy twilight, also the seat rows of the 
spectators, on which Frank sat alone. In front of the dock 
were two persons and Frank could not exactly recognize, 
who it was, because he saw only their backs. Behind the 
judge desk was no human being, it was rather a shadow or 
a ghost. 

"The negotiation starts!", called the shade. „Be quiet please! 
Today, we talk about the following criminal case: The 
politics against Mr. Rainer Kohlhaas and Mrs. Martina 
Gunther, born Kohlhaas." 

The two accused turned around and gave Frank a fearful 
look. It were his father and his sister. Now they turned 
around to the judge again, because he began with his 
remarks. The spectator nervously stared at the ghost and 
tried to decipher the name on the plate, which was on the 
desk in front of him. Only after an arduous staring, Frank 
was able to recognize that there was no name. The only 
words on the plate were "The Politics". Now the judge read 
out the charges and began with the interrogation. 
J will start with you, Mr. Rainer Kohlhaas", he said with a 
glowering, deep voice. „Can you remember, that you have 
ever cared about the important facts around me?" 
„Well, I have already been concerned with you, if it had 
something to do with my life", stammered Rainer Kohlhaas. 
„Can you describe that more exactly?", asked the judge. 
„Thus, I watched TV and read the newspapers", Rainer 
Kohlhaas tried to explain. 



92 



„And you, Mrs. Martina Gunther? Did you have ever 

seriously worried about me?", grumbled the shady judge 

with a threatening voice. 

..Perhaps not enough. Only sometimes. I was too busy, 

most of the time. My job was full of stress and so I had other 

things on my mind than thinking about you...", replied 

Frank's sister sheepishly. 

„And it was the same in your case, Mr. Kohlhaas?", 

resented the judge angrily. 

,,1'm sorry, but if Tm honest, I have just worked all my life, 

and have primarily cared about myself. It was a constant 

struggle to survive and to make money. And finally, there 

has been no more time to think about any politics", 

explained Rainer Kohlhaas ruefully. 

„And you really think, that was enough? That you could just 

ignore me in all these years?", hissed the ghost. 

"Please forgive us, Mr. Judge! Today, we know that we 

have made a big mistake! But we still have watched the 

news on television...", Rainer Kohlhaas tried to justify 

himself. 

"Yes, I did the same!", agreed Martina. 

"And you think, it was sufficient, if others talked about me 

and you just parroted their slogans? Why didn't you think 

about me for yourself?", asked the shadow reproachfully 

and stared at them. 

"Forgive us, Mr. Judge, but we viewed many other things in 

our life as more important, than caring about politics!", 

lamented the two accused, full of sorrow. 

Suddenly Frank appeared at another place in his dream. A 
disgusting stench became noticeable to him at first. It 
crawled over the ground right into his nostrils. He was on a 
great field that extended till the horizon, and only some 
mountains were recognizable, somewhere in the far 



93 



distance. Now he saw, what covered this field. It were 
corpses. Hundreds, thousands, millions. They terribly stank 
and rotted. The grey, dead skin of the bodies was shrunken, 
and larvae, maggots and worms crept out of the mouths and 
eye sockets of the dead. 

This graveyard was gigantic, it was full of men, women, 
children - some had died lately, others were already putrid 
and had become skeletons. 

Frank had to be careful, trying not to slip and fall by walking 
on this carpet of bones and rotting flesh, because the sea of 
the dead seemed to be endless and it filled the plain till the 
horizon. The young man simply went straight ahead for 
some hours and he was scared of this terrible environment. 
But the plain still extended and was still covered with 
countless corpses. Then he suddenly recognized, that the 
mountains in front of him were gigantic piles of skulls. 
Millions of skulls, towering up, to create an atrocious picture. 
Frank walked through the land of the dead and when he 
already thought, that he would never find a way out of this 
terrible world, he suddenly heard a voice. 
„Frank Kohlhaas!", it resounded from somewhere far 
beyond. The dreamer went to the place, from which he had 
heard the voice and could soon recognize a dark spot that 
continued to grow, the nearer he came. Then he saw that it 
was the shadowy man, the eerie judge, who called him. 
J am the politics, Frank Kohlhaas! Nice going, my boy! Now 
you have found me! Here they are!", said the ghost and 
pointed at the ground. 

There lay Rainer Kohlhaas, his father, and Martina Gunther, 
his sister. Both had been killed with a headshot and their 
bodies were rotting, while maggots crawled over their faces. 



94 



"Mark my words, Frank Kohlhaas! If you don't care 
about politics, politics will care about you one day!", 

shouted the judge. 

Frank startled up and could not sleep anymore for the rest 
of the night... 

The rest of the year 2028 passed without any changes in 

the life of the young man. The winter in Lithuania was really 

unpleasant and very cold, and there was no sign of that 

global warming, the international media had proclaimed in 

2011, in order to justify coercive measures and further 

restrictions of civil rights. 

Frank's fear, his sleep disturbances and his depressions 

still came in waves and particularly in these dark winter 

months he had to suffer. 

Wilden and the other villagers had given him a lot of tasks, 

he had to do for the community. And this was good, 

because it diverted him. During autumn, the fields around 

Ivas were harvested by the inhabitants and the yields were 

made winterproof, like in old times. 

All this was also a new ground for Frank, since he had only 

eaten the cheap food of the big agrarian companies so far. 

Moreover, Alf and he renovated the old house, but they 

progressed slowly. Apart from this, the young renegade was 

not yet ready to join the group of rebels - if it were rebels at 

all. 

Except for talking, Frank hadn't noticed any considerable 

rebellion, although Wilden told him everything about politics, 

without having a break. 

His daughter didn't seem to think a great deal of him and 

Frank was sure that she still distrusted him too. But at least, 

he had aroused her compassion. ..Nevertheless, ti is 

something!", thought Kohlhaas. 



95 



When it was stormy outside and the ice rain pattered 
against the still leaky windows, when it was dark and cold, 
Frank felt lost. Even if Alf was in the next room, looking for 
some new informations on the Internet. Sometimes 
Kohlhaas heard him rant and sometimes Baumer jubilated. 
„ls this my life for the next decades?", he occasionally asked 
himself. „ls this my fate? Hanging around in this dump in 
Lithuania, with this gang of so called freedom fighters?" 
If he saw the face of his father and his sister in front of his 
inner eye, if he thought about the holo cell and about the 
fact, that his little nephew was raised somewhere in an 
institute for brainwashing, while his sister, who had never 
done something wrong in her life, was rotting in a mass 
grave, he was fuming with rage. 

„Alf, what is the meaning of the symbol of the "Red Moon" 
groups? Please explain it to me again?", he asked his fellow 
one evening. 

„l already answered that question!", remarked Alf, who 
wanted to go to bed. 

„l want to know it - exactly!", said Frank with a black look, 
which even caused some respect in Alf. 
„Well, it is an old cult symbol. The "bloody moon" or „blood- 
moon". The old Celts, just as many other people of the 
ancient times, knew this mystical indication. In the winter, it 
was more important than everything else. At that time, the 
cattle was slaughtered in great numbers before the 
beginning of the snowfall on a certain full moon night. 
Therefore, our ancestors called this moon the "blood moon". 
Moreover, it was also a ritual for the old gods, in order to 
invoke their protection and assistance in the cold months. 
The elders cast a magic circle with blood, drank red wine, 
prayed and danced. Some even believed, that during this 
ritual not only the souls of the decedents were present, but 



96 



also the spirits of the animals, which had donated their lifes 

to give food to the humans", explained Alf. 

„Then it was some kind of ritual for the dead?", asked Frank 

then. 

„This is one meaning. The other meaning is the coming war, 

the revenge, the bloodshed, the rage of battle. One also 

knows the bloody moon as a warning to the enemy. It just 

depends on the interpretation of the symbol. The founders 

of the „Red Moon" groups thought, that this sign would just 

look cool or interesting", said Baumer. 

„l like the second meaning! Yes!", hissed Frank. 

Alfred looked at him with surprise, scraping with his fingers 

over the wooden table. 

„l_et us bring the blood moon upon our enemies! I will talk to 

Wilden. If I join your so called rebellion, I fucking want to 

make rebellion!", grumbled Frank. 

„We are rebels...", returned Alf and stared at his aggressive 

fellow. 

"I hope it! I want to take lives!", screamed Kohlhaas and 

banged his fist on the table. „Revenge! Blood moon!" 

Frank turned around and went to his room. He slammed the 

door behind himself and up to the next morning, Baumer 

didn't see him again. 



97 



Rebellion and Fresh Snow 



It did not last long, until Ivas was covered with a thick 
mantle of snow and it was bitterly cold. Frank and Alf could 
only stay in the largest room of their house, where the old 
wood fired oven was located. 

This season was more than unpleasant and often both men 
needed some blankets to warm theirselves. But at least, the 
roof didn't have no more holes and it didn't snow into the 
upper floor of the old building. This was better than nothing. 
Today, Frank Kohlhaas made the decision to talk to 
Thorsten Wilden. He wanted to become a real rebel and 
promised himself to join the fight - but he still didn't know 
how. 

It was a grey winter morning and the few sources of light in 
the inhabited houses of the village, had no real chance to 
repel the twilight. 

A resolute Frank trudged through the fresh snow of the last 
night, toward the house of Thorsten Wilden. The young man 
finally had enough of the monotonousness in this so called 
rebel base. 

„You want me? You can have me!", he whispered to 
himself. 

After a while, Frank reached the house of the village boss 
and knocked on the door. Agatha Wilden opened and Julia 
could be seen behind her in the corridor. Kohlhaas gave 
them a quiet „Hello!". Then Wilden appeared on the stairs, 
which led to the upper floor. 

„Frank! Welcome! What can I do for you?", asked the gray- 
haired gentleman with sursprise. The village boss seemed 
to be overslept and was still unshaved. 



98 



„We need to talk, Mr. Wilden!", answered Frank with a 

vacant expression, which neither Julia nor Agatha Wilden 

had ever seen before. Kohlhaas scowled and crossed his 

arms. 

„Well, we go to my office!", said the rebel leader. 

„Okay! Let's go!", muttered Frank and went up the stairs. 

Then both men sat opposite to each other and Frank started 

to talk, before Wilden could begin. 

„This is not a holiday camp, you have said to me. Well! 

Well!", spoke Frank with an angry face. „This is a rebel 

base, you have told me, Mr. Wilden!" 

„lt is!", returned the older gentleman, looking at his young 

guest, who behaved queerly today. 

„AII right! Then we shall start a rebellion! First, I would like to 

learn to shoot! Assault rifle, machine gun, handguns. Is that 

okay, Mr. Wilden?", said Frank, somehow demanding. 

J think you can! ", answered the village boss. 

„Great, Mr. Wilden! I am ready now. I know that some of the 

guys here talk about me after the slogan: We just feed that 

Frank, but he is useless and does not join our great fight. 

Well, here I am! Ready for combat! If there is a big fight 

here at all, because I haven't noticed a fucking rebellion 

yet!", teased the young man. 

„First and foremost, we develop self-sufficient structures. 

The armed operation, concerning your liberation, has been 

an exception. Otherwise, we plan no further things of that 

character for the next time", explained Wilden. 

„However!", said Kohlhaas. „lf any special operations start, 

then let me know it. I will join them. My life isn't important 

and I will show you, that I have more guts, than most of 

these farmers, who treat me with scorn. Thus, you let me 

know, if there is some action, okay? Have a nice day and 

greetings to Fraulein Julia, Mr. Wilden!" 



99 



Frank knocked on the table, smiled informally and left the 
room. He ran down the stairs, murmured a "Tschuft!" to 
Julia and closed the front door behind him. Thorsten Wilden, 
his wife and his daugtherwere perturbed. This part of Frank 
had been unknown to them yet. And Frank was surprised 
about that side of his personality too. 

"If I shall revolt, I have to learn to shoot, Alf! Where are your 

weapons?", Frank edged his unnerved friend. 

"You make my nerves explode, Kohlhaas! What do you 

want from me?", screamed Alf. His roommate didn't stop his 

urging and slowly became aggressive. 

J go to Wilden!", grumbled the young man. 

„Okay, I have a gun. If you like, we can do some firing 

practices in the forest", groaned Alf. 

„AII right! What are you waiting for?", answered Frank with a 

grin. 

Baumer went into the cellar and finally returned with a Glock 

in his hand. Then the two men left the house. 

„rm dying to know if you hit something!", teased Alf his 

friend on the way to the nearby forest behind the village, but 

Frank just gazed at the ground. After they had waded 

through the high snow for a while, Alf stopped. 

„Do you see that knothole in the birch over there?", he 

asked Frank. 

„Of course, give me the gun!", answered Kohlhaas. 

Without further thinking, the young man aimed for the tree, 

which was about ten meters away from him. 

„Bang! Bang! Bang!" 

Alfred ran to the birch, after Frank had shot the magazine 

empty. He was astonished. Most of the bullets had hit the 

little knothole and large pieces of crust had been torn out. 

„Not bad, boy!", he remarked and waved the inexperienced 

shooter nearer. 



100 



„How many times have you already shot in your life?" 

„Never before!", answered Kohlhaas and smiled. 

„Your lately grown self-confidence seems to make even a 

good shooter of you", murmured Alf. 

Shortly afterwards, Kohlhaas shot three further magazines 

empty. Then they had to stop, in order to waste not too 

much ammunition. Baumer was quite impressed, that his 

fellow had hit the target relative exactly. 

„Wilden can organize an assault rifle and a machine gun for 

you. Then you can practice with them", promised Alf. A little 

later, they went back to their house again. Dusk was falling. 

So strange and insignificant it was, at first sight - Alf s 

compliment had filled the young Frank with pride. He smiled 

confidently and looked already forward to the next firing 

practices with the bigger war weapons, the real "Wummen". 

Apparently, he had a talent for shooting. And that he had a 

talent for something, he hadn't heard all too often in his life 

before. 

Frank spent the first two weeks of the cold and wet January, 

the ugliest month the year, with numerous firing practices 

and the reading of political and historical books, that Wilden 

had given to him. Moreover with occasional works for the 

community. 

Meanwhile, he felt a little more accepted by the other 

villagers, after he had signaled that he was ready to join the 

fight. 

Even Julia Wilden had smiled at him for the first time, when 

he had asked her father for more ammunition for his 

weapons at the door. He blustered into the thought of 

becoming a rebel. Therefore, Kohlhaas shot during his firing 

practices, in his mind, rather at hazy prison guards, 

policemen or politicians, as at bottles or trees. Often he 

grinned like a happy child, when the cold steel of a rifle slid 



101 



into his hand. His shooting results became better and better 
and when he went to bed, after an arduous day, he often 
mused about the blood moon and did not notice, how 
malicious his smile had become. 

Alfred observed him with scepticism. Frank appeared 
calmly, and sometimes he just absently stared out the 
window and bit on his lower lip, till it began to bleed. 
Usually he did not even seem to notice it. The young man 
was eager to learn the art of killing in all its facets. Often he 
talked of nothing else but fighting during the dinner. He 
philosophized about the possibilities of resistance, the 
revolution and the counter-propaganda. Some ideas 
appeared to Alf even ingeniously, others were just childish 
and crazy. Something proceeded under Frank's skullcap, 
was slowly bred like an evil child. 

In these days, in which Frank only talked about assault 
rifles, grenade launchers and methods of killing people, 
Baumer thought, that Kohlhaas was screwy. Moreover, 
Frank asked John Thorphy to buy a whole arsenal of 
weapons for him. 

„Maybe, your beloved war will find you sooner as you think, 
my friend", told him Alf once. "We will have a bigger meeting 
at the end of the month, then I can take you with me!" 
„A Meeting? What meeting? To shovel some snow?", 
scoffed Frank. 

„Fuck off! I can't hear your speeches about the revolution 
anymore, Frank. Keep cool and find the way back to reality. 
We will not start to run around like a horde of boozy apes to 
shoot everybody. Do your firing practices or throw your knife 
at trees or do something else!", grumbled Baumer angrily. 
Now, Frank became angry too and went to his undercooled 
room. Most of all, he had liked to kick Alf in the face - or 
someone else. Meanwhile, Kohlhaas was burning inside like 



102 



a torch. A stubborn hate had crept into his brain and he had 
problems to suppress this feeling. So the young man just 
brooded and escaped into a dreamworld full of rebellion and 
revenge. 

The former citizen 1-564398B-278843 dawdled away till the 

end of the month and nervously waited for the meeting, Alf 

had talked about. From now on, Baumer didn't tell Frank 

any further details, concerning the gathering, and just 

ignored him. 

It was the last day of January 2029, and the restless young 

man had got up early today. The meeting of the villagers 

was set for 18.00 o'clock, and Frank walked through the 

cold house for hours, like a nervous tiger. He friendly smiled 

at Baumer, again and again, full of expectation. 

In the late afternoon, Frank and Alf finally left the house and 

went to a brightly lit-up barn, where a few radiant heaters 

had provisionally been stationed. Wilden was waiting for 

them here, in the middle of a larger group of people. 

Frank and Alf briefly welcomed the others and went to a 

dark corner. Both crossed their arms before their chests and 

looked at Wilden, who started his speech: ..Welcome, my 

dear comrades!" 

Kohlhaas nodded to Julia, who stood behind her father. 

Then he smiled and the young woman smiled back. 

..Tm glad that all of you have come to Ivas. I welcome our 

guests from France and all the others, who visit our village 

today." 

Kohlhaas' expectation rose to the immeasurable. He gave 

Julia a volatile look again. She winked at him and Frank 

winced, because he had never seen such a friendly gesture 

from her before. Her father continued: ..Tm sure you all 

know, what is our topic today. Tve bought this village some 

years ago, anyhow, some of the houses, in order to create a 



103 



retreat for all, who have pure hearts and want to fight 

against the global system of enslavement. Since then, we 

have achieved a lot and this former ghost town has been 

made to a halfway habitable place again. We have our 

peace here - so far. 

However, I have the impression, that many of us meanwhile 

enjoy this calm life so much that they have forgotten, what 

the true sense of this base is. The sense is to have also a 

place for a free life, for those, who still know, what freedom 

really is, but Ivas is more than that. It is a place of 

resistance against the World Government. 

The last months have been calm, we have behaved calmly. 

We have renovated our village and have secured our 

subsistence, what is essential before you start a great fight. 

This phase is finished now, and the question remaines, how 

we can bring back freedom to our brothers and sisters in our 

old homelands. The fight must begin now!" 

A short applause from the about 100 persons in the large 

barn followed. Frank was staring into space with blank 

expression. 

„Most of you, who are here today, live in Ivas. Others are 

from the outside. Andrej is here, from the "Russian Patriotic 

Section", Robert and William from the organization „Free 

Britain", moreover our friends from Belgium, better from 

Flanders. Further, Baptiste and Hugo from France. And also 

comrades from Scandinavia have visited us. 

Apart from this, I don't want to forget Soheil and Nirvan, the 

rebels from Iran, because they probably have the longest 

way behind themselves. 

Unfortunately, our comrades from the Spanish „Citadel 

Group" had not been allowed to leave their country, and I 

hope they are fine. Well, I think that I haven't forgotton any 

other guests from outside!", said the village boss. 



104 



„Now I want to give a lecture on our actual topic: Today we 
talk about March the 1 st , 2029, when the World Government 
will celebrate the "Festival of the new World". This 
worldwide event, which takes place in Kiev this year, here in 
the sector ..Eastern Europe", is also celebrated in Paris, in 
"Central Europe". For that reason, the new governor of 
..Central Europe", Leon-Jack Wechsler, will come to the 
former capital of France, in order to open the ceremonies 
and military parades. 

The international media will report about this event, whereby 
the ceremonies in New York and Paris will be the politically 
most important ones, and will get the greatest attention." 
..That much is clear!", whispered Alf quietly. 
..Since the official takeover in the year 2018, the 
celebrations of the "Festival of the new World" have always 
been an enormous spectacle, that even excelled the soccer 
world championships and the Olympics!", said Wilden. 
..Even if the media have hushed it up in the last months, 
France is a country, which stands close to big chaos. The 
introduction of the "additional water consumption tax" in the 
last year has annoyed millions of people. 
Furthermore, the poverty of the masses is still becoming 
worse, as everywhere in "Central Europe". Meanwhile, the 
conflicts between the Moslem Algerians and the other 
immigrants, who have the majority in all big French cities, 
and the native population, has achieved an explosive 
extent. If the GCF occupation troops wouldn't press the lid 
on the cooking pot with outermost force, France would fall to 
pieces tomorrow", explained the rebel leader, while the two 
Frenchmen nodded approvingly. 

..Already in the last year, there have been social and racial 
riots in Paris and Marseille with almost 1000 deads. The 
police and the GCF have finally shot down the people 
without mercy. We all know the pictures", said Wilden. 



105 



„Anyhow, it has still become worse this year, as I have 
already expected it. More monitoring, more unemployed 
people, more homeless people, more crime and more war in 
the streets, as everywhere ..Central Europe", where the so 
called philanthropists give us their political benedictions!" 
„He talks about politics again...", groaned Frank. 
..What will we do now? What will we do on 01. March 2029, 
when probably between one and two million spectators 
come to Paris?", asked Wilden the others. 
„lf the media and so many people are there, why don't we 
make any spectacular actions? With transparencies for 
example...", suggested a villager. 

„We plan a lot of such things, and we don't need any foreign 
assistance for these simple campaigns. We have enough 
men in France for actions like that!", explained one of the 
Frenchmen and shook his head. 

..Perhaps, we should join the crowd and...", said a young 
man. 

..Wait!", interrupted him Frank suddenly. „We kill that Leon- 
Jack Wechsler! Than we would set an example!" 
Wilden and the others turned their heads toward the dark 
corner, from where the bold proposal had come. Frank 
stared back and kept a straight face. 
..Forget about that, boy! Around Wechsler is a security zone 
of two kilometers, full of GCF soldiers, agents and cops!", 
said a man and looked disdainfully at Frank. 
„No more nonsens! Just shut up!", hissed Alf nervously. 
..Well, but throwing leaflets at the soldiers during the parade, 
or stick out the tongue at the governor, is just pathetic!", 
returned Frank. „l will kill this son of a bitch! Who comes 
with me?" 

Now Wilden intervened, because many visitors became 
angry: „We should be realistic. There is no place here for 
macho behaviour, boy!" 



106 



„l'm not joking! Absolutely not!", screamed Frank. „l know 

that it is dangerous, but I don't fear death. Thus, who wants 

to follow me? Let us kill this motherfucker!" 

„Enough, Kohlhaas!", yelled Wilden. 

„Who are you, young man, that you have such a big mouth? 

You are hardly a few days here and you already play the big 

gorilla!", insulted him a young woman from the other corner 

of the room. 

..That's right! You are that crazy guy from the holo cell. And 

there, your brain has been damaged!", shouted someone in 

Frank's direction. 

„We don't need your show, boy!", it came from the side. 

„Now, shut up! This is just embarrassing!", railed Alf and 

nudged Frank. 

„l am Frank Kohlhaas! I say it now, in front of all of you, 

although I don't know the most of you very well. I will go to 

Paris to kill this fucking Wechsler, if you give me the 

weapons and the equipment. Maybe I die! So what? I just 

give a shit on that! 

I swear, by my honour and my name, the good name of my 

father and my sister, who were murdered by people like this 

bastard Wechsler. If I change my opinion tomorrow, then I 

beg you, to shoot me, because then I have no right to life 

anymore!", screamed Kohlhaas. 

Baumer sighed and held his head. Others looked 

disbelievingly at Frank. Nevertheless, some of the villagers 

seemed to be fascinated by the young fanatic. Julia Wilden 

belonged to the latter group, as Kohlhaas hoped. 

„The guy is crazy!", Frank heard someone say. 

Wilden tried to interrupt Frank's lecture: ..Well, I would like 

to tell you a little more about the political situation. Frank, 

just shut up now!" 

But the young man had not finished yet: „l have to say 

something to you glorious rebels! And you shall listen to my 



107 



words: I WILL KILL LEON-JACK WECHSLER! Or the cops 
will kill me! I mean it. If necessary, I will go all alone. It 
would only be nice, if one of you brave warriors could give 
me a map of Paris. If I should have changed my opinion 
tomorrow, then you have to kill me! I ask you again: Who 
comes with me?" 

A loud mutter went through the barn. Alf looked 
embarrassingly at the ground and tried to explain his 
neighbor that Frank could also be "normal". 
It took some minutes for Wilden to restore silence. 
Meanwhile, the young man had gone back to his corner 
again and seemed to have calmed down. 
„Mannomann!", hummed Baumer. ..Everyone here reputes 
you as a total crank now. Killing Leon-Jack Wechsler? Such 
an imbecility!" 

Alf s friend didn't answer and just looked at him with cold 
eyes, then he grinned grimly. For the rest of the meeting, 
which lasted not much longer anymore, Frank behaved 
calmly, giving a black look to everyone, who seemed to 
doubt about his fanatical resoluteness. 
The two Frenchmen, Baptiste and Hugo, who obviously 
belonged to a patriotic group from Northern France, briefly 
explained, what they had planned for the day of the festival. 
They were sure that the masses in the capital of former 
France would be dissatisfied and rebellious enough, to go 
on the barricades. Some Islamic groups from Paris had also 
agreed to a temporary pact with the organization of the two 
Frenchmen, although both sides actually were sworn 
enemies. But on this particular day, they would fight against 
a common opponent, the World Government, and so they 
had put their differences aside this time. However, they just 
postponed their fight for the supremacy in former France. It 
was not improbable that the new governor of ..Central 
Europe" was awaited by the hate and the displeasure of big 



108 



parts of the population, but whether they would dare it, to 

carry their discontent on the streets, was another question. 

Leon-Jack Wechsler and the whole World Government were 

internally hated by many people, but the powerful had an 

enormous might, which the masses feared with good 

reason. 

The police force and the monitoring functioned. The GCF 

troops, which mostly consisted of mercenaries from 

overseas, who had no closer relationship to France or 

Europe and therefore shot at the native population without 

hesitation, if they received the order to do this, were 

numerous. Furthermore, they had deadly weapons, 

particularly to strike down large crowds. 

Soldiers of French origin mostly served in countries far 

away and not in their homeland. So they also had no 

connection to the people they had to control. Like that were 

the rules of the New World Order. 

GCF soldiers of German origin preferentially served in this 

time as occupying forces in the Near East or in Africa, while 

old Germany was occupied by GCF soldiers from Africa, 

Asia and other regions. And so it was everywhere. 

When the meeting came to an end and the visitors left the 

large barn, Frank was examined by many of them. Alfred 

Baumer was still confused. His fellow seemed to stand 

close to insanity. Julia Wilden finally came to him and 

tapped the young Kohlhaas on the shoulder. 

„Hey, Frank!", she said quietly. The rebel turned around and 

stared at her. 

„What the hell was that? You know that your idea is just 

madness! What is wrong with you, Frank?", she asked 

quizzically. 

„rm all right, Fraulein!", answered Frank harshly. 

„However, you will not really try this?", she returned. 

„Of course I will try it! Do you think, Tm a twaddler?" 



109 



„None of us would come only hundred meters in the vicinity 

of Wechsler", remarked the woman. 

„This will be my problem - and not yours! You can organize 

a city map of Paris for me, this would be a great help, 

Julia!", answered Kohlhaas and regarded Wilden's daughter 

with a vacant expression. 

„l know, you think that many of the other villagers don't take 

you to be a real rebel - and it is also partly correct - but 

such a suicide operation is just senseless", said Julia, trying 

to change his mind. 

„lf you say so. It is my life and my concern. I don't force you 

to come with me. Hand out your leaftlets or spray some 

philosophical slogans on the walls. I will do, what I think is 

right!", said Frank. „The others may think, what they want. I 

don't care about these idiots. They want to be rebels? I can 

only laugh! Well, the release operation of Alf and me was 

not bad, but we have to do more things like that. Those 

fucking guys, who destroy our lives, just think that they are 

invulnerable! But they can also bleed and die like all other 

people too. It's time to hold them accountable for all this 

shit! It's time to make them pay for all their crimes, Julia! 

And I will show those fucking pigs, that they can also be 

switched off. I will go to your father tomorrow and then I will 

ask him, to give me the necessary equipment for my 

operation!". 

„But...", whispered Julia. 

„l have to go now!", said Frank and left the young woman 

alone. 

The following days were full of disputes with Alf and Wilden, 
who meant that the Frank had made a fool of himself. 
Nevertheless, he didn't listen to them and became 
obsessed by the thought, to kill the governor of ..Central 
Europe", in order to point the way for others. And some of 



110 



his proposals were not stupid at all, although they appeared 
crazy and daring. 

„You want to enter Paris as a visitor with your falsified 

Scanchip. Okay, that could be possible", said Wilden. 

„Border controls had already been abolished, since the 

times of the European Union, and today, in a time of free 

trade, they would be even inconceivable, from the economic 

point of view. The close monitoring of the masses is much 

more effective." 

Yes, I know!", answered Frank impatiently. „How can I get 

through this security zone to shoot Wechsler? Should I take 

a sniper rifle to kill this guy?", asked Kohlhaas. 

„This will be difficult, because in the periphery of at least 

one kilometer, security forces will be everywhere, also on 

the high buildings and of course inside the zone", replied the 

village boss. 

„When will the police establish this secured area?", asked 

Frank. 

„Maybe two or three days before the event. But I don't 

believe that you could hide there somewhere, boy!", 

returned Wilden. 

J will find a way. If they kill me or not, is not important for 

me anymore. I only have to get in that zone - this would be 

enough", murmured Kohlhaas. 

"Well, you could support us with other operations in a much 

better way, Frank. Have you ever thought about that? 

Operations, that will not end in suicide", Wilden tried to 

explain. 

„Perhaps! But I have already said it in front of all the men at 

the meeting, and now there is no more truning back. But 

how?", said Kohlhaas thoughtfully. 

„As you may think fit... ", groaned the village boss. 



Ill 



„lf there is no way to reach this scumbag at the surface, 

then I must look for an alternative...?", pondered Kohlhaas. 

„But I have just no knowledge about this damn city." 

„What do you mean?", Wilden was baffled. 

"If I wanted to make such a job in Berlin, my hometown, I 

would come through any tunnels, old underground pits or 

something like that", said Frank. 

„You would find a lot of tunnels in Paris. This city is more 

undermined than each anthill, there are probably 

innumerable underground entrances, particularly in the 

inner part of the city", admitted Wilden. 

„Who can give me more informations about this? These two 

Frenchmen are nevertheless still here for a few days, 

right?", mumbled Frank. 

„Well, I hardly believe that they know every tunnel under 

Paris. In addition, they are from the north of the country. But 

there are construction plans of tunnels and sewers in the 

data bases of the administration or on the Internet. You 

should ask HOK! 

Each official document must also be published in English. 

This is a regulation. Thus, you don't even need to be able to 

understand French. Just ask HOK! Nevertheless, it's a 

completely crazy idea! Either you will get lost in these holes 

or they will shoot you. But you will never reach Wechsler!", 

prophesied Wilden. 

But he just underestimated Frank's imaginativeness and 

obstinacy. Only a few hours later, after he had reconsidered 

and noted, which weapons and articles of equipment had to 

be used for the assassination, Kohlhaas ran to HOK and 

forced him to look for some plans of the underground of 

Paris. 

While Frank passionately told HOK his plans, the computer 

expert just groaned, because the young hotspur had 

disturbed him during an important work. But then he did 



112 



Kohlhaas the favour and entered the world of data bases 
and electronic construction plans. HOK fortunately was a 
researcher nature and after approximately half an hour, he 
was also fascinated by his new task. 
It lasted a while, until he had found so informations. Paris 
was really more hollowed out than all the other cities in 
Europe. Meanwhile, about 16 million people lived in the 
metropolis and the city drowned in its own dirt and stench. 
Since 1850, when most of the tunnels and the 
comprehensive metro system had been built, the old capital 
of France stood on a network of mile-long corridors. 
Already in 2010, the underground system could not be 
extended anymore, because the workers had already found 
old tunnels and holes everywhere . 

After the world economic crisis in 2012/13 and during the 
following years, many metro lines had been closed in 
consequence of substantial budget cuts. After 2018, it had 
become worse, what still annoyed the people of Paris down 
to the present day. 

Today many old underground tunnels were unused and led 
into nowhere. The tunnel system was so enormous, that 
even official construction plans could not completely show 
the numerous tunnels below the city. Nevertheless, HOK 
found some interesting data bases and struggled through 
mountains of new informations. The hours passed and the 
thick man was soon completely absent-minded again. 
„Until tomorrow, I will search for some nice tunnels and 
corridors for you, which will lead you that close to 
Wechslefs speech desk, that you can tickle his feet. 
If the plans are still relevant at all, I can't say, Frank. And I 
can't give you a warranty. Much has changed in the last 
years. Many old, abandoned tunnels and so on...", he said 
casually. 



113 



Kohlhaas waited for results and already imagined details of 

his assassination attempt in his mind. 

„Have fun with all these plans, my friend. I will go now. 

Thank you!", answered Frank and left HOK's house with a 

happy smile. 

After approximately one week, HOK and Frank had 

prepared a detailed plan, which should lead the rebel 

through a tunnel system of almost three kilometers. 

The avenue of Paris, which had been called „Avenue de 

Champs Elysees" in former times, had been renamed in 

„Avenue of Humanity" in 2018, and the triumpal arch, one of 

the old landmarks of the city, had been torn down in 2019. 

Just as the Eifel tower, which had been dismantled one year 

later. In place of the "Arc de Triomphe", the new rulers had 

built a modern art building called "Temple of Tolerance", a 

giant dark pyramide. 

Moreover, the "Avenue of Humanity" had intensively been 

converted, whereby many of the old historical houses had 

been replaced by concrete buildings of an "unity-look". 

After initial protests, the citizens of Paris had become 

accustomed to them. They simply had other problems than 

worrying about the preservation of old landmarks or houses. 

And there were still further plans to separate the city more 

thoroughly from its old face, because modern slaves did not 

need an own identity or senses of home. 

The parade of the GCF occupation troops should take place 

on 01.03.2029, at the „Avenue of Humanity", just as other 

events to entertain the crowd. A part of the long, old street 

would be a fenced off, accessible for nobody. About thirty 

meters in front of the thing, called „Temple of Tolerance", 

the speaker's plattform, where Leon-Jack Wechsler would 

open the ceremonies, should be erected. 

The masses, that would fill the streets around the security 

zone, should see the politician only on big video screens, 



114 



which would be set up to hundreds along the "Avenue of 

Humanity" and in the whole city. 

What was allowed, to be admired from the proximity, were 

the GCF soldiers and the policemen, who would 

demonstrate strength, marching down the boulevard. 

The governor of the administrative sector ..Central Europe" 

would bring the "great message of humanity" of the New 

World Order, and the parade of the security forces and the 

military would show the people, that it was healthier to 

believe that message - in case of doubt. 

It was a tremendous insanity to go to the dirty metropolis to 

kill this polititian. Nevertheless, Frank Kohlhaas bred it in his 

mind. He had nothing to lose. It could nothing happen worse 

than dying. 



115 



Procrastination is the Thief of Time! 



..Procrastination is the thief of time!" 
..Procrastination is the thief of time!" 
..Procrastination is the thief of time! " 

Frank still fed his illusion and repeated this slogan like a 
prayer. In the following days he was just concerned about 
the fact that he would become scared. But retreat was not 
allowed anymore, he had to remain hard and Kohlhaas did 
also not allow his resoluteness, to get any cracks. 
„l_eon-Jack Wechsler must die... die... die!", he recited 
himself again and again. 

Meanwhile, Alf got out of his way most of the time. 
Nevertheless, he was fascinated by the idea of creeping 
through tunnels get into the security zone. And sometimes 
he even thought about following his crazy buddy to Paris. 
To kill the governor and to cause riots in one of the most 
important cities of the continent, was a great chance and 
could have sweeping political consequences. 
Furthermore, the possibility of participating in a "big thing" 
was offered to him. In this point, he had to agree with Frank. 
However, he also had nothing to lose and what kind of rebel 
would he be, if he bitched out now? 

The days passed and Alfred could hardly sleep. Should he 
really join the operation? But how? Creeping through 
tunnels, then emerging and shooting at Wechsler? 
That would be their certain death, even if it functioned. They 
just wouldn't survive this. Escaping from the security zone 
would simply be impossible, Alf was sure. He had to talk to 
Frank, because the plan was still not perfect. 



116 



The first week of the new month had almost passed and hail 

came from the dark sky outside. Frank and Alfred sat in the 

kitchen and had a hard day behind them. Kohlhaas had 

mused for days and was still not completely content. He had 

asked HOK for more construction plans of sewers and other 

tunnels below Paris, but he had come to no solution. 

Alfred ended the silence. „You have said, we can come to 

you, if we want to join the operation, right? Okay, I have 

thought about it and came to the decision, not to let you do 

this crazy job alone, Frank." 

„Aha, this sounds good to me. You really want to help me?", 

returned Frank with a smile. 

Alfred looked back and said: „More or less, but I need some 

more informations about all this. The idea with the sewers 

and tunnels seems to be not bad at all and HOK has 

already given some plans to you. Did you meanwhile study 

them sufficiently?" 

„Yes, I did!" 

"Anyway, that's not enough!", answered Alf. 

„Thus, your plan is to come somehow into the proximity of 

that "Temple of Tolerance", through these sewers or 

tunnels, right? And then you want to shoot at Wechsler?", 

asked Baumerwith surprise. 

„About that!", said Frank. 

"But you should know, that the entrances to the sewers in 

the direct proximity of the event, will all be weld shut by the 

police. I think, two or three days before the spectacle", 

returned Alf. 

Frank recognized that his friend had found a weak point of 

his plan: „You are probably right. I already have seen this on 

television, in some reports. This could be! Shit!" 

„You have to modify your plan. In addition, I don't have the 

desire to join a suicide operation. And it would be nothing 

else, if we suddenly come out of a hole and shoot at the 



117 



governor, who is surrounded by countless cops," said 

Baumer thoughtfully. 

„Maybe you Ye right...", answered Frank and moaned. „Then 

make a proposal, Baumer!" 

„Hmmm...perhaps..." 

Alfred took a slip, on which he had written something. He 

hesitated for some seconds and sifted the small note for the 

most important details of his plan. 

Finally he said: „We go into a channel, a tunnel or 

something like that, in the distance of two or three 

kilometers - in an insignificant side street, by night. 

I have to study HOK's documents. However, we need 

something else than an usual handgun, which we couldn't 

use at all in the worst case, if the security forces really had 

locked all the gully covers around the "Temple of Tolerance" 

before the event." 

"Get ready with you speech!", said Kohlhaas. 

J talk about an explosive charge, that we place under 

Wechslefs ass and blow him up in front of the eyes of the 

world public. I thought of NDC-23. The stuff is easy to carry 

and highly concentrated. Twenty kilograms are sufficient, to 

destroy a part of the canal system, the square in front of this 

so called "Temple of Tolerance" and of course this fucking 

governor! 

We could transport it in backpacks into the tunnel system 

and bring it to explode below the speaker's platform. Of 

course, we will use a time fuse so that we can escape 

before the big burst!", explained Alfred and seemed to be 

enthusiastic. 

„Damn! A great idea!", said Frank and banged on the table. 

John or one the others can organize the explosive for us. 

Above all, the Russians sell a lot of NDC-23 on the black 

market, mostly remnants of the dissolved army of the former 

GUS", added Baumer. Frank just smiled and said nothing. 



118 



..Moreover, we must assume that some tunnel entrances 

remain blocked for us, either because workers of the public 

utilities are still working there, or because of the security 

forces, that had locked them", explained Alf. 

Frank scratched his head and cogitated. Alfred's plan 

pleased him. 

„We need some blowtorchs to open locks or grids, if 

necessary", remarked Baumer. „We have a few in the 

village here. It is no problem to take them." 

..Brilliant!", said Frank enthusiastically. 

Alf continued: „And there is one more thing. If they scan the 

tunnel system with infrared in the morning before the event, 

we should have some cooling covers to cloak ourselves. 

John can obtain them. Nevertheless, the whole operation is 

really dangerous. We must consider everything!" 

..Well, we should go to Wilden, and tell him about our plan. 

Perhaps he has some more good ideas", praised Frank his 

friend. 

Soon after, the village boss evaluated the plan, which had 

been introduced to him by both men this time. Julia Wilden, 

who stood next to her father, also seemed to be impressed. 

Frank smiled at her and enjoyed her admiration. 

Still much more had to be done, and next, the men went to 

John Thorphy. The Irishman felt disturbed and openly 

expressed his displeasure, when the two rebels tried to 

send him out to buy the equipment for them. But finally, 

Wilden gave him the order to organize the explosive and the 

other things. 

Where John Thorphy had found the NDC-23, he did not tell. 

But it lastet only three days until he returned with over 

twenty kilograms of the highly explosive material and gave it 

to the two men with a big smile. 

..Procastrination is the thief of time!", thought Frank, as he 

regarded the plasticine-like mass, packed up in blue bags. 



119 



His deadly idea slowly took shape, and in his mind he 
already saw the hated politician torn to pieces on the 
asphalt in front of the "Temple of Tolerance". 
His dark, delusional resoluteness couldn't even be 
destroyed by sleep disturbances, panic attacks or 
nightmares anymore. He was eager to bring death to this 
man and also to each other person, who would dare to 
stand in his way. Frank just ignored the fright, that was 
lurking in the night, and looked forward to the great day of 
retribution. 

Nothing should ever avert his revenge on this cruel world, 
as Frank covenanted. Sometimes he went down in the dark 
cellar, where Alf stored the explosive. All the rooms here 
were cluttered with rotten boards and old crates. There was 
not even a light switch. And while his friend slept, the young 
rebel crept secretly down the stone stairs and bent over the 
blue bags, which were sealed with adhesive tape, stroking 
them with a dearful smile like a mother her newborn child. 

Until middle of February, Frank and Alf spent their time with 
the intensive study of construction plans. HOK visited them 
several times, in order to give them still more current and 
detailed recordings. 

They planned, on recommendation of the computer 
scientist, to enter the underground labyrinth at the "Avenue 
of Saint-Ouen", nearly two kilometers away from the 
security zone. 

Here were endless dark tunnels and some of them lead 
directly to the square in front of the "Temple of Tolerance". 
Nevertheless, the trip to the underworld of Paris was 
insanity. Apart from the fact, that they could not build on the 
documents of the authorities of the city, there was also the 
possibility to get lost in the dark corridors. Some tunnels had 
been closed many years ago, or were just collapsed. 



120 



Moreover, even the older employees of the city 
administration did not know all the paths through the earth 
anymore. Further, Frank and Alf didn't want to make the 
acquaintance of the notorious catacombs of Paris. Those 
dark places were a necropolis, as there was no second in 
Europe. 

Here rested the bones of over five million people, who were 
brought into the darkness below the city, because of lack of 
space on the cemeteries in the early modern times,. 
Therefore, the former French capital stood on a gigantic 
grave field. Alf often talked about these chambers of the 
dead below the city, which were redundant with bones up to 
the ceiling. Frank, who always said that he was not afraid to 
die, became a bit scared, when he thought about these 
spooky places. 

„May the dead of Paris forgive us, that we enter their realm. 
Their brothers in the netherworld, who look complaining 
down at this earth, because their life was so early 
terminated by the new rulers, will thank us, if we revenge 
them!", philosophized Kohlhaas. 

However, there was a lot to organize now, far away from all 
ghost stories about catacombs and dark holes in the 
underground of Paris. Meanwhile, time pressed. 
Frank and Alfred should be brought to Compiegne, in the 
northeast of Paris, by an airplane, in order to penetrate the 
city from there, behaving like harmless tourists. All the 
planes in Ivas were registered and had completely 
inconspicuous owners. Therefore, this approach seemed to 
be clever. 

Then, the two assassins wanted to drive from Compiegne to 
Paris with a hire car. Their Scanchips were falsified and 
soon they would see, if HOK's abilities had been good 
enough. At least, the journey to Paris should start one week 



121 



before the 01.03.2029, so that enough time remained, to 

explore some tunnels in the nights before the event. 

The shabby hotel, in which Frank and Alfred should wait for 

the great day, had already been chosen by HOK. He had 

booked a room for them on the Internet, and had also 

contacted the hire car company in Compiegne. 

All had to be planned to the smallest detail, because there 

was no time to waste and uncertainties could become a 

deadly disaster. 

The takeoff of the small transport aircraft, which officially 

belonged to Mr. Artur Burzius, a Russian insurance buyer, 

should start from Ivas on 19.02.2029 at 9.00 o'clock. Then, 

the two resistance fighters would enter the lion's den. Still 

two days remained. Time was ticking away and Frank had 

to admit, despite all frights of the holo cell and the strokes of 

fate he had overcome, that he was scared. Scared to death. 

Afraid to die soon. 

He tried to hide his nervousness, but his whipping with the 

foot, when he sat at the kitchen table, and his talking while 

he was dozing, betrayed him. 

However, his friend felt the same. Alfred mostly ran through 

the village in these days, speaking at each possible 

opportunity with Wilden, who tried to encourage him. 

Sometimes, he sat in the brightly illuminated kitchen during 

the whole night, with a cup of tea and a cigarette, just 

looking out the window. Baumer did not sleep very much 

and waited eargerly for the start of the operation. 

Julia is at the door, Frank!", called Alf from the side room, 
while his roommate tried to concentrate on a political 
brochure. Dusk was already falling outside. The journey to 
the west was set for 9.00 o'clock tomorrow. During this day, 
many villagers had come to the two men, to wish them all 
the best for the operation. Several women had brought 



122 



cakes and food. Even HOK had visited them again - with 

some more construction plans in his hands. 

Steffen de Vries, the Belgian, who lived with his family in 

Ivas since four years and had to fly the two rebels to 

Compiegne, had also been there for several hours. 

Meanwhile, de Vries was also more than nervous. 

Tm coming!", answered Frank and left his bedroom. 

Baumer had already led Julia in and went with her into the 

kitchen. She was pleased to see Frank and shook his hand. 

„l just wanted to wish you good luck!", she said and seemed 

to be concerned and gloomy. 

„Thanks! We will need it!", answered Alfred and took a deep 

breath. 

„Thanks, Julia! It's just nice to see you!", returned Frank. 

..However, still a last beautiful sight, before we will enter the 

spooky underground." 

Now, the pretty woman smiled shyly and didn't find the right 

word for a short moment. 

J wanted to...", she stammered. „lf it will be too 

dangerous. ..however.. .and you have no chance to reach 

Wechsler, you can always stop the operation!" 

Julia stared with her sad eyes at the table surface. Frank 

turned to the window and said: „We will see! When we are 

in Paris, there will be no more turning back!" 

„l meant... ", she added. 

„Don't worry! We will be successful, and if not, the 

catacombs are near and we will meet a lot of dead buddies", 

joked Alf with a cynical undertone. 

Julia Wilden obviously found this not very funny and shook 

her head. „Don't say such stupid things!", she spoke quietly 

and seemed to be close to tears. Kohlhaas enjoyed it, to 

see her in such a condition, if he was honest. Now the 

beautiful Fraulein, who was always a bit precocious, 

showed some feelings. 



123 



But Frank still played the hard rebel: „We will return for sure, 

Julia! We will kill this asshole without mercy!" 

Then she said goodbye with tears in her eyes and shook 

Baumefs hand. Frank was even hugged by her. He was 

pleased that she treated him in such a way, and briefly, he 

was nearly inspired. But he checked himself and tried to 

think about something else, ignoring the pretty, young 

woman. 

„She likes you, Franky!", teased him Alf, after Julia had left 

the house. 

"No idea!", answered his friend with a shake of the head. 

"She is really nice!", added Baumer with a broad grin. 

Frank turned away from him, went to the window and stared 

at the squalid garden behind the house. It was dark and 

rainy outside. 

The two rebels were still awake for several hours. Now they 
were untwisted and nervous. This last night in Ivas, before 
the highly dangerous job in Paris, was terrible for Frank. He 
had weird dreams again, which afflicted him in the short 
phase of his sleep during the morning hours. He could 
remember just a few things on the next morning, when the 
Fleming, his pilot, awaked him with loud banging and calling 
at the front door: 

Frank walked through a strange dreamworld once more. It 
completely resembled the holo cell, in which he had 
suffered for eight long months. White, sharp neon light cut 
into his eyes and he trudged through the bright fog of light 
without a real goal. 

After a while, he recognized that it was his holo cell, but it 
appeared much bigger as he could remember. The walls 
could not be seen anymore and only the toilet and the hated 



124 



plank bed with its light-gray pleather stood in the middle of 

the white light. 

„Frank!", he heard the deep voice of an adult of man from a 

distance. „Fraaank!" 

He followed the call and soon faced a terrible sight. In front 

of him was an enormous spider net, full of thick, black 

spiders. Some hatefully stared at him with their glinty eyes, 

and their slimy mandibles twitched. Some of the creatures 

hissed, when he appeared in front of their net, others were 

busy with eating their prey. 

The enormous spider net, which seemed to broaden into the 

white illuminated sky, was full of screaming humans, who 

were clinging to thick and slimy threads. 

The young man came closer and saw now, who was in the 

claws of the ugly spider monsters. It were babies. It was 

Nico. They all were little Nicos. Nevertheless, their voices 

did not sound like the voices of babies, they were deeper. 

Voices of men, who were already adult. 

„Frank! Look at us!", yelled one of the babies, in whose flesh 

one of the spiders had bored its mandibles. „Look at us! 

Look at us!" 

The beasts munched and refreshed themselves with the 

warm blood of the little humans, while the babies called: „As 

you can see, Frank, the holo cell has grown! Can you see 

it? Can you see, how outstanding perfected it is? This cell 

does not know walls or borders anymore, because it covers 

the whole world. It has been improved greatly, hasn't it?" 

And the spiders continued to eat their victims. Soon they 

had turned away from Frank again, crept over the gigantic 

net and sucked and ate and devoured. 

Just look at us, Frank!", chorused the babies. Then it was 

again black in the head of the dreamer and he forgot, how 

the dream continued... 



125 



Frank and Alf packed their bags and Steffen de Vries 

helped them. Already in this phase of the operation, 

mistakes had to be avoided and at first, the list of equipment 

was checked off. 

Flashlights, explosive, pistols, close combat weapons for 

the case of emergency, meal rations, gumboots, army 

boots, construction plans of sewers and so on. The list was 

long and it lasted over one hour until the three rebels had 

finished their work. Before they went to the transport 

aircraft, Mr. Wilden suddenly came to them. 

„l wish you all the best, my heros!", he called. „Have you 

already heard the news today?" 

Wilden smiled and was gasping for breath, while Frank, Alf 

and the Belgian turned around: „No, we had other 

problems!" 

Japan!", said the gray-haired man. Japan has left the 

World Union! They want their old state back!" 

"Aha... ", answered Frank without any interest. 

J wanted to tell you that, before you fly away! There were 

big demonstrations in Tokyo and in many other cities of the 

country, one week ago. Governor Kaito Ikeda, the servant of 

the World Government, and his advisor Ron Baldwin, have 

resigned and have been expelled from the island. The new 

president of Japan is Haruto Matsumoto, the leader of the 

reform movement. Japan has moreover stopped all 

payments and tributes to the World Government. 

Furthermore, all the foreign diplomats and supervisors have 

been expelled from the country too. No country has dared a 

thing like that since 2018!", explained Wilden with 

unconcealed enthusiasm. 

Japan is at the end of the world and we are here", returned 

Steffen de Vries. 

„However, this is nevertheless a sign! The system is 

crumbling, my friends. Perhaps, other states will follow 



126 



Japan!", said the village boss, somehow disappointed that 

the three men had not fully understood the meaning of 

Matsumoto's rebellion. 

Then he added: „lf you read between the lines, beyond the 

lies and the agitation of the international media, you could 

believe, that even China and Korea are close to a revolt!" 

The three rebels, who were waiting for the flight to a deadly 

mission, just nodded and said goodbye to Wilden. 

Finally the village boss shouted: „You see, nevertheless, 

there is still hope! Our fight is not in vain! Good luck!" 

At half past ten in the morning, the small airplane rose into 

the air. Kohlhaas and Baumer looked wistfully back at the 

place of their provisional peace, the village Ivas. Then they 

disappeared on the horizon. 

Below themselves, they saw the landscape becoming 

smaller and soon the plane flew so high, that they could see 

the clouds. The hidden and open war, which raged below 

them on the ground, seemed to be forgotten for a moment. 

But it would not be vanished, when they would come down 

to earth again. 

They were silent for a while, also the Flemish rebel Steffen 

de Vries, Alf and Frank only knew volatilely. The Belgian 

lived with his two daughters, his son, his wife and his dog in 

the proximity of the village center, in a barely renovated 

house. 

It was just beautiful, here in the sky, much more pleasant 

than on the rotten earth below them. The nervousness in 

their minds briefly died down and Frank remembered the 

words of Mr. Wilden. 

„Japan!", he thought. „This land is far away and has nothing 

to do with us. Nevertheless...?" 

Perhaps it was a sign of hope, also for the rest of mankind, 

that one day the slave chains could be broken again. But it 

was so grim. The enemy had become more than superior in 



127 



this age. The mass media danced his dance of fraud and lie 

without exception, and they flew each day new attacks on 

the brains of the people, like on cities, which were already 

destroyed and still had to be devasteted. 

The power of finance, the whole monetary system, was in 

the claws of the enemy since a long time. And with this 

weapon, he had crushed the world piece by piece. 

The military had been bought by him and he sent out his 

dull mercenaries, who seemed to have no more own will, 

against everyone, who tried to resist him. 

What would be in the future? The hangman's noose around 

the neck of mankind tigthened with every passing year more 

and more. Something had to be done, there was no doubt. 

„Japan!", said Baumer with a lack of understanding. 

„Wilden, the great analyst of world politics. I don't know, 

what I shall think about that." 

„ln any case, better than nothing!", it came out of the cockpit 

with Flemish accent. 

..We'll see what happens now!", answered Frank. 

„l will tell you what will happen next!", growled Alf. "Now, the 

Lodge Brothers will demoralize these stubborn Japanese. 

Slowly but surely. As they always do, if states dare to act 

independently. 

It will begin with a worldwide press agitation, which will 

slander the Japanese to the bone. Then the economic 

boycott will come and in the end another war - or the 

Japanese will submit to the World Goverment again. That is 

an old and proven tactic." 

„But it could really be, that other countries will support 

Japan", returned Kohlhaas with a tang of confidence. 

„No, this is an illusion in my eyes!", answered Alf. ..This new 

president, this Matsumoto, should be a born samurai, in 

order to endure, what expects him and his people now. He 



128 



should have nerves like steel cables and should always 
sleep with one eye open." 

..Let's hope that he has the spirit of his brave ancestors", 
said Frank. 

Anyhow, Japan's act of restoring its independence, was an 
incomprehensible boldness from the point of view of the 
World Government. The country had gone through hard 
times since the great crisis in 2013. Its export trade and the 
industry had collapsed and the national indebtedness had 
been so gigantic, that the highly technicalised country had 
almost broken down like a house of cards. The Japanese, 
who had successfully copied the European technology for a 
long time, had lost their commercial relevance in a few 
weeks. 

Japan's economy, the cornerstone of its new national pride 
after the Second World War, had declined. After 2018, it 
had still become worse and the island had turned into a 
bubbling cauldron full of discontent. While a great part of the 
nationalistic and traditional Japanese population had 
postulated the return to the "old way", the care for their 
culture and the preference of Japanese interests, the 
puppet government of Kaito Ikeda, who had been assigned 
by the World Government, had done the opposite. So the 
tensions had risen with time. 

Steffen de Vries switched on the digitized radio and a song 
of the Cyberpop Hipcore star Evan Steele resounded out of 
the cockpit, which soon got on Frank's and Alf's nerves. 
Then the news followed. 

First came a message about the World President, who had 
opened an „One-World-Kindergarten" in Washington, telling 
the listeners, that inattentiveness or rebellious behavior, 
particularly among little boys, had to be fought with new 
drugs. Early childhood disturbances had to be wiped out by 



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the use of more pharmaceutical products and it was a holy 
assignment for all great humanists, to liberate the children 
of the world from these "diseases". 

The chief of the kindergarten was asked about this and 
seemed to be enthusiastic about the new medicines. Then a 
representative of a big pharmaceutical company gave an 
interview and announced that they intensively worked on a 
new drug programs for infants. 

The next topic was Japan and the newscaster said: „This 
morning, the World Government discussed further 
measures at their crisis meeting in New York, to handle with 
the fascist Japanese state. 

The World President and other prominent representatives of 
politics and economics, came to the decision, that the global 
community has to consider drastic measures, because of 
the increasing threat to all peaceable people. Matsumoto's 
Japan, where political dissidents are persecuted and 
murdered, has nuclear weapons and seems to be willing, to 
use them against the free world, as secret GSA reports 
prove. 

The governor of the administrative sector ..Eastern Asia", 
Mr. Kim Bo-Hung, and his advisor Mr. David Frost, 
announced a hard course against Japan during the 
conference. 

„We can not permit, that fascist polititians like Haruto 
Matsumoto become new cancerous ulcers in our peaceful 
and free world!", stressed the World President literally. 
GCF commander Edward McOwen said that a possible 
security zone has to be established around Japan and 
arranged the sending of warships of the GCF Pacific fleet to 
Eastern Asia. He exhorted all administrative districts and 
sub-sectors of the world community to watchfulness, in 
order to make fanatics and dictators like Matsumoto 
innocuous, before they become too powerful. The plan of 



130 



Japan, to become independent from world economy, and 
also the intend to abolish the interest system, the World 
President castigated as a ..perverse act of a mad gone 
dictatorship". 

..What did I say?", muttered Baumer and smiled sufferingly. 
„Now it starts!" 

„We can only wish the Japanese good luck for the future. I 
hope, they have a thick skin. Now we have our own fight!", 
replied Frank. 

The airplane flew over Poland and came nearer to the 
sector ..Central Europe", while time passed. Meanwhile, the 
three men were seized by a growing nervosity. 
They talked quietly with each other, as if they would fear to 
be intercepted by an enormous ear in the sky. And actually 
the curious ears and eyes around them became more 
numerous. The countless radar and alarm systems, 
supervising the airspace, let Frank think of the spider net in 
his nightmare. ..Central Europe" was near. 
But nothing happened. Nobody noticed the inadvertent 
guests, who penetrated the completely supervised area. If 
someone had really scanned the flier, he had only found an 
insignificant name in the registration card index of the 
machine. The big eye looked past them, although they were 
directly in front of its pupil. The hours passed and Frank, 
Alfred and Steffen breathed again, when they crossed the 
old border of France and no radiogram of the air traffic 
control was sent. Compiegne was close now and the 
airplane started its final descent. 

Finally, they reached the ground without incidents, but a 
feeling of biggest uncertainty tormented them, when they 
stepped out of the airplane. It was like in former times, when 
the Europeans could still afford vacation travels to the 
southern countries. If they had left the cold north and had 



131 



finally come out of the plane in the south, they had often 
been confronted with an unusual wall of stifling heat. Today 
it was different, because the wall, which waited for Frank 
and Alf here in the center of France, was not made of heat, 
it consisted of distrust. 

In his meticulous fashion, HOK had selected a small village, 
where there rebels should land. Far away from the attention 
of the natives. 

The Belgian had opted a large field near the village to land. 
Frank and Alf said goodbye and took their backpacks. Then 
de Vries took off again as fast as he could. 
For safety reasons he flew directly back to Ivas, because he 
didn't want to stay just one minute longer in such an 
extremely monitored zone. If he would have parked his 
plane somewhere in this rural area for seven days, the 
danger to be controlled by a police patrol would still have 
been small, but his nerves were raw. 
He had been relieved, when he had left the sector "Central 
Europe" with his Family in 2019 - never to be seen again. 
Perhaps, de Vries was a little too paranoid, and he also had 
a perfectly falsified Scanchip, but only the thought of being 
caught by the police filled him with panic. The Fleming had 
already been arrested in 2011, because of smuggling arms, 
and his name was still listed in all official databanks. Steffen 
and his family had suffered a lot in "Central Europe" and 
when he finally came back to Ivas, he was more than happy 
about this. 

Meanwhile, Frank and Alf stood on a field close to a small 
village near Compiegne - with full backpacks. Their hearts 
were pounding like mad. Now they were on their own, 
standing in the middle of enemy country. Therefore, it was 
important to behave inconspicuous. 
„We look like ramblers from the forest", muttered Alf. 



132 



..Let's go to the village and then we will drive to Compiegne 

by bus. We still have to make it to Paris today!", explained 

Frank and felt uneasy. 

They walked along a dusty road, which led from the landing 

zone directly to the small village, always looking around. 

The load was heavy, everyone had to carry about 25 

kilograms, and they just hoped that no policeman would find 

them strange. 

However, the two rebels had some ordinary clothes. Frank 

wore some blue jeans and a dark green polo. Furthermore, 

a light gray baseball cap, which was pulled deeply into his 

face, covering his head. 

Baumer also wore blue jeans, a brown turtleneck pullover 

and a reddish baseball cap with the symbol of the the 

"Cleveland dead Indians". Under the trouser legs of the two 

men, black army boots could be seen, because firm 

footwear was essential on this mission. 

Their warm jackets had been stowed in the backpacks. 

They also had sunglasses in their bags, but the weather 

was sulky today, and so sunglasses would have looked not 

very inconspicuous. 

On the way to the village, they didn't see many people. Just 

an old man, who passed and briefly examined them. Apart 

from this, there was not a soul to be seen. However, the 

village didn't pulsate of life. Everything looked poorly and 

only a few inhabitants were on the street. Just a little boy on 

the opposite roadside, who shouted something in French, 

gave them a bit attention. But Frank and Alf didn't mind him. 

They went to a bus stop and drove with line 38 to 

Compiegne. 

..Just cut and run!", they thought to themselves. The bus 

driver had warily looked at them, when he had debited the 

amount for the trip from their Scanchips, Frank was sure. 

Alfred, however, protested that this hadn't been noticeable 



133 



to him. Both were silent and tried to ignore the other 
passengers. They just sat in the last row of seats of the bus 
and were glad about everyone, who did not turn around to 
them. The bus driver talked with an older woman during the 
trip, and she probably told him her whole life story with wild 
gestures. „Oui!" and „Non!" it resounded through the shabby 
bus. Then the vehicle arrived at Compiegne. 

„Give me the DC-stick!", said Frank, after they had stepped 
off the bus. 

Anyhow they had already taken this small hurdle without 
any problems. Alfred ransacked his black backpack and 
pulled out a small data medium. On the DC-stick were the 
construction plans of the canalization of Paris and other 
files, also a map of Compiegne. 

„We are here, in the center. The rental car company is not 
far away. We can walk!", said Frank and nervously looked at 
Alf. 

Now they were surrounded by a lot of people. It was not like 
in the small village they came from. The two assassins were 
close to a shopping mile and masses of passersby were all 
over the place. But they didn't regard them, if at all only as 
tourists, and gave them no closer looks. Both men heard a 
tangle of languages beyond their ears, mainly French. 
Some children, probably Arabs, ran over the street and 
were screamed. At first sight, Compiegne was an ugly, gray 
and dirty city. At second sight, it was still more disgusting! 
The shopping mile was full of beggars and homeless 
people, who hung around in the corners, wrapped in covers 
and drunk. An old man roared loudly with a babbling voice 
and threw his bottle of cheap liquor on the asphalt. 
Somewhere, someone tried to play on a guitar and sang flat 
to get some Globes. It was just odious here. But where was 
it still pleasant in this age? Anyhow, Kohlhaas and Baumer 



134 



hit the road immediately to reach the rental car company in 
time. It was already after 17.00 o'clock and they had to 
hurry up. 

Frank noticed that the people around him walked with a 
stoop, as if they would have an interest to look like midgets. 
Their faces reflected poverty, many looked ill and pale. The 
two Germans were regarded by nobody and silently walked 
down the street. Shortly afterwards, they passed some 
abandoned shops. Probably there had been a flourishing 
retail trade in former times, but this was long ago. 
Meanwhile, the shopwindows of the dirty houses in the 
center of Compiegne looked dead and dusty. The downfall 
of a once beautiful city was obvious. 

What had remained, were the cheap supermarkets of 
„Globe Food" and „3X6 Market", which supplied Europe and 
North America with their bad food. 

Here, the homeless people clustered. They gestured, 
shouted, brought new liquor out of the supermarket and also 
vomited, when they were drunk enough. From the other end 
of the long shopping street, which had already lost its gloss, 
suddenly came a loud scream. A young man had stabbed 
one of the derelicts, people ran around and started to yell. 
Frank and Alfred walked faster, if a police car emerged. 
A little later, they had reached the rental car company, 
which lay in a halfdark backyard. A sturdy man with a beard 
waited for them behind a desk and lolled on his chair. The 
two rebels entered his office. Now it became thrilling, 
because Frank had to use his falsified Scanchip for the first 
time. 

„We want a car. We want to go to Paris!", said Alfred. 

The Frenchman, who probably had a lot of contact with 

tourists, looked up and fetched some papers. 



135 



„Oui! You want to go to Paris? Okay!", he answered and 

smiled. 

„Eh... Yes!", added Frank. „Which car do you want? A 

normally car, a combi, a van?", enumerated the renter. 

„Normal car!", answered Alf. 

„Which type?", asked the man. 

„Tell that asshole that it is all the same to me. I want to 

leave this place as fast as I can!", hissed Kohlhaas quietly. 

Alf nodded. 

„lt doesn't matter. Any normal car!", said Baumer. 

„Okay! Where are you from?", nerved the Frenchman. 

„Austria...from Austria!", stammered Frank. His heart 

pounded and his hands felt sweaty. 

„Ah! Aus Osterreich!", joked the man and tried to talk 

German. 

„Ja!", answered Alfred. 

The renter stood up from his chair and waved the two rebels 

nearer. 

„Come on!", he called. „Here! This car you can have." 

The friendly man showed Frank and Alf a black and no 

longer new "Lion". 

„ls der gut?", he asked, grinned and was pleased that he 

had made it, to speak German. 

„Yes! We take this car!", answered Frank, whose back 

began to hurt, because of his heavy load. 

„Okay, we go to the office. Than pay with Scanchip!", said 

the renter and walked off. 

"Now we will see...", whispered Alf. 

„How long do you want to lease the car?", asked the man 

from the next room and typed something. 

„Till the second of march!", said Alf. 

"Okay!", it came back. 

The Frenchman took the two Scanchips and pulled them 

over a reader. 



136 



„A car is 40 Globes a day, my friends!", he explained. 

„Okay!", breathed Frank and looked at Alf with fear in his 

eyes. 

The reader hummed quietly and for the two men the world 

seemed to stop turning for some seconds. The tension let 

their hearts pump faster and the adrenalin shot through their 

veins. 

Then the Frenchman looked up and smiled friendly: „Thank 

you, Mr. Eberharter and Mr. Willner. Take your car. Have 

much fun in Paris! Haben Sie vielen Spaft in Paris, mein 

Herren! Ha, ha!" 

The two rebels took a deep breath, walked fastly to their 

car, threw the heavy bags into the trunk and disappeared. 

The trip to Paris was more pleasant than in former times. 
There were no more traffic jams of considerable size, 
because the number of cars had increasingly been reduced 
in the last years. 

The breakdown of the automobile industry had begun in the 
year 2009 and in 2029, cars were luxury articles for the 
ordinary people. Who could hardly ensure, that there was 
enough food on his plate, had no more Globes to fund a car. 
Government officials and other higher earners, who still 
could afford a car, were an exception. Moreover, the prices 
for gasoline had drastically risen, particularly since 2018. 
Meanwhile, a car devoured big sums of money. 
Alternative energies, which could have replaced the 
gasoline, were still suppressed by the oil industry and the oil 
lords had still all the power, to exterminate any rivals in this 
sector. In 2019, a worldwide wave of liquidations by the 
GSA had hit many scientists and entrepreneurs, who 
wanted to offer free energies. So the traffic jams slowly 
vanished, and that was a real advantage on this day, 
because the two rebels could nearly "enjoy" their trip to 



137 



Paris. However, the motorways and streets were in a 
catastrophic condition. The administrative district ..Central 
Europe" used its income for more important things than to 
repair streets, for example, an improved monitoring or an 
extended armament. 

It lasted for a while, until the two men had found the hotel, 
which HOK had chosen for them. The streets of Paris 
appeared endlessly and darkly, and if one didn't know this 
labyrinth of lanes, it was easy to go astray. 
The hotel was called ..Sunflower" and was in the east of 
Paris. At 20,30 o'clock, the exhausted men finally arrived 
and parked their car behind the buidling. In the hotel, a 
pretty Frenchwoman with light brown hair and a girlish face 
was waiting for them. 

She was very friendly, but somehow busy and reticent. 
However, this was no problem, because unnecessary talk 
with other people had to be strictly avoided. Frank and Alf 
just told her, that they were tourists from Austria. 
The Scanchips functioned perfectly again. This was the way 
it should be. Then, the two men brought their heavy and 
explosive luggage to room 16 on the 2nd floor. Frank and 
Alf didn't see many other guests on this evening. Only an 
older woman, who greeted them in French. That was all. 
They closed the door behind themselves and fell on their 
beds, which were covered with a brown duvet. Soon this 
day had come to an end and the two rebels were just glad 
about this. 

Now they were in Paris, but the real trip to hell was still 
waiting for them. Nevertheless, Frank and Alf banished this 
fact from their minds at this evening. 



138 



Aux Champs-Elysees 



Aux Champs-Elysees 

Aux Champs-Elysees 

Au soleil, sous la pluie 

A midi ou a minuit 

II y a tout ce que vous voulez 

Aux Champs-Elysees... 

(French version, 1969) 



Oh Champs-Elysees 

Oh Champs-Elysees 

Sonne scheint, Regen rinnt 

Ganz egal, wir beide sind 

So froh, wenn wir uns wiederseh'n 

Oh Champs-Elysees... 

(German cover version, 1969) 



Oh Champs-Elysees 
Oh Champs-Elysees 
Sonne scheint, Regen rinnt 
Wechsler, du wirst mich nicht sehfn 
und bald vor deinem Schopfer stehf n ! 
Oh Champs-Elysees... 

(Modified version by Frank Kohlhaas, 2029) 



139 



Although they were in the middle of a strongly monitored 
city in ..Central Europe", and the enemy could lie in wait at 
each corner, Frank and Alf slept quite well. At first, Frank 
remembered this old French song, which was occasionally 
played on the radio. He changed the text of the German 
version in a way that it was suitable to the situation. 
Kohlhaas chuckled quietly, till the sleep had overpowered 
him. 

The beginning of the next day could not be avoided and 
there were only eight days till the "Festival of the new 
World", which should come over the old "Avenue de 
Champs-Elysees". 

There was still enough time to get an idea of the situation, 
and to explore the dark sewer tunnels, which they had 
selected as their way to the security zone. This procedure 
was also very necessary, because there was no room in 
their plan for unexpected incidents, collapsed tunnels or 
blocked ways. 

Frank and Alf spent the first day in Paris in their hotel room 
and avoided to leave the building. Only once, Alf bought 
something to eat in a nearby supermarket and told his friend 
about the dirty streets he had walked down. Apart from that, 
they spent their time with watching TV. The news, which 
were mostly agitation against Japan, brought them several 
outbreaks of rage. For the next day, more exactly for the 
next night, both men had planned something really bold. At 
two o'clock in the morning, the two rebels sneaked out of 
their hotel room and passed the abandoned reception. 
In the darkness of the next street corner, Frank hastily took 
his DC-Stick and opened the city map of Paris, which HOK 
had completed with additional informations. Like two 
shades, they crept around the houses and moved silently 
from one dark place to the next. It was raining and Alf 
suggested to postpone the operation to the following day, 



140 



but Frank did not want to waste anymore time and remained 
stubborn. „The Rue Lagille, it is not far away from here!", 
whispered Kohlhaas and showed his friend the map. 
„We are just crazy, man!", answered Baumer. 
„Of course!" Frank grinned. „And now, let's hurry up!" 
They went to a dark corner again and studied some 
construction plans. Meanwhile, the heavy rain had stopped 
and just dabbled quietly one the roofs of the houses around 
them. The streets were empty, only a few probably Algerian 
teenagers, who occasionally roared through the night or 
kicked against garbage cans and bus stop signs, could be 
seen in the distance. However, the two rebels were not 
noticeable to them. It was after three o'clock, when they 
finally reached their goal. 

..Let's look for an entrance here", whispered Frank. 
„Shit, what am I doing here?", sighed his friend and fetched 
a small crowbar, which he kept hidden under his jacket. 
..Come on now!", hissed Kohlhaas. 

A car drove past them and an old woman, standing at a 
brightly illuminated window, gazed at the dark and wet 
street. Frank and Alf had noticed her and decided to creep 
inconspicuously away. 

..Look! She can see us! We have to go!", growled Frank and 
Alf followed him. 

..Let's go to the next street, there are only some houses on 
one side. And there is an abandoned factory building, 
according to the plan", whispered the young man with the 
DC-Stick in his hand. 

Shortly afterwards, they reached a nearly perfect dark back 
alley. Now they felt unobserved. Anyhow, they could not see 
anybody, although they looked around several times and 
examined the environment with sharp eyes. A minute later 
they stood in front of a gully cover of iron. It was clearly 



141 



visible shown on one of HOK's maps of the city of Paris. 

They paused for a short moment. 

„This must be gully cover 344-GL-77003, if the map is 

correct", said Frank with a little enthusiastic face. „Down 

there? Now? Damn! " 

„No turning back, Kohlhaas!", answered Alf and already 

screwed up his nose. 

They lifted the manhole cover without problems and pushed 

it to the side. In front of them, an unfathomable black hole 

opened itself now. Only the outlines of some rusty rungs, 

leading into the darkness, could be recognized. 

„Fuck!", said Frank. 

Baumers nodded approvingly, then he held his flashlight 

downward. Dirt, rotten leaves and rust expected the two 

assassins down below. Moreover, a pungent stench. 

"Oh my God!", said Kohlhaas and took his rubber gloves 
and the breathing mask. "Do you have the blowtorch, Alf?" 
"Yes, sure! What are you waiting for?", muttered Baumer. 
Frank carefully climbed down the rusty ladder, while Alf was 
shining for him. After a few minutes, he had reached the 
ground. 

„Baaah!", it resounded out of the dark hole. 
His partner could imagine, what Frank meant. Then 
Kohlhaas shone for Alf, who crawled down into the 
unknown, little inviting environment of the underground of 
Paris. Baumer pulled the gully cover over the manhole, so 
that only a small gap remained. Down here, it was as 
disgusting as expected, and the channel did not make the 
impression, as if someone had ever cleaned it in the last 
twenty years. Wet heaps of dirt were piled up beside the 
rivlet, down to the feet of the two men. Some rats scurried 
away. Alf shone at them with his flashlight and the animals 
quickly disappeared somewhere in a stinking hole. 



142 



„l_ook at this, gentlemen of the World Government are also 

here!", joked Frank and pointed at the rats. 

Alf chuckled. „Here will be a lot of them. If you see a 

completely fat and bloated rat, then you can address it with 

„Mr. World President"!" 

Frank grinned and returned: „To compare these poor 

animals with the Lodge Brothers, is an insult for every rat!" 

The gossip took a bit of the uncertainty of the two rebels, 

who stood now in the middle of an ugly sewer tunnel. Frank 

looked at his map again and then they walked about 

hundred meters straightforward. 

They had to watch out for their heads, because the tunnel 

was not as tall as a man and surely already very old. Soon 

after, both men came to a bigger canal and heard a car 

above themselves. They were under a street. The little river 

of wastewater was a bit broader here, just like the roundish 

tunnel. Now they had to come to a decision. 

„lf the map is correct, we must go to the left", said Frank 

after a short look at the DC-Stick. 

„lt will hopefully be correct, otherwise we are fucked up", 

grumbled Baumer. 

„There is always a gully cover somewhere, that can bring us 

back to the surface", said Frank and walked forward, waving 

with his flashlight. Meanwhile, Alfred sprayed a red cross on 

the wall, in order to use it later as an orientation. 

The broader sewer tunnel still extended for about two 

hundred meters, then they came to a grid, clogged with dirt 

and leaves, which was completely rusted. There was no 

getting through. At least, not without a blowtorch, which 

Alfred fortunately had. It just took a quarter of an hour, then 

he had destroyed the rusty lattice. 

„What a work!", gasped Alf, when the dammed up water 

poured away between his legs with loud splashing. 



143 



The tunnel with the old grid still extended for two hundred 
further meters, then it ended in a larger room, where the rills 
of wastewater flowed together. Gray-green walls gazed at 
the two intruders and Frank was sure, that these old 
buildings already existed since many decades, maybe since 
centuries. 

Rusty wastewater pipes came from the ceiling of the room 
and on the wall was a sign with something in French on it. It 
was completely rusted too. 

At least, they could stand tall here. The way forked again in 
several directions. Frank looked at some files and was sure 
that they had to go into the opposite tunnel, Alfred trusted 
him and sprayed another red cross on the wall. 
„One of these sewer corridors had not been on our map, but 
this must be the right one! Above it, is the "Rue de 
Rothschild", as I think", explained Kohlhaas. 
Shortly afterwards, they walked through a narrow passage 
with some big holes in the walls. Spiders and rats welcomed 
them in this dark tunnel and it was smelling rancidly, despite 
the breathing masks. 

Frank and Alf had to crouch again and watched their heads. 
Meanwhile, they had walked this tunnel for about fifty 
meters, when they discovered a small source of light above 
themselves. Probably it was the light of one of the street 
lamps, which came through a little hole of a gully cover. 
They continued to creep through the stinking passage, then 
they stopped. A black water lode with a very narrow 
sidewalk on the side was in front of them, it was 
approximately one meter deep. In the distance of ten 
meters, rusty and damaged iron pipes led upward. Alfred 
marked the way and followed his friend along the stream. 
The water was not really deep, but it smelled foul and 
appeared somehow threatening. Frank thought that a 
terrible kraken would grab them with its tentacles to pull 



144 



them down into a bottomless black sea. It was just spooky 

down here and the stench crept out of every corner right 

into their noses. 

„lf I have counted my steps correctly, we have walked about 

600 or 700 meters yet", said Baumer. 

His friend looked at the digital map and nodded. At the end 

of the tunnel, they reached a relatively big room, which 

looked like a reservoir. Stairs led upward and a large pool 

with brackish water was in front of them. 

Frank illuminated the basin, then he said to Alfred: ..HOK's 

informations have mostly been correct so far. This reservoir 

or whatever it is, has been marked with a red spot on the 

map. You should spray a sign on the wall here!" 

After they had crossed the next tunnel, they had penetrated 

the underground labyrinth for more than one kilometer. 

Then they reached an area, which reminded them of a small 

hall. It must have been a part of the world-famous 

canalization of Paris, which had been built in the year 1850 

and during the following period. With a tang of admiration, 

the two men stopped for a moment and looked around. 

Then they continued their journey. 

„This must be pumps over there, right?" Alfred pointed at 

several enormous pipes with big handwheels on the side, 

that led into a deep water reservoir. However, they also 

were totally rusted, although they seemed to be still in use. 

J think so!", answered Frank. „This hall is probably in the 

east of the "Avenue of Humanity". I think the street is less 

than two kilometers far from here. This place is noticeable 

enough, we don't need to mark it." 

Alfred put the spray can with the red color back into his 

backpack and followed his friend. They went up some 

concrete stairs with a handrail on the side. Then they 

entered big room, that nearly looked like an underground 

hall and was carried by stone columns. Soon after, Frank 



145 



and Alf went to the right and walked through a narrow, long 

passage. 

..HOK's informations have been right yet", said Kohlhaas. 

„The construction plans of the canalization of the inner city 

seem to be still exact." 

„Well, the World Government has just taken over this 

ancient and singular sewerage. They would never build 

something for the people!", remarked Alf. 

„This sewer network has been built by hardworking men and 

not by dirty parasites!", hissed Frank and waved his friend 

nearer. 

„Look! There is a locked door. It obstructs the way, which 

we have to take", said Frank and pointed at a dark corner of 

the hall. Alfred fetched his blowtorch, but didn't destroy the 

door more than necessary, in order to arouse no suspicion. 

The tunnel beyond the locked door seemed to be endless, 

and after a while the two men discovered a hole in the wall. 

But there was no sewer corridor anywhere. 

„What is that? It looks, as if somebody had broken some 

stones out of the wall there, to dig a way", said Frank and 

illuminated the strange hole with his flashlight. „Over there! 

Look, there is another tunnel! Can you see it?" 

Behind the hole seemed to be a large shaft. In the last 

years, many homeless people had revamped the 

underworld of Paris at their own discretion and had 

extended the endless tunnel system. They had found a sad 

home here, in a time, when there was no more room for 

them at the surface. Kohlhaas looked at his DC-stick and 

read some files. It lasted nearly half an hour. In the 

meantime, Alfred sauntered boredly and nervously through 

the darkness. 

„This could be an abandoned metro shaft!", explained 

Frank. 



146 



„ln the inner city of Paris, the sewer corridors, tunnels and 
passages are sometimes hardly ten meters away from each 
other. I will take a closer look!" 

Alfred already saw the back of his friend, who jumped into 
the little cavity and soon shone with the flashlight in his 
direction. Kohlhaas called him out of the dark tunnel and 
seemed to be excited. 

„Come on!", he whispered. J can see tracks. You see, I was 
right!" 

Baumer also crept through the hole and the two men 
followed the tracks. Perhaps they could find an abbreviation, 
if this metro shaft was really the marked path on HOICs 
map. 

It lasted a while, because the abandoned tunnel extended 
over several hundred meters. Suddenly they heard a gasp 
somewhere in the darkness. They twinced and turned 
around, looking in all directions. The vein in Frank's temple 
began to pound and also Alfred nervously brandished his 
flashlight. 

The gasp could be heard again and the two rebels searched 
for the source of noise. Finally they saw a man, who lay in a 
dark corner. Probably a derelict, old and ugly, with a reddish 
beard, a shabby trench coat and some brandy bottles in 
front of him. The underground inhabitant blinked dazedly, 
when Baumer hit him with the blaze of his flashlight. 
„Ca va?", slurred the old man. 
"What?", stammered Frank nervously. 
"Ca va?", repeated the drunk. "Ca va?" 
"All right, grandpa! We will go now!", said Alf and turned 
around. 
"Ca va?" 

„Shut the fuck up, man!", hissed Frank toward the tramp and 
pulled his gun. 



147 



"Frank, what do you...?", asked Baumer. „Put that gun 

away!" 

„lf he tells someone that we have been down here or 

remembers our faces...", growled Frank excitedly and 

brandished his weapon. 

„This guy is just drunk. Leave him alone! Or do you want to 

kill him?", grumbled Alf at his friend. 

"Ca va?", burped the tramp again. 

"Shut up, you dirty old jerk! Don't make such a noise! 

Otherwise I will give you some „Ca va"!", screamed Frank 

and kicked the man in the side. 

The tramp whined quietly and whispered something in 

French. Kohlhaas pressed the pistol against his nose. "Just 

shut up, man! Or you won't survive this!" 

At this moment, Alfred pulled the furious young man 

energetically back and shoved him away. 

„What is wrong with you, Frank? Are you mad? That old guy 

will say nothing. Hundreds of homeless people hang around 

here and nobody is interested in the babble of an old tramp! 

Let's go back through the tunnels! It's time to disappear!" 

Frank slowly calmed down and put his gun away. He had 

nearly shot or stabbed this old man. Alfred gave him 

another stroke in the side and looked at him with lack of 

comprehension. 

„lt's enough for now!", he said. ..Otherwise, I will become 

angry! We disappear from here! Come on!" 

Frank just followed his friend and was silent. At once, the 

whole thing was embarrassing to him and Alfred 

reprimanded him again, with sharp words, to control his 

rage next time. „He was nevertheless nothing but a drunk 

grandpa, man!", he grumbled. 

„Okay, I may have overreacted...", answered Frank and 

looked away. 



148 



When they went back and crept again through the dark 
sewer system, Frank had to admit himself, that he had been 
close to kill this bum. That he was a safety risk, could 
perhaps be an argument, but only a superficial, because it 
was more than improbable that anybody would be 
interested in the twaddle of a drunk tramp from the 
underground of Paris. 

Nevertheless, he had almost killed this man, simply cut his 
throat, to let him rot in the darkness of the old metro shaft. 
Yes, it had almost happened, if Alfred had not stopped him. 
Frank thought about himself... 

Frank and Alf did not continue to explore the abandoned 
tunnel, in which the drunk man had lain. They crept again 
back through the hole and Kohlhaas took his DC-stick out of 
the backpack. Meanwhile, the two men were tired and Paris 
seemed to wake up above them. The honking of cars and 
the rumble slowly became louder. 

„lt probably goes on here. After the next two passages there 
is another room with reservoirs - or whatever!", explained 
Frank and went into the next tunnel. 

Alfred sprayed a red cross on the wall beside the hole, 
which led into the metro shaft and followed his easily 
excitable rebel friend. 

They still walked through stinking, but this time bigger sewer 
corridors, that had small and smelly rivers inside. Baumer 
looked at Frank's back and was still annoyed. Meanwhile, 
they had advanced still deeper into the underground. Finally 
they found a second underground hall, which was also hold 
by stone columns. The wastewater was collected here in 
large basins and was moreover rerouted in several 
directions. The basins were covered with large grids of iron 
and there was a footpath with some stairs, that was secured 
with a banister rail. Here one could probably come to a 



149 



control room. Several water pumps and pipes were all 

around them. On the walls, they recognized lamps and thick 

cables. Also some crates had been piled up there. This 

large and long room seemed to be used very often, because 

it was directly below the inner city. But around this time it 

was empty. The two men crept further forward. 

The old brick walls and the stone archs had something 

formidable. Now they recognized some iron stairs, which led 

up the wall and ended in a dark hole. At the end of the hall, 

there was a rusted steel door with a lamp above it. 

„Look at this enormous room! It had already been built in the 

good old times. Really impressing!", whispered Alfred. 

"Yes, a very big hall below the earth. Like the old „Moria" in 

that film. Just smaller...", said Frank. 

„Moria?", asked Baumer and was puzzled. „What do you 

mean with that?" 

„Well, there is an old fantasy film. My father had once 

brought me a video tape, when I was still a little boy. It was 

called „The Lord of the Rings". In that movie, the heroes had 

to pass an underground labyrinth too - and it was called 

„Moria". An giant underground city, built by the dwarves in 

the ancient times of Middle-earth...", described Kohlhaas. „l 

really loved that film!" 

„You are a dwarf too, ha, ha!", answered Alf and smiled. 

„Where are we here?" 

A look at the map seemed to be necessary now. Probably 

the steel door at the end of the vault led into a bigger area, 

from where the men could reach the "Avenue of Humanity". 

J hope that there will be no workers of the public utilities", 

whispered Alfred. It was already after five o'clock in the 

morning. „We must hurry up!" 

"Maybe the workers are more often here, than in the areas 

behind us", answered Frank quietly. 



150 



The steel door was secured with a digital code lock. Apart 
from that, the door looked old and was strongly rusted. The 
dark green paint on its surface had already peeled. Alfred 
started working immediately. He used his blowtorch, but the 
door was very solid. 

Baumer had to destroy a big part of the lock and needed 
nearly half an hour to open it. Meanwhile, Frank looked 
nervously around and hoped that nobody would disturb 
them. 

Finally, the steel door opened with a quiet crunch and the 
two assassins came into another room, which was equipped 
with some shelves and an electronic control desk. The old 
desk reminded them of the seventies of the last century, 
because of its design. It was a true relict of technology. 
Soon after, they left the area over some stone stairs and 
sneaked over a way with deep water reservoirs at the sides. 
Finally they disappeared again in one of the sewer tunnels, 
because Frank believed, that he had found this passage on 
HOK's map. Alf marked the way and they continued with 
their search. 

„The "Avenue of Humanity" is no longer far!", called 
Kohlhaas and disappeared into another dark hole. 
They walked about hundred meters straightforward and 
turned then to the left into a further sewer corridor. Again, it 
was one of the bigger tunnels, because a small river rushed 
beside them here. Now they saw numerous cables, rusty 
lamps, old pipes and also a faded sign with some warnings. 
A little later, both men stood in front of the next grid, which 
blocked their way. Alfred's blowtorch cut through the rusty 
metal and he threw a glowing piece of the grid into the 
water. After further hundred meters, a rat swarm, which had 
probably held a meeting here, fled from the blaze of their 
flashlights in all directions. Then the old brick ceilings 



151 



became higher and they reached a hall with an enormous 
water pump and a large basin in its center. 
While the two rebels felt safe in the narrow and dark sewer 
corridors, which led through the underground of Paris, they 
had the impression of being observed in the larger rooms 
and halls. 

Here they could have encountered another derelict or a 
worker of the public utilities. But it was still very early in the 
morning and nobody, except for the two rebels, seemed to 
be here. From a distance, they suddenly heard the 
thundering of an arriving metro. That was a good sign. 
„Charles de Gaulle!", whispered Frank and leaned against a 
large, gray column. „lt must be the underground station 
Charles de Gaulle. It is close to the "Temple of Tolerance". 
We have almost reached our goal!" 

The two men looked at the map again, then they climbed 
down an iron ladder and disappeared into a larger tunnel, 
which led them towards the source of noise. The way 
through this passage was long, monotonous and stinky. It 
seemed to lead many hundred meters into nothing. Frank 
reassured Alf that it was no longer far. 
Only one last sewer corridor had to be passed now. Then 
they would be directly below the square, that had once been 
decorated by the Arc de Triomphe. Again, they heard the 
noise of a metro, speeding through the earth. The two 
rebels had crept through the guts of Paris with success. 
Frank and Alf were proud. 

Beside them, a rusty ladder led upward to a dirty gully 
cover, where armies of black spiders were waiting for them, 
as a closer look proved. A little later it was done. The 
"Temple of Tolerance" was directly above their heads. Cars 
were humming and honking on the heavily travelled street, 
and they heard some people shout. Paris awoke. 



152 



Now it was time to disappear. Frank jumped up the ladder 

like a cat, climbed upward and lifted the gully cover to look 

over the square. Frank smiled grimly. They had finally made 

their way through the canalization - it was possible! 

From the corner of his eye Kohlhaas could recognize an 

outside wall of the ugly concrete monument, that looked like 

a huge pyramid. 

"We have arrived! Great!", said Frank joyfully and climbed 

down the ladder again. 

"Over there! Look! About thirty meters away from me!" 

Alfred pointed at the darkness of the sewer corridor next to 

him. "We will place the bomb there and send Wechsler to 

hell! The explosion will be strong enough to tear up a big 

part of the square in front of the monument!" 

"Yes! We will fucking do that!", muttered Frank with a 

poisonous smile. 

"And now we have to move our asses out of this 

canalization!", he added and both men headed back. With 

growing internal confidence and contentment, the two rebels 

slunk off. 

Occasionally, Frank had to study some construction plans 

again, but mostly his sense of direction was right. The red 

crosses, Alfred had sprayed on the walls, were a good 

additional help. Perfectly tired, stinky and filthy, they finally 

crept out of the sewer tunnel next to the abandoned factory 

hall in the early morning hours. Soon they would spend 

many hours in the canalization again. 

On their way back to the hotel, at dawn, no one noticed 

them. Indeed their clothes were dirty, but this was not 

unusual in Paris. There were a lot of filthy guys in the 

streets of this metropolis. A warm hotel room was waiting for 

them and it was silent on the unlit floor. They just closed the 

door behind them and looked forward to a hot shower. 

Frank and Alf had no longer had this luxury since years, and 



153 



both enjoyed the water, washing all the dirt and the stench 
away from their bodies. Then they quickly fell asleep. Soon 
the great day would come. The day of bloody revenge. And 
Frank looked forward to his payback... 



154 



The Lull before the Storm 



Frank and Alfred left the small hotel ..Sunflower" in the 

following days always alternating, in order to buy some food 

in the nearby supermarkets. They never ate in the small 

dining room of the hotel together with the other guests and 

avoided every contact to them. Only in their hotel room, they 

took their meals, which were usually produced by the 

"Globe Food" grocery chain. 

The television was on, all day long, and overwhelmed them 

with dull entertainment and repetitions of old movies, 

interrupted by the hourly news. In this context, it was 

interesting to see, how the World Government dealt with the 

renegade state of Japan. At an interval of a few hours, the 

newest reports came over the air. 

Japanese were interviewed, who allegedly had left the 

country, ..before Matsumotos firing squads could execute 

them", because they had fought for ..world peace" and 

"freedom". Ron Baldwin, the not very trustworthy looking 

advisor of puppet governor Ikeda, who had also been blown 

off the country, appeared in nearly each newscast. 

He whined and stressed his ..great sorrows about the new 

Japan", that he had learned to love soo much, since he had 

come to the island in 2020, as a manager of the Greenbaum 

Brothers Bank 

He tried to look dismayed and affected to convince even the 

ignorant viewers. Nevertheless, it was his job to lie in front 

of the telecameras and he seemed to be eager to play his 

role. 

Eight great warships had been sent to the eastern seas of 

Japan by the GCF high command, in order to observe the 

situation. Furthermore, the World President had demanded 



155 



an ultimatum to the island people. They had to return to the 

World Union until the end of the month. 

"Otherwise, unpleasant consequences for the Matsumoto 

regime could follow!", he threatened on television. 

The media concealed that the new president of Japan had 

come to power by the will of his people. He had been voted 

by over eighty percent of the Japanese population. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese had abolished any further 

elections, and Matsumoto called democracy a "giant play of 

mass manipulation". 

Moreover, the new president controlled himself and let all 

representatives and ambassadors of the World Government 

leave the country. And Matsumoto did not lay a finger on 

them. 

However, during the rebellion it had come to spontaneous 

lynchings by the furious people. Some Japanese had just 

taken revenge on those persons, who had exploited them 

for many years and had destroyed their country. The most 

"global parasites", as many Japanese called them, had 

been killed in Tokyo and Osaka. 

But the "fascist Matsumoto" was responsible for all this, in 

the eyes of the international media. Therefore, they 

unleashed a furious hate campaign against the rebellious 

Asians. Soon after, it changed to an irate and hysterical 

choir of slander and lies. A military intervention, however, 

was "currently not planned", according to the words of the 

World President. The newscasters tried to calm the viewers, 

but the whole thing smelled like war. 

„We will see!", thought Frank. 

„Now in your KCN-Shop! Call 070023456 and get him! 
Sergeant Powers, your supersoldier! He fights them all, 
yeah!", resounded a pithy voice out of the television. A hand 
was waving with an action figure - Sergeant Powers. 



156 



..Terrorists, fascists, evil people! Sergeant Powers finishes 

them all! Get your Sergeant now and annihilate the evil 

forces! Only 19.95 Globes, here in your KCN-Shop or in 

every toyshop, yeah!", it came out of the tube. 

Then the voice kindly told the kids, that they could borrow 

some money at the "KCN Bank for Children", if their parents 

would not have the Globes for Sergeant Powers. But only 

for children, who were already six years old. 

„Oh, shit!", sighed Alf. ..Turn it off!" 

„ln a few minutes, I want to watch "The Little Whisperer" on 

KCN. I always wanted to have a look at this brainwash 

show for children." 

..Please not...", answered Baumer disgustedly. 

Shortly afterwards, KCN (Kid Control Network), the biggest 

telestation for children worldwide, started its famous show, 

called "The Little Whisperer". 

Some years ago, KCN had started the series. Meanwhile, it 

had mutated to a blockbuster, which was also watched by 

the adult population and had extremely high viewing figures. 

Nevertheless, the actual target audience of the telecast was 

the younger generation. Since some time, the absurd show 

could be watched in innumerable languages and on all 

continents. 

Frank and thereafter also Alf, who could not successfully 

hide himself from the acoustic irradiation of the television, 

stared eagerly, and at the same time distastefully, at the 

screen: Now it was time for „The Little Whisperer"! 

A slimy presenter with flashing white teeth and an also 

flashing white suit, opened the show and the audience of 

little children cheered loudly. 

„Hey, kids! Tm Funny Paul! Who of are you?", he called 

ecstatically. 

"We are the kids!", roared the children and raved with great 

enthusiasm. 



157 



Every show of "The Little Whisperer" started in that manner. 
This was the German version, which could also be received 
here in Paris, together with approximately 700 other TV 
shows from all over the world. The camera swivelled around 
and showed alternating children of different nationalities. 
The „One-World" - on television it was cute at first sight. 
Then, all candidates of today's show were presented: The 
little Tina from Bitterfeld, Tommy from Hamburg, Robin from 
Bremen, Gulay from Bochum, Kim Song from somewhere 
else... 

Anyhow, the children screamed full of joy and Alf moaned: 
„Turn it off! Please!" 

But Frank remained hard. At least, he just wanted to watch 
one show of the series, the two policemen had talked about, 
when they had transported him to "Big Eye" at that time. 
After a while, the presenter called for the little Tina, a sweet 
blondie with braids and a cunning smile. 
"You know, Tina, officer Bark and I must always pay 
attention that people say no bad things about our World 
President. Therefore, we also need the many children here 
to help us. You have told us last week, that your papa has 
said something very bad about our uncle World President. 
And you want to win your pony today, right?", said the 
presenter and grinned . 

"Yes, please, Funny Paul!", begged the little Tina and cast 
up her nice blue eyes. 

„lf you have caught your daddy, making a very bad 
statement, then officer Bark and I are more than proud of 
you, because you have really helped us", whispered Funny 
Paul and turned to the audience. „Now, Tina will tell all 
these very bad words to our friend! And who is our friend?" 
„The big Eeeeaaarrr!", screamed the children and stamped 
their applause. 



158 



A big ear of plastic was brought on the stage and the small 

Tina uncertainly looked at it. 

„Okay, Tina! The big ear is your friend, you can tell 

everything!", said the presenter to the little girl. 

J... I will do...", said Tina and smiled bashfully. J will tell 

everything!". 

Then she whispered to the big plastic ear: „Daddy has said, 

the uncle World President is...ehmm...a swine and the 

World President... ehmmm... should be shot!" 

She still told this and that, and apparently she had even 

written a lot of things on a small slip. The moderator 

encouraged her, to tell everything at all. It would remain 

their secret, and except for the audience and millions of 

other viewers, nobody else would ever hear it. Everything 

the little Tina said, was shown at the bottom of the screen. 

„Oh!", shouted Funny Paul. „Your daddy really said all this?" 

„Hmmm..., answered the child. 

„Then your dad is not healthy. He is ill. I believe, we have to 

help him, but we will ask him first. Now, we will ask Tina's 

daddy!", called Funny Paul and waved his hands. 

„Jaaaaaaa!", cheered the audience. Suddenly the cameras 

switched live to a room, in which Mr. Notmeier, Tina's 

father, sat behind a table. 

He apparently was not very happy and smiled fearfully at 

the telecameras. Then Funny Paul interviewed him to the 

remarks, his daughter wanted to have heard and her father 

tried to make some excuses. But he behaved more than 

bumbling and finally started to stammer. 

Shortly afterwards, some other candidates had a turn: 

Tommy, Kim Song and a few more. They told the big plastic 

ear all the "bad words" and politically incorrect remarks they 

had heard from their parents, neighbors or relatives. Then 

came the final. 



159 



„Who has been the best „Bad-Word-Detective" of today's 

show?", shouted Funny Paul through the hall. 

The children were allowed to vote and made Tina to the 

best „Bad-Word-Detective" of this day. 

„Tina! Tina! Tina! Tina!", it resounded out of the tube. The 

little girl finally won a pony and fell down on her knees, 

bursting with joy. Her was casually told by Funny Paul, that 

her dad had to go to a "hotel" for a long time. The doctors 

would do everything to help him, assured the presenter. 

But the joy about her new pony was much too big, and Tina 

probably heard this sentence only with half an ear. Then a 

man in a dog costume and a police uniform came down 

some stairs, went on the stage and welcomed his cheering 

audience. 

It was officer Bark, who was hunting „bad words" all day 

long, in order to make the world a better place, as Funny 

Paul mentioned. He brandished his police club, his 

oversized hands of foam and his big handcuffs. The children 

yelled. 

At the end of the show, he sang the "One-World-Song" with 

them. Funny Paul smiled at the telecameras and in the 

background, the little Tina was leaping for joy about her new 

pony like a bouncy ball. It all ended with some commercials 

for kids. Frank and Alf were disturbed. 

In the night from 26. on 27. February, Frank and Alfred 
alternately kept guard at the window of their hotel room and 
checked the equipment. At three o'clock in the morning, 
they were finally ready to go. The rebels strapped their 
backpacks on, left the hotel room and sneaked over the 
dark corridor to the lower floor like two shadows. They 
parked the hire car some blocks away in a small side lane 
behind an old tenement. Both men would never return to the 
hotel after the bombing, and planned to drive from Paris to 



160 



Compiegne as fast as possible. Their steps on the asphalt 
were quiet, while the "Sunflower" slowly became a dark and 
small spot behind them. This night was unusually cold, but 
fortunately it was not raining. Now they moved with still 
more caution than in the night, when they had explored the 
canalization. This time, even little mistakes could endanger 
everything. 

If a police patrol had asked them about the content of their 
backpacks, the two rebels would have had more than just a 
problem. Apart from that, they had guns and knifes in their 
pockets. And even the stupidest cop would not believe 
them, that the were nothing but harmless tourists on a 
sightseeing tour. 

Again they crept from one dark corner to the next, crossing 
a lot of empty streets. Their faces were partly hidden behind 
broad baseball caps, under which four wary eyes examined 
the vicinity, everywhere suspecting enemies or curious 
observers. They were like two predators, always ready to 
catch their booty. 

Some cars drove past them. At the end to the "Rue de 
York", when they lurked in the shadow of an empty shop, 
they suddenly saw a police car, bending around the corner. 
Frank and Alf were shocked, nevertheless, they tried to 
saunter inconspicuously about and acted, as if they did not 
heed the police car. 

The sound of an humming engine became louder and the 
tension rose to the extreme. If just a single policeman would 
have asked them for their particulars or wanted to look into 
their backpacks, then Frank and Alf would have had no 
other chance than killing him. And in case of emergency, 
also every other witness in sight. 

No one had guns and NDC-23 by the kilo, who just wanted 
to visit Paris. The police car approached and seemed to 
drive more slowly now, but it didn't stop and no cop stepped 



161 



out. Probably, the driver only wanted to take a brief look at 

these two strange guys. But this city was full of people like 

this. It was luck for the two bombers, but probably also luck 

for the policeman, because they had not hesitated to use 

their weapons, if necessary. 

„Lucky you!", whispered Frank quietly. 

„Come on!", said Alf. „We are just good citizens." 

„With some NDC-23 in our backpacks...", Kohlhaas giggled 

and seemed to be relieved. Except for some tramps, the 

streets of Paris were empty in this part of the city. After a 

further short walk through the dark lanes, they had finally 

reached the gully cover in front of the abandoned factory, 

which Alfred had duly closed again, after they had returned 

from the canalization. They entered the underworld again. 

But this time it was no more disgusting but otherwise 

harmless scouting expedition. This time, it was deadly 

serious. 

At the very thought of staying in this stinky vault until 
noontime of 01.03.2029, and even to sleep down here, the 
two men shuddered. 

What would be, if they suddenly stood in front of some new 
grids, which had been repaired in the last days? Or even in 
front of some policemen? No, there was no more room for 
surprises. They had to keep their eyes open to react on 
changes. Now it was the same way again, and rats and 
spiders appeared as a greeting committee in the dark 
tunnels once more. When they had reached the first larger 
room, they examined their equipment, in order to be 
prepared for all possible incidents. 

Frank absently looked at his knife with the serrated blade, 
which John Throphy had organized for him on one of his 
trips to Belarus. Then he put it back into the pocket. The red 
crosses which Alf had sprayed on some walls, were still 



162 



there and the two men were glad about this. Also the 
destroyed grids had fortunately not been repaired, after their 
first walk through the canalization. Frank and Alf decided 
not to stay in the direct proximity of the event overnight. If 
policemen would scan the passages before the 
celebrations, then within this range. They finally chose the 
closed metro tunnel, that they could reach through the dug 
hole in the wall. The air was much better here and from 
somewhere seemed to come a refreshing breeze. 
Nevertheless, it was cold, scary and dark there. 
„What will be if people walk around here again?", 
whispered Frank. 

„One of us must stay awake and keep guard, while the other 
one sleeps", answered Alf. „l will begin if you want!" 
They searched the pit for some fire wood and found all 
kinds of flammable waste after a few minutes. Probably it 
were the inheritances of some tramps. Shortly afterwards, 
they kindled a small campfire, a tiny place of warmth and 
light in that endless, yawning pit. Kohlhaas accepted Alf s 
offer, tucked himself up and slept on the uncomfortable 
ground beside the rails, after he had put a few dry boards 
and an old plastic foil there. However, this night was terrible, 
all alone in the darkness of this old tunnel. Frank started to 
freeze. 

Two hours later, his friend woke him up and asked him to 
take over the next night watch. Tired and nervous, Frank 
straightened up and sat down at the glowing fire. It lasted 
only some minutes, then Alf was sleeping and began to 
snore. 

That was the only sound in this eerie vault and Kohlhaas 
was happy to hear it after a while. The darkness stared at 
him from a distance and sometimes he believed to hear a 
silent coughing or weeping somewhere, but in this night, the 
metro tunnel was empty. 



163 



It was at 6.00 o'clock in the morning. Frank and Alfred had 
a pitiful breakfast and started with their reconnaissance. 
They slunk quietly and slowly forward and still did not see 
anybody at this early time. No grids or barricades had been 
repaired by any workers or had been placed by the police. 
At least, not on the first day in that hole. On 27.02.2029, the 
two men played card games or spent their time with various 
conversations at the campfire in the closed metro tunnel. 
Later they explored some new passages and finally 
returned to their hiding place. They preferred the old metro 
tunnel to the canalization. Not only because of the better air 
and the campfire. Apart from the bigger halls with the water 
reservoirs, the narrow canals were no places, where they 
wanted to stay longer than necessary. The hours seemed to 
be endless, down below in the underground of Paris. Again, 
a long and uncomfortable night was waiting for them and 
Frank decided to be on guard at first, while Alfred tried to 
sleep. 

Kohlhaas was also very tired and nibbled boredly on some 
chips from the supermarket. Meanwhile, the darkness 
around him made the young man more nervous than ever 
before, and so he decided to look for some more wood for 
the campfire. Soon he had discovered another pile of 
broads near the tracks. After a while he cowered at the 
campfire again - but suddenly he startled up. 
Something had shown its head in a dark corner beyond the 
pile of firewood. It had been a ghostly, pale child, pressing 
its finger to the lips, as if it wanted to remind Frank to be 
silent. 

„Pssst!", he thought to have heard. Then the darkness 
returned again. 

He felt the adrenaline burning in his veins. Kohlhaas hastily 
fetched his flashlight to examine the place of the spooky 
appearance, but there were only stones and garbage. 



164 



Nothing was to be seen of a child. He thought about waking 
up his friend to tell him about the ghost, but he did not do it. 
There was nothing. Nothing at all. 

After two hours, Frank was damn glad about the fact, that 
he could hand over the night watch to Alfred now. Then he 
immediately fell asleep. When it was his turn again, in the 
early morning, he initially illuminated the strange place with 
his flashlight. But there were no ghosts at all, only garbage. 
Franks nerves were raw and he started to search more 
thoroughly. But it must have been an illusion. Shortly 
afterwards, the young man left the spooky place and hoped 
that the panic would die down again. 
The fire flickered and fought against its extinction for a 
while. Finally Kohlhaas had to return to the eerie corner to 
bring some more firewood. He was still scared and looked 
around, waiting for the coming of the ghostly child. But it did 
not come and left Frank alone in the cold darkness. 

On the next day, at half past eight, Alfred heard voices. 

„Calm!", he hissed and touched Frank lightly. „Hey! Don't 

you hear that?" 

Kohlhaas startled and sharpened his ears. Baumer was 

right. Now he heard the voices too. Someone was shouting 

in the distance, and the calls resounded in the tunnels. They 

had to be vigilant now. 

J take a look!", said Alfred quietly. 

„Damn! Be careful!", answered Frank and slapped on 

Baumefs shoulder. 

Alf jumped up and crawled through the hole in the wall into 

the sewer corridor. He ran to a bifurcation and went into the 

next passage. In his corner of his eye, he could see one of 

the red crosses, he had sprayed on the wall before. The 

voices became louder. They probably came from the larger 

hall with the control room. After some minutes, Alf had 



165 



advanced far enough into the tangle of sewers corridors and 
had reached the room with the water basins. Again, he 
heard someone call in French. He turned off his flashlight 
and disappeared in the darkness. Then he sneaked towards 
to the source of noise. Someone had put on the lights in the 
hall and the old, high vault was weakly illuminated now. 
Baumer dared not to go further and huddled in a corner of 
the corridor, which led to the hall. The voices still became a 
little louder and came out of the small room beside the hall, 
which could be reached over the stairs. 
Finally a man came out of the chamber and called his 
colleague. These men were workers of the public utilities of 
Paris, and made their daily inspection round here. Alf hoped 
that they would not come too often. 

After he had observed them for a while, and one the 
workers had examined a water basin, the two men walked 
away and disappeared into a sewer corridor. 
Alf heard them talk loudly. Then their voices faded away in 
the distance. The rebel turned around and sneaked again 
towards the closed metro tunnel. 

„l just hope, they haven't noticed that we have opened 
those grids and that steel door", he said quietly to himself. 
But the workers had made a calm impression. This was 
obviously just an usual inspection round, that they made 
repeatedly, and with not much eagerness. And even if they 
would repair something, Frank and Alfred could still destroy 
it in the next night again. Kohlhaas was waiting at the small 
campfire and was relieved, when he saw Alfred creeping 
through the hole in the wall. 

„Damn! Where have you been? Thank God, it was your 
flashlight. All right! I have already pulled my gun!", said 
Kohlhaas. 



166 



„lt were just some workers", explained Alf and sat down 

beside his friend. ..Let's see, who will come down here 

tomorrow!" 

„Do you know, that they have found a full-grown alligator in 

the canalization of Paris some years ago?", interrupted him 

Frank and smiled grimly, looking at his comrade. 

„l still prefer alligators to cops, Franky!", answered Alf. 

This time, the night, that could only be differentiated from 

the day by a look at the clock, was almost relaxing for the 

two rebels. It was a bit like in the good old schooldays, 

before a classwork, after a long time of learning. They knew 

that the big showdown was inevitable now. 

Tomorrow was the day of their final paper. Maybe a little 

more bloody and dangerous as a class test. Frank and 

Alfred kept guard once more and no ghosts or shades 

appeared. 

At 6.30 o'clock, Alfred's DC-stick beeped and woke the two 

men. The campfire was still glowing, otherwise the cold 

darkness had crept into each corner of the metro shaft 

again. 

They slowly got up and ate a few toasts for breakfast. The 

slices of bread tasted like nothing, this cheap and lousy 

grub from ..Globe Food". But it could still be used as a 

possible last meal. 

„We must go to our target area now. If some cops come 

down here today, then in the morning hours. We must keep 

everything in sight", explained Baumer and examined the 

equipment on completeness. 

He checked the time fuse of the bomb several times. Then 

he hid the explosive under a pile of debris to avoid that any 

derelicts find it. Meanwhile, Frank Kohlhaas looked at his 

DC-stick. He wanted to make no mistakes, although they 

had already gone the way twice. Like canal rats, which had 

meanwhile become accustomed to their wet and dark home, 



167 



they silently crept through the sewer corridors and were 
particularly careful in the bigger halls, which hardly offered 
any cover. 

They groped in the dark of the tunnels, mostly with just one 
flashlight in use, in order to cause no all too big light cones. 
Shortly afterwards, they came to the larger vault with the 
water pumps, that reminded Frank of „Moria" from the old 
film. Now they saw that the steel door was still open. 
Kohlhaas beheld the lamp. It looked like the blinde eye of a 
Cyclops, staring at him. Nobody seemed to have been here 
or nobody had recognized the destruction of the door. Both 
men breathed again. 

After a walk through several sewer corridors, they had 
already come close to their goal. Now they squatted in a 
dark corner and waited. The "Temple of Tolerance" and the 
metro station „Charles de Gaulle" were near. They heard a 
metro rumbling in the distance. Cars could not be heard 
today, because the "Avenue of Humanity" had already been 
closed off since a few hours. Suddenly human voices came 
nearer and the two men looked at each other. What was 
that? 

At this very second, a cone of light shot directly above their 

heads. Frank's and Alfred's hearts dived. But the ray 

fortunately found no target, except for rusty pipes and the 

dark throat of a sewer corridor. 

A policeman of the GP, the "Global Police", approached and 

scoured the environment for something. 

„There is nothing here!", he shouted at one of his 

colleagues, obviously also no Frenchman. The other man 

answered in a strange sounding jargon. 

„Okay!", it resounded out of another sewer tunnel in the 

proximity of the "Temple of Tolerance". 

„This job is fucked up!", said the cop near Frank. 



168 



Obviously he had no greater desire to crawl through dark 

and stinky sewers. 

„Check the tunnels in your area!", shouted the second GP 

officer in the distance. 

The policeman pointed his cone of light at the opposite 

tunnel. Meanwhile, the two men were scared to death and 

crouched in the brackish water, that flowed beneath them. 

The policeman was only about fifty meters away from them 

and mumbled something into his radio. 

..Let's disappear from this hole!", hissed Frank quietly. 

„But carefully...", whispered Alf and tried to turn around 

noiselessly, while the cop babbled with the other one. 

Frank and Alfred prepared for a quiet retreat to another 

sewer corridor. They carefully crept away, but Frank 

suddenly slid on the wet ground and slipped into the dirty 

trickle. A quiet „Plop!" resounded out of the sewer, which 

still increased the noise. 

Now the two men were gripped by fear and tried to escape 

from the danger zone as fast as possible. The head of the 

policeman turned around and his flashlight with him. A light 

cone immediately jumped towards the tunnel like a furious 

lion, but there was nobody anymore. 

Frank and Alf were already on the run to the next reservoir 

room and the cop only heard quiet steps and the lapping of 

water. A ray of light bored itself into the dark tunnel and 

illuminated its forepart. 

„ls there somebody?", shouted the policeman into the black 

hole. „Hey, give me a sign!", he added. 

Then he went back to another place. His radio croaked and 

he tried to give an answer in English. 

"I thought, I have heard something. But I think it was only a 

rat!", he said. 



169 



In the meantime, Kohlhaas and Baumer had reached 

another sewer corridor and the cop made no move to follow 

them through the ugly passage. 

"Don't know! Shit!", Frank heard him curse quietly. 

He finally walked to another area of the sewer system. Both 

assassins breathed again. Totally unprepared, they had 

been surprised by that man. This cop had almost seen 

them. Both still waited for another hour in the protection of 

the smelly darkness, until no more voices could be heard in 

the distance. On the way back to the closed metro tunnel 

they did not encounter any other policemen. Nevertheless, 

their nerves were still raw. 

These GP's, who had been recruited in many different 

countries, just like the GCF occupation troops, obviously 

had no bigger references to the French culture. However, 

their interest to explore the famous historic sewer system of 

Paris was limited. 

They just did their job and examined the direct area below 

the square in front of the "Temple of Tolerance", that was 

all. Policemen, who solely made "their job", just arrived at 

the right moment in the eyes of Frank and Alfred. 

When they came back to the metro tunnel, everything was 

still at its place. Also the NDC-23 - which should have its 

great performance in about two to three hours. 



170 



Bomb-happy... 



While Frank and Alf were waiting for the attack in their 
hiding place, and the minutes passed in a state of 
nervousness and tension, Paris resembled an anthill at the 
surface. The opening speech of Leon-Jack Wechsler, 
governor of the administrative sector ..Central Europe", 
should start at 13.00 o'clock. The streets of the metropolis 
were already now, around 11,00 o'clock, perfectly 
overcrowded. 

Huge masses of people, roughly about two millions, 
clustered towards the "Avenue of Humanity" and it came to 
the first clashes between the visitors of the event and the 
police in the early morning hours. 

In the gray of dawn, bloody riots had broken out with 
numerous casualties and many deads. In many parts of the 
metropolis the violence still ruled the streets, particularly in 
the Arabic ghettos. 

Over 40 GP-Policemen and hundreds of Arabs had already 
been killed. Last night, French patriots had fixed some 
enormous transparencies with slogans like ..France is the 
country of the Frenchmen!" or ..Freedom for France! Down 
with the World Government!" at several big buildings in the 
inner city. 

Some activists had been caught by the police, three young 
Frenchmen had even been shot. In the north of Paris, young 
Arabs had tried to penetrate into some suburbs, which were 
inhabited by Frenchmen. Here they had burned cars or had 
broken into houses. Finally they had encountered some 
armed Frenchmen and the police. Over 200 people had 
been killed in that street fight. An illegal demonstration of 
the "Islamic Federation" in the opposite part of the former 

The War of the Worlds

by H. G. Wells [1898]

     But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be
     inhabited? .  .  .  Are we or they Lords of the
     World? .  .  .  And how are all things made for man?--
          KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)

BOOK ONE

THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS

CHAPTER ONE

THE EVE OF THE WAR

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time's beginning but nearer its end.

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety--their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours--and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet--it is odd, by-the-bye, that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war--but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready.

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, "as flaming gases rushed out of a gun."

A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet.

In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof--an oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warm--a pin's-head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view.

As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from us--more than forty millions of miles of void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.

Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile.

That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us.

That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.

He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.

"The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one," he said.

Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust, visible through a powerful telescope on earth as little grey, fluctuating patches, spread through the clearness of the planet's atmosphere and obscured its more familiar features.

Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular notes appeared here, there, and everywhere concerning the volcanoes upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical Punch, I remember, made a happy use of it in the political cartoon. And, all unsuspected, those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthward, rushing now at a pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space, hour by hour and day by day, nearer and nearer. It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did. I remember how jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride the bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed.

One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been 10,000,000 miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight and I explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so many telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil.

CHAPTER TWO

THE FALLING STAR

Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to him that it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him.

I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it. Yet this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night.

But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against the dawn.

The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be hollow.

He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common.

Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth.

For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, although the heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to see the Thing more clearly. He fancied even then that the cooling of the body might account for this, but what disturbed that idea was the fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder.

And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movement that he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had been near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the circumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. The cylinder was artificial--hollow--with an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top!

"Good heavens!" said Ogilvy. "There's a man in it--men in it! Half roasted to death! Trying to escape!"

At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with the flash upon Mars.

The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands on the still-glowing metal. At that he stood irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into Woking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o'clock. He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the pit--that the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the potman who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by Horsell Bridge. The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him a little; and when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in his garden, he called over the palings and made himself understood.

"Henderson," he called, "you saw that shooting star last night?"

"Well?" said Henderson.

"It's out on Horsell Common now."

"Good Lord!" said Henderson. "Fallen meteorite! That's good."

"But it's something more than a meteorite. It's a cylinder--an artificial cylinder, man! And there's something inside."

Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand.

"What's that?" he said. He was deaf in one ear.

Ogilvy told him all that he had seen. Henderson was a minute or so taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and came out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to the common, and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound.

They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and, meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside must be insensible or dead.

Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and disordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as the shop folks were taking down their shutters and people were opening their bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway station at once, in order to telegraph the news to London. The newspaper articles had prepared men's minds for the reception of the idea.

By eight o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already started for the common to see the "dead men from Mars." That was the form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about a quarter to nine when I went out to get my Daily Chronicle. I was naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the Ottershaw bridge to the sand pits.

CHAPTER THREE

ON HORSELL COMMON

I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay. I have already described the appearance of that colossal bulk, embedded in the ground. The turf and gravel about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion. No doubt its impact had caused a flash of fire. Henderson and Ogilvy were not there. I think they perceived that nothing was to be done for the present, and had gone away to breakfast at Henderson's house.

There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the Pit, with their feet dangling, and amusing themselves--until I stopped them--by throwing stones at the giant mass. After I had spoken to them about it, they began playing at "touch" in and out of the group of bystanders.

Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to hang about the railway station. There was very little talking. Few of the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical ideas in those days. Most of them were staring quietly at the big table like end of the cylinder, which was still as Ogilvy and Henderson had left it. I fancy the popular expectation of a heap of charred corpses was disappointed at this inanimate bulk. Some went away while I was there, and other people came. I clambered into the pit and fancied I heard a faint movement under my feet. The top had certainly ceased to rotate.

It was only when I got thus close to it that the strangeness of this object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowish-white metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue. "Extra-terrestrial" had no meaning for most of the onlookers.

At that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the Thing had come from the planet Mars, but I judged it improbable that it contained any living creature. I thought the unscrewing might be automatic. In spite of Ogilvy, I still believed that there were men in Mars. My mind ran fancifully on the possibilities of its containing manuscript, on the difficulties in translation that might arise, whether we should find coins and models in it, and so forth. Yet it was a little too large for assurance on this idea. I felt an impatience to see it opened. About eleven, as nothing seemed happening, I walked back, full of such thought, to my home in Maybury. But I found it difficult to get to work upon my abstract investigations.

In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very much. The early editions of the evening papers had startled London with enormous headlines:

"A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS."

"REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING,"

and so forth. In addition, Ogilvy's wire to the Astronomical Exchange had roused every observatory in the three kingdoms.

There were half a dozen flies or more from the Woking station standing in the road by the sand pits, a basket-chaise from Chobham, and a rather lordly carriage. Besides that, there was quite a heap of bicycles. In addition, a large number of people must have walked, in spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there was altogether quite a considerable crowd--one or two gaily dressed ladies among the others.

It was glaringly hot, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind, and the only shadow was that of the few scattered pine trees. The burning heather had been extinguished, but the level ground towards Ottershaw was blackened as far as one could see, and still giving off vertical streamers of smoke. An enterprising sweet-stuff dealer in the Chobham Road had sent up his son with a barrow-load of green apples and ginger beer.

Going to the edge of the pit, I found it occupied by a group of about half a dozen men--Henderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fair-haired man that I afterwards learned was Stent, the Astronomer Royal, with several workmen wielding spades and pickaxes. Stent was giving directions in a clear, high-pitched voice. He was standing on the cylinder, which was now evidently much cooler; his face was crimson and streaming with perspiration, and something seemed to have irritated him.

A large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered, though its lower end was still embedded. As soon as Ogilvy saw me among the staring crowd on the edge of the pit he called to me to come down, and asked me if I would mind going over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of the manor.

The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to their excavations, especially the boys. They wanted a light railing put up, and help to keep the people back. He told me that a faint stirring was occasionally still audible within the case, but that the workmen had failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no grip to them. The case appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the faint sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior.

I was very glad to do as he asked, and so become one of the privileged spectators within the contemplated enclosure. I failed to find Lord Hilton at his house, but I was told he was expected from London by the six o'clock train from Waterloo; and as it was then about a quarter past five, I went home, had some tea, and walked up to the station to waylay him.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE CYLINDER OPENS

When I returned to the common the sun was setting. Scattered groups were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons were returning. The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky--a couple of hundred people, perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my mind. As I drew nearer I heard Stent's voice:

"Keep back! Keep back!"

A boy came running towards me.

"It's a-movin'," he said to me as he passed; "a-screwin' and a-screwin' out. I don't like it. I'm a-goin' 'ome, I am."

I went on to the crowd. There were really, I should think, two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling one another, the one or two ladies there being by no means the least active.

"He's fallen in the pit!" cried some one.

"Keep back!" said several.

The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through. Every one seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit.

"I say!" said Ogilvy; "help keep these idiots back. We don't know what's in the confounded thing, you know!"

I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. The crowd had pushed him in.

The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion. I stuck my elbow into the person behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again. For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I had the sunset in my eyes.

I think everyone expected to see a man emerge--possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous disks--like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me--and then another.

A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, Stent among them. I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified and staring.

A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.

Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air.

Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.

Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather. I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture.

I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees, perhaps a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could not avert my face from these things.

There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped, panting, and waited further developments. The common round the sand pits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a half-fascinated terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay. And then, with a renewed horror, I saw a round, black object bobbing up and down on the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman who had fallen in, but showing as a little black object against the hot western sun. Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me. I had a momentary impulse to go back and help him that my fears overruled.

Everything was then quite invisible, hidden by the deep pit and the heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made. Anyone coming along the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed at the sight--a dwindling multitude of perhaps a hundred people or more standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches, behind bushes, behind gates and hedges, saying little to one another and that in short, excited shouts, and staring, staring hard at a few heaps of sand. The barrow of ginger beer stood, a queer derelict, black against the burning sky, and in the sand pits was a row of deserted vehicles with their horses feeding out of nosebags or pawing the ground.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE HEAT-RAY

After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of fear and curiosity.

I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate longing to peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sand heaps that hid these new-comers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there?

Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups--one a little crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near me. One man I approached--he was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name--and accosted. But it was scarcely a time for articulate conversation.

"What ugly brutes!" he said. "Good God! What ugly brutes!" He repeated this over and over again.

"Did you see a man in the pit?" I said; but he made no answer to that. We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side, deriving, I fancy, a certain comfort in one another's company. Then I shifted my position to a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was walking towards Woking.

The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. The crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and I heard now a faint murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chobham dispersed. There was scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit.

It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent movement upon the sand pits began, a movement that seemed to gather force as the stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained unbroken. Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin irregular crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.

Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand pits, and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty yards of the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag.

This was the Deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent.

Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet distances.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air.

This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.

Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.

Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.

Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run.

I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight.

It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied to stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sand pits and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather between me and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the sand pits the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a crash far away to the left where the road from Woking station opens out on the common. Forth-with the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.

All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in my surprise. But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me suddenly dark and unfamiliar.

The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except where its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the early night. It was dark, and suddenly void of men. Overhead the stars were mustering, and in the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost greenish blue. The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell came out sharp and black against the western afterglow. The Martians and their appliances were altogether invisible, save for that thin mast upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated trees here and there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of the evening air.

Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had scarcely been broken.

It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected, and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came--fear.

With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather.

The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare to look back.

I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this mysterious death--as swift as the passage of light--would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder and strike me down.

CHAPTER SIX

THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD

It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.

That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze.

The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and Ottershaw about the same time. In Woking the shops had closed when the tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so forth, attracted by the stories they had heard, were walking over the Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at last upon the common. You may imagine the young people brushed up after the labours of the day, and making this novelty, as they would make any novelty, the excuse for walking together and enjoying a trivial flirtation. You may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the road in the gloaming. . . .

As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder had opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to the post office with a special wire to an evening paper.

As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they found little knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the spinning mirror over the sand pits, and the newcomers were, no doubt, soon infected by the excitement of the occasion.

By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may have been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place, besides those who had left the road to approach the Martians nearer. There were three policemen too, one of whom was mounted, doing their best, under instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter them from approaching the cylinder. There was some booing from those more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an occasion for noise and horse-play.

Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision, had telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians emerged, for the help of a company of soldiers to protect these strange creatures from violence. After that they returned to lead that ill-fated advance. The description of their death, as it was seen by the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions: the three puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame.

But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine. Only the fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of the Heat-Ray saved them. Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then, with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of the house nearest the corner.

In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the panic-stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some moments. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and dresses caught fire. Then came a crying from the common. There were shrieks and shouts, and suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with his hands clasped over his head, screaming.

"They're coming!" a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to Woking again. They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep. Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks the crowd jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not escape; three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the darkness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOW I REACHED HOME

For my own part, I remember nothing of my flight except the stress of blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather. All about me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians; that pitiless sword of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead before it descended and smote me out of life. I came into the road between the crossroads and Horsell, and ran along this to the crossroads.

At last I could go no further; I was exhausted with the violence of my emotion and of my flight, and I staggered and fell by the wayside. That was near the bridge that crosses the canal by the gasworks. I fell and lay still.

I must have remained there some time.

I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I could not clearly understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like a garment. My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from its fastener. A few minutes before, there had only been three real things before me--the immensity of the night and space and nature, my own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now it was as if something turned over, and the point of view altered abruptly. There was no sensible transition from one state of mind to the other. I was immediately the self of every day again--a decent, ordinary citizen. The silent common, the impulse of my flight, the starting flames, were as if they had been in a dream. I asked myself had these latter things indeed happened? I could not credit it.

I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge. My mind was blank wonder. My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their strength. I dare say I staggered drunkenly. A head rose over the arch, and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran a little boy. He passed me, wishing me good night. I was minded to speak to him, but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless mumble and went on over the bridge.

Over the Maybury arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying south--clatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone. A dim group of people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I told myself, could not be.

Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to my dream.

But the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity and the swift death flying yonder, not two miles away. There was a noise of business from the gasworks, and the electric lamps were all alight. I stopped at the group of people.

"What news from the common?" said I.

There were two men and a woman at the gate.

"Eh?" said one of the men, turning.

"What news from the common?" I said.

"'Ain't yer just been there?" asked the men.

"People seem fair silly about the common," said the woman over the gate. "What's it all abart?"

"Haven't you heard of the men from Mars?" said I; "the creatures from Mars?"

"Quite enough," said the woman over the gate. "Thenks"; and all three of them laughed.

I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I could not tell them what I had seen. They laughed again at my broken sentences.

"You'll hear more yet," I said, and went on to my home.

I startled my wife at the doorway, so haggard was I. I went into the dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so soon as I could collect myself sufficiently I told her the things I had seen. The dinner, which was a cold one, had already been served, and remained neglected on the table while I told my story.

"There is one thing," I said, to allay the fears I had aroused; "they are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl. They may keep the pit and kill people who come near them, but they cannot get out of it. . . . But the horror of them!"

"Don't, dear!" said my wife, knitting her brows and putting her hand on mine.

"Poor Ogilvy!" I said. "To think he may be lying dead there!"

My wife at least did not find my experience incredible. When I saw how deadly white her face was, I ceased abruptly.

"They may come here," she said again and again.

I pressed her to take wine, and tried to reassure her.

"They can scarcely move," I said.

I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on the earth. In particular I laid stress on the gravitational difficulty. On the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, would weigh three times more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same. His own body would be a cope of lead to him. That, indeed, was the general opinion. Both The Times and the Daily Telegraph, for instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both overlooked, just as I did, two obvious modifying influences.

The atmosphere of the earth, we now know, contains far more oxygen or far less argon (whichever way one likes to put it) than does Mars. The invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians indisputably did much to counterbalance the increased weight of their bodies. And, in the second place, we all overlooked the fact that such mechanical intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able to dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch.

But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine and food, the confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring my wife, I grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure.

"They have done a foolish thing," said I, fingering my wineglass. "They are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror. Perhaps they expected to find no living things--certainly no intelligent living things."

"A shell in the pit" said I, "if the worst comes to the worst will kill them all."

The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in a state of erethism. I remember that dinner table with extraordinary vividness even now. My dear wife's sweet anxious face peering at me from under the pink lamp shade, the white cloth with its silver and glass table furniture--for in those days even philosophical writers had many little luxuries--the crimson-purple wine in my glass, are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the Martians.

So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of animal food. "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear."

I did not know it, but that was the last civilised dinner I was to eat for very many strange and terrible days.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FRIDAY NIGHT

The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong. If on Friday night you had taken a pair of compasses and drawn a circle with a radius of five miles round the Woking sand pits, I doubt if you would have had one human being outside it, unless it were some relation of Stent or of the three or four cyclists or London people lying dead on the common, whose emotions or habits were at all affected by the new-comers. Many people had heard of the cylinder, of course, and talked about it in their leisure, but it certainly did not make the sensation that an ultimatum to Germany would have done.

In London that night poor Henderson's telegram describing the gradual unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a canard, and his evening paper, after wiring for authentication from him and receiving no reply--the man was killed--decided not to print a special edition.

Even within the five-mile circle the great majority of people were inert. I have already described the behaviour of the men and women to whom I spoke. All over the district people were dining and supping; working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children were being put to bed, young people were wandering through the lanes love-making, students sat over their books.

Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, a novel and dominant topic in the public-houses, and here and there a messenger, or even an eye-witness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of excitement, a shouting, and a running to and fro; but for the most part the daily routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on as it had done for countless years--as though no planet Mars existed in the sky. Even at Woking station and Horsell and Chobham that was the case.

In Woking junction, until a late hour, trains were stopping and going on, others were shunting on the sidings, passengers were alighting and waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most ordinary way. A boy from the town, trenching on Smith's monopoly, was selling papers with the afternoon's news. The ringing impact of trucks, the sharp whistle of the engines from the junction, mingled with their shouts of "Men from Mars!" Excited men came into the station about nine o'clock with incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might have done. People rattling Londonwards peered into the darkness outside the carriage windows, and saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious than a heath fire was happening. It was only round the edge of the common that any disturbance was perceptible. There were half a dozen villas burning on the Woking border. There were lights in all the houses on the common side of the three villages, and the people there kept awake till dawn.

A curious crowd lingered restlessly, people coming and going but the crowd remaining, both on the Chobham and Horsell bridges. One or two adventurous souls, it was afterwards found, went into the darkness and crawled quite near the Martians; but they never returned, for now and again a light-ray, like the beam of a warship's searchlight swept the common, and the Heat-Ray was ready to follow. Save for such, that big area of common was silent and desolate, and the charred bodies lay about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day. A noise of hammering from the pit was heard by many people.

So you have the state of things on Friday night. In the centre, sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart, was this cylinder. But the poison was scarcely working yet. Around it was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. Here and there was a burning bush or tree. Beyond was a fringe of excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years. The fever of war that would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, had still to develop.

All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the starlit sky.

About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second company marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and was busy questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities were certainly alive to the seriousness of the business. About eleven, the next morning's papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started from Aldershot.

A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking, saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder.

CHAPTER NINE

THE FIGHTING BEGINS

Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating barometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in sleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfast and stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring but a lark.

The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me that during the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns were expected. Then--a familiar, reassuring note--I heard a train running towards Woking.

"They aren't to be killed," said the milkman, "if that can possibly be avoided."

I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then strolled in to breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. My neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or to destroy the Martians during the day.

"It's a pity they make themselves so unapproachable," he said. "It would be curious to know how they live on another planet; we might learn a thing or two."

He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, for his gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the same time he told me of the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf Links.

"They say," said he, "that there's another of those blessed things fallen there--number two. But one's enough, surely. This lot'll cost the insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled." He laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to me. "They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick soil of pine needles and turf," he said, and then grew serious over "poor Ogilvy."

After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to walk down towards the common. Under the railway bridge I found a group of soldiers--sappers, I think, men in small round caps, dirty red jackets unbuttoned, and showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots coming to the calf. They told me no one was allowed over the canal, and, looking along the road towards the bridge, I saw one of the Cardigan men standing sentinel there. I talked with these soldiers for a time; I told them of my sight of the Martians on the previous evening. None of them had seen the Martians, and they had but the vaguest ideas of them, so that they plied me with questions. They said that they did not know who had authorised the movements of the troops; their idea was that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards. The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated than the common soldier, and they discussed the peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some acuteness. I described the Heat-Ray to them, and they began to argue among themselves.

"Crawl up under cover and rush 'em, say I," said one.

"Get aht!" said another. "What's cover against this 'ere 'eat? Sticks to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground'll let us, and then drive a trench."

"Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha' been born a rabbit Snippy."

"Ain't they got any necks, then?" said a third, abruptly--a little, contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe.

I repeated my description.

"Octopuses," said he, "that's what I calls 'em. Talk about fishers of men--fighters of fish it is this time!"

"It ain't no murder killing beasts like that," said the first speaker.

"Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish 'em?" said the little dark man. "You carn tell what they might do."

"Where's your shells?" said the first speaker. "There ain't no time. Do it in a rush, that's my tip, and do it at once."

So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on to the railway station to get as many morning papers as I could.

But I will not weary the reader with a description of that long morning and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting a glimpse of the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in the hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I addressed didn't know anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy. I found people in the town quite secure again in the presence of the military, and I heard for the first time from Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son was among the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the people on the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave their houses.

I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the day was extremely hot and dull; and in order to refresh myself I took a cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the railway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers had contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent, Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn't know. The Martians did not show an inch of themselves. They seemed busy in their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting ready for a struggle. "Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without success," was the stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told me it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the lowing of a cow.

I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this preparation, greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent, and defeated the invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of my schoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a fair fight to me at that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit of theirs.

About three o'clock there began the thud of a gun at measured intervals from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smouldering pine wood into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled, in the hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was only about five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against the first body of Martians.

About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the summerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering upon us, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediately after a gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a violent rattling crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground; and, starting out upon the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of the little church beside it slide down into ruin. The pinnacle of the mosque had vanished, and the roof line of the college itself looked as if a hundred-ton gun had been at work upon it. One of our chimneys cracked as if a shot had hit it, flew, and a piece of it came clattering down the tiles and made a heap of broken red fragments upon the flower bed by my study window.

I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest of Maybury Hill must be within range of the Martians' Heat-Ray now that the college was cleared out of the way.

At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her out into the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for.

"We can't possibly stay here," I said; and as I spoke the firing reopened for a moment upon the common.

"But where are we to go?" said my wife in terror.

I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.

"Leatherhead!" I shouted above the sudden noise.

She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their houses, astonished.

"How are we to get to Leatherhead?" she said.

Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway bridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College; two others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything.

"Stop here," said I; "you are safe here"; and I started off at once for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart. I ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to him.

"I must have a pound," said the landlord, "and I've no one to drive it."

"I'll give you two," said I, over the stranger's shoulder.

"What for?"

"And I'll bring it back by midnight," I said.

"Lord!" said the landlord; "what's the hurry? I'm selling my bit of a pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What's going on now?"

I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the dog cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife and servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such plate as we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house were burning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red. While I was occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He was going from house to house, warning people to leave. He was going on as I came out of my front door, lugging my treasures, done up in a tablecloth. I shouted after him:

"What news?"

He turned, stared, bawled something about "crawling out in a thing like a dish cover," and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest. A sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a moment. I ran to my neighbour's door and rapped to satisfy myself of what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had locked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, to get my servant's box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail of the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the driver's seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear of the smoke and noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old Woking.

In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the doctor's cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of black smoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the east and west--to the Byfleet pine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun that was presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles. Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of their Heat-Ray.

I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my attention to the horse. When I looked back again the second hill had hidden the black smoke. I slashed the horse with the whip, and gave him a loose rein until Woking and Send lay between us and that quivering tumult. I overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send.

CHAPTER TEN

IN THE STORM

Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill. The scent of hay was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyrford, and the hedges on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog-roses. The heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down Maybury Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very peaceful and still. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine o'clock, and the horse had an hour's rest while I took supper with my cousins and commended my wife to their care.

My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed oppressed with forebodings of evil. I talked to her reassuringly, pointing out that the Martians were tied to the Pit by sheer heaviness, and at the utmost could but crawl a little out of it; but she answered only in monosyllables. Had it not been for my promise to the innkeeper, she would, I think, have urged me to stay in Leatherhead that night. Would that I had! Her face, I remember, was very white as we parted.

For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised community had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very sorry that I had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that that last fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of our invaders from Mars. I can best express my state of mind by saying that I wanted to be in at the death.

It was nearly eleven when I started to return. The night was unexpectedly dark; to me, walking out of the lighted passage of my cousins' house, it seemed indeed black, and it was as hot and close as the day. Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath stirred the shrubs about us. My cousins' man lit both lamps. Happily, I knew the road intimately. My wife stood in the light of the doorway, and watched me until I jumped up into the dog cart. Then abruptly she turned and went in, leaving my cousins side by side wishing me good hap.

I was a little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife's fears, but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that time I was absolutely in the dark as to the course of the evening's fighting. I did not know even the circumstances that had precipitated the conflict. As I came through Ockham (for that was the way I returned, and not through Send and Old Woking) I saw along the western horizon a blood-red glow, which as I drew nearer, crept slowly up the sky. The driving clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there with masses of black and red smoke.

Ripley Street was deserted, and except for a lighted window or so the village showed not a sign of life; but I narrowly escaped an accident at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people stood with their backs to me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I do not know what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill, nor do I know if the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping securely, or deserted and empty, or harassed and watching against the terror of the night.

From Ripley until I came through Pyrford I was in the valley of the Wey, and the red glare was hidden from me. As I ascended the little hill beyond Pyrford Church the glare came into view again, and the trees about me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that was upon me. Then I heard midnight pealing out from Pyrford Church behind me, and then came the silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its tree-tops and roofs black and sharp against the red.

Even as I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. I felt a tug at the reins. I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were by a thread of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and falling into the field to my left. It was the third falling star!

Close on its apparition, and blindingly violet by contrast, danced out the first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst like a rocket overhead. The horse took the bit between his teeth and bolted.

A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill, and down this we clattered. Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a succession of flashes as I have ever seen. The thunderclaps, treading one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling accompaniment, sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric machine than the usual detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and confusing, and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the slope.

At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then abruptly my attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill. At first I took it for the wet roof of a house, but one flash following another showed it to be in swift rolling movement. It was an elusive vision--a moment of bewildering darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, and this problematical object came out clear and sharp and bright.

And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand.

Then suddenly the trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted, as brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared, rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard to meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went altogether. Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse's head hard round to the right and in another moment the dog cart had heeled over upon the horse; the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung sideways and fell heavily into a shallow pool of water.

I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in the water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck was broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black bulk of the overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still spinning slowly. In another moment the colossal mechanism went striding by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford.

Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an instant it was gone.

So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in blinding highlights and dense black shadows.

As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the thunder--"Aloo! Aloo!"--and in another minute it was with its companion, half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt this Thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had fired at us from Mars.

For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness watching, by the intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moving about in the distance over the hedge tops. A thin hail was now beginning, and as it came and went their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness again. Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the night swallowed them up.

I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below. It was some time before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to a drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril.

Not far from me was a little one-roomed squatter's hut of wood, surrounded by a patch of potato garden. I struggled to my feet at last, and, crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a run for this. I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people hear (if there were any people inside), and after a time I desisted, and, availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way, succeeded in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into the pine woods towards Maybury.

Under cover of this I pushed on, wet and shivering now, towards my own house. I walked among the trees trying to find the footpath. It was very dark indeed in the wood, for the lightning was now becoming infrequent, and the hail, which was pouring down in a torrent, fell in columns through the gaps in the heavy foliage.

If I had fully realised the meaning of all the things I had seen I should have immediately worked my way round through Byfleet to Street Cobham, and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead. But that night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness, prevented me, for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened and blinded by the storm.

I had a vague idea of going on to my own house, and that was as much motive as I had. I staggered through the trees, fell into a ditch and bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed out into the lane that ran down from the College Arms. I say splashed, for the storm water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy torrent. There in the darkness a man blundered into me and sent me reeling back.

He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed on before I could gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him. So heavy was the stress of the storm just at this place that I had the hardest task to win my way up the hill. I went close up to the fence on the left and worked my way along its palings.

Near the top I stumbled upon something soft, and, by a flash of lightning, saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of boots. Before I could distinguish clearly how the man lay, the flicker of light had passed. I stood over him waiting for the next flash. When it came, I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily dressed; his head was bent under his body, and he lay crumpled up close to the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it.

Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was quite dead. Apparently his neck had been broken. The lightning flashed for a third time, and his face leaped upon me. I sprang to my feet. It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose conveyance I had taken.

I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my way by the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. Nothing was burning on the hillside, though from the common there still came a red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about me were mostly uninjured. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the road.

Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of feet, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I let myself in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, staggered to the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against the fence.

I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, shivering violently.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AT THE WINDOW

I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some whiskey, and then I was moved to change my clothes.

After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway.

The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a vivid red glare, the common about the sand pits was visible. Across the light huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to and fro.

It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on fire--a broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red reflection upon the cloud-scud above. Every now and then a haze of smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied upon. Neither could I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of it danced on the wall and ceiling of the study. A sharp, resinous tang of burning was in the air.

I closed the door noiselessly and crept towards the window. As I did so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the hill, on the railway, near the arch, and several of the houses along the Maybury road and the streets near the station were glowing ruins. The light upon the railway puzzled me at first; there were a black heap and a vivid glare, and to the right of that a row of yellow oblongs. Then I perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part smashed and on fire, the hinder carriages still upon the rails.

Between these three main centres of light--the houses, the train, and the burning county towards Chobham--stretched irregular patches of dark country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and smoking ground. It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set with fire. It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries at night. At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I peered intently for them. Later I saw against the light of Woking station a number of black figures hurrying one after the other across the line.

And this was the little world in which I had been living securely for years, this fiery chaos! What had happened in the last seven hours I still did not know; nor did I know, though I was beginning to guess, the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish lumps I had seen disgorged from the cylinder. With a queer feeling of impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, and stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three gigantic black things that were going to and fro in the glare about the sand pits.

They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal.

The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west, when a soldier came into my garden. I heard a slight scraping at the fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings. At the sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the window eagerly.

"Hist!" said I, in a whisper.

He stopped astride of the fence in doubt. Then he came over and across the lawn to the corner of the house. He bent down and stepped softly.

"Who's there?" he said, also whispering, standing under the window and peering up.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"God knows."

"Are you trying to hide?"

"That's it."

"Come into the house," I said.

I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the door again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat was unbuttoned.

"My God!" he said, as I drew him in.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"What hasn't?" In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of despair. "They wiped us out--simply wiped us out," he repeated again and again.

He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room.

"Take some whiskey," I said, pouring out a stiff dose.

He drank it. Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a perfect passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of my own recent despair, stood beside him, wondering.

It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second cylinder under cover of a metal shield.

Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of charred dead men and dead horses.

"I lay still," he said, "scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter of a horse atop of me. We'd been wiped out. And the smell--good God! Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of the horse, and there I had to lie until I felt better. Just like parade it had been a minute before--then stumble, bang, swish!"

"Wiped out!" he said.

He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out furtively across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. Then the monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely to and fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its headlike hood turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human being. A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the Heat-Ray.

In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit.

The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock his head against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway embankment.

Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking village and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water bubbling out like a spring upon the road.

That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew calmer telling me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about us came darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose trees outside the window grew distinct. It would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also.

When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley had become a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. Yet here and there some object had had the luck to escape--a white railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh amid the wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were surveying the desolation they had made.

It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the brightening dawn--streamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished.

Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON

As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.

The artilleryman agreed with me that the house was no place to stay in. He proposed, he said, to make his way Londonward, and thence rejoin his battery--No. 12, of the Horse Artillery. My plan was to return at once to Leatherhead; and so greatly had the strength of the Martians impressed me that I had determined to take my wife to Newhaven, and go with her out of the country forthwith. For I already perceived clearly that the country about London must inevitably be the scene of a disastrous struggle before such creatures as these could be destroyed.

Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with its guarding giants. Had I been alone, I think I should have taken my chance and struck across country. But the artilleryman dissuaded me: "It's no kindness to the right sort of wife," he said, "to make her a widow"; and in the end I agreed to go with him, under cover of the woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him. Thence I would make a big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead.

I should have started at once, but my companion had been in active service and he knew better than that. He made me ransack the house for a flask, which he filled with whiskey; and we lined every available pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out of the house, and ran as quickly as we could down the ill-made road by which I had come overnight. The houses seemed deserted. In the road lay a group of three charred bodies close together, struck dead by the Heat-Ray; and here and there were things that people had dropped--a clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and the like poor valuables. At the corner turning up towards the post office a little cart, filled with boxes and furniture, and horseless, heeled over on a broken wheel. A cash box had been hastily smashed open and thrown under the debris.

Except the lodge at the Orphanage, which was still on fire, none of the houses had suffered very greatly here. The Heat-Ray had shaved the chimney tops and passed. Yet, save ourselves, there did not seem to be a living soul on Maybury Hill. The majority of the inhabitants had escaped, I suppose, by way of the Old Woking road--the road I had taken when I drove to Leatherhead--or they had hidden.

We went down the lane, by the body of the man in black, sodden now from the overnight hail, and broke into the woods at the foot of the hill. We pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a soul. The woods across the line were but the scarred and blackened ruins of woods; for the most part the trees had fallen, but a certain proportion still stood, dismal grey stems, with dark brown foliage instead of green.

On our side the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees; it had failed to secure its footing. In one place the woodmen had been at work on Saturday; trees, felled and freshly trimmed, lay in a clearing, with heaps of sawdust by the sawing-machine and its engine. Hard by was a temporary hut, deserted. There was not a breath of wind this morning, and everything was strangely still. Even the birds were hushed, and as we hurried along I and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked now and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped to listen.

After a time we drew near the road, and as we did so we heard the clatter of hoofs and saw through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers riding slowly towards Woking. We hailed them, and they halted while we hurried towards them. It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of the 8th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the artilleryman told me was a heliograph.

"You are the first men I've seen coming this way this morning," said the lieutenant. "What's brewing?"

His voice and face were eager. The men behind him stared curiously. The artilleryman jumped down the bank into the road and saluted.

"Gun destroyed last night, sir. Have been hiding. Trying to rejoin battery, sir. You'll come in sight of the Martians, I expect, about half a mile along this road."

"What the dickens are they like?" asked the lieutenant.

"Giants in armour, sir. Hundred feet high. Three legs and a body like 'luminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir."

"Get out!" said the lieutenant. "What confounded nonsense!"

"You'll see, sir. They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire and strikes you dead."

"What d'ye mean--a gun?"

"No, sir," and the artilleryman began a vivid account of the Heat-Ray. Halfway through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me. I was still standing on the bank by the side of the road.

"It's perfectly true," I said.

"Well," said the lieutenant, "I suppose it's my business to see it too. Look here"--to the artilleryman--"we're detailed here clearing people out of their houses. You'd better go along and report yourself to Brigadier-General Marvin, and tell him all you know. He's at Weybridge. Know the way?"

"I do," I said; and he turned his horse southward again.

"Half a mile, you say?" said he.

"At most," I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward. He thanked me and rode on, and we saw them no more.

Farther along we came upon a group of three women and two children in the road, busy clearing out a labourer's cottage. They had got hold of a little hand truck, and were piling it up with unclean-looking bundles and shabby furniture. They were all too assiduously engaged to talk to us as we passed.

By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight. We were far beyond the range of the Heat-Ray there, and had it not been for the silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring movement of packing in others, and the knot of soldiers standing on the bridge over the railway and staring down the line towards Woking, the day would have seemed very like any other Sunday.

Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily along the road to Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across a stretch of flat meadow, six twelve-pounders standing neatly at equal distances pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns waiting, and the ammunition waggons were at a business-like distance. The men stood almost as if under inspection.

"That's good!" said I. "They will get one fair shot, at any rate."

The artilleryman hesitated at the gate.

"I shall go on," he said.

Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were a number of men in white fatigue jackets throwing up a long rampart, and more guns behind.

"It's bows and arrows against the lightning, anyhow," said the artilleryman. "They 'aven't seen that fire-beam yet."

The officers who were not actively engaged stood and stared over the treetops southwestward, and the men digging would stop every now and again to stare in the same direction.

Byfleet was in a tumult; people packing, and a score of hussars, some of them dismounted, some on horseback, were hunting them about. Three or four black government waggons, with crosses in white circles, and an old omnibus, among other vehicles, were being loaded in the village street. There were scores of people, most of them sufficiently sabbatical to have assumed their best clothes. The soldiers were having the greatest difficulty in making them realise the gravity of their position. We saw one shrivelled old fellow with a huge box and a score or more of flower pots containing orchids, angrily expostulating with the corporal who would leave them behind. I stopped and gripped his arm.

"Do you know what's over there?" I said, pointing at the pine tops that hid the Martians.

"Eh?" said he, turning. "I was explainin' these is vallyble."

"Death!" I shouted. "Death is coming! Death!" and leaving him to digest that if he could, I hurried on after the artillery-man. At the corner I looked back. The soldier had left him, and he was still standing by his box, with the pots of orchids on the lid of it, and staring vaguely over the trees.

No one in Weybridge could tell us where the headquarters were established; the whole place was in such confusion as I had never seen in any town before. Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing miscellany of conveyances and horseflesh. The respectable inhabitants of the place, men in golf and boating costumes, wives prettily dressed, were packing, river-side loafers energetically helping, children excited, and, for the most part, highly delighted at this astonishing variation of their Sunday experiences. In the midst of it all the worthy vicar was very pluckily holding an early celebration, and his bell was jangling out above the excitement.

I and the artilleryman, seated on the step of the drinking fountain, made a very passable meal upon what we had brought with us. Patrols of soldiers--here no longer hussars, but grenadiers in white--were warning people to move now or to take refuge in their cellars as soon as the firing began. We saw as we crossed the railway bridge that a growing crowd of people had assembled in and about the railway station, and the swarming platform was piled with boxes and packages. The ordinary traffic had been stopped, I believe, in order to allow of the passage of troops and guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a savage struggle occurred for places in the special trains that were put on at a later hour.

We remained at Weybridge until midday, and at that hour we found ourselves at the place near Shepperton Lock where the Wey and Thames join. Part of the time we spent helping two old women to pack a little cart. The Wey has a treble mouth, and at this point boats are to be hired, and there was a ferry across the river. On the Shepperton side was an inn with a lawn, and beyond that the tower of Shepperton Church--it has been replaced by a spire--rose above the trees.

Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives. As yet the flight had not grown to a panic, but there were already far more people than all the boats going to and fro could enable to cross. People came panting along under heavy burdens; one husband and wife were even carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of their household goods piled thereon. One man told us he meant to try to get away from Shepperton station.

There was a lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting. The idea people seemed to have here was that the Martians were simply formidable human beings, who might attack and sack the town, to be certainly destroyed in the end. Every now and then people would glance nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over there was still.

Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big ferryboat had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without offering to help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours.

"What's that?" cried a boatman, and "Shut up, you fool!" said a man near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud--the sound of a gun.

The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight.

"The sojers'll stop 'em," said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A haziness rose over the treetops.

Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river, a puff of smoke that jerked up into the air and hung; and forthwith the ground heaved under foot and a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing two or three windows in the houses near, and leaving us astonished.

"Here they are!" shouted a man in a blue jersey. "Yonder! D'yer see them? Yonder!"

Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the flat meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly towards the river. Little cowled figures they seemed at first, going with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds.

Then, advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth. Their armoured bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward upon the guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer. One on the extreme left, the remotest that is, flourished a huge case high in the air, and the ghostly, terrible Heat-Ray I had already seen on Friday night smote towards Chertsey, and struck the town.

At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures the crowd near the water's edge seemed to me to be for a moment horror-struck. There was no screaming or shouting, but a silence. Then a hoarse murmur and a movement of feet--a splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung round and sent me staggering with a blow from the corner of his burden. A woman thrust at me with her hand and rushed past me. I turned with the rush of the people, but I was not too terrified for thought. The terrible Heat-Ray was in my mind. To get under water! That was it!

"Get under water!" I shouted, unheeded.

I faced about again, and rushed towards the approaching Martian, rushed right down the gravelly beach and headlong into the water. Others did the same. A boatload of people putting back came leaping out as I rushed past. The stones under my feet were muddy and slippery, and the river was so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet scarcely waist-deep. Then, as the Martian towered overhead scarcely a couple of hundred yards away, I flung myself forward under the surface. The splashes of the people in the boats leaping into the river sounded like thunderclaps in my ears. People were landing hastily on both sides of the river. But the Martian machine took no more notice for the moment of the people running this way and that than a man would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his foot has kicked. When, half suffocated, I raised my head above water, the Martian's hood pointed at the batteries that were still firing across the river, and as it advanced it swung loose what must have been the generator of the Heat-Ray.

In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wading halfway across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther bank, and in another moment it had raised itself to its full height again, close to the village of Shepperton. Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to anyone on the right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that village, fired simultaneously. The sudden near concussion, the last close upon the first, made my heart jump. The monster was already raising the case generating the Heat-Ray as the first shell burst six yards above the hood.

I gave a cry of astonishment. I saw and thought nothing of the other four Martian monsters; my attention was riveted upon the nearer incident. Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell.

The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and glittering metal.

"Hit!" shouted I, with something between a scream and a cheer.

I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me. I could have leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation.

The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant; but it did not fall over. It recovered its balance by a miracle, and, no longer heeding its steps and with the camera that fired the Heat-Ray now rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shepperton. The living intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain and splashed to the four winds of heaven, and the Thing was now but a mere intricate device of metal whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight line, incapable of guidance. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have done, swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tremendous force into the river out of my sight.

A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam, mud, and shattered metal shot far up into the sky. As the camera of the Heat-Ray hit the water, the latter had immediately flashed into steam. In another moment a huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore but almost scaldingly hot, came sweeping round the bend upstream. I saw people struggling shorewards, and heard their screaming and shouting faintly above the seething and roar of the Martian's collapse.

For a moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent need of self-preservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water, pushing aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the bend. Half a dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. The fallen Martian came into sight downstream, lying across the river, and for the most part submerged.

Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through the tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and vaguely, the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash and spray of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck like living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of these movements, it was as if some wounded thing were struggling for its life amid the waves. Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine.

My attention was diverted from this death flurry by a furious yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. A man, knee-deep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me and pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with gigantic strides down the riverbank from the direction of Chertsey. The Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly.

At that I ducked at once under water, and, holding my breath until movement was an agony, blundered painfully ahead under the surface as long as I could. The water was in a tumult about me, and rapidly growing hotter.

When for a moment I raised my head to take breath and throw the hair and water from my eyes, the steam was rising in a whirling white fog that at first hid the Martians altogether. The noise was deafening. Then I saw them dimly, colossal figures of grey, magnified by the mist. They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing, tumultuous ruins of their comrade.

The third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one perhaps two hundred yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and that.

The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of noises--the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the crackling and roaring of fire. Dense black smoke was leaping up to mingle with the steam from the river, and as the Heat-Ray went to and fro over Weybridge its impact was marked by flashes of incandescent white, that gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames. The nearer houses still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy, faint and pallid in the steam, with the fire behind them going to and fro.

For a moment perhaps I stood there, breast-high in the almost boiling water, dumbfounded at my position, hopeless of escape. Through the reek I could see the people who had been with me in the river scrambling out of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through grass from the advance of a man, or running to and fro in utter dismay on the towing path.

Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping towards me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar. The Ray flickered up and down the towing path, licking off the people who ran this way and that, and came down to the water's edge not fifty yards from where I stood. It swept across the river to Shepperton, and the water in its track rose in a boiling weal crested with steam. I turned shoreward.

In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling-point had rushed upon me. I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded, agonised, I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore. Had my foot stumbled, it would have been the end. I fell helplessly, in full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare gravelly spit that runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames. I expected nothing but death.

I have a dim memory of the foot of a Martian coming down within a score of yards of my head, driving straight into the loose gravel, whirling it this way and that and lifting again; of a long suspense, and then of the four carrying the debris of their comrade between them, now clear and then presently faint through a veil of smoke, receding interminably, as it seemed to me, across a vast space of river and meadow. And then, very slowly, I realised that by a miracle I had escaped.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE

After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance of the tidings of their approach; as sudden, dreadful, and destructive their advent would have been as the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon a century ago.

But they were in no hurry. Cylinder followed cylinder on its interplanetary flight; every twenty-four hours brought them reinforcement. And meanwhile the military and naval authorities, now fully alive to the tremendous power of their antagonists, worked with furious energy. Every minute a fresh gun came into position until, before twilight, every copse, every row of suburban villas on the hilly slopes about Kingston and Richmond, masked an expectant black muzzle. And through the charred and desolated area--perhaps twenty square miles altogether--that encircled the Martian encampment on Horsell Common, through charred and ruined villages among the green trees, through the blackened and smoking arcades that had been but a day ago pine spinneys, crawled the devoted scouts with the heliographs that were presently to warn the gunners of the Martian approach. But the Martians now understood our command of artillery and the danger of human proximity, and not a man ventured within a mile of either cylinder, save at the price of his life.

It would seem that these giants spent the earlier part of the afternoon in going to and fro, transferring everything from the second and third cylinders--the second in Addlestone Golf Links and the third at Pyrford--to their original pit on Horsell Common. Over that, above the blackened heather and ruined buildings that stretched far and wide, stood one as sentinel, while the rest abandoned their vast fighting-machines and descended into the pit. They were hard at work there far into the night, and the towering pillar of dense green smoke that rose therefrom could be seen from the hills about Merrow, and even, it is said, from Banstead and Epsom Downs.

And while the Martians behind me were thus preparing for their next sally, and in front of me Humanity gathered for the battle, I made my way with infinite pains and labour from the fire and smoke of burning Weybridge towards London.

I saw an abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting down-stream; and throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it, gained it, and so escaped out of that destruction. There were no oars in the boat, but I contrived to paddle, as well as my parboiled hands would allow, down the river towards Halliford and Walton, going very tediously and continually looking behind me, as you may well understand. I followed the river, because I considered that the water gave me my best chance of escape should these giants return.

The hot water from the Martian's overthrow drifted downstream with me, so that for the best part of a mile I could see little of either bank. Once, however, I made out a string of black figures hurrying across the meadows from the direction of Weybridge. Halliford, it seemed, was deserted, and several of the houses facing the river were on fire. It was strange to see the place quite tranquil, quite desolate under the hot blue sky, with the smoke and little threads of flame going straight up into the heat of the afternoon. Never before had I seen houses burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive crowd. A little farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing, and a line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late field of hay.

For a long time I drifted, so painful and weary was I after the violence I had been through, and so intense the heat upon the water. Then my fears got the better of me again, and I resumed my paddling. The sun scorched my bare back. At last, as the bridge at Walton was coming into sight round the bend, my fever and faintness overcame my fears, and I landed on the Middlesex bank and lay down, deadly sick, amid the long grass. I suppose the time was then about four or five o'clock. I got up presently, walked perhaps half a mile without meeting a soul, and then lay down again in the shadow of a hedge. I seem to remember talking, wanderingly, to myself during that last spurt. I was also very thirsty, and bitterly regretful I had drunk no more water. It is a curious thing that I felt angry with my wife; I cannot account for it, but my impotent desire to reach Leatherhead worried me excessively.

I do not clearly remember the arrival of the curate, so that probably I dozed. I became aware of him as a seated figure in soot-smudged shirt sleeves, and with his upturned, clean-shaven face staring at a faint flickering that danced over the sky. The sky was what is called a mackerel sky--rows and rows of faint down-plumes of cloud, just tinted with the midsummer sunset.

I sat up, and at the rustle of my motion he looked at me quickly.

"Have you any water?" I asked abruptly.

He shook his head.

"You have been asking for water for the last hour," he said.

For a moment we were silent, taking stock of each other. I dare say he found me a strange enough figure, naked, save for my water-soaked trousers and socks, scalded, and my face and shoulders blackened by the smoke. His face was a fair weakness, his chin retreated, and his hair lay in crisp, almost flaxen curls on his low forehead; his eyes were rather large, pale blue, and blankly staring. He spoke abruptly, looking vacantly away from me.

"What does it mean?" he said. "What do these things mean?"

I stared at him and made no answer.

He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone.

"Why are these things permitted? What sins have we done? The morning service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain for the afternoon, and then--fire, earthquake, death! As if it were Sodom and Gomorrah! All our work undone, all the work---- What are these Martians?"

"What are we?" I answered, clearing my throat.

He gripped his knees and turned to look at me again. For half a minute, perhaps, he stared silently.

"I was walking through the roads to clear my brain," he said. "And suddenly--fire, earthquake, death!"

He relapsed into silence, with his chin now sunken almost to his knees.

Presently he began waving his hand.

"All the work--all the Sunday schools--What have we done--what has Weybridge done? Everything gone--everything destroyed. The church! We rebuilt it only three years ago. Gone! Swept out of existence! Why?"

Another pause, and he broke out again like one demented.

"The smoke of her burning goeth up for ever and ever!" he shouted.

His eyes flamed, and he pointed a lean finger in the direction of Weybridge.

By this time I was beginning to take his measure. The tremendous tragedy in which he had been involved--it was evident he was a fugitive from Weybridge--had driven him to the very verge of his reason.

"Are we far from Sunbury?" I said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"What are we to do?" he asked. "Are these creatures everywhere? Has the earth been given over to them?"

"Are we far from Sunbury?"

"Only this morning I officiated at early celebration----"

"Things have changed," I said, quietly. "You must keep your head. There is still hope."

"Hope!"

"Yes. Plentiful hope--for all this destruction!"

I began to explain my view of our position. He listened at first, but as I went on the interest dawning in his eyes gave place to their former stare, and his regard wandered from me.

"This must be the beginning of the end," he said, interrupting me. "The end! The great and terrible day of the Lord! When men shall call upon the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and hide them--hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne!"

I began to understand the position. I ceased my laboured reasoning, struggled to my feet, and, standing over him, laid my hand on his shoulder.

"Be a man!" said I. "You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent."

For a time he sat in blank silence.

"But how can we escape?" he asked, suddenly. "They are invulnerable, they are pitiless."

"Neither the one nor, perhaps, the other," I answered. "And the mightier they are the more sane and wary should we be. One of them was killed yonder not three hours ago."

"Killed!" he said, staring about him. "How can God's ministers be killed?"

"I saw it happen." I proceeded to tell him. "We have chanced to come in for the thick of it," said I, "and that is all."

"What is that flicker in the sky?" he asked abruptly.

I told him it was the heliograph signalling--that it was the sign of human help and effort in the sky.

"We are in the midst of it," I said, "quiet as it is. That flicker in the sky tells of the gathering storm. Yonder, I take it are the Martians, and Londonward, where those hills rise about Richmond and Kingston and the trees give cover, earthworks are being thrown up and guns are being placed. Presently the Martians will be coming this way again."

And even as I spoke he sprang to his feet and stopped me by a gesture.

"Listen!" he said.

From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull resonance of distant guns and a remote weird crying. Then everything was still. A cockchafer came droning over the hedge and past us. High in the west the crescent moon hung faint and pale above the smoke of Weybridge and Shepperton and the hot, still splendour of the sunset.

"We had better follow this path," I said, "northward."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IN LONDON

My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking. He was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he heard nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity.

The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a number of people with a quick-firing gun, so the story ran. The telegram concluded with the words: "Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative strength of the earth's gravitational energy." On that last text their leader-writer expanded very comfortingly.

Of course all the students in the crammer's biology class, to which my brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no signs of any unusual excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers puffed scraps of news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight. Then the St. James's Gazette, in an extra-special edition, announced the bare fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication. This was thought to be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the line. Nothing more of the fighting was known that night, the night of my drive to Leatherhead and back.

My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the description in the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from my house. He made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order, as he says, to see the Things before they were killed. He dispatched a telegram, which never reached me, about four o'clock, and spent the evening at a music hall.

In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my brother reached Waterloo in a cab. On the platform from which the midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature of the accident he could not ascertain; indeed, the railway authorities did not clearly know at that time. There was very little excitement in the station, as the officials, failing to realise that anything further than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction had occurred, were running the theatre trains which usually passed through Woking round by Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth Sunday League excursions. A nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother for the traffic manager, to whom he bears a slight resemblance, waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting the railway officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians.

I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday morning "all London was electrified by the news from Woking." As a matter of fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant phrase. Plenty of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Those who did took some time to realise all that the hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed. The majority of people in London do not read Sunday papers.

The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the Londoner's mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors: "About seven o'clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder, and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims have been absolutely useless against their armour; the field guns have been disabled by them. Flying hussars have been galloping into Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey or Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are being thrown up to check the advance Londonward." That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt "handbook" article in the Referee compared the affair to a menagerie suddenly let loose in a village.

No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be sluggish: "crawling," "creeping painfully"--such expressions occurred in almost all the earlier reports. None of the telegrams could have been written by an eyewitness of their advance. The Sunday papers printed separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in default of it. But there was practically nothing more to tell people until late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press agencies the news in their possession. It was stated that the people of Walton and Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the roads Londonward, and that was all.

My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning, still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night. There he heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for peace. Coming out, he bought a Referee. He became alarmed at the news in this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if communication were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by the strange intelligence that the news venders were disseminating. People were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only on account of the local residents. At the station he heard for the first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted. The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had abruptly ceased. My brother could get very little precise detail out of them.

"There's fighting going on about Weybridge" was the extent of their information.

The train service was now very much disorganised. Quite a number of people who had been expecting friends from places on the South-Western network were standing about the station. One grey-headed old gentleman came and abused the South-Western Company bitterly to my brother. "It wants showing up," he said.

One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, containing people who had gone out for a day's boating and found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. A man in a blue and white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings.

"There's hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and things, with boxes of valuables and all that," he said. "They come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there's been guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have told them to get off at once because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What the dickens does it all mean? The Martians can't get out of their pit, can they?"

My brother could not tell him.

Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to the clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday excursionists began to return from all over the South-Western "lung"--Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth--at unnaturally early hours; but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Everyone connected with the terminus seemed ill-tempered.

About five o'clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost invariably closed, between the South-Eastern and the South-Western stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and carriages crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was an exchange of pleasantries: "You'll get eaten!" "We're the beast-tamers!" and so forth. A little while after that a squad of police came into the station and began to clear the public off the platforms, and my brother went out into the street again.

The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with long transverse stripes of reddish-purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body. One of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering in the west.

In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who had just been rushed out of Fleet Street with still-wet newspapers and staring placards. "Dreadful catastrophe!" they bawled one to the other down Wellington Street. "Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!" He had to give threepence for a copy of that paper.

Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full power and terror of these monsters. He learned that they were not merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds swaying vast mechanical bodies; and that they could move swiftly and smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand against them.

They were described as "vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot out a beam of intense heat." Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns, had been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially between the Woking district and London. Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was optimistic.

The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwich--even from the north; among others, long wire-guns of ninety-five tons from Woolwich. Altogether one hundred and sixteen were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly covering London. Never before in England had there been such a vast or rapid concentration of military material.

Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed at once by high explosives, which were being rapidly manufactured and distributed. No doubt, ran the report, the situation was of the strangest and gravest description, but the public was exhorted to avoid and discourage panic. No doubt the Martians were strange and terrible in the extreme, but at the outside there could not be more than twenty of them against our millions.

The authorities had reason to suppose, from the size of the cylinders, that at the outside there could not be more than five in each cylinder--fifteen altogether. And one at least was disposed of--perhaps more. The public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger, and elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of the people in the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with reiterated assurances of the safety of London and the ability of the authorities to cope with the difficulty, this quasi-proclamation closed.

This was printed in enormous type on paper so fresh that it was still wet, and there had been no time to add a word of comment. It was curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the usual contents of the paper had been hacked and taken out to give this place.

All down Wellington Street people could be seen fluttering out the pink sheets and reading, and the Strand was suddenly noisy with the voices of an army of hawkers following these pioneers. Men came scrambling off buses to secure copies. Certainly this news excited people intensely, whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map shop in the Strand were being taken down, my brother said, and a man in his Sunday raiment, lemon-yellow gloves even, was visible inside the window hastily fastening maps of Surrey to the glass.

Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his hand, my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in a cart such as greengrocers use. He was driving from the direction of Westminster Bridge; and close behind him came a hay waggon with five or six respectable-looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbath-best appearance of the people on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them out of cabs. They stopped at the Square as if undecided which way to take, and finally turned eastward along the Strand. Some way behind these came a man in workday clothes, riding one of those old-fashioned tricycles with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white in the face.

My brother turned down towards Victoria, and met a number of such people. He had a vague idea that he might see something of me. He noticed an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of the refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses. One was professing to have seen the Martians. "Boilers on stilts, I tell you, striding along like men." Most of them were excited and animated by their strange experience.

Beyond Victoria the public-houses were doing a lively trade with these arrivals. At all the street corners groups of people were reading papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday visitors. They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the roads, my brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day. My brother addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers from most.

None of them could tell him any news of Woking except one man, who assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on the previous night.

"I come from Byfleet," he said; "man on a bicycle came through the place in the early morning, and ran from door to door warning us to come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look, and there were clouds of smoke to the south--nothing but smoke, and not a soul coming that way. Then we heard the guns at Chertsey, and folks coming from Weybridge. So I've locked up my house and come on."

At the time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the invaders without all this inconvenience.

About eight o'clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible all over the south of London. My brother could not hear it for the traffic in the main thoroughfares, but by striking through the quiet back streets to the river he was able to distinguish it quite plainly.

He walked from Westminster to his apartments near Regent's Park, about two. He was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at the evident magnitude of the trouble. His mind was inclined to run, even as mine had run on Saturday, on military details. He thought of all those silent, expectant guns, of the suddenly nomadic countryside; he tried to imagine "boilers on stilts" a hundred feet high.

There were one or two cartloads of refugees passing along Oxford Street, and several in the Marylebone Road, but so slowly was the news spreading that Regent Street and Portland Place were full of their usual Sunday-night promenaders, albeit they talked in groups, and along the edge of Regent's Park there were as many silent couples "walking out" together under the scattered gas lamps as ever there had been. The night was warm and still, and a little oppressive; the sound of guns continued intermittently, and after midnight there seemed to be sheet lightning in the south.

He read and re-read the paper, fearing the worst had happened to me. He was restless, and after supper prowled out again aimlessly. He returned and tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination notes. He went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, feet running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour of bells. Red reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment he lay astonished, wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad. Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

His room was an attic and as he thrust his head out, up and down the street there were a dozen echoes to the noise of his window sash, and heads in every kind of night disarray appeared. Enquiries were being shouted. "They are coming!" bawled a policeman, hammering at the door; "the Martians are coming!" and hurried to the next door.

The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from the Albany Street Barracks, and every church within earshot was hard at work killing sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin. There was a noise of doors opening, and window after window in the houses opposite flashed from darkness into yellow illumination.

Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting abruptly into noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax under the window, and dying away slowly in the distance. Close on the rear of this came a couple of cabs, the forerunners of a long procession of flying vehicles, going for the most part to Chalk Farm station, where the North-Western special trains were loading up, instead of coming down the gradient into Euston.

For a long time my brother stared out of the window in blank astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at door after door, and delivering their incomprehensible message. Then the door behind him opened, and the man who lodged across the landing came in, dressed only in shirt, trousers, and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his hair disordered from his pillow.

"What the devil is it?" he asked. "A fire? What a devil of a row!"

They both craned their heads out of the window, straining to hear what the policemen were shouting. People were coming out of the side streets, and standing in groups at the corners talking.

"What the devil is it all about?" said my brother's fellow lodger.

My brother answered him vaguely and began to dress, running with each garment to the window in order to miss nothing of the growing excitement. And presently men selling unnaturally early newspapers came bawling into the street:

"London in danger of suffocation! The Kingston and Richmond defences forced! Fearful massacres in the Thames Valley!"

And all about him--in the rooms below, in the houses on each side and across the road, and behind in the Park Terraces and in the hundred other streets of that part of Marylebone, and the Westbourne Park district and St. Pancras, and westward and northward in Kilburn and St. John's Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury and Haggerston and Hoxton, and, indeed, through all the vastness of London from Ealing to East Ham--people were rubbing their eyes, and opening windows to stare out and ask aimless questions, dressing hastily as the first breath of the coming storm of Fear blew through the streets. It was the dawn of the great panic. London, which had gone to bed on Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened, in the small hours of Monday morning, to a vivid sense of danger.

Unable from his window to learn what was happening, my brother went down and out into the street, just as the sky between the parapets of the houses grew pink with the early dawn. The flying people on foot and in vehicles grew more numerous every moment. "Black Smoke!" he heard people crying, and again "Black Smoke!" The contagion of such a unanimous fear was inevitable. As my brother hesitated on the door-step, he saw another news vender approaching, and got a paper forthwith. The man was running away with the rest, and selling his papers for a shilling each as he ran--a grotesque mingling of profit and panic.

And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch of the Commander-in-Chief:

"The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapour by means of rockets. They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way. It is impossible to stop them. There is no safety from the Black Smoke but in instant flight."

That was all, but it was enough. The whole population of the great six-million city was stirring, slipping, running; presently it would be pouring en masse northward.

"Black Smoke!" the voices cried. "Fire!"

The bells of the neighbouring church made a jangling tumult, a cart carelessly driven smashed, amid shrieks and curses, against the water trough up the street. Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the houses, and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps. And overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm.

He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down stairs behind him. His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating.

As my brother began to realise the import of all these things, he turned hastily to his own room, put all his available money--some ten pounds altogether--into his pockets, and went out again into the streets.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY

It was while the curate had sat and talked so wildly to me under the hedge in the flat meadows near Halliford, and while my brother was watching the fugitives stream over Westminster Bridge, that the Martians had resumed the offensive. So far as one can ascertain from the conflicting accounts that have been put forth, the majority of them remained busied with preparations in the Horsell pit until nine that night, hurrying on some operation that disengaged huge volumes of green smoke.

But three certainly came out about eight o'clock and, advancing slowly and cautiously, made their way through Byfleet and Pyrford towards Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of the expectant batteries against the setting sun. These Martians did not advance in a body, but in a line, each perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest fellow. They communicated with one another by means of sirenlike howls, running up and down the scale from one note to another.

It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George's Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford. The Ripley gunners, unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been placed in such a position, fired one wild, premature, ineffectual volley, and bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village, while the Martian, without using his Heat-Ray, walked serenely over their guns, stepped gingerly among them, passed in front of them, and so came unexpectedly upon the guns in Painshill Park, which he destroyed.

The St. George's Hill men, however, were better led or of a better mettle. Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest to them. They laid their guns as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about a thousand yards' range.

The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few paces, stagger, and go down. Everybody yelled together, and the guns were reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martian set up a prolonged ululation, and immediately a second glittering giant, answering him, appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem that a leg of the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells. The whole of the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground, and, simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to bear on the battery. The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about the guns flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already running over the crest of the hill escaped.

After this it would seem that the three took counsel together and halted, and the scouts who were watching them report that they remained absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight, and apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had finished, for his cowl was then seen above the trees again.

It was a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick black tube. A similar tube was handed to each of the three, and the seven proceeded to distribute themselves at equal distances along a curved line between St. George's Hill, Weybridge, and the village of Send, southwest of Ripley.

A dozen rockets sprang out of the hills before them so soon as they began to move, and warned the waiting batteries about Ditton and Esher. At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly armed with tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against the western sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we hurried wearily and painfully along the road that runs northward out of Halliford. They moved, as it seemed to us, upon a cloud, for a milky mist covered the fields and rose to a third of their height.

At this sight the curate cried faintly in his throat, and began running; but I knew it was no good running from a Martian, and I turned aside and crawled through dewy nettles and brambles into the broad ditch by the side of the road. He looked back, saw what I was doing, and turned to join me.

The two halted, the nearer to us standing and facing Sunbury, the remoter being a grey indistinctness towards the evening star, away towards Staines.

The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased; they took up their positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute silence. It was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns. Never since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the same effect--the Martians seemed in solitary possession of the darkling night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St. George's Hill and the woods of Painshill.

But facing that crescent everywhere--at Staines, Hounslow, Ditton, Esher, Ockham, behind hills and woods south of the river, and across the flat grass meadows to the north of it, wherever a cluster of trees or village houses gave sufficient cover--the guns were waiting. The signal rockets burst and rained their sparks through the night and vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a tense expectation. The Martians had but to advance into the line of fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into a thunderous fury of battle.

No doubt the thought that was uppermost in a thousand of those vigilant minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was the riddle--how much they understood of us. Did they grasp that we in our millions were organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they interpret our spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees? Did they dream they might exterminate us? (At that time no one knew what food they needed.) A hundred such questions struggled together in my mind as I watched that vast sentinel shape. And in the back of my mind was the sense of all the huge unknown and hidden forces Londonward. Had they prepared pitfalls? Were the powder mills at Hounslow ready as a snare? Would the Londoners have the heart and courage to make a greater Moscow of their mighty province of houses?

Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us, crouching and peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report that made the ground heave. The one towards Staines answered him. There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation.

I was so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another that I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such evidence of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and low beneath. And there had been no crash, no answering explosion. The silence was restored; the minute lengthened to three.

"What has happened?" said the curate, standing up beside me.

"Heaven knows!" said I.

A bat flickered by and vanished. A distant tumult of shouting began and ceased. I looked again at the Martian, and saw he was now moving eastward along the riverbank, with a swift, rolling motion.

Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery to spring upon him; but the evening calm was unbroken. The figure of the Martian grew smaller as he receded, and presently the mist and the gathering night had swallowed him up. By a common impulse we clambered higher. Towards Sunbury was a dark appearance, as though a conical hill had suddenly come into being there, hiding our view of the farther country; and then, remoter across the river, over Walton, we saw another such summit. These hill-like forms grew lower and broader even as we stared.

Moved by a sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I perceived a third of these cloudy black kopjes had risen.

Everything had suddenly become very still. Far away to the southeast, marking the quiet, we heard the Martians hooting to one another, and then the air quivered again with the distant thud of their guns. But the earthly artillery made no reply.

Now at the time we could not understand these things, but later I was to learn the meaning of these ominous kopjes that gathered in the twilight. Each of the Martians, standing in the great crescent I have described, had discharged, by means of the gunlike tube he carried, a huge canister over whatever hill, copse, cluster of houses, or other possible cover for guns, chanced to be in front of him. Some fired only one of these, some two--as in the case of the one we had seen; the one at Ripley is said to have discharged no fewer than five at that time. These canisters smashed on striking the ground--they did not explode--and incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour, coiling and pouring upward in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud, a gaseous hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the surrounding country. And the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of its pungent wisps, was death to all that breathes.

It was heavy, this vapour, heavier than the densest smoke, so that, after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills, and streaming into the valleys and ditches and watercourses even as I have heard the carbonic-acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do. And where it came upon water some chemical action occurred, and the surface would be instantly covered with a powdery scum that sank slowly and made way for more. The scum was absolutely insoluble, and it is a strange thing, seeing the instant effect of the gas, that one could drink without hurt the water from which it had been strained. The vapour did not diffuse as a true gas would do. It hung together in banks, flowing sluggishly down the slope of the land and driving reluctantly before the wind, and very slowly it combined with the mist and moisture of the air, and sank to the earth in the form of dust. Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue of the spectrum is concerned, we are still entirely ignorant of the nature of this substance.

Once the tumultuous upheaval of its dispersion was over, the black smoke clung so closely to the ground, even before its precipitation, that fifty feet up in the air, on the roofs and upper stories of high houses and on great trees, there was a chance of escaping its poison altogether, as was proved even that night at Street Cobham and Ditton.

The man who escaped at the former place tells a wonderful story of the strangeness of its coiling flow, and how he looked down from the church spire and saw the houses of the village rising like ghosts out of its inky nothingness. For a day and a half he remained there, weary, starving and sun-scorched, the earth under the blue sky and against the prospect of the distant hills a velvet-black expanse, with red roofs, green trees, and, later, black-veiled shrubs and gates, barns, outhouses, and walls, rising here and there into the sunlight.

But that was at Street Cobham, where the black vapour was allowed to remain until it sank of its own accord into the ground. As a rule the Martians, when it had served its purpose, cleared the air of it again by wading into it and directing a jet of steam upon it.

This they did with the vapour banks near us, as we saw in the starlight from the window of a deserted house at Upper Halliford, whither we had returned. From there we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill going to and fro, and about eleven the windows rattled, and we heard the sound of the huge siege guns that had been put in position there. These continued intermittently for the space of a quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at the invisible Martians at Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of the electric light vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow.

Then the fourth cylinder fell--a brilliant green meteor--as I learned afterwards, in Bushey Park. Before the guns on the Richmond and Kingston line of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade far away in the southwest, due, I believe, to guns being fired haphazard before the black vapour could overwhelm the gunners.

So, setting about it as methodically as men might smoke out a wasps' nest, the Martians spread this strange stifling vapour over the Londonward country. The horns of the crescent slowly moved apart, until at last they formed a line from Hanwell to Coombe and Malden. All night through their destructive tubes advanced. Never once, after the Martian at St. George's Hill was brought down, did they give the artillery the ghost of a chance against them. Wherever there was a possibility of guns being laid for them unseen, a fresh canister of the black vapour was discharged, and where the guns were openly displayed the Heat-Ray was brought to bear.

By midnight the blazing trees along the slopes of Richmond Park and the glare of Kingston Hill threw their light upon a network of black smoke, blotting out the whole valley of the Thames and extending as far as the eye could reach. And through this two Martians slowly waded, and turned their hissing steam jets this way and that.

They were sparing of the Heat-Ray that night, either because they had but a limited supply of material for its production or because they did not wish to destroy the country but only to crush and overawe the opposition they had aroused. In the latter aim they certainly succeeded. Sunday night was the end of the organised opposition to their movements. After that no body of men would stand against them, so hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of the torpedo-boats and destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the Thames refused to stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive operation men ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and spasmodic.

One has to imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries towards Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight. Survivors there were none. One may picture the orderly expectation, the officers alert and watchful, the gunners ready, the ammunition piled to hand, the limber gunners with their horses and waggons, the groups of civilian spectators standing as near as they were permitted, the evening stillness, the ambulances and hospital tents with the burned and wounded from Weybridge; then the dull resonance of the shots the Martians fired, and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and houses and smashing amid the neighbouring fields.

One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening-out of the opaque cone of smoke. And then night and extinction--nothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead.

Before dawn the black vapour was pouring through the streets of Richmond, and the disintegrating organism of government was, with a last expiring effort, rousing the population of London to the necessity of flight.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE EXODUS FROM LONDON

So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning--the stream of flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward. By ten o'clock the police organisation, and by midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body.

All the railway lines north of the Thames and the South-Eastern people at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on Sunday, and trains were being filled. People were fighting savagely for standing-room in the carriages even at two o'clock. By three, people were being trampled and crushed even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple of hundred yards or more from Liverpool Street station; revolvers were fired, people stabbed, and the policemen who had been sent to direct the traffic, exhausted and infuriated, were breaking the heads of the people they were called out to protect.

And as the day advanced and the engine drivers and stokers refused to return to London, the pressure of the flight drove the people in an ever-thickening multitude away from the stations and along the northward-running roads. By midday a Martian had been seen at Barnes, and a cloud of slowly sinking black vapour drove along the Thames and across the flats of Lambeth, cutting off all escape over the bridges in its sluggish advance. Another bank drove over Ealing, and surrounded a little island of survivors on Castle Hill, alive, but unable to escape.

After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at Chalk Farm--the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there ploughed through shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace--my brother emerged upon the Chalk Farm road, dodged across through a hurrying swarm of vehicles, and had the luck to be foremost in the sack of a cycle shop. The front tire of the machine he got was punctured in dragging it through the window, but he got up and off, notwithstanding, with no further injury than a cut wrist. The steep foot of Haverstock Hill was impassable owing to several overturned horses, and my brother struck into Belsize Road.

So he got out of the fury of the panic, and, skirting the Edgware Road, reached Edgware about seven, fasting and wearied, but well ahead of the crowd. Along the road people were standing in the roadway, curious, wondering. He was passed by a number of cyclists, some horsemen, and two motor cars. A mile from Edgware the rim of the wheel broke, and the machine became unridable. He left it by the roadside and trudged through the village. There were shops half opened in the main street of the place, and people crowded on the pavement and in the doorways and windows, staring astonished at this extraordinary procession of fugitives that was beginning. He succeeded in getting some food at an inn.

For a time he remained in Edgware not knowing what next to do. The flying people increased in number. Many of them, like my brother, seemed inclined to loiter in the place. There was no fresh news of the invaders from Mars.

At that time the road was crowded, but as yet far from congested. Most of the fugitives at that hour were mounted on cycles, but there were soon motor cars, hansom cabs, and carriages hurrying along, and the dust hung in heavy clouds along the road to St. Albans.

It was perhaps a vague idea of making his way to Chelmsford, where some friends of his lived, that at last induced my brother to strike into a quiet lane running eastward. Presently he came upon a stile, and, crossing it, followed a footpath northeastward. He passed near several farmhouses and some little places whose names he did not learn. He saw few fugitives until, in a grass lane towards High Barnet, he happened upon two ladies who became his fellow travellers. He came upon them just in time to save them.

He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner, saw a couple of men struggling to drag them out of the little pony-chaise in which they had been driving, while a third with difficulty held the frightened pony's head. One of the ladies, a short woman dressed in white, was simply screaming; the other, a dark, slender figure, slashed at the man who gripped her arm with a whip she held in her disengaged hand.

My brother immediately grasped the situation, shouted, and hurried towards the struggle. One of the men desisted and turned towards him, and my brother, realising from his antagonist's face that a fight was unavoidable, and being an expert boxer, went into him forthwith and sent him down against the wheel of the chaise.

It was no time for pugilistic chivalry and my brother laid him quiet with a kick, and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the slender lady's arm. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the whip stung across his face, a third antagonist struck him between the eyes, and the man he held wrenched himself free and made off down the lane in the direction from which he had come.

Partly stunned, he found himself facing the man who had held the horse's head, and became aware of the chaise receding from him down the lane, swaying from side to side, and with the women in it looking back. The man before him, a burly rough, tried to close, and he stopped him with a blow in the face. Then, realising that he was deserted, he dodged round and made off down the lane after the chaise, with the sturdy man close behind him, and the fugitive, who had turned now, following remotely.

Suddenly he stumbled and fell; his immediate pursuer went headlong, and he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of antagonists again. He would have had little chance against them had not the slender lady very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help. It seems she had had a revolver all this time, but it had been under the seat when she and her companion were attacked. She fired at six yards' distance, narrowly missing my brother. The less courageous of the robbers made off, and his companion followed him, cursing his cowardice. They both stopped in sight down the lane, where the third man lay insensible.

"Take this!" said the slender lady, and she gave my brother her revolver.

"Go back to the chaise," said my brother, wiping the blood from his split lip.

She turned without a word--they were both panting--and they went back to where the lady in white struggled to hold back the frightened pony.

The robbers had evidently had enough of it. When my brother looked again they were retreating.

"I'll sit here," said my brother, "if I may"; and he got upon the empty front seat. The lady looked over her shoulder.

"Give me the reins," she said, and laid the whip along the pony's side. In another moment a bend in the road hid the three men from my brother's eyes.

So, quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting, with a cut mouth, a bruised jaw, and bloodstained knuckles, driving along an unknown lane with these two women.

He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the Martian advance. He had hurried home, roused the women--their servant had left them two days before--packed some provisions, put his revolver under the seat--luckily for my brother--and told them to drive on to Edgware, with the idea of getting a train there. He stopped behind to tell the neighbours. He would overtake them, he said, at about half past four in the morning, and now it was nearly nine and they had seen nothing of him. They could not stop in Edgware because of the growing traffic through the place, and so they had come into this side lane.

That was the story they told my brother in fragments when presently they stopped again, nearer to New Barnet. He promised to stay with them, at least until they could determine what to do, or until the missing man arrived, and professed to be an expert shot with the revolver--a weapon strange to him--in order to give them confidence.

They made a sort of encampment by the wayside, and the pony became happy in the hedge. He told them of his own escape out of London, and all that he knew of these Martians and their ways. The sun crept higher in the sky, and after a time their talk died out and gave place to an uneasy state of anticipation. Several wayfarers came along the lane, and of these my brother gathered such news as he could. Every broken answer he had deepened his impression of the great disaster that had come on humanity, deepened his persuasion of the immediate necessity for prosecuting this flight. He urged the matter upon them.

"We have money," said the slender woman, and hesitated.

Her eyes met my brother's, and her hesitation ended.

"So have I," said my brother.

She explained that they had as much as thirty pounds in gold, besides a five-pound note, and suggested that with that they might get upon a train at St. Albans or New Barnet. My brother thought that was hopeless, seeing the fury of the Londoners to crowd upon the trains, and broached his own idea of striking across Essex towards Harwich and thence escaping from the country altogether.

Mrs. Elphinstone--that was the name of the woman in white--would listen to no reasoning, and kept calling upon "George"; but her sister-in-law was astonishingly quiet and deliberate, and at last agreed to my brother's suggestion. So, designing to cross the Great North Road, they went on towards Barnet, my brother leading the pony to save it as much as possible. As the sun crept up the sky the day became excessively hot, and under foot a thick, whitish sand grew burning and blinding, so that they travelled only very slowly. The hedges were grey with dust. And as they advanced towards Barnet a tumultuous murmuring grew stronger.

They began to meet more people. For the most part these were staring before them, murmuring indistinct questions, jaded, haggard, unclean. One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on the ground. They heard his voice, and, looking back at him, saw one hand clutched in his hair and the other beating invisible things. His paroxysm of rage over, he went on his way without once looking back.

As my brother's party went on towards the crossroads to the south of Barnet they saw a woman approaching the road across some fields on their left, carrying a child and with two other children; and then passed a man in dirty black, with a thick stick in one hand and a small portmanteau in the other. Then round the corner of the lane, from between the villas that guarded it at its confluence with the high road, came a little cart drawn by a sweating black pony and driven by a sallow youth in a bowler hat, grey with dust. There were three girls, East End factory girls, and a couple of little children crowded in the cart.

"This'll tike us rahnd Edgware?" asked the driver, wild-eyed, white-faced; and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks.

My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the houses in front of them, and veiling the white facade of a terrace beyond the road that appeared between the backs of the villas. Mrs. Elphinstone suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards from the crossroads.

"Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Elphinstone. "What is this you are driving us into?"

My brother stopped.

For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of human beings rushing northward, one pressing on another. A great bank of dust, white and luminous in the blaze of the sun, made everything within twenty feet of the ground grey and indistinct and was perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense crowd of horses and of men and women on foot, and by the wheels of vehicles of every description.

"Way!" my brother heard voices crying. "Make way!"

It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting point of the lane and road; the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust was hot and pungent. And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa was burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road to add to the confusion.

Two men came past them. Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy bundle and weeping. A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue, circled dubiously round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my brother's threat.

So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses to the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent in between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded forms, grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust.

"Go on! Go on!" cried the voices. "Way! Way!"

One man's hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the pony's head. Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace, down the lane.

Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a riotous tumult, but this was a whole population in movement. It is hard to imagine that host. It had no character of its own. The figures poured out past the corner, and receded with their backs to the group in the lane. Along the margin came those who were on foot threatened by the wheels, stumbling in the ditches, blundering into one another.

The carts and carriages crowded close upon one another, making little way for those swifter and more impatient vehicles that darted forward every now and then when an opportunity showed itself of doing so, sending the people scattering against the fences and gates of the villas.

"Push on!" was the cry. "Push on! They are coming!"

In one cart stood a blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army, gesticulating with his crooked fingers and bawling, "Eternity! Eternity!" His voice was hoarse and very loud so that my brother could hear him long after he was lost to sight in the dust. Some of the people who crowded in the carts whipped stupidly at their horses and quarrelled with other drivers; some sat motionless, staring at nothing with miserable eyes; some gnawed their hands with thirst, or lay prostrate in the bottoms of their conveyances. The horses' bits were covered with foam, their eyes bloodshot.

There were cabs, carriages, shop cars, waggons, beyond counting; a mail cart, a road-cleaner's cart marked "Vestry of St. Pancras," a huge timber waggon crowded with roughs. A brewer's dray rumbled by with its two near wheels splashed with fresh blood.

"Clear the way!" cried the voices. "Clear the way!"

"Eter-nity! Eter-nity!" came echoing down the road.

There were sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed, with children that cried and stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in dust, their weary faces smeared with tears. With many of these came men, sometimes helpful, sometimes lowering and savage. Fighting side by side with them pushed some weary street outcast in faded black rags, wide-eyed, loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shopmen, struggling spasmodically; a wounded soldier my brother noticed, men dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one wretched creature in a nightshirt with a coat thrown over it.

But varied as its composition was, certain things all that host had in common. There were fear and pain on their faces, and fear behind them. A tumult up the road, a quarrel for a place in a waggon, sent the whole host of them quickening their pace; even a man so scared and broken that his knees bent under him was galvanised for a moment into renewed activity. The heat and dust had already been at work upon this multitude. Their skins were dry, their lips black and cracked. They were all thirsty, weary, and footsore. And amid the various cries one heard disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue; the voices of most of them were hoarse and weak. Through it all ran a refrain:

"Way! Way! The Martians are coming!"

Few stopped and came aside from that flood. The lane opened slantingly into the main road with a narrow opening, and had a delusive appearance of coming from the direction of London. Yet a kind of eddy of people drove into its mouth; weaklings elbowed out of the stream, who for the most part rested but a moment before plunging into it again. A little way down the lane, with two friends bending over him, lay a man with a bare leg, wrapped about with bloody rags. He was a lucky man to have friends.

A little old man, with a grey military moustache and a filthy black frock coat, limped out and sat down beside the trap, removed his boot--his sock was blood-stained--shook out a pebble, and hobbled on again; and then a little girl of eight or nine, all alone, threw herself under the hedge close by my brother, weeping.

"I can't go on! I can't go on!"

My brother woke from his torpor of astonishment and lifted her up, speaking gently to her, and carried her to Miss Elphinstone. So soon as my brother touched her she became quite still, as if frightened.

"Ellen!" shrieked a woman in the crowd, with tears in her voice--"Ellen!" And the child suddenly darted away from my brother, crying "Mother!"

"They are coming," said a man on horseback, riding past along the lane.

"Out of the way, there!" bawled a coachman, towering high; and my brother saw a closed carriage turning into the lane.

The people crushed back on one another to avoid the horse. My brother pushed the pony and chaise back into the hedge, and the man drove by and stopped at the turn of the way. It was a carriage, with a pole for a pair of horses, but only one was in the traces. My brother saw dimly through the dust that two men lifted out something on a white stretcher and put it gently on the grass beneath the privet hedge.

One of the men came running to my brother.

"Where is there any water?" he said. "He is dying fast, and very thirsty. It is Lord Garrick."

"Lord Garrick!" said my brother; "the Chief Justice?"

"The water?" he said.

"There may be a tap," said my brother, "in some of the houses. We have no water. I dare not leave my people."

The man pushed against the crowd towards the gate of the corner house.

"Go on!" said the people, thrusting at him. "They are coming! Go on!"

Then my brother's attention was distracted by a bearded, eagle-faced man lugging a small handbag, which split even as my brother's eyes rested on it and disgorged a mass of sovereigns that seemed to break up into separate coins as it struck the ground. They rolled hither and thither among the struggling feet of men and horses. The man stopped and looked stupidly at the heap, and the shaft of a cab struck his shoulder and sent him reeling. He gave a shriek and dodged back, and a cartwheel shaved him narrowly.

"Way!" cried the men all about him. "Make way!"

So soon as the cab had passed, he flung himself, with both hands open, upon the heap of coins, and began thrusting handfuls in his pocket. A horse rose close upon him, and in another moment, half rising, he had been borne down under the horse's hoofs.

"Stop!" screamed my brother, and pushing a woman out of his way, tried to clutch the bit of the horse.

Before he could get to it, he heard a scream under the wheels, and saw through the dust the rim passing over the poor wretch's back. The driver of the cart slashed his whip at my brother, who ran round behind the cart. The multitudinous shouting confused his ears. The man was writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to rise, for the wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay limp and dead. My brother stood up and yelled at the next driver, and a man on a black horse came to his assistance.

"Get him out of the road," said he; and, clutching the man's collar with his free hand, my brother lugged him sideways. But he still clutched after his money, and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering at his arm with a handful of gold. "Go on! Go on!" shouted angry voices behind.

"Way! Way!"

There was a smash as the pole of a carriage crashed into the cart that the man on horseback stopped. My brother looked up, and the man with the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist that held his collar. There was a concussion, and the black horse came staggering sideways, and the carthorse pushed beside it. A hoof missed my brother's foot by a hair's breadth. He released his grip on the fallen man and jumped back. He saw anger change to terror on the face of the poor wretch on the ground, and in a moment he was hidden and my brother was borne backward and carried past the entrance of the lane, and had to fight hard in the torrent to recover it.

He saw Miss Elphinstone covering her eyes, and a little child, with all a child's want of sympathetic imagination, staring with dilated eyes at a dusty something that lay black and still, ground and crushed under the rolling wheels. "Let us go back!" he shouted, and began turning the pony round. "We cannot cross this--hell," he said and they went back a hundred yards the way they had come, until the fighting crowd was hidden. As they passed the bend in the lane my brother saw the face of the dying man in the ditch under the privet, deadly white and drawn, and shining with perspiration. The two women sat silent, crouching in their seat and shivering.

Then beyond the bend my brother stopped again. Miss Elphinstone was white and pale, and her sister-in-law sat weeping, too wretched even to call upon "George." My brother was horrified and perplexed. So soon as they had retreated he realised how urgent and unavoidable it was to attempt this crossing. He turned to Miss Elphinstone, suddenly resolute.

"We must go that way," he said, and led the pony round again.

For the second time that day this girl proved her quality. To force their way into the torrent of people, my brother plunged into the traffic and held back a cab horse, while she drove the pony across its head. A waggon locked wheels for a moment and ripped a long splinter from the chaise. In another moment they were caught and swept forward by the stream. My brother, with the cabman's whip marks red across his face and hands, scrambled into the chaise and took the reins from her.

"Point the revolver at the man behind," he said, giving it to her, "if he presses us too hard. No!--point it at his horse."

Then he began to look out for a chance of edging to the right across the road. But once in the stream he seemed to lose volition, to become a part of that dusty rout. They swept through Chipping Barnet with the torrent; they were nearly a mile beyond the centre of the town before they had fought across to the opposite side of the way. It was din and confusion indescribable; but in and beyond the town the road forks repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the stress.

They struck eastward through Hadley, and there on either side of the road, and at another place farther on they came upon a great multitude of people drinking at the stream, some fighting to come at the water. And farther on, from a lull near East Barnet, they saw two trains running slowly one after the other without signal or order--trains swarming with people, with men even among the coals behind the engines--going northward along the Great Northern Railway. My brother supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that time the furious terror of the people had rendered the central termini impossible.

Near this place they halted for the rest of the afternoon, for the violence of the day had already utterly exhausted all three of them. They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger; the night was cold, and none of them dared to sleep. And in the evening many people came hurrying along the road nearby their stopping place, fleeing from unknown dangers before them, and going in the direction from which my brother had come.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE "THUNDER CHILD"

Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have annihilated the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly through the home counties. Not only along the road through Barnet, but also through Edgware and Waltham Abbey, and along the roads eastward to Southend and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames to Deal and Broadstairs, poured the same frantic rout. If one could have hung that June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue above London every northward and eastward road running out of the tangled maze of streets would have seemed stippled black with the streaming fugitives, each dot a human agony of terror and physical distress. I have set forth at length in the last chapter my brother's account of the road through Chipping Barnet, in order that my readers may realise how that swarming of black dots appeared to one of those concerned. Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. The legendary hosts of Goths and Huns, the hugest armies Asia has ever seen, would have been but a drop in that current. And this was no disciplined march; it was a stampede--a stampede gigantic and terrible--without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind.

Directly below him the balloonist would have seen the network of streets far and wide, houses, churches, squares, crescents, gardens--already derelict--spread out like a huge map, and in the southward blotted. Over Ealing, Richmond, Wimbledon, it would have seemed as if some monstrous pen had flung ink upon the chart. Steadily, incessantly, each black splash grew and spread, shooting out ramifications this way and that, now banking itself against rising ground, now pouring swiftly over a crest into a new-found valley, exactly as a gout of ink would spread itself upon blotting paper.

And beyond, over the blue hills that rise southward of the river, the glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and methodically spreading their poison cloud over this patch of country and then over that, laying it again with their steam jets when it had served its purpose, and taking possession of the conquered country. They do not seem to have aimed at extermination so much as at complete demoralisation and the destruction of any opposition. They exploded any stores of powder they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked the railways here and there. They were hamstringing mankind. They seemed in no hurry to extend the field of their operations, and did not come beyond the central part of London all that day. It is possible that a very considerable number of people in London stuck to their houses through Monday morning. Certain it is that many died at home suffocated by the Black Smoke.

Until about midday the Pool of London was an astonishing scene. Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the enormous sums of money offered by fugitives, and it is said that many who swam out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and drowned. About one o'clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a cloud of the black vapour appeared between the arches of Blackfriars Bridge. At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront. People were actually clambering down the piers of the bridge from above.

When, an hour later, a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and waded down the river, nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse.

Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell. The sixth star fell at Wimbledon. My brother, keeping watch beside the women in the chaise in a meadow, saw the green flash of it far beyond the hills. On Tuesday the little party, still set upon getting across the sea, made its way through the swarming country towards Colchester. The news that the Martians were now in possession of the whole of London was confirmed. They had been seen at Highgate, and even, it was said, at Neasden. But they did not come into my brother's view until the morrow.

That day the scattered multitudes began to realise the urgent need of provisions. As they grew hungry the rights of property ceased to be regarded. Farmers were out to defend their cattle-sheds, granaries, and ripening root crops with arms in their hands. A number of people now, like my brother, had their faces eastward, and there were some desperate souls even going back towards London to get food. These were chiefly people from the northern suburbs, whose knowledge of the Black Smoke came by hearsay. He heard that about half the members of the government had gathered at Birmingham, and that enormous quantities of high explosives were being prepared to be used in automatic mines across the Midland counties.

He was also told that the Midland Railway Company had replaced the desertions of the first day's panic, had resumed traffic, and was running northward trains from St. Albans to relieve the congestion of the home counties. There was also a placard in Chipping Ongar announcing that large stores of flour were available in the northern towns and that within twenty-four hours bread would be distributed among the starving people in the neighbourhood. But this intelligence did not deter him from the plan of escape he had formed, and the three pressed eastward all day, and heard no more of the bread distribution than this promise. Nor, as a matter of fact, did anyone else hear more of it. That night fell the seventh star, falling upon Primrose Hill. It fell while Miss Elphinstone was watching, for she took that duty alternately with my brother. She saw it.

On Wednesday the three fugitives--they had passed the night in a field of unripe wheat--reached Chelmsford, and there a body of the inhabitants, calling itself the Committee of Public Supply, seized the pony as provisions, and would give nothing in exchange for it but the promise of a share in it the next day. Here there were rumours of Martians at Epping, and news of the destruction of Waltham Abbey Powder Mills in a vain attempt to blow up one of the invaders.

People were watching for Martians here from the church towers. My brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at once to the coast rather than wait for food, although all three of them were very hungry. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which, strangely enough, seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save for a few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they suddenly came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all sorts that it is possible to imagine.

For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came on to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and afterwards to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people. They lay in a huge sickle-shaped curve that vanished into mist at last towards the Naze. Close inshore was a multitude of fishing smacks--English, Scotch, French, Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, electric boats; and beyond were ships of large burden, a multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships, passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white transport even, neat white and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg; and along the blue coast across the Blackwater my brother could make out dimly a dense swarm of boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which also extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon.

About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child. It was the only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea--for that day there was a dead calm--lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it.

At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the assurances of her sister-in-law, gave way to panic. She had never been out of England before, she would rather die than trust herself friendless in a foreign country, and so forth. She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar. She had been growing increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed during the two days' journeyings. Her great idea was to return to Stanmore. Things had been always well and safe at Stanmore. They would find George at Stanmore.

It was with the greatest difficulty they could get her down to the beach, where presently my brother succeeded in attracting the attention of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames. They sent a boat and drove a bargain for thirty-six pounds for the three. The steamer was going, these men said, to Ostend.

It was about two o'clock when my brother, having paid their fares at the gangway, found himself safely aboard the steamboat with his charges. There was food aboard, albeit at exorbitant prices, and the three of them contrived to eat a meal on one of the seats forward.

There were already a couple of score of passengers aboard, some of whom had expended their last money in securing a passage, but the captain lay off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, picking up passengers until the seated decks were even dangerously crowded. He would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of guns that began about that hour in the south. As if in answer, the ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of flags. A jet of smoke sprang out of her funnels.

Some of the passengers were of opinion that this firing came from Shoeburyness, until it was noticed that it was growing louder. At the same time, far away in the southeast the masts and upperworks of three ironclads rose one after the other out of the sea, beneath clouds of black smoke. But my brother's attention speedily reverted to the distant firing in the south. He fancied he saw a column of smoke rising out of the distant grey haze.

The little steamer was already flapping her way eastward of the big crescent of shipping, and the low Essex coast was growing blue and hazy, when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the remote distance, advancing along the muddy coast from the direction of Foulness. At that the captain on the bridge swore at the top of his voice with fear and anger at his own delay, and the paddles seemed infected with his terror. Every soul aboard stood at the bulwarks or on the seats of the steamer and stared at that distant shape, higher than the trees or church towers inland, and advancing with a leisurely parody of a human stride.

It was the first Martian my brother had seen, and he stood, more amazed than terrified, watching this Titan advancing deliberately towards the shipping, wading farther and farther into the water as the coast fell away. Then, far away beyond the Crouch, came another, striding over some stunted trees, and then yet another, still farther off, wading deeply through a shiny mudflat that seemed to hang halfway up between sea and sky. They were all stalking seaward, as if to intercept the escape of the multitudinous vessels that were crowded between Foulness and the Naze. In spite of the throbbing exertions of the engines of the little paddle-boat, and the pouring foam that her wheels flung behind her, she receded with terrifying slowness from this ominous advance.

Glancing northwestward, my brother saw the large crescent of shipping already writhing with the approaching terror; one ship passing behind another, another coming round from broadside to end on, steamships whistling and giving off volumes of steam, sails being let out, launches rushing hither and thither. He was so fascinated by this and by the creeping danger away to the left that he had no eyes for anything seaward. And then a swift movement of the steamboat (she had suddenly come round to avoid being run down) flung him headlong from the seat upon which he was standing. There was a shouting all about him, a trampling of feet, and a cheer that seemed to be answered faintly. The steamboat lurched and rolled him over upon his hands.

He sprang to his feet and saw to starboard, and not a hundred yards from their heeling, pitching boat, a vast iron bulk like the blade of a plough tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge waves of foam that leaped towards the steamer, flinging her paddles helplessly in the air, and then sucking her deck down almost to the waterline.

A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were clear again he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward. Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the giant was even such another as themselves. The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray.

She was steaming at such a pace that in a minute she seemed halfway between the steamboat and the Martians--a diminishing black bulk against the receding horizontal expanse of the Essex coast.

Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians.

They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship's side like a white-hot iron rod through paper.

A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the other, and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer, ricocheted towards the other flying ships to the north, and smashed a smack to matchwood.

But no one heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian's collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer's stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and funnels spouting fire.

She was alive still; the steering gear, it seems, was intact and her engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of cardboard. My brother shouted involuntarily. A boiling tumult of steam hid everything again.

"Two!" yelled the captain.

Everyone was shouting. The whole steamer from end to end rang with frantic cheering that was taken up first by one and then by all in the crowding multitude of ships and boats that was driving out to sea.

The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third Martian and the coast altogether. And all this time the boat was paddling steadily out to sea and away from the fight; and when at last the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened, and nothing of the Thunder Child could be made out, nor could the third Martian be seen. But the ironclads to seaward were now quite close and standing in towards shore past the steamboat.

The little vessel continued to beat its way seaward, and the ironclads receded slowly towards the coast, which was hidden still by a marbled bank of vapour, part steam, part black gas, eddying and combining in the strangest way. The fleet of refugees was scattering to the northeast; several smacks were sailing between the ironclads and the steamboat. After a time, and before they reached the sinking cloud bank, the warships turned northward, and then abruptly went about and passed into the thickening haze of evening southward. The coast grew faint, and at last indistinguishable amid the low banks of clouds that were gathering about the sinking sun.

Then suddenly out of the golden haze of the sunset came the vibration of guns, and a form of black shadows moving. Everyone struggled to the rail of the steamer and peered into the blinding furnace of the west, but nothing was to be distinguished clearly. A mass of smoke rose slanting and barred the face of the sun. The steamboat throbbed on its way through an interminable suspense.

The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed up into the sky out of the greyness--rushed slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western sky; something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the land.

BOOK TWO

THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS

CHAPTER ONE

UNDER FOOT

In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two chapters I and the curate have been lurking in the empty house at Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke. There I will resume. We stopped there all Sunday night and all the next day--the day of the panic--in a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black Smoke from the rest of the world. We could do nothing but wait in aching inactivity during those two weary days.

My mind was occupied by anxiety for my wife. I figured her at Leatherhead, terrified, in danger, mourning me already as a dead man. I paced the rooms and cried aloud when I thought of how I was cut off from her, of all that might happen to her in my absence. My cousin I knew was brave enough for any emergency, but he was not the sort of man to realise danger quickly, to rise promptly. What was needed now was not bravery, but circumspection. My only consolation was to believe that the Martians were moving London-ward and away from her. Such vague anxieties keep the mind sensitive and painful. I grew very weary and irritable with the curate's perpetual ejaculations; I tired of the sight of his selfish despair. After some ineffectual remonstrance I kept away from him, staying in a room--evidently a children's schoolroom--containing globes, forms, and copybooks. When he followed me thither, I went to a box room at the top of the house and, in order to be alone with my aching miseries, locked myself in.

We were hopelessly hemmed in by the Black Smoke all that day and the morning of the next. There were signs of people in the next house on Sunday evening--a face at a window and moving lights, and later the slamming of a door. But I do not know who these people were, nor what became of them. We saw nothing of them next day. The Black Smoke drifted slowly riverward all through Monday morning, creeping nearer and nearer to us, driving at last along the roadway outside the house that hid us.

A Martian came across the fields about midday, laying the stuff with a jet of superheated steam that hissed against the walls, smashed all the windows it touched, and scalded the curate's hand as he fled out of the front room. When at last we crept across the sodden rooms and looked out again, the country northward was as though a black snowstorm had passed over it. Looking towards the river, we were astonished to see an unaccountable redness mingling with the black of the scorched meadows.

For a time we did not see how this change affected our position, save that we were relieved of our fear of the Black Smoke. But later I perceived that we were no longer hemmed in, that now we might get away. So soon as I realised that the way of escape was open, my dream of action returned. But the curate was lethargic, unreasonable.

"We are safe here," he repeated; "safe here."

I resolved to leave him--would that I had! Wiser now for the artilleryman's teaching, I sought out food and drink. I had found oil and rags for my burns, and I also took a hat and a flannel shirt that I found in one of the bedrooms. When it was clear to him that I meant to go alone--had reconciled myself to going alone--he suddenly roused himself to come. And all being quiet throughout the afternoon, we started about five o'clock, as I should judge, along the blackened road to Sunbury.

In Sunbury, and at intervals along the road, were dead bodies lying in contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and luggage, all covered thickly with black dust. That pall of cindery powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii. We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of strange and unfamiliar appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were relieved to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating drift. We went through Bushey Park, with its deer going to and fro under the chestnuts, and some men and women hurrying in the distance towards Hampton, and so we came to Twickenham. These were the first people we saw.

Away across the road the woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still afire. Twickenham was uninjured by either Heat-Ray or Black Smoke, and there were more people about here, though none could give us news. For the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull to shift their quarters. I have an impression that many of the houses here were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even for flight. Here too the evidence of a hasty rout was abundant along the road. I remember most vividly three smashed bicycles in a heap, pounded into the road by the wheels of subsequent carts. We crossed Richmond Bridge about half past eight. We hurried across the exposed bridge, of course, but I noticed floating down the stream a number of red masses, some many feet across. I did not know what these were--there was no time for scrutiny--and I put a more horrible interpretation on them than they deserved. Here again on the Surrey side were black dust that had once been smoke, and dead bodies--a heap near the approach to the station; but we had no glimpse of the Martians until we were some way towards Barnes.

We saw in the blackened distance a group of three people running down a side street towards the river, but otherwise it seemed deserted. Up the hill Richmond town was burning briskly; outside the town of Richmond there was no trace of the Black Smoke.

Then suddenly, as we approached Kew, came a number of people running, and the upperworks of a Martian fighting-machine loomed in sight over the housetops, not a hundred yards away from us. We stood aghast at our danger, and had the Martian looked down we must immediately have perished. We were so terrified that we dared not go on, but turned aside and hid in a shed in a garden. There the curate crouched, weeping silently, and refusing to stir again.

But my fixed idea of reaching Leatherhead would not let me rest, and in the twilight I ventured out again. I went through a shrubbery, and along a passage beside a big house standing in its own grounds, and so emerged upon the road towards Kew. The curate I left in the shed, but he came hurrying after me.

That second start was the most foolhardy thing I ever did. For it was manifest the Martians were about us. No sooner had the curate overtaken me than we saw either the fighting-machine we had seen before or another, far away across the meadows in the direction of Kew Lodge. Four or five little black figures hurried before it across the green-grey of the field, and in a moment it was evident this Martian pursued them. In three strides he was among them, and they ran radiating from his feet in all directions. He used no Heat-Ray to destroy them, but picked them up one by one. Apparently he tossed them into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder.

It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any other purpose than destruction with defeated humanity. We stood for a moment petrified, then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a walled garden, fell into, rather than found, a fortunate ditch, and lay there, scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were out.

I suppose it was nearly eleven o'clock before we gathered courage to start again, no longer venturing into the road, but sneaking along hedgerows and through plantations, and watching keenly through the darkness, he on the right and I on the left, for the Martians, who seemed to be all about us. In one place we blundered upon a scorched and blackened area, now cooling and ashen, and a number of scattered dead bodies of men, burned horribly about the heads and trunks but with their legs and boots mostly intact; and of dead horses, fifty feet, perhaps, behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun carriages.

Sheen, it seemed, had escaped destruction, but the place was silent and deserted. Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion suddenly complained of faintness and thirst, and we decided to try one of the houses.

The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with the window, was a small semi-detached villa, and I found nothing eatable left in the place but some mouldy cheese. There was, however, water to drink; and I took a hatchet, which promised to be useful in our next house-breaking.

We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake. Here there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the pantry of this domicile we found a store of food--two loaves of bread in a pan, an uncooked steak, and the half of a ham. I give this catalogue so precisely because, as it happened, we were destined to subsist upon this store for the next fortnight. Bottled beer stood under a shelf, and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp lettuces. This pantry opened into a kind of wash-up kitchen, and in this was firewood; there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly a dozen of burgundy, tinned soups and salmon, and two tins of biscuits.

We sat in the adjacent kitchen in the dark--for we dared not strike a light--and ate bread and ham, and drank beer out of the same bottle. The curate, who was still timorous and restless, was now, oddly enough, for pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength by eating when the thing happened that was to imprison us.

"It can't be midnight yet," I said, and then came a blinding glare of vivid green light. Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly visible in green and black, and vanished again. And then followed such a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor against the oven handle and stunned. I was insensible for a long time, the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again, and he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from a cut forehead, was dabbing water over me.

For some time I could not recollect what had happened. Then things came to me slowly. A bruise on my temple asserted itself.

"Are you better?" asked the curate in a whisper.

At last I answered him. I sat up.

"Don't move," he said. "The floor is covered with smashed crockery from the dresser. You can't possibly move without making a noise, and I fancy they are outside."

We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other breathing. Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near us, some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling sound. Outside and very near was an intermittent, metallic rattle.

"That!" said the curate, when presently it happened again.

"Yes," I said. "But what is it?"

"A Martian!" said the curate.

I listened again.

"It was not like the Heat-Ray," I said, and for a time I was inclined to think one of the great fighting-machines had stumbled against the house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of Shepperton Church.

Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved. And then the light filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through a triangular aperture between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in the wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for the first time.

The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which flowed over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our feet. Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe. The floor was littered with smashed hardware; the end of the kitchen towards the house was broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was evident the greater part of the house had collapsed. Contrasting vividly with this ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, pale green, and with a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering from the walls above the kitchen range.

As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the body of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still glowing cylinder. At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly as possible out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the scullery.

Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind.

"The fifth cylinder," I whispered, "the fifth shot from Mars, has struck this house and buried us under the ruins!"

For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered:

"God have mercy upon us!"

I heard him presently whimpering to himself.

Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery; I for my part scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint light of the kitchen door. I could just see the curate's face, a dim, oval shape, and his collar and cuffs. Outside there began a metallic hammering, then a violent hooting, and then again, after a quiet interval, a hissing like the hissing of an engine. These noises, for the most part problematical, continued intermittently, and seemed if anything to increase in number as time wore on. Presently a measured thudding and a vibration that made everything about us quiver and the vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and shivering, until our tired attention failed. . . .

At last I found myself awake and very hungry. I am inclined to believe we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that awakening. My hunger was at a stride so insistent that it moved me to action. I told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way towards the pantry. He made me no answer, but so soon as I began eating the faint noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling after me.

CHAPTER TWO

WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE

After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone. The thudding vibration continued with wearisome persistence. I whispered for the curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of the kitchen. It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the room, lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the Martians. His shoulders were hunched, so that his head was hidden from me.

I could hear a number of noises almost like those in an engine shed; and the place rocked with that beating thud. Through the aperture in the wall I could see the top of a tree touched with gold and the warm blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or so I remained watching the curate, and then I advanced, crouching and stepping with extreme care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor.

I touched the curate's leg, and he started so violently that a mass of plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact. I gripped his arm, fearing he might cry out, and for a long time we crouched motionless. Then I turned to see how much of our rampart remained. The detachment of the plaster had left a vertical slit open in the debris, and by raising myself cautiously across a beam I was able to see out of this gap into what had been overnight a quiet suburban roadway. Vast, indeed, was the change that we beheld.

The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the house we had first visited. The building had vanished, completely smashed, pulverised, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder lay now far beneath the original foundations--deep in a hole, already vastly larger than the pit I had looked into at Woking. The earth all round it had splashed under that tremendous impact--"splashed" is the only word--and lay in heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved exactly like mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had collapsed backward; the front portion, even on the ground floor, had been destroyed completely; by a chance the kitchen and scullery had escaped, and stood buried now under soil and ruins, closed in by tons of earth on every side save towards the cylinder. Over that aspect we hung now on the very edge of the great circular pit the Martians were engaged in making. The heavy beating sound was evidently just behind us, and ever and again a bright green vapour drove up like a veil across our peephole.

The cylinder was already opened in the centre of the pit, and on the farther edge of the pit, amid the smashed and gravel-heaped shrubbery, one of the great fighting-machines, deserted by its occupant, stood stiff and tall against the evening sky. At first I scarcely noticed the pit and the cylinder, although it has been convenient to describe them first, on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy in the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were crawling slowly and painfully across the heaped mould near it.

The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one of those complicated fabrics that have since been called handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder. These, as it extracted them, were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface of earth behind it.

Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The fighting-machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely realise that living quality.

I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet would have been much better without them.

At first, I say, the handling-machine did not impress me as a machine, but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab's cerebral portion. But then I perceived the resemblance of its grey-brown, shiny, leathery integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me. With that realisation my interest shifted to those other creatures, the real Martians. Already I had had a transient impression of these, and the first nausea no longer obscured my observation. Moreover, I was concealed and motionless, and under no urgency of action.

They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive. They were huge round bodies--or, rather, heads--about four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrils--indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes, and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or body--I scarcely know how to speak of it--was the single tight tympanic surface, since known to be anatomically an ear, though it must have been almost useless in our dense air. In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight each. These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the hands. Even as I saw these Martians for the first time they seemed to be endeavouring to raise themselves on these hands, but of course, with the increased weight of terrestrial conditions, this was impossible. There is reason to suppose that on Mars they may have progressed upon them with some facility.

The internal anatomy, I may remark here, as dissection has since shown, was almost equally simple. The greater part of the structure was the brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile tentacles. Besides this were the bulky lungs, into which the mouth opened, and the heart and its vessels. The pulmonary distress caused by the denser atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only too evident in the convulsive movements of the outer skin.

And this was the sum of the Martian organs. Strange as it may seem to a human being, all the complex apparatus of digestion, which makes up the bulk of our bodies, did not exist in the Martians. They were heads--merely heads. Entrails they had none. They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, and injected it into their own veins. I have myself seen this being done, as I shall mention in its place. But, squeamish as I may seem, I cannot bring myself to describe what I could not endure even to continue watching. Let it suffice to say, blood obtained from a still living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run directly by means of a little pipette into the recipient canal. . . .

The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at the same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit.

The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are undeniable, if one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and energy occasioned by eating and the digestive process. Our bodies are half made up of glands and tubes and organs, occupied in turning heterogeneous food into blood. The digestive processes and their reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our minds. Men go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy livers, or sound gastric glands. But the Martians were lifted above all these organic fluctuations of mood and emotion.

Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment is partly explained by the nature of the remains of the victims they had brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Two or three of these seem to have been brought in each cylinder, and all were killed before earth was reached. It was just as well for them, for the mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every bone in their bodies.

And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in this place certain further details which, although they were not all evident to us at the time, will enable the reader who is unacquainted with them to form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures.

In three other points their physiology differed strangely from ours. Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man sleeps. Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate, that periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or no sense of fatigue, it would seem. On earth they could never have moved without effort, yet even to the last they kept in action. In twenty-four hours they did twenty-four hours of work, as even on earth is perhaps the case with the ants.

In the next place, wonderful as it seems in a sexual world, the Martians were absolutely without sex, and therefore without any of the tumultuous emotions that arise from that difference among men. A young Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon earth during the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially budded off, just as young lilybulbs bud off, or like the young animals in the fresh-water polyp.

In man, in all the higher terrestrial animals, such a method of increase has disappeared; but even on this earth it was certainly the primitive method. Among the lower animals, up even to those first cousins of the vertebrated animals, the Tunicates, the two processes occur side by side, but finally the sexual method superseded its competitor altogether. On Mars, however, just the reverse has apparently been the case.

It is worthy of remark that a certain speculative writer of quasi-scientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion, did forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian condition. His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December, 1893, in a long-defunct publication, the Pall Mall Budget, and I recall a caricature of it in a pre-Martian periodical called Punch. He pointed out--writing in a foolish, facetious tone--that the perfection of mechanical appliances must ultimately supersede limbs; the perfection of chemical devices, digestion; that such organs as hair, external nose, teeth, ears, and chin were no longer essential parts of the human being, and that the tendency of natural selection would lie in the direction of their steady diminution through the coming ages. The brain alone remained a cardinal necessity. Only one other part of the body had a strong case for survival, and that was the hand, "teacher and agent of the brain." While the rest of the body dwindled, the hands would grow larger.

There is many a true word written in jest, and here in the Martians we have beyond dispute the actual accomplishment of such a suppression of the animal side of the organism by the intelligence. To me it is quite credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves, by a gradual development of brain and hands (the latter giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles at last) at the expense of the rest of the body. Without the body the brain would, of course, become a mere selfish intelligence, without any of the emotional substratum of the human being.

The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary science eliminated them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life. And speaking of the differences between the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may allude here to the curious suggestions of the red weed.

Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint. At any rate, the seeds which the Martians (intentionally or accidentally) brought with them gave rise in all cases to red-coloured growths. Only that known popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in competition with terrestrial forms. The red creeper was quite a transitory growth, and few people have seen it growing. For a time, however, the red weed grew with astonishing vigour and luxuriance. It spread up the sides of the pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment, and its cactus-like branches formed a carmine fringe to the edges of our triangular window. And afterwards I found it broadcast throughout the country, and especially wherever there was a stream of water.

The Martians had what appears to have been an auditory organ, a single round drum at the back of the head-body, and eyes with a visual range not very different from ours except that, according to Philips, blue and violet were as black to them. It is commonly supposed that they communicated by sounds and tentacular gesticulations; this is asserted, for instance, in the able but hastily compiled pamphlet (written evidently by someone not an eye-witness of Martian actions) to which I have already alluded, and which, so far, has been the chief source of information concerning them. Now no surviving human being saw so much of the Martians in action as I did. I take no credit to myself for an accident, but the fact is so. And I assert that I watched them closely time after time, and that I have seen four, five, and (once) six of them sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar hooting invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation, and was, I believe, in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to the suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter I am convinced--as firmly as I am convinced of anything--that the Martians interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation. And I have been convinced of this in spite of strong preconceptions. Before the Martian invasion, as an occasional reader here or there may remember, I had written with some little vehemence against the telepathic theory.

The Martians wore no clothing. Their conceptions of ornament and decorum were necessarily different from ours; and not only were they evidently much less sensible of changes of temperature than we are, but changes of pressure do not seem to have affected their health at all seriously. Yet though they wore no clothing, it was in the other artificial additions to their bodily resources that their great superiority over man lay. We men, with our bicycles and road-skates, our Lilienthal soaring-machines, our guns and sticks and so forth, are just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked out. They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet. And of their appliances, perhaps nothing is more wonderful to a man than the curious fact that what is the dominant feature of almost all human devices in mechanism is absent--the wheel is absent; among all the things they brought to earth there is no trace or suggestion of their use of wheels. One would have at least expected it in locomotion. And in this connection it is curious to remark that even on this earth Nature has never hit upon the wheel, or has preferred other expedients to its development. And not only did the Martians either not know of (which is incredible), or abstain from, the wheel, but in their apparatus singularly little use is made of the fixed pivot or relatively fixed pivot, with circular motions thereabout confined to one plane. Almost all the joints of the machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over small but beautifully curved friction bearings. And while upon this matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions, which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was attained. Such quasi-muscles abounded in the crablike handling-machine which, on my first peeping out of the slit, I watched unpacking the cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians lying beyond it in the sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual tentacles, and moving feebly after their vast journey across space.

While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the sunlight, and noting each strange detail of their form, the curate reminded me of his presence by pulling violently at my arm. I turned to a scowling face, and silent, eloquent lips. He wanted the slit, which permitted only one of us to peep through; and so I had to forego watching them for a time while he enjoyed that privilege.

When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put together several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.

CHAPTER THREE

THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT

The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian might see down upon us behind our barrier. At a later date we began to feel less in danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the dazzle of the sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank blackness, but at first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery in heart-throbbing retreat. Yet terrible as was the danger we incurred, the attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible. And I recall now with a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in which we were between starvation and a still more terrible death, we could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight. We would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way between eagerness and the dread of making a noise, and strike each other, and thrust and kick, within a few inches of exposure.

The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought his weak tears in some way efficacious. And I would sit in the darkness unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his importunities. He ate more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed out that our only chance of life was to stop in the house until the Martians had done with their pit, that in that long patience a time might presently come when we should need food. He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals. He slept little.

As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed doing it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows. That brought him to reason for a time. But he was one of those weak creatures, void of pride, timorous, anaemic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves.

It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things, will have a wider charity.

And while within we fought out our dark, dim contest of whispers, snatched food and drink, and gripping hands and blows, without, in the pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the unfamiliar routine of the Martians in the pit. Let me return to those first new experiences of mine. After a long time I ventured back to the peephole, to find that the new-comers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer than three of the fighting-machines. These last had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly manner about the cylinder. The second handling-machine was now completed, and was busied in serving one of the novel contrivances the big machine had brought. This was a body resembling a milk can in its general form, above which oscillated a pear-shaped receptacle, and from which a stream of white powder flowed into a circular basin below.

The oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of the handling-machine. With two spatulate hands the handling-machine was digging out and flinging masses of clay into the pear-shaped receptacle above, while with another arm it periodically opened a door and removed rusty and blackened clinkers from the middle part of the machine. Another steely tentacle directed the powder from the basin along a ribbed channel towards some receiver that was hidden from me by the mound of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver a little thread of green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As I looked, the handling-machine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended, telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment before a mere blunt projection, until its end was hidden behind the mound of clay. In another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, untarnished as yet, and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit. Between sunset and starlight this dexterous machine must have made more than a hundred such bars out of the crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose steadily until it topped the side of the pit.

The contrast between the swift and complex movements of these contrivances and the inert panting clumsiness of their masters was acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter were indeed the living of the two things.

The curate had possession of the slit when the first men were brought to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up, listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backward, and I, fearful that we were observed, crouched in a spasm of terror. He came sliding down the rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic. His gesture suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him, and clambered up to it. At first I could see no reason for his frantic behaviour. The twilight had now come, the stars were little and faint, but the pit was illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from the aluminium-making. The whole picture was a flickering scheme of green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows, strangely trying to the eyes. Over and through it all went the bats, heeding it not at all. The sprawling Martians were no longer to be seen, the mound of blue-green powder had risen to cover them from sight, and a fighting-machine, with its legs contracted, crumpled, and abbreviated, stood across the corner of the pit. And then, amid the clangour of the machinery, came a drifting suspicion of human voices, that I entertained at first only to dismiss.

I crouched, watching this fighting-machine closely, satisfying myself now for the first time that the hood did indeed contain a Martian. As the green flames lifted I could see the oily gleam of his integument and the brightness of his eyes. And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the little cage that hunched upon its back. Then something--something struggling violently--was lifted high against the sky, a black, vague enigma against the starlight; and as this black object came down again, I saw by the green brightness that it was a man. For an instant he was clearly visible. He was a stout, ruddy, middle-aged man, well dressed; three days before, he must have been walking the world, a man of considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams of light on his studs and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence. And then began a shrieking and a sustained and cheerful hooting from the Martians.

I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my ears, and bolted into the scullery. The curate, who had been crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion of him, and came running after me.

That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of escape; but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider our position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite incapable of discussion; this new and culminating atrocity had robbed him of all vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to the level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I gripped myself with both hands. It grew upon my mind, once I could face the facts, that terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for absolute despair. Our chief chance lay in the possibility of the Martians making the pit nothing more than a temporary encampment. Or even if they kept it permanently, they might not consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of escape might be afforded us. I also weighed very carefully the possibility of our digging a way out in a direction away from the pit, but the chances of our emerging within sight of some sentinel fighting-machine seemed at first too great. And I should have had to do all the digging myself. The curate would certainly have failed me.

It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw the lad killed. It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the Martians feed. After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall for the better part of a day. I went into the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as possible; but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue. I lost heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no spirit even to move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by excavation.

It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that at first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought about by their overthrow through any human effort. But on the fourth or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns.

It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them. Except for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and patches of white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for the clinking of the handling-machine, quite still. That night was a beautiful serenity; save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the sky to herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was that made me listen. Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly like the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and after a long interval six again. And that was all.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DEATH OF THE CURATE

It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back quickly and quietly into the scullery. In the darkness I heard the curate drinking. I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a bottle of burgundy.

For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening each other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told him of my determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let him eat any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort to get at the food. I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake. All day and all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and a day, but to me it seemed--it seems now--an interminable length of time.

And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict. For two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could get water. But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed beyond reason. He would neither desist from his attacks on the food nor from his noisy babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I began to realise the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane.

From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man.

On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and nothing I could do would moderate his speech.

"It is just, O God!" he would say, over and over again. "It is just. On me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen short. There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in the dust, and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly--my God, what folly!--when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and called upon them to repent-repent! . . . Oppressors of the poor and needy . . . ! The wine press of God!"

Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld from him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to raise his voice--I prayed him not to. He perceived a hold on me--he threatened he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time that scared me; but any concession would have shortened our chance of escape beyond estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance that he might not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part of the eighth and ninth days--threats, entreaties, mingled with a torrent of half-sane and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham of God's service, such as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and began again with renewed strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist.

"Be still!" I implored.

He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near the copper.

"I have been still too long," he said, in a tone that must have reached the pit, "and now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful city! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! To the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet----"

"Shut up!" I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the Martians should hear us. "For God's sake----"

"Nay," shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing likewise and extending his arms. "Speak! The word of the Lord is upon me!"

In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen.

"I must bear my witness! I go! It has already been too long delayed."

I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall. In a flash I was after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was halfway across the kitchen I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He went headlong forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled over him and stood panting. He lay still.

Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I looked up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming slowly across the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris; another limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood petrified, staring. Then I saw through a sort of glass plate near the edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large dark eyes of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of tentacle came feeling slowly through the hole.

I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in the room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this way and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance. Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery. I trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness staring at the faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening. Had the Martian seen me? What was it doing now?

Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and then it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a faint metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a split-ring. Then a heavy body--I knew too well what--was dragged across the floor of the kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted, I crept to the door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright outer sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handling-machine, scrutinizing the curate's head. I thought at once that it would infer my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him.

I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the darkness, among the firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through the opening again.

Then the faint metallic jingle returned. I traced it slowly feeling over the kitchen. Presently I heard it nearer--in the scullery, as I judged. I thought that its length might be insufficient to reach me. I prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly across the cellar door. An age of almost intolerable suspense intervened; then I heard it fumbling at the latch! It had found the door! The Martians understood doors!

It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door opened.

In the darkness I could just see the thing--like an elephant's trunk more than anything else--waving towards me and touching and examining the wall, coals, wood and ceiling. It was like a black worm swaying its blind head to and fro.

Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of screaming; I bit my hand. For a time the tentacle was silent. I could have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click, it gripped something--I thought it had me!--and seemed to go out of the cellar again. For a minute I was not sure. Apparently it had taken a lump of coal to examine.

I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which had become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate prayers for safety.

Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again. Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping the furniture.

While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar door and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuit-tins rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against the cellar door. Then silence that passed into an infinity of suspense.

Had it gone?

At last I decided that it had.

It came into the scullery no more; but I lay all the tenth day in the close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even to crawl out for the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day before I ventured so far from my security.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE STILLNESS

My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every scrap of food had gone. Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on the previous day. At that discovery I despaired for the first time. I took no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day.

At first my mouth and throat were parched, and my strength ebbed sensibly. I sat about in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of despondent wretchedness. My mind ran on eating. I thought I had become deaf, for the noises of movement I had been accustomed to hear from the pit had ceased absolutely. I did not feel strong enough to crawl noiselessly to the peephole, or I would have gone there.

On the twelfth day my throat was so painful that, taking the chance of alarming the Martians, I attacked the creaking rain-water pump that stood by the sink, and got a couple of glassfuls of blackened and tainted rain water. I was greatly refreshed by this, and emboldened by the fact that no enquiring tentacle followed the noise of my pumping.

During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much of the curate and of the manner of his death.

On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and thought disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of escape. Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death of the curate, or of sumptuous dinners; but, asleep or awake, I felt a keen pain that urged me to drink again and again. The light that came into the scullery was no longer grey, but red. To my disordered imagination it seemed the colour of blood.

On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-coloured obscurity.

It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious, familiar sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as the snuffing and scratching of a dog. Going into the kitchen, I saw a dog's nose peering in through a break among the ruddy fronds. This greatly surprised me. At the scent of me he barked shortly.

I thought if I could induce him to come into the place quietly I should be able, perhaps, to kill and eat him; and in any case, it would be advisable to kill him, lest his actions attracted the attention of the Martians.

I crept forward, saying "Good dog!" very softly; but he suddenly withdrew his head and disappeared.

I listened--I was not deaf--but certainly the pit was still. I heard a sound like the flutter of a bird's wings, and a hoarse croaking, but that was all.

For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but not daring to move aside the red plants that obscured it. Once or twice I heard a faint pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going hither and thither on the sand far below me, and there were more birdlike sounds, but that was all. At length, encouraged by the silence, I looked out.

Except in the corner, where a multitude of crows hopped and fought over the skeletons of the dead the Martians had consumed, there was not a living thing in the pit.

I stared about me, scarcely believing my eyes. All the machinery had gone. Save for the big mound of greyish-blue powder in one corner, certain bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the skeletons of the killed, the place was merely an empty circular pit in the sand.

Slowly I thrust myself out through the red weed, and stood upon the mound of rubble. I could see in any direction save behind me, to the north, and neither Martians nor sign of Martians were to be seen. The pit dropped sheerly from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish afforded a practicable slope to the summit of the ruins. My chance of escape had come. I began to tremble.

I hesitated for some time, and then, in a gust of desperate resolution, and with a heart that throbbed violently, I scrambled to the top of the mound in which I had been buried so long.

I looked about again. To the northward, too, no Martian was visible.

When I had last seen this part of Sheen in the daylight it had been a straggling street of comfortable white and red houses, interspersed with abundant shady trees. Now I stood on a mound of smashed brickwork, clay, and gravel, over which spread a multitude of red cactus-shaped plants, knee-high, without a solitary terrestrial growth to dispute their footing. The trees near me were dead and brown, but further a network of red thread scaled the still living stems.

The neighbouring houses had all been wrecked, but none had been burned; their walls stood, sometimes to the second story, with smashed windows and shattered doors. The red weed grew tumultuously in their roofless rooms. Below me was the great pit, with the crows struggling for its refuse. A number of other birds hopped about among the ruins. Far away I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces of men there were none.

The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the sweetness of the air!

CHAPTER SIX

THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS

For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security. I had not realised what had been happening to the world, had not anticipated this startling vision of unfamiliar things. I had expected to see Sheen in ruins--I found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of another planet.

For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.

But so soon as this strangeness had been realised it passed, and my dominant motive became the hunger of my long and dismal fast. In the direction away from the pit I saw, beyond a red-covered wall, a patch of garden ground unburied. This gave me a hint, and I went knee-deep, and sometimes neck-deep, in the red weed. The density of the weed gave me a reassuring sense of hiding. The wall was some six feet high, and when I attempted to clamber it I found I could not lift my feet to the crest. So I went along by the side of it, and came to a corner and a rockwork that enabled me to get to the top, and tumble into the garden I coveted. Here I found some young onions, a couple of gladiolus bulbs, and a quantity of immature carrots, all of which I secured, and, scrambling over a ruined wall, went on my way through scarlet and crimson trees towards Kew--it was like walking through an avenue of gigantic blood drops--possessed with two ideas: to get more food, and to limp, as soon and as far as my strength permitted, out of this accursed unearthly region of the pit.

Some way farther, in a grassy place, was a group of mushrooms which also I devoured, and then I came upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow water, where meadows used to be. These fragments of nourishment served only to whet my hunger. At first I was surprised at this flood in a hot, dry summer, but afterwards I discovered that it was caused by the tropical exuberance of the red weed. Directly this extraordinary growth encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of unparalleled fecundity. Its seeds were simply poured down into the water of the Wey and Thames, and its swiftly growing and Titanic water fronds speedily choked both those rivers.

At Putney, as I afterwards saw, the bridge was almost lost in a tangle of this weed, and at Richmond, too, the Thames water poured in a broad and shallow stream across the meadows of Hampton and Twickenham. As the water spread the weed followed them, until the ruined villas of the Thames valley were for a time lost in this red swamp, whose margin I explored, and much of the desolation the Martians had caused was concealed.

In the end the red weed succumbed almost as quickly as it had spread. A cankering disease, due, it is believed, to the action of certain bacteria, presently seized upon it. Now by the action of natural selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting power against bacterial diseases--they never succumb without a severe struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead. The fronds became bleached, and then shrivelled and brittle. They broke off at the least touch, and the waters that had stimulated their early growth carried their last vestiges out to sea.

My first act on coming to this water was, of course, to slake my thirst. I drank a great deal of it and, moved by an impulse, gnawed some fronds of red weed; but they were watery, and had a sickly, metallic taste. I found the water was sufficiently shallow for me to wade securely, although the red weed impeded my feet a little; but the flood evidently got deeper towards the river, and I turned back to Mortlake. I managed to make out the road by means of occasional ruins of its villas and fences and lamps, and so presently I got out of this spate and made my way to the hill going up towards Roehampton and came out on Putney Common.

Here the scenery changed from the strange and unfamiliar to the wreckage of the familiar: patches of ground exhibited the devastation of a cyclone, and in a few score yards I would come upon perfectly undisturbed spaces, houses with their blinds trimly drawn and doors closed, as if they had been left for a day by the owners, or as if their inhabitants slept within. The red weed was less abundant; the tall trees along the lane were free from the red creeper. I hunted for food among the trees, finding nothing, and I also raided a couple of silent houses, but they had already been broken into and ransacked. I rested for the remainder of the daylight in a shrubbery, being, in my enfeebled condition, too fatigued to push on.

All this time I saw no human beings, and no signs of the Martians. I encountered a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but both hurried circuitously away from the advances I made them. Near Roehampton I had seen two human skeletons--not bodies, but skeletons, picked clean--and in the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones of several cats and rabbits and the skull of a sheep. But though I gnawed parts of these in my mouth, there was nothing to be got from them.

After sunset I struggled on along the road towards Putney, where I think the Heat-Ray must have been used for some reason. And in the garden beyond Roehampton I got a quantity of immature potatoes, sufficient to stay my hunger. From this garden one looked down upon Putney and the river. The aspect of the place in the dusk was singularly desolate: blackened trees, blackened, desolate ruins, and down the hill the sheets of the flooded river, red-tinged with the weed. And over all--silence. It filled me with indescribable terror to think how swiftly that desolating change had come.

For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. Hard by the top of Putney Hill I came upon another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and removed several yards from the rest of the body. As I proceeded I became more and more convinced that the extermination of mankind was, save for such stragglers as myself, already accomplished in this part of the world. The Martians, I thought, had gone on and left the country desolated, seeking food elsewhere. Perhaps even now they were destroying Berlin or Paris, or it might be they had gone northward.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL

I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to Leatherhead. I will not tell the needless trouble I had breaking into that house--afterwards I found the front door was on the latch--nor how I ransacked every room for food, until just on the verge of despair, in what seemed to me to be a servant's bedroom, I found a rat-gnawed crust and two tins of pineapple. The place had been already searched and emptied. In the bar I afterwards found some biscuits and sandwiches that had been overlooked. The latter I could not eat, they were too rotten, but the former not only stayed my hunger, but filled my pockets. I lit no lamps, fearing some Martian might come beating that part of London for food in the night. Before I went to bed I had an interval of restlessness, and prowled from window to window, peering out for some sign of these monsters. I slept little. As I lay in bed I found myself thinking consecutively--a thing I do not remember to have done since my last argument with the curate. During all the intervening time my mental condition had been a hurrying succession of vague emotional states or a sort of stupid receptivity. But in the night my brain, reinforced, I suppose, by the food I had eaten, grew clear again, and I thought.

Three things struggled for possession of my mind: the killing of the curate, the whereabouts of the Martians, and the possible fate of my wife. The former gave me no sensation of horror or remorse to recall; I saw it simply as a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but quite without the quality of remorse. I saw myself then as I see myself now, driven step by step towards that hasty blow, the creature of a sequence of accidents leading inevitably to that. I felt no condemnation; yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted me. In the silence of the night, with that sense of the nearness of God that sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood my trial, my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear. I retraced every step of our conversation from the moment when I had found him crouching beside me, heedless of my thirst, and pointing to the fire and smoke that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge. We had been incapable of co-operation--grim chance had taken no heed of that. Had I foreseen, I should have left him at Halliford. But I did not foresee; and crime is to foresee and do. And I set this down as I have set all this story down, as it was. There were no witnesses--all these things I might have concealed. But I set it down, and the reader must form his judgment as he will.

And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate body, I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife. For the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so, unhappily, I could for the latter. And suddenly that night became terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. I found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding place--a creature scarcely larger, an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity--pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion.

The morning was bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink, and was fretted with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from the top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of the panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night after the fighting began. There was a little two-wheeled cart inscribed with the name of Thomas Lobb, Greengrocer, New Malden, with a smashed wheel and an abandoned tin trunk; there was a straw hat trampled into the now hardened mud, and at the top of West Hill a lot of blood-stained glass about the overturned water trough. My movements were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I had an idea of going to Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the poorest chance of finding my wife. Certainly, unless death had overtaken them suddenly, my cousins and she would have fled thence; but it seemed to me I might find or learn there whither the Surrey people had fled. I knew I wanted to find my wife, that my heart ached for her and the world of men, but I had no clear idea how the finding might be done. I was also sharply aware now of my intense loneliness. From the corner I went, under cover of a thicket of trees and bushes, to the edge of Wimbledon Common, stretching wide and far.

That dark expanse was lit in patches by yellow gorse and broom; there was no red weed to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating, on the verge of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all with light and vitality. I came upon a busy swarm of little frogs in a swampy place among the trees. I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from their stout resolve to live. And presently, turning suddenly, with an odd feeling of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a clump of bushes. I stood regarding this. I made a step towards it, and it rose up and became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached him slowly. He stood silent and motionless, regarding me.

As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and filthy as my own; he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged through a culvert. Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him. There was a red cut across the lower part of his face.

"Stop!" he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I stopped. His voice was hoarse. "Where do you come from?" he said.

I thought, surveying him.

"I come from Mortlake," I said. "I was buried near the pit the Martians made about their cylinder. I have worked my way out and escaped."

"There is no food about here," he said. "This is my country. All this hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge of the common. There is only food for one. Which way are you going?"

I answered slowly.

"I don't know," I said. "I have been buried in the ruins of a house thirteen or fourteen days. I don't know what has happened."

He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed expression.

"I've no wish to stop about here," said I. "I think I shall go to Leatherhead, for my wife was there."

He shot out a pointing finger.

"It is you," said he; "the man from Woking. And you weren't killed at Weybridge?"

I recognised him at the same moment.

"You are the artilleryman who came into my garden."

"Good luck!" he said. "We are lucky ones! Fancy you!" He put out a hand, and I took it. "I crawled up a drain," he said. "But they didn't kill everyone. And after they went away I got off towards Walton across the fields. But---- It's not sixteen days altogether--and your hair is grey." He looked over his shoulder suddenly. "Only a rook," he said. "One gets to know that birds have shadows these days. This is a bit open. Let us crawl under those bushes and talk."

"Have you seen any Martians?" I said. "Since I crawled out----"

"They've gone away across London," he said. "I guess they've got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It's like a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving. By daylight you can't. But nearer--I haven't seen them--" (he counted on his fingers) "five days. Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they've built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly."

I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes.

"Fly!"

"Yes," he said, "fly."

I went on into a little bower, and sat down.

"It is all over with humanity," I said. "If they can do that they will simply go round the world."

He nodded.

"They will. But---- It will relieve things over here a bit. And besides----" He looked at me. "Aren't you satisfied it is up with humanity? I am. We're down; we're beat."

I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact--a fact perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a vague hope; rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated his words, "We're beat." They carried absolute conviction.

"It's all over," he said. "They've lost one--just one. And they've made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world. They've walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These green stars--I've seen none these five or six days, but I've no doubt they're falling somewhere every night. Nothing's to be done. We're under! We're beat!"

I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to devise some countervailing thought.

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants."

Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory.

"After the tenth shot they fired no more--at least, until the first cylinder came."

"How do you know?" said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought. "Something wrong with the gun," he said. "But what if there is? They'll get it right again. And even if there's a delay, how can it alter the end? It's just men and ants. There's the ants builds their cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the way, and then they go out of the way. That's what we are now--just ants. Only----"

"Yes," I said.

"We're eatable ants."

We sat looking at each other.

"And what will they do with us?" I said.

"That's what I've been thinking," he said; "that's what I've been thinking. After Weybridge I went south--thinking. I saw what was up. Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, death--it's just death. And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, 'Food won't last this way,' and I turned right back. I went for the Martians like a sparrow goes for man. All round"--he waved a hand to the horizon--"they're starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other. . . ."

He saw my face, and halted awkwardly.

"No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France," he said. He seemed to hesitate whether to apologise, met my eyes, and went on: "There's food all about here. Canned things in shops; wines, spirits, mineral waters; and the water mains and drains are empty. Well, I was telling you what I was thinking. 'Here's intelligent things,' I said, 'and it seems they want us for food. First, they'll smash us up--ships, machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation. All that will go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we're not. It's all too bulky to stop. That's the first certainty.' Eh?"

I assented.

"It is; I've thought it out. Very well, then--next; at present we're caught as we're wanted. A Martian has only to go a few miles to get a crowd on the run. And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth, picking houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage. But they won't keep on doing that. So soon as they've settled all our guns and ships, and smashed our railways, and done all the things they are doing over there, they will begin catching us systematic, picking the best and storing us in cages and things. That's what they will start doing in a bit. Lord! They haven't begun on us yet. Don't you see that?"

"Not begun!" I exclaimed.

"Not begun. All that's happened so far is through our not having the sense to keep quiet--worrying them with guns and such foolery. And losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn't any more safety than where we were. They don't want to bother us yet. They're making their things--making all the things they couldn't bring with them, getting things ready for the rest of their people. Very likely that's why the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of hitting those who are here. And instead of our rushing about blind, on the howl, or getting dynamite on the chance of busting them up, we've got to fix ourselves up according to the new state of affairs. That's how I figure it out. It isn't quite according to what a man wants for his species, but it's about what the facts point to. And that's the principle I acted upon. Cities, nations, civilisation, progress--it's all over. That game's up. We're beat."

"But if that is so, what is there to live for?"

The artilleryman looked at me for a moment.

"There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so; there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at restaurants. If it's amusement you're after, I reckon the game is up. If you've got any drawing-room manners or a dislike to eating peas with a knife or dropping aitches, you'd better chuck 'em away. They ain't no further use."

"You mean----"

"I mean that men like me are going on living--for the sake of the breed. I tell you, I'm grim set on living. And if I'm not mistaken, you'll show what insides you've got, too, before long. We aren't going to be exterminated. And I don't mean to be caught either, and tamed and fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh! Fancy those brown creepers!"

"You don't mean to say----"

"I do. I'm going on, under their feet. I've got it planned; I've thought it out. We men are beat. We don't know enough. We've got to learn before we've got a chance. And we've got to live and keep independent while we learn. See! That's what has to be done."

I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man's resolution.

"Great God!" cried I. "But you are a man indeed!" And suddenly I gripped his hand.

"Eh!" he said, with his eyes shining. "I've thought it out, eh?"

"Go on," I said.

"Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I'm getting ready. Mind you, it isn't all of us that are made for wild beasts; and that's what it's got to be. That's why I watched you. I had my doubts. You're slender. I didn't know that it was you, you see, or just how you'd been buried. All these--the sort of people that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down that way--they'd be no good. They haven't any spirit in them--no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn't one or the other--Lord! What is he but funk and precautions? They just used to skedaddle off to work--I've seen hundreds of 'em, bit of breakfast in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little season-ticket train, for fear they'd get dismissed if they didn't; working at businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand; skedaddling back for fear they wouldn't be in time for dinner; keeping indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little miserable skedaddle through the world. Lives insured and a bit invested for fear of accidents. And on Sundays--fear of the hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, the Martians will just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful. They'll be quite glad after a bit. They'll wonder what people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and mashers, and singers--I can imagine them. I can imagine them," he said, with a sort of sombre gratification. "There'll be any amount of sentiment and religion loose among them. There's hundreds of things I saw with my eyes that I've only begun to see clearly these last few days. There's lots will take things as they are--fat and stupid; and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it's all wrong, and that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you've seen the same thing. It's energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And those of a less simple sort will work in a bit of--what is it?--eroticism."

He paused.

"Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train them to do tricks--who knows?--get sentimental over the pet boy who grew up and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to hunt us."

"No," I cried, "that's impossible! No human being----"

"What's the good of going on with such lies?" said the artilleryman. "There's men who'd do it cheerful. What nonsense to pretend there isn't!"

And I succumbed to his conviction.

"If they come after me," he said; "Lord, if they come after me!" and subsided into a grim meditation.

I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring against this man's reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one would have questioned my intellectual superiority to his--I, a professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier; and yet he had already formulated a situation that I had scarcely realised.

"What are you doing?" I said presently. "What plans have you made?"

He hesitated.

"Well, it's like this," he said. "What have we to do? We have to invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yes--wait a bit, and I'll make it clearer what I think ought to be done. The tame ones will go like all tame beasts; in a few generations they'll be big, beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid--rubbish! The risk is that we who keep wild will go savage--degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . . You see, how I mean to live is underground. I've been thinking about the drains. Of course those who don't know drains think horrible things; but under this London are miles and miles--hundreds of miles--and a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then there's cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a band--able-bodied, clean-minded men. We're not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out again."

"As you meant me to go?"

"Well--I parleyed, didn't I?"

"We won't quarrel about that. Go on."

"Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we want also--mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies--no blasted rolling eyes. We can't have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race. And they can't be happy. Moreover, dying's none so dreadful; it's the funking makes it bad. And in all those places we shall gather. Our district will be London. And we may even be able to keep a watch, and run about in the open when the Martians keep away. Play cricket, perhaps. That's how we shall save the race. Eh? It's a possible thing? But saving the race is nothing in itself. As I say, that's only being rats. It's saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men like you come in. There's books, there's models. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science books. That's where men like you come in. We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through. Especially we must keep up our science--learn more. We must watch these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When it's all working, perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great thing is, we must leave the Martians alone. We mustn't even steal. If we get in their way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. Yes, I know. But they're intelligent things, and they won't hunt us down if they have all they want, and think we're just harmless vermin."

The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm.

"After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn before--Just imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting off--Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in 'em. Not a Martian in 'em, but men--men who have learned the way how. It may be in my time, even--those men. Fancy having one of them lovely things, with its Heat-Ray wide and free! Fancy having it in control! What would it matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martians'll open their beautiful eyes! Can't you see them, man? Can't you see them hurrying, hurrying--puffing and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs? Something out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! Just as they are fumbling over it, swish comes the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has come back to his own."

For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension. We talked in this manner through the early morning time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week upon--it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney Hill--I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day. But I believed in him sufficiently to work with him all that morning until past midday at his digging. We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed against the kitchen range. We refreshed ourselves with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. I found a curious relief from the aching strangeness of the world in this steady labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in my mind, and presently objections and doubts began to arise; but I worked there all the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a purpose again. After working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go before the cloaca was reached, the chances we had of missing it altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at once down one of the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to me, too, that the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a needless length of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these things, the artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me.

"We're working well," he said. He put down his spade. "Let us knock off a bit" he said. "I think it's time we reconnoitred from the roof of the house."

I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his spade; and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so did he at once.

"Why were you walking about the common," I said, "instead of being here?"

"Taking the air," he said. "I was coming back. It's safer by night."

"But the work?"

"Oh, one can't always work," he said, and in a flash I saw the man plain. He hesitated, holding his spade. "We ought to reconnoitre now," he said, "because if any come near they may hear the spades and drop upon us unawares."

I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof and stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to be seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under shelter of the parapet.

From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the low parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters. It was strange how entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for their propagation. About us neither had gained a footing; laburnums, pink mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of laurels and hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond Kensington dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the northward hills.

The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still remained in London.

"One night last week," he said, "some fools got the electric light in order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze, crowded with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting till dawn. A man who was there told me. And as the day came they became aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham and looking down at them. Heaven knows how long he had been there. It must have given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road towards them, and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened to run away."

Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe!

From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his grandiose plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently of the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than half believed in him again. But now that I was beginning to understand something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid on doing nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no question that he personally was to capture and fight the great machine.

After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed disposed to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was nothing loath. He became suddenly very generous, and when we had eaten he went away and returned with some excellent cigars. We lit these, and his optimism glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming as a great occasion.

"There's some champagne in the cellar," he said.

"We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy," said I.

"No," said he; "I am host today. Champagne! Great God! We've a heavy enough task before us! Let us take a rest and gather strength while we may. Look at these blistered hands!"

And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing cards after we had eaten. He taught me euchre, and after dividing London between us, I taking the northern side and he the southern, we played for parish points. Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to the sober reader, it is absolutely true, and what is more remarkable, I found the card game and several others we played extremely interesting.

Strange mind of man! that, with our species upon the edge of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the "joker" with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit a lamp.

After an interminable string of games, we supped, and the artilleryman finished the champagne. We went on smoking the cigars. He was no longer the energetic regenerator of his species I had encountered in the morning. He was still optimistic, but it was a less kinetic, a more thoughtful optimism. I remember he wound up with my health, proposed in a speech of small variety and considerable intermittence. I took a cigar, and went upstairs to look at the lights of which he had spoken that blazed so greenly along the Highgate hills.

At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley. The northern hills were shrouded in darkness; the fires near Kensington glowed redly, and now and then an orange-red tongue of flame flashed up and vanished in the deep blue night. All the rest of London was black. Then, nearer, I perceived a strange light, a pale, violet-purple fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze. For a space I could not understand it, and then I knew that it must be the red weed from which this faint irradiation proceeded. With that realisation my dormant sense of wonder, my sense of the proportion of things, awoke again. I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear, glowing high in the west, and then gazed long and earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead and Highgate.

I remained a very long time upon the roof, wondering at the grotesque changes of the day. I recalled my mental states from the midnight prayer to the foolish card-playing. I had a violent revulsion of feeling. I remember I flung away the cigar with a certain wasteful symbolism. My folly came to me with glaring exaggeration. I seemed a traitor to my wife and to my kind; I was filled with remorse. I resolved to leave this strange undisciplined dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony, and to go on into London. There, it seemed to me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my fellowmen were doing. I was still upon the roof when the late moon rose.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DEAD LONDON

After I had parted from the artilleryman, I went down the hill, and by the High Street across the bridge to Fulham. The red weed was tumultuous at that time, and nearly choked the bridge roadway; but its fronds were already whitened in patches by the spreading disease that presently removed it so swiftly.

At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge station I found a man lying. He was as black as a sweep with the black dust, alive, but helplessly and speechlessly drunk. I could get nothing from him but curses and furious lunges at my head. I think I should have stayed by him but for the brutal expression of his face.

There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards, and it grew thicker in Fulham. The streets were horribly quiet. I got food--sour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatable--in a baker's shop here. Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of powder, and I passed a white terrace of houses on fire; the noise of the burning was an absolute relief. Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet again.

Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon dead bodies. I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham Road. They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly past them. The black powder covered them over, and softened their outlines. One or two had been disturbed by dogs.

Where there was no black powder, it was curiously like a Sunday in the City, with the closed shops, the houses locked up and the blinds drawn, the desertion, and the stillness. In some places plunderers had been at work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine shops. A jeweller's window had been broken open in one place, but apparently the thief had been disturbed, and a number of gold chains and a watch lay scattered on the pavement. I did not trouble to touch them. Farther on was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep; the hand that hung over her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed magnum of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed asleep, but she was dead.

The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew the stillness. But it was not so much the stillness of death--it was the stillness of suspense, of expectation. At any time the destruction that had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis, and had annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses and leave them smoking ruins. It was a city condemned and derelict. . . .

In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of black powder. It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling. It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses. It was a sobbing alternation of two notes, "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," keeping on perpetually. When I passed streets that ran northward it grew in volume, and houses and buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off again. It came in a full tide down Exhibition Road. I stopped, staring towards Kensington Gardens, wondering at this strange, remote wailing. It was as if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude.

"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," wailed that superhuman note--great waves of sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit roadway, between the tall buildings on each side. I turned northwards, marvelling, towards the iron gates of Hyde Park. I had half a mind to break into the Natural History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in order to see across the park. But I decided to keep to the ground, where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition Road. All the large mansions on each side of the road were empty and still, and my footsteps echoed against the sides of the houses. At the top, near the park gate, I came upon a strange sight--a bus overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean. I puzzled over this for a time, and then went on to the bridge over the Serpentine. The voice grew stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above the housetops on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke to the northwest.

"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," cried the voice, coming, as it seemed to me, from the district about Regent's Park. The desolating cry worked upon my mind. The mood that had sustained me passed. The wailing took possession of me. I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry and thirsty.

It was already past noon. Why was I wandering alone in this city of the dead? Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and in its black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely. My mind ran on old friends that I had forgotten for years. I thought of the poisons in the chemists' shops, of the liquors the wine merchants stored; I recalled the two sodden creatures of despair, who so far as I knew, shared the city with myself. . . .

I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here again were black powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the houses. I grew very thirsty after the heat of my long walk. With infinite trouble I managed to break into a public-house and get food and drink. I was weary after eating, and went into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horsehair sofa I found there.

I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears, "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla." It was now dusk, and after I had routed out some biscuits and a cheese in the bar--there was a meat safe, but it contained nothing but maggots--I wandered on through the silent residential squares to Baker Street--Portman Square is the only one I can name--and so came out at last upon Regent's Park. And as I emerged from the top of Baker Street, I saw far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. I was not terrified. I came upon him as if it were a matter of course. I watched him for some time, but he did not move. He appeared to be standing and yelling, for no reason that I could discover.

I tried to formulate a plan of action. That perpetual sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," confused my mind. Perhaps I was too tired to be very fearful. Certainly I was more curious to know the reason of this monotonous crying than afraid. I turned back away from the park and struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went along under the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling Martian from the direction of St. John's Wood. A couple of hundred yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus, and saw, first a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws coming headlong towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the wailing sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," reasserted itself.

I came upon the wrecked handling-machine halfway to St. John's Wood station. At first I thought a house had fallen across the road. It was only as I clambered among the ruins that I saw, with a start, this mechanical Samson lying, with its tentacles bent and smashed and twisted, among the ruins it had made. The forepart was shattered. It seemed as if it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been overwhelmed in its overthrow. It seemed to me then that this might have happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its Martian. I could not clamber among the ruins to see it, and the twilight was now so far advanced that the blood with which its seat was smeared, and the gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had left, were invisible to me.

Wondering still more at all that I had seen, I pushed on towards Primrose Hill. Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the Zoological Gardens, and silent. A little beyond the ruins about the smashed handling-machine I came upon the red weed again, and found the Regent's Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation.

As I crossed the bridge, the sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," ceased. It was, as it were, cut off. The silence came like a thunderclap.

The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim; the trees towards the park were growing black. All about me the red weed clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. But while that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable; by virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the passing of something--I knew not what--and then a stillness that could be felt. Nothing but this gaunt quiet.

London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John's Wood Road, and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a cabmen's shelter in Harrow Road. But before the dawn my courage returned, and while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more towards Regent's Park. I missed my way among the streets, and presently saw down a long avenue, in the half-light of the early dawn, the curve of Primrose Hill. On the summit, towering up to the fading stars, was a third Martian, erect and motionless like the others.

An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the road.

I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund's Terrace (I waded breast-high across a torrent of water that was rushing down from the waterworks towards the Albert Road), and emerged upon the grass before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it--it was the final and largest place the Martians had made--and from behind these heaps there rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky line an eager dog ran and disappeared. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore.

In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians--dead!--slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many--those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance--our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

Here and there they were scattered, nearly fifty altogether, in that great gulf they had made, overtaken by a death that must have seemed to them as incomprehensible as any death could be. To me also at that time this death was incomprehensible. All I knew was that these things that had been alive and so terrible to men were dead. For a moment I believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night.

I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously, even as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his rays. The pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows towards the light. A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the bodies that lay darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me. Across the pit on its farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flying-machine with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when decay and death arrested them. Death had come not a day too soon. At the sound of a cawing overhead I looked up at the huge fighting-machine that would fight no more for ever, at the tattered red shreds of flesh that dripped down upon the overturned seats on the summit of Primrose Hill.

I turned and looked down the slope of the hill to where, enhaloed now in birds, stood those other two Martians that I had seen overnight, just as death had overtaken them. The one had died, even as it had been crying to its companions; perhaps it was the last to die, and its voice had gone on perpetually until the force of its machinery was exhausted. They glittered now, harmless tripod towers of shining metal, in the brightness of the rising sun.

All about the pit, and saved as by a miracle from everlasting destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities. Those who have only seen London veiled in her sombre robes of smoke can scarcely imagine the naked clearness and beauty of the silent wilderness of houses.

Eastward, over the blackened ruins of the Albert Terrace and the splintered spire of the church, the sun blazed dazzling in a clear sky, and here and there some facet in the great wilderness of roofs caught the light and glared with a white intensity.

Northward were Kilburn and Hampsted, blue and crowded with houses; westward the great city was dimmed; and southward, beyond the Martians, the green waves of Regent's Park, the Langham Hotel, the dome of the Albert Hall, the Imperial Institute, and the giant mansions of the Brompton Road came out clear and little in the sunrise, the jagged ruins of Westminster rising hazily beyond. Far away and blue were the Surrey hills, and the towers of the Crystal Palace glittered like two silver rods. The dome of St. Paul's was dark against the sunrise, and injured, I saw for the first time, by a huge gaping cavity on its western side.

And as I looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of the multitudinous hopes and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to build this human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that had hung over it all; when I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead city of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of emotion that was near akin to tears.

The torment was over. Even that day the healing would begin. The survivors of the people scattered over the country--leaderless, lawless, foodless, like sheep without a shepherd--the thousands who had fled by sea, would begin to return; the pulse of life, growing stronger and stronger, would beat again in the empty streets and pour across the vacant squares. Whatever destruction was done, the hand of the destroyer was stayed. All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened skeletons of houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the hill, would presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and ringing with the tapping of their trowels. At the thought I extended my hands towards the sky and began thanking God. In a year, thought I--in a year. . .

With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and the old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased for ever.

CHAPTER NINE

WRECKAGE

And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly, all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget.

Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned since that, so far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow, several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the previous night. One man--the first--had gone to St. Martin's-le-Grand, and, while I sheltered in the cabmen's hut, had contrived to telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world; a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly flashed into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the verge of the pit. Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard, shouting and staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making up trains, even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church bells that had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news, until all England was bell-ringing. Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorched along every country lane shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair. And for the food! Across the Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn, bread, and meat were tearing to our relief. All the shipping in the world seemed going Londonward in those days. But of all this I have no memory. I drifted--a demented man. I found myself in a house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St. John's Wood. They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about "The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! The Last Man Left Alive!" Troubled as they were with their own affairs, these people, whose name, much as I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they had learned something of my story from me during the days of my lapse.

Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me what they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I was imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian. He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness of power.

I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I was a lonely man and a sad one, and they bore with me. I remained with them four days after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing craving to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to return to them, and parting, as I will confess, from these four-day friends with tears, I went out again into the streets that had lately been so dark and strange and empty.

Already they were busy with returning people; in places even there were shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water.

I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed as I went back on my melancholy pilgrimage to the little house at Woking, how busy the streets and vivid the moving life about me. So many people were abroad everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible that any great proportion of the population could have been slain. But then I noticed how yellow were the skins of the people I met, how shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes, and that every other man still wore his dirty rags. Their faces seemed all with one of two expressions--a leaping exultation and energy or a grim resolution. Save for the expression of the faces, London seemed a city of tramps. The vestries were indiscriminately distributing bread sent us by the French government. The ribs of the few horses showed dismally. Haggard special constables with white badges stood at the corners of every street. I saw little of the mischief wrought by the Martians until I reached Wellington Street, and there I saw the red weed clambering over the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge.

At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts of that grotesque time--a sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket of the red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place. It was the placard of the first newspaper to resume publication--the Daily Mail. I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing had amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on the back page. The matter he printed was emotional; the news organisation had not as yet found its way back. I learned nothing fresh except that already in one week the examination of the Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the "Secret of Flying," was discovered. At Waterloo I found the free trains that were taking people to their homes. The first rush was already over. There were few people in the train, and I was in no mood for casual conversation. I got a compartment to myself, and sat with folded arms, looking greyly at the sunlit devastation that flowed past the windows. And just outside the terminus the train jolted over temporary rails, and on either side of the railway the houses were blackened ruins. To Clapham Junction the face of London was grimy with powder of the Black Smoke, in spite of two days of thunderstorms and rain, and at Clapham Junction the line had been wrecked again; there were hundreds of out-of-work clerks and shopmen working side by side with the customary navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty relaying.

All down the line from there the aspect of the country was gaunt and unfamiliar; Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton, by virtue of its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along the line. The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped mass of red weed, in appearance between butcher's meat and pickled cabbage. The Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of the red climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in certain nursery grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the sixth cylinder. A number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were busy in the midst of it. Over it flaunted a Union Jack, flapping cheerfully in the morning breeze. The nursery grounds were everywhere crimson with the weed, a wide expanse of livid colour cut with purple shadows, and very painful to the eye. One's gaze went with infinite relief from the scorched greys and sullen reds of the foreground to the blue-green softness of the eastward hills.

The line on the London side of Woking station was still undergoing repair, so I descended at Byfleet station and took the road to Maybury, past the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to the hussars, and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in the thunderstorm. Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find, among a tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with the whitened bones of the horse scattered and gnawed. For a time I stood regarding these vestiges. . . .

Then I returned through the pine wood, neck-high with red weed here and there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found burial, and so came home past the College Arms. A man standing at an open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed.

I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening slowly as I approached.

It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt empty. The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs.

I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writing-table still, with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder. For a space I stood reading over my abandoned arguments. It was a paper on the probable development of Moral Ideas with the development of the civilising process; and the last sentence was the opening of a prophecy: "In about two hundred years," I had written, "we may expect----" The sentence ended abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my mind that morning, scarcely a month gone by, and how I had broken off to get my Daily Chronicle from the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the garden gate as he came along, and how I had listened to his odd story of "Men from Mars."

I came down and went into the dining room. There were the mutton and the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle overturned, just as I and the artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long. And then a strange thing occurred. "It is no use," said a voice. "The house is deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to torment yourself. No one escaped but you."

I was startled. Had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the French window was open behind me. I made a step to it, and stood looking out.

And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were my cousin and my wife--my wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry.

"I came," she said. "I knew--knew----"

She put her hand to her throat--swayed. I made a step forward, and caught her in my arms.

CHAPTER TEN

THE EPILOGUE

I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little I am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly provoke criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy. My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but it seems to me that Carver's suggestions as to the reason of the rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body of my narrative.

At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the reckless slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance of the putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no means a proven conclusion.

Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that it combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly effect upon some constituent in the blood. But such unproven speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader, to whom this story is addressed. None of the brown scum that drifted down the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the time, and now none is forthcoming.

The results of an anatomical examination of the Martians, so far as the prowling dogs had left such an examination possible, I have already given. But everyone is familiar with the magnificent and almost complete specimen in spirits at the Natural History Museum, and the countless drawings that have been made from it; and beyond that the interest of their physiology and structure is purely scientific.

A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we should be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the arrival of the next attack.

In that case the cylinder might be destroyed with dynamite or artillery before it was sufficiently cool for the Martians to emerge, or they might be butchered by means of guns so soon as the screw opened. It seems to me that they have lost a vast advantage in the failure of their first surprise. Possibly they see it in the same light.

Lessing has advanced excellent reasons for supposing that the Martians have actually succeeded in effecting a landing on the planet Venus. Seven months ago now, Venus and Mars were in alignment with the sun; that is to say, Mars was in opposition from the point of view of an observer on Venus. Subsequently a peculiar luminous and sinuous marking appeared on the unillumined half of the inner planet, and almost simultaneously a faint dark mark of a similar sinuous character was detected upon a photograph of the Martian disk. One needs to see the drawings of these appearances in order to appreciate fully their remarkable resemblance in character.

At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of mankind. It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians have watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs and learned their lesson, and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be that as it may, for many years yet there will certainly be no relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk, and those fiery darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall an unavoidable apprehension to all the sons of men.

The broadening of men's views that has resulted can scarcely be exaggerated. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. If the Martians can reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet within its toils.

Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a remote dream. It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of the Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, perhaps, is the future ordained.

I must confess the stress and danger of the time have left an abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and desolate. I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass me, a butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a bicycle, children going to school, and suddenly they become vague and unreal, and I hurry again with the artilleryman through the hot, brooding silence. Of a night I see the black powder darkening the silent streets, and the contorted bodies shrouded in that layer; they rise upon me tattered and dog-bitten. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, uglier, mad distortions of humanity at last, and I wake, cold and wretched, in the darkness of the night.

I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill, as I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the sight-seers about the Martian machine that stands there still, to hear the tumult of playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it all bright and clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last great day. . . .

And strangest of all is it to hold my wife's hand again, and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.

Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka

Translated by David Wyllie

I

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.

"What's happened to me?" he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table - Samsa was a travelling salesman - and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.

Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense", he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.

"Oh, God", he thought, "what a strenuous career it is that I've chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can all go to Hell!" He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn't know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder.

He slid back into his former position. "Getting up early all the time", he thought, "it makes you stupid. You've got to get enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I'd get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. Well, there's still some hope; once I've got the money together to pay off my parents' debt to him - another five or six years I suppose - that's definitely what I'll do. That's when I'll make the big change. First of all though, I've got to get up, my train leaves at five."

And he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of drawers. "God in Heaven!" he thought. It was half past six and the hands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half past, more like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He could see from the bed that it had been set for four o'clock as it should have been; it certainly must have rung. Yes, but was it possible to quietly sleep through that furniture-rattling noise? True, he had not slept peacefully, but probably all the more deeply because of that. What should he do now? The next train went at seven; if he were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and the collection of samples was still not packed, and he did not at all feel particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch the train he would not avoid his boss's anger as the office assistant would have been there to see the five o'clock train go, he would have put in his report about Gregor's not being there a long time ago. The office assistant was the boss's man, spineless, and with no understanding. What about if he reported sick? But that would be extremely strained and suspicious as in fifteen years of service Gregor had never once yet been ill. His boss would certainly come round with the doctor from the medical insurance company, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the doctor's recommendation not to make any claim as the doctor believed that no-one was ever ill but that many were workshy. And what's more, would he have been entirely wrong in this case? Gregor did in fact, apart from excessive sleepiness after sleeping for so long, feel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual.

He was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide to get out of the bed, when the clock struck quarter to seven. There was a cautious knock at the door near his head. "Gregor", somebody called - it was his mother - "it's quarter to seven. Didn't you want to go somewhere?" That gentle voice! Gregor was shocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be recognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside him, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether he had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented himself with saying: "Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I'm getting up now." The change in Gregor's voice probably could not be noticed outside through the wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with this explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation made the other members of the family aware that Gregor, against their expectations was still at home, and soon his father came knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist. "Gregor, Gregor", he called, "what's wrong?" And after a short while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice: "Gregor! Gregor!" At the other side door his sister came plaintively: "Gregor? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?" Gregor answered to both sides: "I'm ready, now", making an effort to remove all the strangeness from his voice by enunciating very carefully and putting long pauses between each, individual word. His father went back to his breakfast, but his sister whispered: "Gregor, open the door, I beg of you." Gregor, however, had no thought of opening the door, and instead congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired from his travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was at home.

The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast. Only then would he consider what to do next, as he was well aware that he would not bring his thoughts to any sensible conclusions by lying in bed. He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in bed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest doubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first sign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for travelling salesmen.

It was a simple matter to throw off the covers; he only had to blow himself up a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad. He would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up; but instead of them he only had all those little legs continuously moving in different directions, and which he was moreover unable to control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first one that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do what he wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free and would move about painfully. "This is something that can't be done in bed", Gregor said to himself, "so don't keep trying to do it".

The first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body out of the bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not imagine what it looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move; it went so slowly; and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he carelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.

So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed first, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed quite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of his body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head. But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock himself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose consciousness.

It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at whatever sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to remind himself that calm consideration was much better than rushing to desperate conclusions. At times like this he would direct his eyes to the window and look out as clearly as he could, but unfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer to offer him. "Seven o'clock, already", he said to himself when the clock struck again, "seven o'clock, and there's still a fog like this." And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly as if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real and natural state.

But then he said to himself: "Before it strikes quarter past seven I'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then somebody will have come round from work to ask what's happened to me as well, as they open up at work before seven o'clock." And so he set himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed all at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out of bed in this way and kept his head raised as he did so he could probably avoid injuring it. His back seemed to be quite hard, and probably nothing would happen to it falling onto the carpet. His main concern was for the loud noise he was bound to make, and which even through all the doors would probably raise concern if not alarm. But it was something that had to be risked.

When Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bed - the new method was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and forth - it occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him. Two strong people - he had his father and the maid in mind - would have been more than enough; they would only have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him away from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and careful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the little legs would find a use. Should he really call for help though, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked? Despite all the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile at this thought.

After a while he had already moved so far across that it would have been hard for him to keep his balance if he rocked too hard. The time was now ten past seven and he would have to make a final decision very soon. Then there was a ring at the door of the flat. "That'll be someone from work", he said to himself, and froze very still, although his little legs only became all the more lively as they danced around. For a moment everything remained quiet. "They're not opening the door", Gregor said to himself, caught in some nonsensical hope. But then of course, the maid's firm steps went to the door as ever and opened it. Gregor only needed to hear the visitor's first words of greeting and he knew who it was - the chief clerk himself. Why did Gregor have to be the only one condemned to work for a company where they immediately became highly suspicious at the slightest shortcoming? Were all employees, every one of them, louts, was there not one of them who was faithful and devoted who would go so mad with pangs of conscience that he couldn't get out of bed if he didn't spend at least a couple of hours in the morning on company business? Was it really not enough to let one of the trainees make enquiries - assuming enquiries were even necessary - did the chief clerk have to come himself, and did they have to show the whole, innocent family that this was so suspicious that only the chief clerk could be trusted to have the wisdom to investigate it? And more because these thoughts had made him upset than through any proper decision, he swang himself with all his force out of the bed. There was a loud thump, but it wasn't really a loud noise. His fall was softened a little by the carpet, and Gregor's back was also more elastic than he had thought, which made the sound muffled and not too noticeable. He had not held his head carefully enough, though, and hit it as he fell; annoyed and in pain, he turned it and rubbed it against the carpet.

"Something's fallen down in there", said the chief clerk in the room on the left. Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort that had happened to him today could ever happen to the chief clerk too; you had to concede that it was possible. But as if in gruff reply to this question, the chief clerk's firm footsteps in his highly polished boots could now be heard in the adjoining room. From the room on his right, Gregor's sister whispered to him to let him know: "Gregor, the chief clerk is here." "Yes, I know", said Gregor to himself; but without daring to raise his voice loud enough for his sister to hear him.

"Gregor", said his father now from the room to his left, "the chief clerk has come round and wants to know why you didn't leave on the early train. We don't know what to say to him. And anyway, he wants to speak to you personally. So please open up this door. I'm sure he'll be good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room." Then the chief clerk called "Good morning, Mr. Samsa". "He isn't well", said his mother to the chief clerk, while his father continued to speak through the door. "He isn't well, please believe me. Why else would Gregor have missed a train! The lad only ever thinks about the business. It nearly makes me cross the way he never goes out in the evenings; he's been in town for a week now but stayed home every evening. He sits with us in the kitchen and just reads the paper or studies train timetables. His idea of relaxation is working with his fretsaw. He's made a little frame, for instance, it only took him two or three evenings, you'll be amazed how nice it is; it's hanging up in his room; you'll see it as soon as Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I'm glad you're here; we wouldn't have been able to get Gregor to open the door by ourselves; he's so stubborn; and I'm sure he isn't well, he said this morning that he is, but he isn't." "I'll be there in a moment", said Gregor slowly and thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any word of the conversation. "Well I can't think of any other way of explaining it, Mrs. Samsa", said the chief clerk, "I hope it's nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we people in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or unfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of business considerations." "Can the chief clerk come in to see you now then?", asked his father impatiently, knocking at the door again. "No", said Gregor. In the room on his right there followed a painful silence; in the room on his left his sister began to cry.

So why did his sister not go and join the others? She had probably only just got up and had not even begun to get dressed. And why was she crying? Was it because he had not got up, and had not let the chief clerk in, because he was in danger of losing his job and if that happened his boss would once more pursue their parents with the same demands as before? There was no need to worry about things like that yet. Gregor was still there and had not the slightest intention of abandoning his family. For the time being he just lay there on the carpet, and no-one who knew the condition he was in would seriously have expected him to let the chief clerk in. It was only a minor discourtesy, and a suitable excuse could easily be found for it later on, it was not something for which Gregor could be sacked on the spot. And it seemed to Gregor much more sensible to leave him now in peace instead of disturbing him with talking at him and crying. But the others didn't know what was happening, they were worried, that would excuse their behaviour.

The chief clerk now raised his voice, "Mr. Samsa", he called to him, "what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room, give us no more than yes or no for an answer, you are causing serious and unnecessary concern to your parents and you fail - and I mention this just by the way - you fail to carry out your business duties in a way that is quite unheard of. I'm speaking here on behalf of your parents and of your employer, and really must request a clear and immediate explanation. I am astonished, quite astonished. I thought I knew you as a calm and sensible person, and now you suddenly seem to be showing off with peculiar whims. This morning, your employer did suggest a possible reason for your failure to appear, it's true - it had to do with the money that was recently entrusted to you - but I came near to giving him my word of honour that that could not be the right explanation. But now that I see your incomprehensible stubbornness I no longer feel any wish whatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And nor is your position all that secure. I had originally intended to say all this to you in private, but since you cause me to waste my time here for no good reason I don't see why your parents should not also learn of it. Your turnover has been very unsatisfactory of late; I grant you that it's not the time of year to do especially good business, we recognise that; but there simply is no time of year to do no business at all, Mr. Samsa, we cannot allow there to be."

"But Sir", called Gregor, beside himself and forgetting all else in the excitement, "I'll open up immediately, just a moment. I'm slightly unwell, an attack of dizziness, I haven't been able to get up. I'm still in bed now. I'm quite fresh again now, though. I'm just getting out of bed. Just a moment. Be patient! It's not quite as easy as I'd thought. I'm quite alright now, though. It's shocking, what can suddenly happen to a person! I was quite alright last night, my parents know about it, perhaps better than me, I had a small symptom of it last night already. They must have noticed it. I don't know why I didn't let you know at work! But you always think you can get over an illness without staying at home. Please, don't make my parents suffer! There's no basis for any of the accusations you're making; nobody's ever said a word to me about any of these things. Maybe you haven't read the latest contracts I sent in. I'll set off with the eight o'clock train, as well, these few hours of rest have given me strength. You don't need to wait, sir; I'll be in the office soon after you, and please be so good as to tell that to the boss and recommend me to him!"

And while Gregor gushed out these words, hardly knowing what he was saying, he made his way over to the chest of drawers - this was easily done, probably because of the practise he had already had in bed - where he now tried to get himself upright. He really did want to open the door, really did want to let them see him and to speak with the chief clerk; the others were being so insistent, and he was curious to learn what they would say when they caught sight of him. If they were shocked then it would no longer be Gregor's responsibility and he could rest. If, however, they took everything calmly he would still have no reason to be upset, and if he hurried he really could be at the station for eight o'clock. The first few times he tried to climb up on the smooth chest of drawers he just slid down again, but he finally gave himself one last swing and stood there upright; the lower part of his body was in serious pain but he no longer gave any attention to it. Now he let himself fall against the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of it with his little legs. By now he had also calmed down, and kept quiet so that he could listen to what the chief clerk was saying.

"Did you understand a word of all that?" the chief clerk asked his parents, "surely he's not trying to make fools of us". "Oh, God!" called his mother, who was already in tears, "he could be seriously ill and we're making him suffer. Grete! Grete!" she then cried. "Mother?" his sister called from the other side. They communicated across Gregor's room. "You'll have to go for the doctor straight away. Gregor is ill. Quick, get the doctor. Did you hear the way Gregor spoke just now?" "That was the voice of an animal", said the chief clerk, with a calmness that was in contrast with his mother's screams. "Anna! Anna!" his father called into the kitchen through the entrance hall, clapping his hands, "get a locksmith here, now!" And the two girls, their skirts swishing, immediately ran out through the hall, wrenching open the front door of the flat as they went. How had his sister managed to get dressed so quickly? There was no sound of the door banging shut again; they must have left it open; people often do in homes where something awful has happened.

Gregor, in contrast, had become much calmer. So they couldn't understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than before - perhaps his ears had become used to the sound. They had realised, though, that there was something wrong with him, and were ready to help. The first response to his situation had been confident and wise, and that made him feel better. He felt that he had been drawn back in among people, and from the doctor and the locksmith he expected great and surprising achievements - although he did not really distinguish one from the other. Whatever was said next would be crucial, so, in order to make his voice as clear as possible, he coughed a little, but taking care to do this not too loudly as even this might well sound different from the way that a human coughs and he was no longer sure he could judge this for himself. Meanwhile, it had become very quiet in the next room. Perhaps his parents were sat at the table whispering with the chief clerk, or perhaps they were all pressed against the door and listening.

Gregor slowly pushed his way over to the door with the chair. Once there he let go of it and threw himself onto the door, holding himself upright against it using the adhesive on the tips of his legs. He rested there a little while to recover from the effort involved and then set himself to the task of turning the key in the lock with his mouth. He seemed, unfortunately, to have no proper teeth - how was he, then, to grasp the key? - but the lack of teeth was, of course, made up for with a very strong jaw; using the jaw, he really was able to start the key turning, ignoring the fact that he must have been causing some kind of damage as a brown fluid came from his mouth, flowed over the key and dripped onto the floor. "Listen", said the chief clerk in the next room, "he's turning the key." Gregor was greatly encouraged by this; but they all should have been calling to him, his father and his mother too: "Well done, Gregor", they should have cried, "keep at it, keep hold of the lock!" And with the idea that they were all excitedly following his efforts, he bit on the key with all his strength, paying no attention to the pain he was causing himself. As the key turned round he turned around the lock with it, only holding himself upright with his mouth, and hung onto the key or pushed it down again with the whole weight of his body as needed. The clear sound of the lock as it snapped back was Gregor's sign that he could break his concentration, and as he regained his breath he said to himself: "So, I didn't need the locksmith after all". Then he lay his head on the handle of the door to open it completely.

Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already wide open before he could be seen. He had first to slowly turn himself around one of the double doors, and he had to do it very carefully if he did not want to fall flat on his back before entering the room. He was still occupied with this difficult movement, unable to pay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief clerk exclaim a loud "Oh!", which sounded like the soughing of the wind. Now he also saw him - he was the nearest to the door - his hand pressed against his open mouth and slowly retreating as if driven by a steady and invisible force. Gregor's mother, her hair still dishevelled from bed despite the chief clerk's being there, looked at his father. Then she unfolded her arms, took two steps forward towards Gregor and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that spread themselves out around her as her head disappeared down onto her breast. His father looked hostile, and clenched his fists as if wanting to knock Gregor back into his room. Then he looked uncertainly round the living room, covered his eyes with his hands and wept so that his powerful chest shook.

So Gregor did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of the other door which was still held bolted in place. In this way only half of his body could be seen, along with his head above it which he leant over to one side as he peered out at the others. Meanwhile the day had become much lighter; part of the endless, grey-black building on the other side of the street - which was a hospital - could be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular line of windows piercing its façade; the rain was still falling, now throwing down large, individual droplets which hit the ground one at a time. The washing up from breakfast lay on the table; there was so much of it because, for Gregor's father, breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of different newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was photograph of Gregor when he was a lieutenant in the army, his sword in his hand and a carefree smile on his face as he called forth respect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the entrance hall was open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could see onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down below.

"Now, then", said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one to have kept calm, "I'll get dressed straight away now, pack up my samples and set off. Will you please just let me leave? You can see", he said to the chief clerk, "that I'm not stubborn and I like to do my job; being a commercial traveller is arduous but without travelling I couldn't earn my living. So where are you going, in to the office? Yes? Will you report everything accurately, then? It's quite possible for someone to be temporarily unable to work, but that's just the right time to remember what's been achieved in the past and consider that later on, once the difficulty has been removed, he will certainly work with all the more diligence and concentration. You're well aware that I'm seriously in debt to our employer as well as having to look after my parents and my sister, so that I'm trapped in a difficult situation, but I will work my way out of it again. Please don't make things any harder for me than they are already, and don't take sides against me at the office. I know that nobody likes the travellers. They think we earn an enormous wage as well as having a soft time of it. That's just prejudice but they have no particular reason to think better of it. But you, sir, you have a better overview than the rest of the staff, in fact, if I can say this in confidence, a better overview than the boss himself - it's very easy for a businessman like him to make mistakes about his employees and judge them more harshly than he should. And you're also well aware that we travellers spend almost the whole year away from the office, so that we can very easily fall victim to gossip and chance and groundless complaints, and it's almost impossible to defend yourself from that sort of thing, we don't usually even hear about them, or if at all it's when we arrive back home exhausted from a trip, and that's when we feel the harmful effects of what's been going on without even knowing what caused them. Please, don't go away, at least first say something to show that you grant that I'm at least partly right!"

But the chief clerk had turned away as soon as Gregor had started to speak, and, with protruding lips, only stared back at him over his trembling shoulders as he left. He did not keep still for a moment while Gregor was speaking, but moved steadily towards the door without taking his eyes off him. He moved very gradually, as if there had been some secret prohibition on leaving the room. It was only when he had reached the entrance hall that he made a sudden movement, drew his foot from the living room, and rushed forward in a panic. In the hall, he stretched his right hand far out towards the stairway as if out there, there were some supernatural force waiting to save him.

Gregor realised that it was out of the question to let the chief clerk go away in this mood if his position in the firm was not to be put into extreme danger. That was something his parents did not understand very well; over the years, they had become convinced that this job would provide for Gregor for his entire life, and besides, they had so much to worry about at present that they had lost sight of any thought for the future. Gregor, though, did think about the future. The chief clerk had to be held back, calmed down, convinced and finally won over; the future of Gregor and his family depended on it! If only his sister were here! She was clever; she was already in tears while Gregor was still lying peacefully on his back. And the chief clerk was a lover of women, surely she could persuade him; she would close the front door in the entrance hall and talk him out of his shocked state. But his sister was not there, Gregor would have to do the job himself. And without considering that he still was not familiar with how well he could move about in his present state, or that his speech still might not - or probably would not - be understood, he let go of the door; pushed himself through the opening; tried to reach the chief clerk on the landing who, ridiculously, was holding on to the banister with both hands; but Gregor fell immediately over and, with a little scream as he sought something to hold onto, landed on his numerous little legs. Hardly had that happened than, for the first time that day, he began to feel alright with his body; the little legs had the solid ground under them; to his pleasure, they did exactly as he told them; they were even making the effort to carry him where he wanted to go; and he was soon believing that all his sorrows would soon be finally at an end. He held back the urge to move but swayed from side to side as he crouched there on the floor. His mother was not far away in front of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but then she suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her fingers spread shouting: "Help, for pity's sake, Help!" The way she held her head suggested she wanted to see Gregor better, but the unthinking way she was hurrying backwards showed that she did not; she had forgotten that the table was behind her with all the breakfast things on it; when she reached the table she sat quickly down on it without knowing what she was doing; without even seeming to notice that the coffee pot had been knocked over and a gush of coffee was pouring down onto the carpet.

"Mother, mother", said Gregor gently, looking up at her. He had completely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not help himself snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the flow of coffee. That set his mother screaming anew, she fled from the table and into the arms of his father as he rushed towards her. Gregor, though, had no time to spare for his parents now; the chief clerk had already reached the stairs; with his chin on the banister, he looked back for the last time. Gregor made a run for him; he wanted to be sure of reaching him; the chief clerk must have expected something, as he leapt down several steps at once and disappeared; his shouts resounding all around the staircase. The flight of the chief clerk seemed, unfortunately, to put Gregor's father into a panic as well. Until then he had been relatively self controlled, but now, instead of running after the chief clerk himself, or at least not impeding Gregor as he ran after him, Gregor's father seized the chief clerk's stick in his right hand (the chief clerk had left it behind on a chair, along with his hat and overcoat), picked up a large newspaper from the table with his left, and used them to drive Gregor back into his room, stamping his foot at him as he went. Gregor's appeals to his father were of no help, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly turned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the harder. Across the room, despite the chilly weather, Gregor's mother had pulled open a window, leant far out of it and pressed her hands to her face. A strong draught of air flew in from the street towards the stairway, the curtains flew up, the newspapers on the table fluttered and some of them were blown onto the floor. Nothing would stop Gregor's father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at him like a wild man. Gregor had never had any practice in moving backwards and was only able to go very slowly. If Gregor had only been allowed to turn round he would have been back in his room straight away, but he was afraid that if he took the time to do that his father would become impatient, and there was the threat of a lethal blow to his back or head from the stick in his father's hand any moment. Eventually, though, Gregor realised that he had no choice as he saw, to his disgust, that he was quite incapable of going backwards in a straight line; so he began, as quickly as possible and with frequent anxious glances at his father, to turn himself round. It went very slowly, but perhaps his father was able to see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact now and then he used the tip of his stick to give directions from a distance as to which way to turn. If only his father would stop that unbearable hissing! It was making Gregor quite confused. When he had nearly finished turning round, still listening to that hissing, he made a mistake and turned himself back a little the way he had just come. He was pleased when he finally had his head in front of the doorway, but then saw that it was too narrow, and his body was too broad to get through it without further difficulty. In his present mood, it obviously did not occur to his father to open the other of the double doors so that Gregor would have enough space to get through. He was merely fixed on the idea that Gregor should be got back into his room as quickly as possible. Nor would he ever have allowed Gregor the time to get himself upright as preparation for getting through the doorway. What he did, making more noise than ever, was to drive Gregor forwards all the harder as if there had been nothing in the way; it sounded to Gregor as if there was now more than one father behind him; it was not a pleasant experience, and Gregor pushed himself into the doorway without regard for what might happen. One side of his body lifted itself, he lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the white door and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it, soon he was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all by himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air while those on the other side were pressed painfully against the ground. Then his father gave him a hefty shove from behind which released him from where he was held and sent him flying, and heavily bleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut with the stick, then, finally, all was quiet.

II

It was not until it was getting dark that evening that Gregor awoke from his deep and coma-like sleep. He would have woken soon afterwards anyway even if he hadn't been disturbed, as he had had enough sleep and felt fully rested. But he had the impression that some hurried steps and the sound of the door leading into the front room being carefully shut had woken him. The light from the electric street lamps shone palely here and there onto the ceiling and tops of the furniture, but down below, where Gregor was, it was dark. He pushed himself over to the door, feeling his way clumsily with his antennae - of which he was now beginning to learn the value - in order to see what had been happening there. The whole of his left side seemed like one, painfully stretched scar, and he limped badly on his two rows of legs. One of the legs had been badly injured in the events of that morning - it was nearly a miracle that only one of them had been - and dragged along lifelessly.

It was only when he had reached the door that he realised what it actually was that had drawn him over to it; it was the smell of something to eat. By the door there was a dish filled with sweetened milk with little pieces of white bread floating in it. He was so pleased he almost laughed, as he was even hungrier than he had been that morning, and immediately dipped his head into the milk, nearly covering his eyes with it. But he soon drew his head back again in disappointment; not only did the pain in his tender left side make it difficult to eat the food - he was only able to eat if his whole body worked together as a snuffling whole - but the milk did not taste at all nice. Milk like this was normally his favourite drink, and his sister had certainly left it there for him because of that, but he turned, almost against his own will, away from the dish and crawled back into the centre of the room.

Through the crack in the door, Gregor could see that the gas had been lit in the living room. His father at this time would normally be sat with his evening paper, reading it out in a loud voice to Gregor's mother, and sometimes to his sister, but there was now not a sound to be heard. Gregor's sister would often write and tell him about this reading, but maybe his father had lost the habit in recent times. It was so quiet all around too, even though there must have been somebody in the flat. "What a quiet life it is the family lead", said Gregor to himself, and, gazing into the darkness, felt a great pride that he was able to provide a life like that in such a nice home for his sister and parents. But what now, if all this peace and wealth and comfort should come to a horrible and frightening end? That was something that Gregor did not want to think about too much, so he started to move about, crawling up and down the room.

Once during that long evening, the door on one side of the room was opened very slightly and hurriedly closed again; later on the door on the other side did the same; it seemed that someone needed to enter the room but thought better of it. Gregor went and waited immediately by the door, resolved either to bring the timorous visitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it was; but the door was opened no more that night and Gregor waited in vain. The previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had wanted to get in there to him, but now, now that he had opened up one of the doors and the other had clearly been unlocked some time during the day, no-one came, and the keys were in the other sides.

It was not until late at night that the gaslight in the living room was put out, and now it was easy to see that his parents and sister had stayed awake all that time, as they all could be distinctly heard as they went away together on tip-toe. It was clear that no-one would come into Gregor's room any more until morning; that gave him plenty of time to think undisturbed about how he would have to re-arrange his life. For some reason, the tall, empty room where he was forced to remain made him feel uneasy as he lay there flat on the floor, even though he had been living in it for five years. Hardly aware of what he was doing other than a slight feeling of shame, he hurried under the couch. It pressed down on his back a little, and he was no longer able to lift his head, but he nonetheless felt immediately at ease and his only regret was that his body was too broad to get it all underneath.

He spent the whole night there. Some of the time he passed in a light sleep, although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of his hunger, and some of the time was spent in worries and vague hopes which, however, always led to the same conclusion: for the time being he must remain calm, he must show patience and the greatest consideration so that his family could bear the unpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to impose on them.

Gregor soon had the opportunity to test the strength of his decisions, as early the next morning, almost before the night had ended, his sister, nearly fully dressed, opened the door from the front room and looked anxiously in. She did not see him straight away, but when she did notice him under the couch - he had to be somewhere, for God's sake, he couldn't have flown away - she was so shocked that she lost control of herself and slammed the door shut again from outside. But she seemed to regret her behaviour, as she opened the door again straight away and came in on tip-toe as if entering the room of someone seriously ill or even of a stranger. Gregor had pushed his head forward, right to the edge of the couch, and watched her. Would she notice that he had left the milk as it was, realise that it was not from any lack of hunger and bring him in some other food that was more suitable? If she didn't do it herself he would rather go hungry than draw her attention to it, although he did feel a terrible urge to rush forward from under the couch, throw himself at his sister's feet and beg her for something good to eat. However, his sister noticed the full dish immediately and looked at it and the few drops of milk splashed around it with some surprise. She immediately picked it up - using a rag, not her bare hands - and carried it out. Gregor was extremely curious as to what she would bring in its place, imagining the wildest possibilities, but he never could have guessed what his sister, in her goodness, actually did bring. In order to test his taste, she brought him a whole selection of things, all spread out on an old newspaper. There were old, half-rotten vegetables; bones from the evening meal, covered in white sauce that had gone hard; a few raisins and almonds; some cheese that Gregor had declared inedible two days before; a dry roll and some bread spread with butter and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water into the dish, which had probably been permanently set aside for Gregor's use, and placed it beside them. Then, out of consideration for Gregor's feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of her, she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so that Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for himself as he liked. Gregor's little legs whirred, at last he could eat. What's more, his injuries must already have completely healed as he found no difficulty in moving. This amazed him, as more than a month earlier he had cut his finger slightly with a knife, he thought of how his finger had still hurt the day before yesterday. "Am I less sensitive than I used to be, then?", he thought, and was already sucking greedily at the cheese which had immediately, almost compellingly, attracted him much more than the other foods on the newspaper. Quickly one after another, his eyes watering with pleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables and the sauce; the fresh foods, on the other hand, he didn't like at all, and even dragged the things he did want to eat a little way away from them because he couldn't stand the smell. Long after he had finished eating and lay lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly turned the key in the lock as a sign to him that he should withdraw. He was immediately startled, although he had been half asleep, and he hurried back under the couch. But he needed great self-control to stay there even for the short time that his sister was in the room, as eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he could hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he watched with bulging eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a broom and swept up the left-overs, mixing them in with the food he had not even touched at all as if it could not be used any more. She quickly dropped it all into a bin, closed it with its wooden lid, and carried everything out. She had hardly turned her back before Gregor came out again from under the couch and stretched himself.

This was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the morning while his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the second time after everyone had eaten their meal at midday as his parents would sleep for a little while then as well, and Gregor's sister would send the maid away on some errand. Gregor's father and mother certainly did not want him to starve either, but perhaps it would have been more than they could stand to have any more experience of his feeding than being told about it, and perhaps his sister wanted to spare them what distress she could as they were indeed suffering enough.

It was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the doctor and the locksmith that first morning to get them out of the flat. As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister, thought that he could understand them, so he had to be content to hear his sister's sighs and appeals to the saints as she moved about his room. It was only later, when she had become a little more used to everything - there was, of course, no question of her ever becoming fully used to the situation - that Gregor would sometimes catch a friendly comment, or at least a comment that could be construed as friendly. "He's enjoyed his dinner today", she might say when he had diligently cleared away all the food left for him, or if he left most of it, which slowly became more and more frequent, she would often say, sadly, "now everything's just been left there again".

Although Gregor wasn't able to hear any news directly he did listen to much of what was said in the next rooms, and whenever he heard anyone speaking he would scurry straight to the appropriate door and press his whole body against it. There was seldom any conversation, especially at first, that was not about him in some way, even if only in secret. For two whole days, all the talk at every mealtime was about what they should do now; but even between meals they spoke about the same subject as there were always at least two members of the family at home - nobody wanted to be at home by themselves and it was out of the question to leave the flat entirely empty. And on the very first day the maid had fallen to her knees and begged Gregor's mother to let her go without delay. It was not very clear how much she knew of what had happened but she left within a quarter of an hour, tearfully thanking Gregor's mother for her dismissal as if she had done her an enormous service. She even swore emphatically not to tell anyone the slightest about what had happened, even though no-one had asked that of her.

Now Gregor's sister also had to help his mother with the cooking; although that was not so much bother as no-one ate very much. Gregor often heard how one of them would unsuccessfully urge another to eat, and receive no more answer than "no thanks, I've had enough" or something similar. No-one drank very much either. His sister would sometimes ask his father whether he would like a beer, hoping for the chance to go and fetch it herself. When his father then said nothing she would add, so that he would not feel selfish, that she could send the housekeeper for it, but then his father would close the matter with a big, loud "No", and no more would be said.

Even before the first day had come to an end, his father had explained to Gregor's mother and sister what their finances and prospects were. Now and then he stood up from the table and took some receipt or document from the little cash box he had saved from his business when it had collapsed five years earlier. Gregor heard how he opened the complicated lock and then closed it again after he had taken the item he wanted. What he heard his father say was some of the first good news that Gregor heard since he had first been incarcerated in his room. He had thought that nothing at all remained from his father's business, at least he had never told him anything different, and Gregor had never asked him about it anyway. Their business misfortune had reduced the family to a state of total despair, and Gregor's only concern at that time had been to arrange things so that they could all forget about it as quickly as possible. So then he started working especially hard, with a fiery vigour that raised him from a junior salesman to a travelling representative almost overnight, bringing with it the chance to earn money in quite different ways. Gregor converted his success at work straight into cash that he could lay on the table at home for the benefit of his astonished and delighted family. They had been good times and they had never come again, at least not with the same splendour, even though Gregor had later earned so much that he was in a position to bear the costs of the whole family, and did bear them. They had even got used to it, both Gregor and the family, they took the money with gratitude and he was glad to provide it, although there was no longer much warm affection given in return. Gregor only remained close to his sister now. Unlike him, she was very fond of music and a gifted and expressive violinist, it was his secret plan to send her to the conservatory next year even though it would cause great expense that would have to be made up for in some other way. During Gregor's short periods in town, conversation with his sister would often turn to the conservatory but it was only ever mentioned as a lovely dream that could never be realised. Their parents did not like to hear this innocent talk, but Gregor thought about it quite hard and decided he would let them know what he planned with a grand announcement of it on Christmas day.

That was the sort of totally pointless thing that went through his mind in his present state, pressed upright against the door and listening. There were times when he simply became too tired to continue listening, when his head would fall wearily against the door and he would pull it up again with a start, as even the slightest noise he caused would be heard next door and they would all go silent. "What's that he's doing now", his father would say after a while, clearly having gone over to the door, and only then would the interrupted conversation slowly be taken up again.

When explaining things, his father repeated himself several times, partly because it was a long time since he had been occupied with these matters himself and partly because Gregor's mother did not understand everything the first time. From these repeated explanations Gregor learned, to his pleasure, that despite all their misfortunes there was still some money available from the old days. It was not a lot, but it had not been touched in the meantime and some interest had accumulated. Besides that, they had not been using up all the money that Gregor had been bringing home every month, keeping only a little for himself, so that that, too, had been accumulating. Behind the door, Gregor nodded with enthusiasm in his pleasure at this unexpected thrift and caution. He could actually have used this surplus money to reduce his father's debt to his boss, and the day when he could have freed himself from that job would have come much closer, but now it was certainly better the way his father had done things.

This money, however, was certainly not enough to enable the family to live off the interest; it was enough to maintain them for, perhaps, one or two years, no more. That's to say, it was money that should not really be touched but set aside for emergencies; money to live on had to be earned. His father was healthy but old, and lacking in self confidence. During the five years that he had not been working - the first holiday in a life that had been full of strain and no success - he had put on a lot of weight and become very slow and clumsy. Would Gregor's elderly mother now have to go and earn money? She suffered from asthma and it was a strain for her just to move about the home, every other day would be spent struggling for breath on the sofa by the open window. Would his sister have to go and earn money? She was still a child of seventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable, consisting of wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the business, joining in with a few modest pleasures and most of all playing the violin. Whenever they began to talk of the need to earn money, Gregor would always first let go of the door and then throw himself onto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he became quite hot with shame and regret.

He would often lie there the whole night through, not sleeping a wink but scratching at the leather for hours on end. Or he might go to all the effort of pushing a chair to the window, climbing up onto the sill and, propped up in the chair, leaning on the window to stare out of it. He had used to feel a great sense of freedom from doing this, but doing it now was obviously something more remembered than experienced, as what he actually saw in this way was becoming less distinct every day, even things that were quite near; he had used to curse the ever-present view of the hospital across the street, but now he could not see it at all, and if he had not known that he lived in Charlottenstrasse, which was a quiet street despite being in the middle of the city, he could have thought that he was looking out the window at a barren waste where the grey sky and the grey earth mingled inseparably. His observant sister only needed to notice the chair twice before she would always push it back to its exact position by the window after she had tidied up the room, and even left the inner pane of the window open from then on.

If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for all that she had to do for him it would have been easier for him to bear it; but as it was it caused him pain. His sister, naturally, tried as far as possible to pretend there was nothing burdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of course, the better she was able to do so, but as time went by Gregor was also able to see through it all so much better. It had even become very unpleasant for him, now, whenever she entered the room. No sooner had she come in than she would quickly close the door as a precaution so that no-one would have to suffer the view into Gregor's room, then she would go straight to the window and pull it hurriedly open almost as if she were suffocating. Even if it was cold, she would stay at the window breathing deeply for a little while. She would alarm Gregor twice a day with this running about and noise making; he would stay under the couch shivering the whole while, knowing full well that she would certainly have liked to spare him this ordeal, but it was impossible for her to be in the same room with him with the windows closed.

One day, about a month after Gregor's transformation when his sister no longer had any particular reason to be shocked at his appearance, she came into the room a little earlier than usual and found him still staring out the window, motionless, and just where he would be most horrible. In itself, his sister's not coming into the room would have been no surprise for Gregor as it would have been difficult for her to immediately open the window while he was still there, but not only did she not come in, she went straight back and closed the door behind her, a stranger would have thought he had threatened her and tried to bite her. Gregor went straight to hide himself under the couch, of course, but he had to wait until midday before his sister came back and she seemed much more uneasy than usual. It made him realise that she still found his appearance unbearable and would continue to do so, she probably even had to overcome the urge to flee when she saw the little bit of him that protruded from under the couch. One day, in order to spare her even this sight, he spent four hours carrying the bedsheet over to the couch on his back and arranged it so that he was completely covered and his sister would not be able to see him even if she bent down. If she did not think this sheet was necessary then all she had to do was take it off again, as it was clear enough that it was no pleasure for Gregor to cut himself off so completely. She left the sheet where it was. Gregor even thought he glimpsed a look of gratitude one time when he carefully looked out from under the sheet to see how his sister liked the new arrangement.

For the first fourteen days, Gregor's parents could not bring themselves to come into the room to see him. He would often hear them say how they appreciated all the new work his sister was doing even though, before, they had seen her as a girl who was somewhat useless and frequently been annoyed with her. But now the two of them, father and mother, would often both wait outside the door of Gregor's room while his sister tidied up in there, and as soon as she went out again she would have to tell them exactly how everything looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time and whether, perhaps, any slight improvement could be seen. His mother also wanted to go in and visit Gregor relatively soon but his father and sister at first persuaded her against it. Gregor listened very closely to all this, and approved fully. Later, though, she had to be held back by force, which made her call out: "Let me go and see Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can't you understand I have to see him?", and Gregor would think to himself that maybe it would be better if his mother came in, not every day of course, but one day a week, perhaps; she could understand everything much better than his sister who, for all her courage, was still just a child after all, and really might not have had an adult's appreciation of the burdensome job she had taken on.

Gregor's wish to see his mother was soon realised. Out of consideration for his parents, Gregor wanted to avoid being seen at the window during the day, the few square meters of the floor did not give him much room to crawl about, it was hard to just lie quietly through the night, his food soon stopped giving him any pleasure at all, and so, to entertain himself, he got into the habit of crawling up and down the walls and ceiling. He was especially fond of hanging from the ceiling; it was quite different from lying on the floor; he could breathe more freely; his body had a light swing to it; and up there, relaxed and almost happy, it might happen that he would surprise even himself by letting go of the ceiling and landing on the floor with a crash. But now, of course, he had far better control of his body than before and, even with a fall as great as that, caused himself no damage. Very soon his sister noticed Gregor's new way of entertaining himself - he had, after all, left traces of the adhesive from his feet as he crawled about - and got it into her head to make it as easy as possible for him by removing the furniture that got in his way, especially the chest of drawers and the desk. Now, this was not something that she would be able to do by herself; she did not dare to ask for help from her father; the sixteen year old maid had carried on bravely since the cook had left but she certainly would not have helped in this, she had even asked to be allowed to keep the kitchen locked at all times and never to have to open the door unless it was especially important; so his sister had no choice but to choose some time when Gregor's father was not there and fetch his mother to help her. As she approached the room, Gregor could hear his mother express her joy, but once at the door she went silent. First, of course, his sister came in and looked round to see that everything in the room was alright; and only then did she let her mother enter. Gregor had hurriedly pulled the sheet down lower over the couch and put more folds into it so that everything really looked as if it had just been thrown down by chance. Gregor also refrained, this time, from spying out from under the sheet; he gave up the chance to see his mother until later and was simply glad that she had come. "You can come in, he can't be seen", said his sister, obviously leading her in by the hand. The old chest of drawers was too heavy for a pair of feeble women to be heaving about, but Gregor listened as they pushed it from its place, his sister always taking on the heaviest part of the work for herself and ignoring her mother's warnings that she would strain herself. This lasted a very long time. After labouring at it for fifteen minutes or more his mother said it would be better to leave the chest where it was, for one thing it was too heavy for them to get the job finished before Gregor's father got home and leaving it in the middle of the room it would be in his way even more, and for another thing it wasn't even sure that taking the furniture away would really be any help to him. She thought just the opposite; the sight of the bare walls saddened her right to her heart; and why wouldn't Gregor feel the same way about it, he'd been used to this furniture in his room for a long time and it would make him feel abandoned to be in an empty room like that. Then, quietly, almost whispering as if wanting Gregor (whose whereabouts she did not know) to hear not even the tone of her voice, as she was convinced that he did not understand her words, she added "and by taking the furniture away, won't it seem like we're showing that we've given up all hope of improvement and we're abandoning him to cope for himself? I think it'd be best to leave the room exactly the way it was before so that when Gregor comes back to us again he'll find everything unchanged and he'll be able to forget the time in between all the easier".

Hearing these words from his mother made Gregor realise that the lack of any direct human communication, along with the monotonous life led by the family during these two months, must have made him confused - he could think of no other way of explaining to himself why he had seriously wanted his room emptied out. Had he really wanted to transform his room into a cave, a warm room fitted out with the nice furniture he had inherited? That would have let him crawl around unimpeded in any direction, but it would also have let him quickly forget his past when he had still been human. He had come very close to forgetting, and it had only been the voice of his mother, unheard for so long, that had shaken him out of it. Nothing should be removed; everything had to stay; he could not do without the good influence the furniture had on his condition; and if the furniture made it difficult for him to crawl about mindlessly that was not a loss but a great advantage.

His sister, unfortunately, did not agree; she had become used to the idea, not without reason, that she was Gregor's spokesman to his parents about the things that concerned him. This meant that his mother's advice now was sufficient reason for her to insist on removing not only the chest of drawers and the desk, as she had thought at first, but all the furniture apart from the all-important couch. It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become enthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor's situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would dare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls by himself.

So she refused to let her mother dissuade her. Gregor's mother already looked uneasy in his room, she soon stopped speaking and helped Gregor's sister to get the chest of drawers out with what strength she had. The chest of drawers was something that Gregor could do without if he had to, but the writing desk had to stay. Hardly had the two women pushed the chest of drawers, groaning, out of the room than Gregor poked his head out from under the couch to see what he could do about it. He meant to be as careful and considerate as he could, but, unfortunately, it was his mother who came back first while Grete in the next room had her arms round the chest, pushing and pulling at it from side to side by herself without, of course, moving it an inch. His mother was not used to the sight of Gregor, he might have made her ill, so Gregor hurried backwards to the far end of the couch. In his startlement, though, he was not able to prevent the sheet at its front from moving a little. It was enough to attract his mother's attention. She stood very still, remained there a moment, and then went back out to Grete.

Gregor kept trying to assure himself that nothing unusual was happening, it was just a few pieces of furniture being moved after all, but he soon had to admit that the women going to and fro, their little calls to each other, the scraping of the furniture on the floor, all these things made him feel as if he were being assailed from all sides. With his head and legs pulled in against him and his body pressed to the floor, he was forced to admit to himself that he could not stand all of this much longer. They were emptying his room out; taking away everything that was dear to him; they had already taken out the chest containing his fretsaw and other tools; now they threatened to remove the writing desk with its place clearly worn into the floor, the desk where he had done his homework as a business trainee, at high school, even while he had been at infant school - he really could not wait any longer to see whether the two women's intentions were good. He had nearly forgotten they were there anyway, as they were now too tired to say anything while they worked and he could only hear their feet as they stepped heavily on the floor.

So, while the women were leant against the desk in the other room catching their breath, he sallied out, changed direction four times not knowing what he should save first before his attention was suddenly caught by the picture on the wall - which was already denuded of everything else that had been on it - of the lady dressed in copious fur. He hurried up onto the picture and pressed himself against its glass, it held him firmly and felt good on his hot belly. This picture at least, now totally covered by Gregor, would certainly be taken away by no-one. He turned his head to face the door into the living room so that he could watch the women when they came back.

They had not allowed themselves a long rest and came back quite soon; Grete had put her arm around her mother and was nearly carrying her. "What shall we take now, then?", said Grete and looked around. Her eyes met those of Gregor on the wall. Perhaps only because her mother was there, she remained calm, bent her face to her so that she would not look round and said, albeit hurriedly and with a tremor in her voice: "Come on, let's go back in the living room for a while?" Gregor could see what Grete had in mind, she wanted to take her mother somewhere safe and then chase him down from the wall. Well, she could certainly try it! He sat unyielding on his picture. He would rather jump at Grete's face.

But Grete's words had made her mother quite worried, she stepped to one side, saw the enormous brown patch against the flowers of the wallpaper, and before she even realised it was Gregor that she saw screamed: "Oh God, oh God!" Arms outstretched, she fell onto the couch as if she had given up everything and stayed there immobile. "Gregor!" shouted his sister, glowering at him and shaking her fist. That was the first word she had spoken to him directly since his transformation. She ran into the other room to fetch some kind of smelling salts to bring her mother out of her faint; Gregor wanted to help too - he could save his picture later, although he stuck fast to the glass and had to pull himself off by force; then he, too, ran into the next room as if he could advise his sister like in the old days; but he had to just stand behind her doing nothing; she was looking into various bottles, he startled her when she turned round; a bottle fell to the ground and broke; a splinter cut Gregor's face, some kind of caustic medicine splashed all over him; now, without delaying any longer, Grete took hold of all the bottles she could and ran with them in to her mother; she slammed the door shut with her foot. So now Gregor was shut out from his mother, who, because of him, might be near to death; he could not open the door if he did not want to chase his sister away, and she had to stay with his mother; there was nothing for him to do but wait; and, oppressed with anxiety and self-reproach, he began to crawl about, he crawled over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and finally in his confusion as the whole room began to spin around him he fell down into the middle of the dinner table.

He lay there for a while, numb and immobile, all around him it was quiet, maybe that was a good sign. Then there was someone at the door. The maid, of course, had locked herself in her kitchen so that Grete would have to go and answer it. His father had arrived home. "What's happened?" were his first words; Grete's appearance must have made everything clear to him. She answered him with subdued voice, and openly pressed her face into his chest: "Mother's fainted, but she's better now. Gregor got out." "Just as I expected", said his father, "just as I always said, but you women wouldn't listen, would you." It was clear to Gregor that Grete had not said enough and that his father took it to mean that something bad had happened, that he was responsible for some act of violence. That meant Gregor would now have to try to calm his father, as he did not have the time to explain things to him even if that had been possible. So he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself against it so that his father, when he came in from the hall, could see straight away that Gregor had the best intentions and would go back into his room without delay, that it would not be necessary to drive him back but that they had only to open the door and he would disappear.

His father, though, was not in the mood to notice subtleties like that; "Ah!", he shouted as he came in, sounding as if he were both angry and glad at the same time. Gregor drew his head back from the door and lifted it towards his father. He really had not imagined his father the way he stood there now; of late, with his new habit of crawling about, he had neglected to pay attention to what was going on the rest of the flat the way he had done before. He really ought to have expected things to have changed, but still, still, was that really his father? The same tired man as used to be laying there entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business trips, who would receive him sitting in the armchair in his nightgown when he came back in the evenings; who was hardly even able to stand up but, as a sign of his pleasure, would just raise his arms and who, on the couple of times a year when they went for a walk together on a Sunday or public holiday wrapped up tightly in his overcoat between Gregor and his mother, would always labour his way forward a little more slowly than them, who were already walking slowly for his sake; who would place his stick down carefully and, if he wanted to say something would invariably stop and gather his companions around him. He was standing up straight enough now; dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, the sort worn by the employees at the banking institute; above the high, stiff collar of the coat his strong double-chin emerged; under the bushy eyebrows, his piercing, dark eyes looked out fresh and alert; his normally unkempt white hair was combed down painfully close to his scalp. He took his cap, with its gold monogram from, probably, some bank, and threw it in an arc right across the room onto the sofa, put his hands in his trouser pockets, pushing back the bottom of his long uniform coat, and, with look of determination, walked towards Gregor. He probably did not even know himself what he had in mind, but nonetheless lifted his feet unusually high. Gregor was amazed at the enormous size of the soles of his boots, but wasted no time with that - he knew full well, right from the first day of his new life, that his father thought it necessary to always be extremely strict with him. And so he ran up to his father, stopped when his father stopped, scurried forwards again when he moved, even slightly. In this way they went round the room several times without anything decisive happening, without even giving the impression of a chase as everything went so slowly. Gregor remained all this time on the floor, largely because he feared his father might see it as especially provoking if he fled onto the wall or ceiling. Whatever he did, Gregor had to admit that he certainly would not be able to keep up this running about for long, as for each step his father took he had to carry out countless movements. He became noticeably short of breath, even in his earlier life his lungs had not been very reliable. Now, as he lurched about in his efforts to muster all the strength he could for running he could hardly keep his eyes open; his thoughts became too slow for him to think of any other way of saving himself than running; he almost forgot that the walls were there for him to use although, here, they were concealed behind carefully carved furniture full of notches and protrusions - then, right beside him, lightly tossed, something flew down and rolled in front of him. It was an apple; then another one immediately flew at him; Gregor froze in shock; there was no longer any point in running as his father had decided to bombard him. He had filled his pockets with fruit from the bowl on the sideboard and now, without even taking the time for careful aim, threw one apple after another. These little, red apples rolled about on the floor, knocking into each other as if they had electric motors. An apple thrown without much force glanced against Gregor's back and slid off without doing any harm. Another one however, immediately following it, hit squarely and lodged in his back; Gregor wanted to drag himself away, as if he could remove the surprising, the incredible pain by changing his position; but he felt as if nailed to the spot and spread himself out, all his senses in confusion. The last thing he saw was the door of his room being pulled open, his sister was screaming, his mother ran out in front of her in her blouse (as his sister had taken off some of her clothes after she had fainted to make it easier for her to breathe), she ran to his father, her skirts unfastened and sliding one after another to the ground, stumbling over the skirts she pushed herself to his father, her arms around him, uniting herself with him totally - now Gregor lost his ability to see anything - her hands behind his father's head begging him to spare Gregor's life.

III

No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor's flesh, so it remained there as a visible reminder of his injury. He had suffered it there for more than a month, and his condition seemed serious enough to remind even his father that Gregor, despite his current sad and revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated as an enemy. On the contrary, as a family there was a duty to swallow any revulsion for him and to be patient, just to be patient.

Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility - probably permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across his room - crawling over the ceiling was out of the question - but this deterioration in his condition was fully (in his opinion) made up for by the door to the living room being left open every evening. He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room where he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the family in the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversation - with everyone's permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before.

They no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of course, the ones that Gregor always thought about with longing when he was tired and getting into the damp bed in some small hotel room. All of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, his father would go to sleep in his chair; his mother and sister would urge each other to be quiet; his mother, bent deeply under the lamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his sister, who had taken a sales job, learned shorthand and French in the evenings so that she might be able to get a better position later on. Sometimes his father would wake up and say to Gregor's mother "you're doing so much sewing again today!", as if he did not know that he had been dozing - and then he would go back to sleep again while mother and sister would exchange a tired grin.

With a kind of stubbornness, Gregor's father refused to take his uniform off even at home; while his nightgown hung unused on its peg Gregor's father would slumber where he was, fully dressed, as if always ready to serve and expecting to hear the voice of his superior even here. The uniform had not been new to start with, but as a result of this it slowly became even shabbier despite the efforts of Gregor's mother and sister to look after it. Gregor would often spend the whole evening looking at all the stains on this coat, with its gold buttons always kept polished and shiny, while the old man in it would sleep, highly uncomfortable but peaceful.

As soon as it struck ten, Gregor's mother would speak gently to his father to wake him and try to persuade him to go to bed, as he couldn't sleep properly where he was and he really had to get his sleep if he was to be up at six to get to work. But since he had been in work he had become more obstinate and would always insist on staying longer at the table, even though he regularly fell asleep and it was then harder than ever to persuade him to exchange the chair for his bed. Then, however much mother and sister would importune him with little reproaches and warnings he would keep slowly shaking his head for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed and refusing to get up. Gregor's mother would tug at his sleeve, whisper endearments into his ear, Gregor's sister would leave her work to help her mother, but nothing would have any effect on him. He would just sink deeper into his chair. Only when the two women took him under the arms he would abruptly open his eyes, look at them one after the other and say: "What a life! This is what peace I get in my old age!" And supported by the two women he would lift himself up carefully as if he were carrying the greatest load himself, let the women take him to the door, send them off and carry on by himself while Gregor's mother would throw down her needle and his sister her pen so that they could run after his father and continue being of help to him.

Who, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to give more attention to Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The household budget became even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed; an enormous, thick-boned charwoman with white hair that flapped around her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest work; everything else was looked after by Gregor's mother on top of the large amount of sewing work she did. Gregor even learned, listening to the evening conversation about what price they had hoped for, that several items of jewellery belonging to the family had been sold, even though both mother and sister had been very fond of wearing them at functions and celebrations. But the loudest complaint was that although the flat was much too big for their present circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was no imaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new address. He could see quite well, though, that there were more reasons than consideration for him that made it difficult for them to move, it would have been quite easy to transport him in any suitable crate with a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the family back from their decision to move was much more to do with their total despair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune unlike anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related to. They carried out absolutely everything that the world expects from poor people, Gregor's father brought bank employees their breakfast, his mother sacrificed herself by washing clothes for strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind her desk at the behest of the customers, but they just did not have the strength to do any more. And the injury in Gregor's back began to hurt as much as when it was new. After they had come back from taking his father to bed Gregor's mother and sister would now leave their work where it was and sit close together, cheek to cheek; his mother would point to Gregor's room and say "Close that door, Grete", and then, when he was in the dark again, they would sit in the next room and their tears would mingle, or they would simply sit there staring dry-eyed at the table.

Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would think of taking over the family's affairs, just like before, the next time the door was opened; he had long forgotten about his boss and the chief clerk, but they would appear again in his thoughts, the salesmen and the apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three friends from other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a provincial hotel, a tender memory that appeared and disappeared again, a cashier from a hat shop for whom his attention had been serious but too slow, - all of them appeared to him, mixed together with strangers and others he had forgotten, but instead of helping him and his family they were all of them inaccessible, and he was glad when they disappeared. Other times he was not at all in the mood to look after his family, he was filled with simple rage about the lack of attention he was shown, and although he could think of nothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he could get into the pantry where he could take all the things he was entitled to, even if he was not hungry. Gregor's sister no longer thought about how she could please him but would hurriedly push some food or other into his room with her foot before she rushed out to work in the morning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away again with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten or - more often than not - had been left totally untouched. She still cleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been any quicker about it. Smears of dirt were left on the walls, here and there were little balls of dust and filth. At first, Gregor went into one of the worst of these places when his sister arrived as a reproach to her, but he could have stayed there for weeks without his sister doing anything about it; she could see the dirt as well as he could but she had simply decided to leave him to it. At the same time she became touchy in a way that was quite new for her and which everyone in the family understood - cleaning up Gregor's room was for her and her alone. Gregor's mother did once thoroughly clean his room, and needed to use several bucketfuls of water to do it - although that much dampness also made Gregor ill and he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But his mother was to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly had his sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the change in Gregor's room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living room where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she broke into convulsive tears. Her father, of course, was startled out of his chair and the two parents looked on astonished and helpless; then they, too, became agitated; Gregor's father, standing to the right of his mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning of Gregor's room to his sister; from her left, Gregor's sister screamed at her that she was never to clean Gregor's room again; while his mother tried to draw his father, who was beside himself with anger, into the bedroom; his sister, quaking with tears, thumped on the table with her small fists; and Gregor hissed in anger that no-one had even thought of closing the door to save him the sight of this and all its noise.

Gregor's sister was exhausted from going out to work, and looking after Gregor as she had done before was even more work for her, but even so his mother ought certainly not to have taken her place. Gregor, on the other hand, ought not to be neglected. Now, though, the charwoman was here. This elderly widow, with a robust bone structure that made her able to withstand the hardest of things in her long life, wasn't really repelled by Gregor. Just by chance one day, rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to Gregor's room and found herself face to face with him. He was taken totally by surprise, no-one was chasing him but he began to rush to and fro while she just stood there in amazement with her hands crossed in front of her. From then on she never failed to open the door slightly every evening and morning and look briefly in on him. At first she would call to him as she did so with words that she probably considered friendly, such as "come on then, you old dung-beetle!", or "look at the old dung-beetle there!" Gregor never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where he was without moving as if the door had never even been opened. If only they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every day instead of letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt like it! One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the windowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she began to speak to him in that way once again. Gregor was so resentful of it that he started to move toward her, he was slow and infirm, but it was like a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the charwoman just lifted up one of the chairs from near the door and stood there with her mouth open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the chair in her hand had been slammed down into Gregor's back. "Aren't you coming any closer, then?", she asked when Gregor turned round again, and she calmly put the chair back in the corner.

Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to find himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he might take some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there a few hours and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At first he thought it was distress at the state of his room that stopped him eating, but he had soon got used to the changes made there. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room that they had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many such things as one of the rooms in the flat had been rented out to three gentlemen. These earnest gentlemen - all three of them had full beards, as Gregor learned peering through the crack in the door one day - were painfully insistent on things' being tidy. This meant not only in their own room but, since they had taken a room in this establishment, in the entire flat and especially in the kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate, especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many things had become superfluous which, although they could not be sold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found their way into Gregor's room. The dustbins from the kitchen found their way in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and anything she couldn't use for the time being she would just chuck in there. He, fortunately, would usually see no more than the object and the hand that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the things back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw everything out in one go, but what actually happened was that they were left where they landed when they had first been thrown unless Gregor made his way through the junk and moved it somewhere else. At first he moved it because, with no other room free where he could crawl about, he was forced to, but later on he came to enjoy it although moving about in that way left him sad and tired to death, and he would remain immobile for hours afterwards.

The gentlemen who rented the room would sometimes take their evening meal at home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so the door to this room was often kept closed in the evening. But Gregor found it easy to give up having the door open, he had, after all, often failed to make use of it when it was open and, without the family having noticed it, lain in his room in its darkest corner. One time, though, the charwoman left the door to the living room slightly open, and it remained open when the gentlemen who rented the room came in in the evening and the light was put on. They sat up at the table where, formerly, Gregor had taken his meals with his father and mother, they unfolded the serviettes and picked up their knives and forks. Gregor's mother immediately appeared in the doorway with a dish of meat and soon behind her came his sister with a dish piled high with potatoes. The food was steaming, and filled the room with its smell. The gentlemen bent over the dishes set in front of them as if they wanted to test the food before eating it, and the gentleman in the middle, who seemed to count as an authority for the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of meat while it was still in its dish, clearly wishing to establish whether it was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to the kitchen. It was to his satisfaction, and Gregor's mother and sister, who had been looking on anxiously, began to breathe again and smiled.

The family themselves ate in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor's father came into the living room before he went into the kitchen, bowed once with his cap in his hand and did his round of the table. The gentlemen stood as one, and mumbled something into their beards. Then, once they were alone, they ate in near perfect silence. It seemed remarkable to Gregor that above all the various noises of eating their chewing teeth could still be heard, as if they had wanted to show Gregor that you need teeth in order to eat and it was not possible to perform anything with jaws that are toothless however nice they might be. "I'd like to eat something", said Gregor anxiously, "but not anything like they're eating. They do feed themselves. And here I am, dying!"

Throughout all this time, Gregor could not remember having heard the violin being played, but this evening it began to be heard from the kitchen. The three gentlemen had already finished their meal, the one in the middle had produced a newspaper, given a page to each of the others, and now they leant back in their chairs reading them and smoking. When the violin began playing they became attentive, stood up and went on tip-toe over to the door of the hallway where they stood pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in the kitchen, as Gregor's father called out: "Is the playing perhaps unpleasant for the gentlemen? We can stop it straight away." "On the contrary", said the middle gentleman, "would the young lady not like to come in and play for us here in the room, where it is, after all, much more cosy and comfortable?" "Oh yes, we'd love to", called back Gregor's father as if he had been the violin player himself. The gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited. Gregor's father soon appeared with the music stand, his mother with the music and his sister with the violin. She calmly prepared everything for her to begin playing; his parents, who had never rented a room out before and therefore showed an exaggerated courtesy towards the three gentlemen, did not even dare to sit on their own chairs; his father leant against the door with his right hand pushed in between two buttons on his uniform coat; his mother, though, was offered a seat by one of the gentlemen and sat - leaving the chair where the gentleman happened to have placed it - out of the way in a corner.

His sister began to play; father and mother paid close attention, one on each side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the playing, Gregor had dared to come forward a little and already had his head in the living room. Before, he had taken great pride in how considerate he was but now it hardly occurred to him that he had become so thoughtless about the others. What's more, there was now all the more reason to keep himself hidden as he was covered in the dust that lay everywhere in his room and flew up at the slightest movement; he carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on his back and sides; he was much too indifferent to everything now to lay on his back and wipe himself on the carpet like he had used to do several times a day. And despite this condition, he was not too shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living room.

No-one noticed him, though. The family was totally preoccupied with the violin playing; at first, the three gentlemen had put their hands in their pockets and come up far too close behind the music stand to look at all the notes being played, and they must have disturbed Gregor's sister, but soon, in contrast with the family, they withdrew back to the window with their heads sunk and talking to each other at half volume, and they stayed by the window while Gregor's father observed them anxiously. It really now seemed very obvious that they had expected to hear some beautiful or entertaining violin playing but had been disappointed, that they had had enough of the whole performance and it was only now out of politeness that they allowed their peace to be disturbed. It was especially unnerving, the way they all blew the smoke from their cigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses. Yet Gregor's sister was playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side, following the lines of music with a careful and melancholy expression. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his head close to the ground so that he could meet her eyes if the chance came. Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? It seemed to him that he was being shown the way to the unknown nourishment he had been yearning for. He was determined to make his way forward to his sister and tug at her skirt to show her she might come into his room with her violin, as no-one appreciated her playing here as much as he would. He never wanted to let her out of his room, not while he lived, anyway; his shocking appearance should, for once, be of some use to him; he wanted to be at every door of his room at once to hiss and spit at the attackers; his sister should not be forced to stay with him, though, but stay of her own free will; she would sit beside him on the couch with her ear bent down to him while he told her how he had always intended to send her to the conservatory, how he would have told everyone about it last Christmas - had Christmas really come and gone already? - if this misfortune hadn't got in the way, and refuse to let anyone dissuade him from it. On hearing all this, his sister would break out in tears of emotion, and Gregor would climb up to her shoulder and kiss her neck, which, since she had been going out to work, she had kept free without any necklace or collar.

"Mr. Samsa!", shouted the middle gentleman to Gregor's father, pointing, without wasting any more words, with his forefinger at Gregor as he slowly moved forward. The violin went silent, the middle of the three gentlemen first smiled at his two friends, shaking his head, and then looked back at Gregor. His father seemed to think it more important to calm the three gentlemen before driving Gregor out, even though they were not at all upset and seemed to think Gregor was more entertaining than the violin playing had been. He rushed up to them with his arms spread out and attempted to drive them back into their room at the same time as trying to block their view of Gregor with his body. Now they did become a little annoyed, and it was not clear whether it was his father's behaviour that annoyed them or the dawning realisation that they had had a neighbour like Gregor in the next room without knowing it. They asked Gregor's father for explanations, raised their arms like he had, tugged excitedly at their beards and moved back towards their room only very slowly. Meanwhile Gregor's sister had overcome the despair she had fallen into when her playing was suddenly interrupted. She had let her hands drop and let violin and bow hang limply for a while but continued to look at the music as if still playing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together, lay the instrument on her mother's lap who still sat laboriously struggling for breath where she was, and ran into the next room which, under pressure from her father, the three gentlemen were more quickly moving toward. Under his sister's experienced hand, the pillows and covers on the beds flew up and were put into order and she had already finished making the beds and slipped out again before the three gentlemen had reached the room. Gregor's father seemed so obsessed with what he was doing that he forgot all the respect he owed to his tenants. He urged them and pressed them until, when he was already at the door of the room, the middle of the three gentlemen shouted like thunder and stamped his foot and thereby brought Gregor's father to a halt. "I declare here and now", he said, raising his hand and glancing at Gregor's mother and sister to gain their attention too, "that with regard to the repugnant conditions that prevail in this flat and with this family" - here he looked briefly but decisively at the floor - "I give immediate notice on my room. For the days that I have been living here I will, of course, pay nothing at all, on the contrary I will consider whether to proceed with some kind of action for damages from you, and believe me it would be very easy to set out the grounds for such an action." He was silent and looked straight ahead as if waiting for something. And indeed, his two friends joined in with the words: "And we also give immediate notice." With that, he took hold of the door handle and slammed the door.

Gregor's father staggered back to his seat, feeling his way with his hands, and fell into it; it looked as if he was stretching himself out for his usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way his head kept nodding it could be seen that he was not sleeping at all. Throughout all this, Gregor had lain still where the three gentlemen had first seen him. His disappointment at the failure of his plan, and perhaps also because he was weak from hunger, made it impossible for him to move. He was sure that everyone would turn on him any moment, and he waited. He was not even startled out of this state when the violin on his mother's lap fell from her trembling fingers and landed loudly on the floor.

"Father, Mother", said his sister, hitting the table with her hand as introduction, "we can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see it, but I can. I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I can say is: we have to try and get rid of it. We've done all that's humanly possible to look after it and be patient, I don't think anyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong."

"She's absolutely right", said Gregor's father to himself. His mother, who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to cough dully, her hand held out in front of her and a deranged expression in her eyes.

Gregor's sister rushed to his mother and put her hand on her forehead. Her words seemed to give Gregor's father some more definite ideas. He sat upright, played with his uniform cap between the plates left by the three gentlemen after their meal, and occasionally looked down at Gregor as he lay there immobile.

"We have to try and get rid of it", said Gregor's sister, now speaking only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with coughing to listen, "it'll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming. We can't all work as hard as we have to and then come home to be tortured like this, we can't endure it. I can't endure it any more." And she broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down the face of her mother, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand movements.

"My child", said her father with sympathy and obvious understanding, "what are we to do?"

His sister just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness and tears that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier certainty.

"If he could just understand us", said his father almost as a question; his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as a sign that of that there was no question.

"If he could just understand us", repeated Gregor's father, closing his eyes in acceptance of his sister's certainty that that was quite impossible, "then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement with him. But as it is ..."

"It's got to go", shouted his sister, "that's the only way, Father. You've got to get rid of the idea that that's Gregor. We've only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be Gregor? If it were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it's not possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he would have gone of his own free will. We wouldn't have a brother any more, then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember him with respect. As it is this animal is persecuting us, it's driven out our tenants, it obviously wants to take over the whole flat and force us to sleep on the streets. Father, look, just look", she suddenly screamed, "he's starting again!" In her alarm, which was totally beyond Gregor's comprehension, his sister even abandoned his mother as she pushed herself vigorously out of her chair as if more willing to sacrifice her own mother than stay anywhere near Gregor. She rushed over to behind her father, who had become excited merely because she was and stood up half raising his hands in front of Gregor's sister as if to protect her.

But Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all his sister. All he had done was begin to turn round so that he could go back into his room, although that was in itself quite startling as his pain-wracked condition meant that turning round required a great deal of effort and he was using his head to help himself do it, repeatedly raising it and striking it against the floor. He stopped and looked round. They seemed to have realised his good intention and had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all looked at him in unhappy silence. His mother lay in her chair with her legs stretched out and pressed against each other, her eyes nearly closed with exhaustion; his sister sat next to his father with her arms around his neck.

"Maybe now they'll let me turn round", thought Gregor and went back to work. He could not help panting loudly with the effort and had sometimes to stop and take a rest. No-one was making him rush any more, everything was left up to him. As soon as he had finally finished turning round he began to move straight ahead. He was amazed at the great distance that separated him from his room, and could not understand how he had covered that distance in his weak state a little while before and almost without noticing it. He concentrated on crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that there was not a word, not any cry, from his family to distract him. He did not turn his head until he had reached the doorway. He did not turn it all the way round as he felt his neck becoming stiff, but it was nonetheless enough to see that nothing behind him had changed, only his sister had stood up. With his last glance he saw that his mother had now fallen completely asleep.

He was hardly inside his room before the door was hurriedly shut, bolted and locked. The sudden noise behind Gregor so startled him that his little legs collapsed under him. It was his sister who had been in so much of a rush. She had been standing there waiting and sprung forward lightly, Gregor had not heard her coming at all, and as she turned the key in the lock she said loudly to her parents "At last!".

"What now, then?", Gregor asked himself as he looked round in the darkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move at all. This was no surprise to him, it seemed rather that being able to actually move around on those spindly little legs until then was unnatural. He also felt relatively comfortable. It is true that his entire body was aching, but the pain seemed to be slowly getting weaker and weaker and would finally disappear altogether. He could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. He thought back of his family with emotion and love. If it was possible, he felt that he must go away even more strongly than his sister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination until he heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. He watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the window too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down completely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils.

When the cleaner came in early in the morning - they'd often asked her not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her hurry she still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she'd arrived and from then on it was impossible to sleep in peace - she made her usual brief look in on Gregor and at first found nothing special. She thought he was laying there so still on purpose, playing the martyr; she attributed all possible understanding to him. She happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, so she tried to tickle Gregor with it from the doorway. When she had no success with that she tried to make a nuisance of herself and poked at him a little, and only when she found she could shove him across the floor with no resistance at all did she start to pay attention. She soon realised what had really happened, opened her eyes wide, whistled to herself, but did not waste time to yank open the bedroom doors and shout loudly into the darkness of the bedrooms: "Come and 'ave a look at this, it's dead, just lying there, stone dead!"

Mr. and Mrs. Samsa sat upright there in their marriage bed and had to make an effort to get over the shock caused by the cleaner before they could grasp what she was saying. But then, each from his own side, they hurried out of bed. Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his shoulders, Mrs. Samsa just came out in her nightdress; and that is how they went into Gregor's room. On the way they opened the door to the living room where Grete had been sleeping since the three gentlemen had moved in; she was fully dressed as if she had never been asleep, and the paleness of her face seemed to confirm this. "Dead?", asked Mrs. Samsa, looking at the charwoman enquiringly, even though she could have checked for herself and could have known it even without checking. "That's what I said", replied the cleaner, and to prove it she gave Gregor's body another shove with the broom, sending it sideways across the floor. Mrs. Samsa made a movement as if she wanted to hold back the broom, but did not complete it. "Now then", said Mr. Samsa, "let's give thanks to God for that". He crossed himself, and the three women followed his example. Grete, who had not taken her eyes from the corpse, said: "Just look how thin he was. He didn't eat anything for so long. The food came out again just the same as when it went in". Gregor's body was indeed completely dried up and flat, they had not seen it until then, but now he was not lifted up on his little legs, nor did he do anything to make them look away.

"Grete, come with us in here for a little while", said Mrs. Samsa with a pained smile, and Grete followed her parents into the bedroom but not without looking back at the body. The cleaner shut the door and opened the window wide. Although it was still early in the morning the fresh air had something of warmth mixed in with it. It was already the end of March, after all.

The three gentlemen stepped out of their room and looked round in amazement for their breakfasts; they had been forgotten about. "Where is our breakfast?", the middle gentleman asked the cleaner irritably. She just put her finger on her lips and made a quick and silent sign to the men that they might like to come into Gregor's room. They did so, and stood around Gregor's corpse with their hands in the pockets of their well-worn coats. It was now quite light in the room.

Then the door of the bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his uniform with his wife on one arm and his daughter on the other. All of them had been crying a little; Grete now and then pressed her face against her father's arm.

"Leave my home. Now!", said Mr. Samsa, indicating the door and without letting the women from him. "What do you mean?", asked the middle of the three gentlemen somewhat disconcerted, and he smiled sweetly. The other two held their hands behind their backs and continually rubbed them together in gleeful anticipation of a loud quarrel which could only end in their favour. "I mean just what I said", answered Mr. Samsa, and, with his two companions, went in a straight line towards the man. At first, he stood there still, looking at the ground as if the contents of his head were rearranging themselves into new positions. "Alright, we'll go then", he said, and looked up at Mr. Samsa as if he had been suddenly overcome with humility and wanted permission again from Mr. Samsa for his decision. Mr. Samsa merely opened his eyes wide and briefly nodded to him several times. At that, and without delay, the man actually did take long strides into the front hallway; his two friends had stopped rubbing their hands some time before and had been listening to what was being said. Now they jumped off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that Mr. Samsa might go into the hallway in front of them and break the connection with their leader. Once there, all three took their hats from the stand, took their sticks from the holder, bowed without a word and left the premises. Mr. Samsa and the two women followed them out onto the landing; but they had had no reason to mistrust the men's intentions and as they leaned over the landing they saw how the three gentlemen made slow but steady progress down the many steps. As they turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and would reappear a few moments later; the further down they went, the more that the Samsa family lost interest in them; when a butcher's boy, proud of posture with his tray on his head, passed them on his way up and came nearer than they were, Mr. Samsa and the women came away from the landing and went, as if relieved, back into the flat.

They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation and to go for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but they were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote three letters of excusal, Mr. Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa to her contractor and Grete to her principal. The cleaner came in while they were writing to tell them she was going, she'd finished her work for that morning. The three of them at first just nodded without looking up from what they were writing, and it was only when the cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up in irritation. "Well?", asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in the doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous good news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked to. The almost vertical little ostrich feather on her hat, which had been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all directions. "What is it you want then?", asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaner had the most respect for. "Yes", she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, "well then, that thing in there, you needn't worry about how you're going to get rid of it. That's all been sorted out." Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were writing; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite clear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling them all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in and, clearly peeved, called out "Cheerio then, everyone", turned round sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went.

"Tonight she gets sacked", said Mr. Samsa, but he received no reply from either his wife or his daughter as the charwoman seemed to have destroyed the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went over to the window where they remained with their arms around each other. Mr. Samsa twisted round in his chair to look at them and sat there watching for a while. Then he called out: "Come here, then. Let's forget about all that old stuff, shall we. Come and give me a bit of attention". The two women immediately did as he said, hurrying over to him where they kissed him and hugged him and then they quickly finished their letters.

After that, the three of them left the flat together, which was something they had not done for months, and took the tram out to the open country outside the town. They had the tram, filled with warm sunshine, all to themselves. Leant back comfortably on their seats, they discussed their prospects and found that on closer examination they were not at all bad - until then they had never asked each other about their work but all three had jobs which were very good and held particularly good promise for the future. The greatest improvement for the time being, of course, would be achieved quite easily by moving house; what they needed now was a flat that was smaller and cheaper than the current one which had been chosen by Gregor, one that was in a better location and, most of all, more practical. All the time, Grete was becoming livelier. With all the worry they had been having of late her cheeks had become pale, but, while they were talking, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa were struck, almost simultaneously, with the thought of how their daughter was blossoming into a well built and beautiful young lady. They became quieter. Just from each other's glance and almost without knowing it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man for her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions, as soon as they reached their destination Grete was the first to get up and stretch out her young body.

THE COLOR OF MAGIC 


A Discworld® Novel 


Terry Pratchett 


HarperCollins e-books 


Contents 


Foreword 

The Color of Magic Prologue 

The Sending of Eight Prologue 

1. The Color of Magic 

2. The Sending of Eight 

3. The Lure of the Wyrm 

4. Close of the Edge 

About the Author 

Praise 

Other Books by Terry Pratchett 

C opyright 
About the Publisher 














Foreword 


If I had a penny for every time someone asked me where I got the idea of the 
Discworld, I’d have—hang on a moment—£4.67. 

Anyway, the answer is that it was lying around and didn’t look as though it 
belonged to anyone. 

The world rides through space on the back of a turtle. It’s one of the great 
ancient myths, found wherever men and turtles were gathered together; the four 
elephants were an Indo-European sophistication. The idea has been lying in the 
lumber rooms of legend for centuries. All I had to do was grab it and run away 
before the alarms went off. 

Since this is a reprint by popular demand—gosh—of the first book in a 
series that will, eventually, contain at least ten, there’s a very good chance that 
you already know what happens after this book, which is more than I did when I 
wrote it. 

The Discworld is not a coherent fantasy world. Its geography is fuzzy, its 
chronology unreliable. A small traveling circle of firelight in a chilly infinity has 
turned out to be the home of defiant jokes and last chances. 

There are no maps. You can’t map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a 
fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we 
know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and 
forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell 
you souvenirs. 

Enjoy. 


Terry Pratchett 
October 1989 



The Color of Mag ic 



Prolog ue 


In A distant and secondhand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was 
never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part... 

See... 

Great ATuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar 
gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked 
with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and 
asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination. 

In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks only of the 
Weight. 

Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great 
T’Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned 
shoulders the Disc of the World rests, garlanded by the long waterfall at its vast 
circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven. 

Astropsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about. 

The Great Turtle was a mere hypothesis until the day the small and secretive 
kingdom of Krull, whose rim-most mountains project out over the Rimfall, built 
a gantry and pulley arrangement at the tip of the most precipitous crag and 
lowered several observers over the Edge in a quartz-windowed brass vessel to 
peer through the mist veils. 

The early astrozoologists, hauled back from their long dangle by enormous 
teams of slaves, were able to bring back much information about the shape and 
nature of A’Tuin and the elephants but this did not resolve fundamental 
questions about the nature and purpose of the universe. 

For example, what was A’Tuin’s actual sex? This vital question, said the 
astrozoologists with mounting authority, would not be answered until a larger 
and more powerful gantry was constructed for a deep-space vessel. In the 
meantime they could only speculate about the revealed cosmos. 




There was, for example, the theory that A’Turn had come from nowhere and 
would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. 

This theory was popular among academics. 

An alternative, favored by those of a religious persuasion, was that A’Tuin 
was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in 
the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived 
they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from 
that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This 
was known as the Big Bang hypothesis. 

Thus it was that a young cosmochelonian of the Steady Gait faction, testing 
a new telescope with which he hoped to make measurements of the precise 
albedo of Great ATuin’s right eye, was on this eventful evening the first outsider 
to see the smoke rise hubward from the burning of the oldest city in the world. 

Later that night he became so engrossed in his studies he completely forgot 
about it. Nevertheless, he was the first. 

There were others... 



The Sending of Eig ht 





Prologue 


The Discworld offers sights far more impressive than those found in universes 
built by Creators with less imagination but more mechanical aptitude. 

Although the Disc’s sun is but an orbiting moonlet, its prominences hardly 
bigger than croquet hoops, this slight drawback must be set against the 
tremendous sight of Great A’Tuin the Turtle, upon Whose ancient and meteor 
riddled shell the Disc ultimately rests. Sometimes, in His slow journey across the 
shores of Infinity, He moves His country-sized head to snap at a passing comet. 

But perhaps the most impressive sight of all—if only because most brains, 
when faced with the sheer galactic enormity of A’Tuin, refuse to believe it—is 
the endless Rimfall, where the seas of the Disc boil ceaselessly over the Edge 
into space. Or perhaps it is the Rimbow, the eight-colored, world-girdling 
rainbow that hovers in the mist-laden air over the Fall. The eighth color is 
octarine, caused by the scatter effect of strong sunlight on an intense magical 
field. 

Or perhaps, again, the most magnificent sight is the Hub. There, a spire of 
green ice ten miles high rises through the clouds and supports at its peak the 
realm of Dunmanifestin, the abode of the Disc gods. The Disc gods themselves, 
despite the splendor of the world below them, are seldom satisfied. It is 
embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world that only exists because every 
improbability curve must have its far end; especially when one can peer into 
other dimensions at worlds whose Creators had more mechanical aptitude than 
imagination. No wonder, then, that the Disc gods spend more time in bickering 
than in omnicognizance. 

On this particular day Blind Io, by dint of constant vigilance the chief of the 
gods, sat with his chin on his hand and looked at the gaming board on the red 
marble table in front of him. Blind Io had got his name because, where his eye 
sockets should have been, there were nothing but two areas of blank skin. His 
eyes, of which he had an impressively large number, led a semi-independent life 
of their own. Several were currently hovering above the table. 

The gaming board was a carefully carved map of the Discworld, overprinted 



with squares. A number of beautifully modeled playing pieces were now 
occupying some of the squares. A human onlooker would, for example, have 
recognized in two of them the likenesses of Bravd and the Weasel. Others 
represented yet more heroes and champions, of which the Disc had a more than 
adequate supply. 

Still in the game were Io, Offler the Crocodile God, Zephyrus the god of 
slight breezes, Fate, and the Lady. There was an air of concentration around the 
board now that the lesser players had been removed from the Game. Chance had 
been an early casualty, running her hero into a full house of armed gnolls (the 
result of a lucky throw by Offler) and shortly afterward Night has cashed his 
chips, pleading an appointment with Destiny. Several minor deities had drifted 
up and were kibitzing over the shoulders of the players. 

Side bets were made that the Lady would be the next to leave the board. Her 
last champion of any standing was now a pinch of potash in the ruins of still¬ 
smoking Ankh-Morpork, and there were hardly any pieces that she could 
promote to first rank. 

Blind Io took up the dice box, which was a skull whose various orifices had 
been stoppered with rubies, and with several of his eyes on the Lady he rolled 
three fives. 

She smiled. This was the nature of the Lady’s eyes: they were bright green, 
lacking iris or pupil, and they glowed from within. 

The room was silent as she scrabbled in her box of pieces and, from the very 
bottom, produced a couple that she set down on the board with two decisive 
clicks. The rest of the players, as one god, craned forward to peer at them. 

“A wenegade wiffard and fome fort of clerk,” said Offler the Crocodile God, 
hindered as usual by his tusks. “Well, weally!” With one claw he pushed a pile of 
bone-white tokens into the center of the table. 

The Lady nodded slightly. She picked up the dice cup and held it as steady 
as a rock, yet all the gods could hear the three cubes rattling about inside. And 
then she sent them bouncing across the table. 


A six. A three. A five. 



Something was happening to the five, however. Battered by the chance 
collision of several billion molecules, the die flipped onto a point, spun gently 
and came down a seven. 

Blind Io picked up the cube and counted the sides. 

“Come on,” he said wearily. “Play fair.” 



1 


Thf, Cot,or of Magic 


Fire roared through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the 
Wizards’ Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange 
sparks of the eighth color, octarine; where its outriders found their way into the 
vats and oil stores all along Merchant Street it progressed in a series of blazing 
fountains and explosions; in the streets of the perfume blenders it burned with a 
sweetness; where it touched bundles of rare and dry herbs in the storerooms of 
the drugmasters it made men go mad and talk to God. 

By now the whole of downtown Morpork was alight, and the richer and 
worthier citizens of Ankh on the far bank were bravely responding to the 
situation by feverishly demolishing the bridges. But already the ships in the 
Morpork docks—laden with grain, cotton and timber, and coated with tar—were 
blazing merrily and, their moorings burnt to ashes, were breasting the river Ankh 
on the ebb tide, igniting riverside palaces and bowers as they drifted like 
drowning fireflies toward the sea. In any case, sparks were riding the breeze and 
touching down far across the river in hidden gardens and remote rickyards. 

The smoke from the merry burning rose miles high, in a wind-sculpted black 
column that could be seen across the whole of the Discworld. 

It was certainly impressive from the cool, dark hilltop a few leagues away, 
where two figures were watching with considerable interest. 

The taller of the pair was chewing on a chicken leg and leaning on a sword 
that was only marginally shorter than the average man. If it wasn’t for the air of 
wary intelligence about him it might have been supposed that he was a barbarian 
from the Hubland wastes. 



His partner was much shorter and wrapped from head to toe in a brown 
cloak. Later, when he has occasion to move, it will be seen that he moves lightly, 
catlike. 

The two had barely exchanged a word in the last twenty minutes except for a 
short and inconclusive argument as to whether a particularly powerful explosion 
had been the oil bond store or the workshop of Kerible the Enchanter. Money 
hinged on the fact. 

Now the big man finished gnawing at the bone and tossed it into the grass, 
smiling ruefully. 

“There go all those little alleyways,” he said. “I liked them.” 

“All the treasure houses,” said the small man. He added thoughtfully, “Do 
gems burn? I wonder. ’Tis said they’re kin to coal.” 

“All the gold, melting and running down the gutters,” said the big one, 
ignoring him. “And all the wine, boiling in the barrels.” 

“There were rats,” said his brown companion. 

“Rats, I’ll grant you.” 

“It was no place to be in high summer.” 

“That, too. One can’t help feeling, though, a—well, a momentary—” 

He trailed off, then brightened. “We owed old Fredor at the Crimson Leech 
eight silver pieces,” he added. The little man nodded. 

They were silent for a while as a whole new series of explosions carved a 
red line across a hitherto dark section of the greatest city in the world. Then the 
big man stirred. 

“Weasel?” 

“Yes?” 


“I wonder who started it.” 



The small swordsman known as the Weasel said nothing. He was watching 
the road in the ruddy light. Few had come that way since the Deosil Gate had 
been one of the first to collapse in a shower of white-hot embers. 

But two were coming up it now. The Weasel’s eyes, always at their sharpest 
in gloom and half-light, made out the shapes of two mounted men and some sort 
of low beast behind them. Doubtless a rich merchant escaping with as much 
treasure as he could lay frantic hands on. The Weasel said as much to his 
companion, who sighed. 

“The status of footpad ill suits us,” said the barbarian, “but, as you say, times 
are hard and there are no soft beds tonight.” 

He shifted his grip on his sword and, as the leading rider drew near, stepped 
out onto the road with a hand held up and his face set in a grin nicely calculated 
to reassure yet threaten. 

“Your pardon, sir—” he began. 

The rider reined in his horse and drew back his hood. The big man looked 
into a face blotched with superficial burns and punctuated by tufts of singed 
beard. Even the eyebrows had gone. 

“Bugger off,” said the face. “You’re Bravd the Hublander,* aren’t you?” 

Bravd became aware that he had fumbled the initiative. 

“Just go away, will you?” said the rider. “I just haven’t got time for you, do 
you understand?” 

He looked around and added: “That goes for your shadow-loving fleabag 
partner, too, wherever he’s hiding.” 

The Weasel stepped up to the horse and peered at the disheveled figure. 

“Why, it’s Rincewind the wizard, isn’t it?” he said in tones of delight, 
meanwhile filing the wizard’s description of him in his memory for leisurely 
vengeance. “I thought I recognized the voice.” 

Bravd spat and sheathed his sword. It was seldom worth tangling with 


wizards, they so rarely had any treasure worth speaking of. 


“He talks pretty big for a gutter wizard,” he muttered. 

“You don’t understand at all,” said the wizard wearily. “I’m so scared of you 
my spine has turned to jelly, it’s just that I’m suffering from an overdose of 
terror right now. I mean, when I’ve got over that then I’ll have time to be 
decently frightened of you.” 

The Weasel pointed toward the burning city. 

“You’ve been through that?” he asked. 

The wizard rubbed a red-raw hand across his eyes. “I was there when it 
started. See him? Back there?” He pointed back down the road to where his 
traveling companion was still approaching, having adopted a method of riding 
that involved falling out of the saddle every few seconds. 

“Well?” said Weasel. 

“He started it,” said Rincewind simply. 

Bravd and Weasel looked at the figure, now hopping across the road with 
one foot in a stirrup. 

“Fire-raiser, is he?” said Bravd at last. 

“No,” said Rincewind. “Not precisely. Let’s just say that if complete and 
utter chaos were lightning, then he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a 
thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting ‘All gods are bastards.’ 
Got any food?” 

“There’s some chicken,” said Weasel. “In exchange for a story.” 

“What’s his name?” said Bravd, who tended to lag behind in conversations. 

“Twof lower.” 

“Twoflower?” said Bravd. “What a funny name.” 

“You,” said Rincewind, dismounting, “do not know the half of it. Chicken, 



you say?” 


“Deviled,” said Weasel. The wizard groaned. 

“That reminds me,” added the Weasel, snapping his fingers, “there was a 
really big explosion about, oh, half an hour ago—” 

“That was the oil bond store going up,” said Rincewind, wincing at the 
memory of the burning rain. 

Weasel turned and grinned expectantly at his companion, who grunted and 
handed over a coin from his pouch. Then there was a scream from the roadway, 
cut off abruptly. Rincewind did not look up from his chicken. 

“One of the things he can’t do, he can’t ride a horse,” he said. Then he 
stiffened as if sandbagged by a sudden recollection, gave a small yelp of terror 
and dashed into the gloom. When he returned, the being called Twoflower was 
hanging limply over his shoulder. It was small and skinny, and dressed very 
oddly in a pair of knee length britches and a shirt in such a violent and vivid 
conflict of colors that Weasel’s fastidious eye was offended even in the half- 
light. 


“No bones broken, by the feel of things,” said Rincewind. He was breathing 
heavily. Bravd winked at the Weasel and went to investigate the shape that they 
assumed was a pack animal. 

“You’d be wise to forget it,” said the wizard, without looking up from his 
examination of the unconscious Twoflower. “Believe me. A power protects it.” 

“A spell?” said Weasel, squatting down. 

“No-oo. But magic of a kind, I think. Not the usual sort. I mean, it can turn 
gold into copper while at the same time it is still gold, it makes men rich by 
destroying their possessions, it allows the weak to walk fearlessly among 
thieves, it passes through the strongest doors to leach the most protected 
treasuries. Even now it has me enslaved—so that I must follow this madman 
willynilly and protect him from harm. It’s stronger than you, Bravd. It is, I think, 
more cunning even than you, Weasel.” 

“What is it called then, this mighty magic?” 



Rincewind shrugged. “In our tongue it is called reflected-sound-as-of- 
underground-spirits. Is there any wine?” 

“You must know that I am not without artifice where magic is concerned,” 
said Weasel. “Only last year did I—assisted by my friend there—part the 
notoriously powerful Archmage of Ymitury from his staff, his belt of moon 
jewels and his life, in that approximate order. I do not fear this reflected-sound- 
of-underground-spirits of which you speak. However,” he added, “you engage 
my interest. Perhaps you would care to tell me more?” 

Bravd looked at the shape on the road. It was closer now, and clearer in the 
pre-dawn light. It looked for all the world like a— 

“A box on legs?” he said. 

“I’ll tell you about it,” said Rincewind. “If there’s any wine, that is.” 

Down in the valley there was a roar and a hiss. Someone more thoughtful 
than the rest had ordered to be shut the big river gates that were at the point 
where the Ankh flowed out of the twin city. Denied its usual egress, the river had 
burst its banks and was pouring down the fire-ravaged streets. Soon the 
continent of flame became a series of islands, each one growing smaller as the 
dark tide rose. And up from the city of fumes and smoke rose a broiling cloud of 
steam, covering the stars. Weasel thought that it looked like some dark fungus or 
mushroom. 


The twin city of proud Ankh and pestilent Morpork, of which all the other cities 
of time and space are, as it were, mere reflections, has stood many assaults in its 
long and crowded history and has always risen to flourish again. So the fire and 
its subsequent flood, which destroyed everything left that was not flammable and 
added a particularly noisome flux to the survivors’ problems, did not mark its 
end. Rather it was a fiery punctuation mark, a coal-like comma, or salamander 
semicolon, in a continuing story. 

Several days before these events a ship came up the Ankh on the dawn tide 
and fetched up, among many others, in the maze of wharves and docks on the 
Morpork shore. It carried a cargo of pink pearls, milk nuts, pumice, some official 
letters for the Patrician of Ankh, and a man. 



It was the man who engaged the attention of Blind Hugh, one of the beggars 
on early duty at Pearl Dock. He nudged Cripple Wa in the ribs, and pointed 
wordlessly. 

Now the stranger was standing on the quayside, watching several straining 
seamen carry a large, brass-bound chest down the gangplank. Another man, 
obviously the captain, was standing beside him. There was about the seamen— 
every nerve in Blind Hugh’s body, which tended to vibrate in the presence of 
even a small amount of impure gold at fifty paces, screamed into his brain—the 
air of one anticipating imminent enrichment. 

Sure enough, when the chest had been deposited on the cobbles, the stranger 
reached into a pouch and there was the flash of a coin. Several coins. Gold. 

Blind Hugh, his body twanging like a hazel rod in the presence of water, 
whistled to himself. Then he nudged Wa again, and sent him scurrying off down 
a nearby alley into the heart of the city. 

When the captain walked back onto his ship, leaving the newcomer looking 
faintly bewildered on the quayside, Blind Hugh snatched up his begging cup and 
made his way across the street with an ingratiating leer. At the sight of him the 
stranger started to fumble urgently with his money pouch. 

“Good day to thee, sire,” Blind Hugh began, and found himself looking up 
into a face with four eyes in it. He turned to run. 

“!” said the stranger, and grabbed his arm. Hugh was aware that the sailors 
lining the rail of the ship were laughing at him. At the same time his specialized 
senses detected an overpowering impression of money. He froze. The stranger let 
go and quickly thumbed through a small black book he had taken from his belt. 
Then he said “Hallo.” 

“What?” said Hugh. The man looked blank. 

“Hallo?” he repeated, rather louder than necessary and so carefully that 
Hugh could hear the vowels tinkling into place. 

“Hallo yourself,” Hugh riposted. The stranger smiled widely fumbled yet 
again in the pouch. This time his hand came out holding a large gold coin. It was 
in fact slightly larger than an 8,000-dollar Ankhian crown and the design on it 
was unfamiliar, but it spoke inside Hugh’s mind in a language he understood 



perfectly. My current owner, it said, is in need of succor and assistance; why not 
give it to him, so you and me can go off somewhere and enjoy ourselves? 

Subtle changes in the beggar’s posture made the stranger feel more at ease. 
He consulted the small book again. 

“I wish to be directed to a hotel, tavern, lodging house, inn, hospice, 
caravanserai,” he said. 

“What, all of them?” said Hugh, taken aback. 

“?” said the stranger. 

Hugh was aware that a small crowd of fishwives, shellfish diggers and 
freelance gawpers were watching them with interest. 

“Look,” he said, “I know a good tavern, is that enough?” He shuddered to 
think of the gold coin escaping from his life. He’d keep that one, even if Ymor 
confiscated all the rest. And the big chest that comprised most of the 
newcomer’s luggage looked to be full of gold, Hugh decided. 

The four-eyed man looked at his book. 

“I would like to be directed to a hotel, place of repose, tavern, a—” 

“Yes, all right. Come on then,” said Hugh hurriedly. He picked up one of the 
bundles and walked away quickly. The stranger, after a moment’s hesitation, 
strolled after him. 

A train of thought shunted its way through Hugh’s mind. Getting the 
newcomer to the Broken Drum so easily was a stroke of luck, no doubt of it, and 
Ymor would probably reward him. But for all his new acquaintance’s mildness 
there was something about him that made Hugh uneasy, and for the life of him 
he couldn’t figure out what it was. Not the two extra eyes, odd though they were. 
There was something else. He glanced back. 

The little man was ambling along in the middle of the street, looking around 
him with an expression of keen interest. 


Something else Hugh saw nearly made him gibber. 



The massive wooden chest, which he had last seen resting solidly on the 
quayside, was following on its master’s heels with a gentle rocking gait. Slowly, 
in case a sudden movement on his part might break his fragile control over his 
own legs, Hugh bent slightly so that he could see under the chest. 

There were lots and lots of little legs. 

Very deliberately, Hugh turned around and walked very carefully toward the 
Broken Drum. 


“Odd,” said Ymor. 

“He had this big wooden chest,” added Cripple Wa. 

“He’d have to be a merchant or a spy,” said Ymor. He pulled a scrap of meat 
from the cutlet in his hand and tossed it into the air. It hadn’t reached the zenith 
of its arc before a black shape detached itself from the shadows in the corner of 
the room and swooped down, taking the morsel in midair. 

“A merchant or a spy,” repeated Ymor. “I’d prefer a spy. A spy pays for 
himself twice, because there’s always the reward when we turn him in. What do 
you think, Withel?” 

Opposite Ymor the second greatest thief in Ankh-Morpork half closed his 
one eye and shrugged. 

“I’ve checked on the ship,” he said. “It’s a freelance trader. Does the 
occasional run to the Brown Islands. People there are just savages. They don’t 
understand about spies and I expect they eat merchants.” 

“He looked a bit like a merchant,” volunteered Wa. “Except he wasn’t fat.” 

There was a flutter of wings at the window. Ymor shifted his bulk out of the 
chair and crossed the room, coming back with a large raven. After he’d 
unfastened the message capsule from its leg it flew up to join its fellows lurking 
among the rafters. Withel regarded it without love. Ymor’s ravens were 
notoriously loyal to their master, to the extent that Withel’s one attempt to 
promote himself to the rank of greatest thief in Ankh-Morpork had cost their 



master’s right-hand man his left eye. But not his life, however. Ymor never 
gmdged a man his ambitions. 


“B12,” said Ymor, tossing the little phial aside and unrolling the tiny scroll 
within. 

“Gorrin the Cat,” said Withel automatically. “On station up in the gong 
tower at the Temple of Small Gods.” 

“He says Hugh has taken our stranger to the Broken Drum. Well, that’s good 
enough. Broadman is a—friend of ours, isn’t he?” 

“Aye,” said Withel. “If he knows what’s good for trade.”* 

“Among his customers has been your man Gorrin,” said Ymor pleasantly, 
“for he writes here about a box on legs, if I read this scrawl correctly.” He 
looked at Withel over the top of the paper. 

Withel looked away. “He will be disciplined,” he said flatly. Wa looked at 
the man leaning back in his chair, his black-clad frame resting as nonchalantly as 
a Rimland puma on a jungle branch, and decided that Gorrin atop Small Gods 
Temple would soon be joining those little deities in the multifold dimensions of 
Beyond. And he owed Wa three copper pieces. 

Ymor crumpled the note and tossed it into a corner. “I think we’ll wander 
along to the Drum later on, Withel. Perhaps, too, we may try this beer that your 
men find so tempting.” 

Withel said nothing. Being Ymor’s right-hand man was like being gently 
flogged to death with scented bootlaces. 


The twin city of Ankh-Morpork, foremost of all the cities bounding the Circle 
Sea, was as a matter of course the home of a large number of gangs, thieves’ 
guilds, syndicates and similar organizations. This was one of the reasons for its 
wealth. Most of the humbler folk on the widdershin side of the river, in 
Morpork’s mazy alleys, supplemented their meager incomes by filling some 
small role for one or other of the competing gangs. So it was that by the time 
Hugh and Twoflower entered the courtyard of the Broken Drum the leaders of a 



number of them were aware that someone had arrived in the city who appeared 
to have much treasure. Some reports from the more observant spies included 
details about a book that told the stranger what to say, and a box that walked by 
itself. These facts were immediately discounted. No magician capable of such 
enchantments ever came within a mile of Morpork docks. 

It still being that hour when most of the city was just rising or about to go to 
bed there were few people in the Drum to watch Twoflower descend the stairs. 
When the Luggage appeared behind him and started to lurch confidently down 
the steps the customers at the rough wooden tables, as one man, looked 
suspiciously at their drinks. 

Broadman was browbeating the small troll who swept the bar when the trio 
walked past him. “What in hell’s that?” he said. 

“Just don’t talk about it,” hissed Hugh. Twoflower was already thumbing 
through his book. 

“What’s he doing?” said Broadman, arms akimbo. 

“It tells him what to say. I know it sounds ridiculous,” muttered Hugh. 

“How can a book tell a man what to say?” 

“I wish for an accommodation, a room, lodgings, the lodging house, full 
board, are your rooms clean, a room with a view, what is your rate for one 
night?” said Twoflower in one breath. 

Broadman looked at Hugh. The beggar shrugged. 

“He’s got plenty money,” he said. 

“Tell him it’s three copper pieces, then. And that Thing will have to go in the 
stable.” 

“?” said the stranger. Broadman held up three thick red fingers and the man’s 
face was suddenly a sunny display of comprehension. He reached into his pouch 
and laid three large gold pieces in Broadman’s palm. 


Broadman stared at them. They represented about four times the worth of the 



Broken Drum, staff included. He looked at Hugh. There was no help there. He 
looked at the stranger. He swallowed. 


“Yes,” he said, in an unnaturally high voice. “And then there’s meals, 
o’course. Uh. You understand, yes? Food. You eat. No?” He made the 
appropriate motions. 

“Fut?” said the little man. 

“Yes,” said Broadman, beginning to sweat. “Have a look in your little book, 
I should.” 

The man opened the book and ran a finger down one page. Broadman, who 
could read after a fashion, peered over the top of the volume. What he saw made 
no sense. 

“Fooood,” said the stranger. “Yes. Cutlet, hash, chop, stew, ragout, fricassee, 
mince, collops, souffle, dumpling, blancmange, sorbet, gruel, sausage, not to 
have a sausage, beans, without a bean, kickshaws, jelly, jam. Giblets.” He 
beamed at Broadman. 

“All that?” said the innkeeper weakly. 

“It’s just the way he talks,” said Hugh. “Don’t ask me why. He just does.” 

All eyes in the room were watching the stranger—except for a pair 
belonging to Rincewind the wizard, who was sitting in the darkest corner 
nursing a mug of very small beer. 

He was watching the Luggage. 

Watch Rincewind. 

Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on 
which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might 
have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his 
master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality. 
Yet around his neck was a chain bearing the bronze octagon that marked him as 
an alumnus of Unseen University, the high school of magic whose time-and- 
space transcendent campus is never precisely Here or There. Graduates were 



usually destined for mageship at least, but Rincewind—after an unfortunate 
event—had left knowing only one spell and made a living of sorts around the 
town by capitalizing on an innate gift for languages. He avoided work as a rule, 
but had a quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. 
And he knew sapient pearwood when he saw it. He was seeing it now, and didn’t 
quite believe it. 

An archmage, by dint of great effort and much expenditure of time, might 
eventually obtain a small staff made from the timber of the sapient pear tree. It 
grew only on the sites of ancient magic. There were probably no more than two 
such staffs in all the cities of the Circle Sea. A large chest of it... Rincewind tried 
to work it out, and decided that even if the box were crammed with star opals 
and sticks of auricholatum the contents would not be worth one-tenth the price 
of the container. A vein started to throb in his forehead. 

He stood up and made his way to the trio. 

“May I be of assistance?” he ventured. 

“Shove off, Rincewind,” snarled Broadman. 

“I only thought it might be useful to address this gentleman in his own 
tongue,” said the wizard gently. 

“He’s doing all right on his own,” said the innkeeper, but took a few steps 
backward. 

Rincewind smiled politely at the stranger and tried a few words of 
Chimeran. He prided himself on his fluency in the tongue, but the stranger only 
looked bemused. 

“It won’t work,” said Hugh knowledgeably. “It’s the book, you see. It tells 
him what to say. Magic.” 

Rincewind switched to High Borogravian, to Vanglemesht, Sumtri and even 
Black Oroogu, the language with no nouns and only one adjective, which is 
obscene. Each was met with polite incomprehension. In desperation he tried 
heathen Trob, and the little man’s face split into a delighted grin. 


“At last!” he said. “My good sir! This is remarkable!” (Although in Trob the 



last word in fact became “a thing which may happen but once in the usable 
lifetime of a canoe hollowed diligently by ax and fire from the tallest 
diamondwood tree that grows in the noted diamondwood forests on the lower 
slopes of Mount Awayawa, home of the firegods or so it is said.”) 

“What was all that?” said Broadman suspiciously. 

“What did the innkeeper say?” said the little man. 

Rincewind swallowed. “Broadman,” he said. “Two mugs of your best ale, 
please.” 

“You can understand him?” 

“Oh, sure.” 

“Tell him—tell him he’s very welcome. Tell him breakfast is—uh—one gold 
piece.” For a moment Broadman’s face looked as though some vast internal 
struggle was going on, and then he added with a burst of generosity, “I’ll throw 
in yours, too.” 

“Stranger,” said Rincewind levelly. “If you stay here you will be knifed or 
poisoned by nightfall. But don’t stop smiling, or so will I.” 

“Oh, come now,” said the stranger, looking around. “This looks like a 
delightful place. A genuine Morporkean tavern. I’ve heard so much about them, 
you know. All these quaint old beams. And so reasonable, too.” 

Rincewind glanced around quickly, in case some leakage of enchantment 
from the Magician’s Quarter across the river had momentarily transported them 
to some other place. No—this was still the interior of the Drum, its walls stained 
with smoke, its floor a compost of old rushes and nameless beetles, its sour beer 
not so much purchased as merely hired for a while. He tried to fit the image 
around the word “quaint,” or rather the nearest Trob equivalent, which was “that 
pleasant oddity of design found in the little coral houses of the sponge-eating 
pigmies on the Orohai peninsular.” 

His mind reeled back from the effort. The visitor went on, “My name is 
Twoflower,” and extended his hand. Instinctively, the other three looked down to 
see if there was a coin in it. 



“Pleased to meet you,” said Rincewind. “I’m Rincewind. Look, I wasn’t 
joking. This is a tough place.” 

“Good! Exactly what I wanted!” 

“Eh?” 

“What is this stuff in the mugs?” 

“This? Beer. Thanks, Broadman. Yes. Beer. You know. Beer.” 

“Ah. The so-typical drink. A small gold piece will be sufficient payment, do 
you think? I do not want to cause offense.” 

It was already half out of his purse. 

“Yarrt,” croaked Rincewind. “I mean, no, it won’t cause offense.” 

“Good. You say this is a tough place. Frequented, you mean, by heroes and 
men of adventure?” 

Rincewind considered this. “Yes?” he managed. 

“Excellent. I would like to meet some.” 

An explanation occurred to the wizard. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve come to hire 
mercenaries (‘warriors who fight for the tribe with most milknut meal’)?” 

“Oh no. I just want to meet them. So that when I get home I can say that I 
did it.” 

Rincewind thought that a meeting with most of the Drum’s clientele would 
mean that Twoflower never went home again, unless he lived downriver and 
happened to float past. 

“Where is your home?” he inquired. Broadman had slipped away into some 
back room, he noticed. Hugh was watching them suspiciously from a nearby 
table. 


“Have you heard of the city of Bes Palargic?” 



“Well, I didn’t spend much time in Trob. I was just passing through, you 
know—” 

“Oh, it’s not in Trob. I speak Trob because there are many beTrobi sailors in 
our ports. Bes Palargic is the major seaport of the Agatean Empire.” 

“Never heard of it, I’m afraid?” 

Twoflower raised his eyebrows. “No? It is quite big. You sail turnwise from 
the Brown Islands for about a week and there it is. Are you all right?” 

He hurried around the table and patted the wizard on the back. Rincewind 
choked on his beer. 

The Counterweight Continent! 


Three streets away an old man dropped a coin into a saucer of acid and swirled it 
gently. Broadman waited impatiently, ill at ease in a room made noisome by vats 
and bubbling beakers and lined with shelves containing shadowy shapes 
suggestive of skulls and stuffed impossibilities. 

“Well?” he demanded. 

“One cannot hurry these things,” said the old alchemist peevishly. “Assaying 
takes time. Ah.” He prodded the saucer, where the coin now lay in a swirl of 
green color. He made some calculations on a scrap of parchment. 

“Exceptionally interesting,” he said at last. 

“Is it genuine ?” 

The old man pursed his lips. “It depends on how you define the term,” he 
said. “If you mean: is this coin the same as, say, a fifty-dollar piece, then the 
answer is no.” 

“I knew it,” screamed the innkeeper, and started toward the door. 

“I’m not sure that I’m making myself clear,” said the alchemist. Broadman 
turned around angrily. 



“What do you mean?” 


“Well, you see, what with one thing and another our coinage has been 
somewhat watered, over the years. The gold content of the average coin is barely 
four parts in twelve, the balance being made up of silver, copper—” 

“What of it?” 

“I said this coin isn’t like ours. It is pure gold.” 

After Broadman had left, at a run, the alchemist spent some time staring at 
the ceiling. Then he drew out a very small piece of thin parchment, rummaged 
for a pen amongst the debris on his workbench, and wrote a very short, small, 
message. Then he went over to his cages of white doves, black cockerels and 
other laboratory animals. From one cage he removed a glossy coated rat, rolled 
the parchment into the phial attached to a hind leg, and let the animal go. 

It sniffed around the floor for a moment, then disappeared down a hole in the 
far wall. 

At about this time a hitherto unsuccessful fortune teller living on the other 
side of the block chanced to glance into her scrying bowl, gave a small scream 
and, within the hour, had sold her jewelry, various magical accoutrements, most 
of her clothes and almost all her other possessions that could not be conveniently 
carried on the fastest horse she could buy. The fact that later on, when her house 
collapsed in flames, she herself died in a freak landslide in the Morpork 
Mountains, proves that Death, too, has a sense of humor. 


Also at about the same moment as the homing rat disappeared into the maze of 
mns under the city, scurrying along in faultless obedience to an ancient instinct, 
the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork picked up the letters delivered that morning by 
albatross. He looked pensively at the topmost one again, and summoned his 
chief of spies. 

And in the Broken Drum Rincewind was listening open-mouthed as 
Twoflower talked. 


“So I decided to see for myself,” the little man was saying. “Eight years’ 



saving up, this has cost me. But worth every half-rhznu. I mean, here I am. In 
Ankh-Morpork. Famed in song and story, I mean. In the streets that have known 
the tread of Heric Whiteblade, Hrun the Barbarian, and Bravd the Hublander and 
the Weasel.. .It’s all just like I imagined, you know.” 

Rincewind’s face was a mask of fascinated horror. 

“I just couldn’t stand it any more back in Bes Pelargic,” Twoflower went on 
blithely, “sitting at a desk all day, just adding up columns of figures, just a 
pension to look forward to at the end of it.. .where’s the romance in that? 
Twoflower, I thought, it’s now or never. You don’t just have to listen to stories. 
You can go there. Now’s the time to stop hanging around the docks listening to 
sailors’ tales. So I compiled a phrase book and bought a passage on the next ship 
to the Brown Islands.” 

“No guards?” murmured Rincewind. 

“No. Why? What have I got that’s worth stealing?” 

Rincewind coughed. “You have, uh, gold,” he said. 

“Barely two thousand rhinu. Hardly enough to keep a man alive for more 
than a month or two. At home, that is. I imagine they might stretch a bit further 
here.” 

“Would a rhinu be one of those big gold coins?” said Rincewind. 

“Yes.” Twoflower looked worriedly at the wizard over the top of his strange 
seeing lenses. “Will two thousand be sufficient, do you think?” 

“Yarrrt,” croaked Rincewind. “I mean, yes—sufficient.” 

“Good.” 

“Um. Is everyone in the Agatean Empire as rich as you?” 

“Me? Rich? Bless you, whatever put that idea into your head? I am but a 
poor clerk! Did I pay the innkeeper too much, do you think?” Twoflower added. 

“Uh. He might have settled for less,” Rincewind conceded. 



“Ah. I shall know better next time. I can see I have a lot to learn. An idea 
occurs to me. Rincewind, would you perhaps consent to be employed as a, I 
don’t know, perhaps the word ‘guide’ would fit the circumstances? I think I 
could afford to pay you a rhinu a day.” 

Rincewind opened his mouth to reply but felt the words huddle together in 
his throat, reluctant to emerge in a world that was rapidly going mad. Twoflower 
blushed. 

“I have offended you,” he said. “It was an impertinent request to make of a 
professional man such as yourself. Doubtless you have many projects you wish 
to return to—some works of high magic, no doubt...” 

“No,” said Rincewind faintly. “Not just at present. A rhinu, you say? One a 
day. Every day?” 

“I think perhaps in the circumstances I should make it one and one half rhinu 
per day. Plus any out-of-pocket expenses, of course.” 

The wizard rallied magnificently. “That will be fine,” he said. “Great.” 

Twoflower reached into his pouch and took out a large round gold object, 
glanced at it for a moment, and slipped it back. Rincewind didn’t get a chance to 
see it properly. 

“I think,” said the tourist, “that I would like a little rest now. It was a long 
crossing. And then perhaps you would care to call back at noon and we can take 
a look at the city.” 

“Sure.” 

“Then please be good enough to ask the innkeeper to show me to my room.” 

Rincewind did so, and watched the nervous Broadman, who had arrived at a 
gallop from some back room, lead the way up the wooden steps behind the bar. 
After a few seconds the Luggage got up and pattered across the floor after them. 

Then the wizard looked down at the six big coins in his hand. Twoflower 
had insisted on paying his first four days’ wages in advance. 



Hugh nodded and smiled encouragingly. Rincewind snarled at him. 

As a student wizard Rincewind had never achieved high marks in 
precognition, but now unused circuits in his brain were throbbing and the future 
might as well have been engraved in bright colors on his eyeballs. The space 
between his shoulder blades began to itch. The sensible thing to do, he knew, 
was to buy a horse. It would have to be a fast one, and expensive—offhand, 
Rincewind couldn’t think of any horse dealer he knew who was rich enough to 
give change out of almost a whole ounce of gold. 

And then, of course, the other five coins would help him set up a useful 
practice at some safe distance, say two hundred miles. That would be the 
sensible thing. 

But what would happen to Twoflower, all alone in a city where even the 
cockroaches had an unerring instinct for gold? A man would have to be a real 
heel to leave him. 


The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork smiled, but with his mouth only. 

“The Hub Gate, you say?” he murmured. 

The guard captain saluted smartly. “Aye, lord. We had to shoot the horse 
before he would stop.” 

“Which, by a fairly direct route, brings you here,” said the Patrician, looking 
down at Rincewind. “And what have you got to say for yourself?” 

It was rumored that an entire wing of the Patrician’s palace was filled with 
clerks who spent their days collating and updating all the information collected 
by their master’s exquisitely organized spy system. Rincewind didn’t doubt it. 

He glanced toward the balcony that ran down one side of the audience room. A 
sudden run, a nimble jump—a sudden hail of crossbow quarrels. He shuddered. 

The Patrician cradled his chins in a beringed hand, and regarded the wizard 
with eyes as small and hard as beads. 


“Let me see,” he said. “Oathbreaking, the theft of a horse, uttering false 



coinage—yes, I think it’s the Arena for you, Rincewind.” 


This was too much. 

“I didn’t steal the horse! I bought it fairly!” 

“But with false coinage. Technical theft, you see.” 

“But those rhinu are solid gold!” 

“Rhinu?” The Patrician rolled one of them around in his thick fingers. “Is 
that what they are called? How interesting. But, as you point out, they are not 
very similar to dollars...” 

“Well, of course they’re not—” 

“Ah! you admit it, then?” 

Rincewind opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and shut it again. 

“Quite so. And on top of these there is, of course, the moral obloquy 
attendant on the cowardly betrayal of a visitor to this shore. For shame, 
Rincewind!” 

The Patrician waved a hand vaguely. The guards behind Rincewind backed 
away, and their captain took a few paces to the right. Rincewind suddenly felt 
very alone. 

It is said that when a wizard is about to die Death himself turns up to claim 
him (instead of delegating the task to a subordinate, such as Disease or Famine, 
as is usually the case). Rincewind looked around nervously for a tall figure in 
black (wizards, even failed wizards, have in addition to rods and cones in their 
eyeballs the tiny octagons that enable them to see into the far octarine, the basic 
color of which all other colors are merely pale shadows impinging on normal 
four dimensional space. It is said to be a sort of fluorescent greenish yellow 
purple). 

Was that a flickering shadow in the corner? 

“Of course,” said the Patrician, “I could be merciful.” 



The shadow disappeared. Rincewind looked up, an expression of insane 
hope on his face. 

“Yes?” he said. 

The Patrician waved a hand again. Rincewind saw the guards leave the 
chamber. Alone with the overlord of the twin cities, he almost wished they 
would come back. 

“Come hither, Rincewind,” said the Patrician. He indicated a bowl of 
savories on a low onyx table by the throne. “Would you care for a crystallized 
jellyfish? No?” 

“Um,” said Rincewind, “no.” 

“Now I want you to listen very carefully to what I am about to say,” said the 
Patrician amiably, “otherwise you will die. In an interesting fashion. Over a 
period. Please stop fidgeting like that. 

“Since you are a wizard of sorts, you are of course aware that we live upon a 
world shaped, as it were, like a disc? And that there is said to exist, toward the 
far rim, a continent which though small is equal in weight to all the mighty land- 
masses in this hemi-circle? And that this, according to ancient legend, is because 
it is largely made of gold?” 

Rincewind nodded. Who hadn’t heard of the Counterweight Continent? 
Some sailors even believed the childhood tales and sailed in search of it. Of 
course, they returned either empty-handed or not at all. Probably eaten by giant 
turtles, in the opinion of more serious mariners. Because, of course, the 
Counterweight Continent was nothing more than a solar myth. 

“It does, of course, exist,” said the Patrician. “Although it is not made of 
gold, it is true that gold is a very common metal there. Most of the mass is made 
up by vast deposits of octiron deep within the crust. Now it will be obvious to an 
incisive mind like yours that the existence of the Counterweight Continent poses 
a deadly threat to our people here—” he paused, looking at Rincewind’s open 
mouth. He sighed. He said, “Do you by some chance fail to follow me?” 

“Yarrg,” said Rincewind. He swallowed, and licked his lips. “I mean, no. I 
mean—well, gold...” 



“I see,” said the Patrician sweetly. “You feel, perhaps, that it would be a 
marvelous thing to go to the Counterweight Continent and bring back a shipload 
of gold?” 

Rincewind had a feeling that some sort of trap was being set. 

“Yes?” he ventured. 

“And if every man on the shores of the Circle Sea had a mountain of gold of 
his own? Would that be a good thing? What would happen? Think carefully.” 

Rincewind’s brow furrowed. He thought. “We’d all be rich?” 

The way the temperature fell at his remark told him that it was not the 
correct one. 

“I may as well tell you, Rincewind, that there is some contact between the 
Lords of the Circle Sea and the Emperor of the Agatean Empire, as it is styled,” 
the Patrician went on. “It is only very slight. There is little common ground 
between us. We have nothing they want, and they have nothing we can afford. It 
is an old Empire, Rincewind. Old and cunning and cruel and very, very rich. So 
we exchange fraternal greetings by albatross mail. At infrequent intervals. 

“One such letter arrived this morning. A subject of the Emperor appears to 
have taken it into his head to visit our city. It appears he wishes to look at it. 
Only a madman would possibly undergo all the privations of crossing the 
Turnwise Ocean in order to merely look at anything. However. 

“He landed this morning. He might have met a great hero, or the cunningest 
of thieves, or some wise and great sage. He met you. He has employed you as a 
guide. You will be a guide, Rincewind, to this looker, this Twoflower. You will 
see that he returns home with a good report of our little homeland. What do you 
say to that?” 

“Er. Thank you, Lord,” said Rincewind miserably. 

“There is another point, of course. It would be a tragedy should anything 
untoward happen to our little visitor. It would be dreadful if he were to die, for 
example. Dreadful for the whole of our land, because the Agatean Emperor 
looks after his own and could certainly extinguish us at a nod. A mere nod. And 



that would be dreadful for you, Rincewind, because in the weeks that remained 
before the Empire’s huge mercenary fleet arrived certain of my servants would 
occupy themselves about your person in the hope that the avenging captains, on 
their arrival, might find their anger tempered by the sight of your still living 
body. There are certain spells that can prevent the life departing from a body, be 
it never so abused, and—I see by your face that understanding dawns?” 

“Yarrg.” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Yes, lord. HI, er, see to it, I mean, I’ll endeavor to see, I mean, well, I’ll try 
to look after him and see he comes to no harm.” And after that I’ll get a job 
juggling snowballs through Hell, he added bitterly in the privacy of his own 
skull. 

“Capital! I gather already that you and Twoflower are on the best of terms. 
An excellent beginning. When he returns safely to his homeland you will not 
find me ungrateful. I shall probably even dismiss the charges against you. Thank 
you, Rincewind. You may go.” 

Rincewind decided not to ask for the return of his five remaining rhinu. He 
backed away, cautiously. 

“Oh, and there is one other thing,” the Patrician said, as the wizard groped 
for the door handles. 

“Yes, lord?” he replied, with a sinking heart. 

“I’m sure you won’t dream of trying to escape from your obligations by 
fleeing the city. I judge you to be a born city person. But you may be sure that 
the lords of the other cities will be appraised of these conditions by nightfall.” 

“I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, Lord.” 

“Indeed? Then if I were you I’d sue my face for slander.” 


Rincewind reached the Broken Drum at a dead run, and was just in time to 
collide with a man who came out backward, fast. The stranger’s haste was in 



part accounted for by the spear in his chest. He bubbled noisily and dropped 
dead at the wizard’s feet. 

Rincewind peered around the doorframe and jerked back as a heavy 
throwing ax whirred past like a partridge. 

It was probably a lucky throw, a second cautious glance told him. The dark 
interior of the Drum was a broil of fighting men, quite a number of them—a 
third and longer glance confirmed—in bits. Rincewind swayed back as a wildly 
thrown stool sailed past and smashed on the far side of the street. Then he dived 
in. 


He was wearing a dark robe, made darker by constant wear and irregular 
washings. In the raging gloom no one appeared to notice a shadowy shape that 
shuffled desperately from table to table. At one point a fighter, staggering back, 
trod on what felt like fingers. A number of what felt like teeth bit his ankle. He 
yelped shrilly and dropped his guard just sufficiently for a sword, swung by a 
surprised opponent, to skewer him. 

Rincewind reached the stairway, sucking his bruised hand and running with 
a curious, bent-over gait. A crossbow quarrel thunked into the banister rail above 
him, and he gave a whimper. 

He made the stairs in one breathless rush, expecting at any moment another, 
more accurate shot. 

In the corridor above he stood upright, gasping, and saw the floor in front of 
him scattered with bodies. A big black bearded man, with a bloody sword in one 
hand, was trying a door handle. 

“Hey!” screamed Rincewind. The man looked around and then, almost 
absentmindedly, drew a short throwing knife from his bandolier and hurled it. 
Rincewind ducked. There was a brief scream behind him as the crossbow man, 
sighting down his weapon, dropped it and clutched at his throat. 

The big man was already reaching for another knife. Rincewind looked 
around wildly, and then with wild improvisation drew himself up into a wizardly 
pose. 


His hand was flung back. “Asoniti! Kyorucha! Beazleblor!” 



The man hesitated, his eyes flicking nervously from side to side as he waited 
for the magic. The conclusion that there was not going to be any hit him at the 
same time as Rincewind, whirring wildly down the passage, kicked him sharply 
in the groin. 

As he screamed and clutched at himself the wizard dragged open the door, 
sprang inside, slammed it behind him and threw his body against it, panting. 

It was quiet in here. There was Twoflower, sleeping peacefully on the low 
bed. And there, at the foot of the bed, was the Luggage. 

Rincewind took a few steps forward, cupidity moving him as easily as if he 
were on little wheels. The chest was open. There were bags inside, and in one of 
them he caught the gleam of gold. For a moment greed overcame caution, and he 
reached out gingerly.. .but what was the use? He’d never live to enjoy it. 
Reluctantly he drew his hand back, and was surprised to see a slight tremor in 
the chest’s open lid. Hadn’t it shifted slightly, as though rocked by the wind? 

Rincewind looked at his fingers, and then at the lid. It looked heavy, and was 
bound with brass bands. It was quite still now. 

What wind? 

“Rincewind!” 

Twoflower sprang off the bed. The wizard jumped back, wrenching his 
features into a smile. 

“My dear chap, right on time! We’ll just have lunch, and then I’m sure 
you’ve got a wonderful program lined up for this afternoon!” 

“Er—” 


“That’s great!” 

Rincewind took a deep breath. “Look,” he said desperately, “let’s eat 
somewhere else. There’s been a bit of a fight down below.” 


“A tavern brawl? Why didn’t you wake me up?” 



“Well, you see, I—What?” 


“I thought I made myself clear this morning, Rincewind. I want to see 
genuine Morporkian life—the slave market, the Whore Pits, the Temple of Small 
Gods, the Beggars’ Guild.. .and a genuine tavern brawl.” A faint note of 
suspicion entered Twoflower’s voice. “You do have them, don’t you? You know, 
people swinging on chandelier, swordfights over the table, the sort of thing Hrun 
the Barbarian and the Weasel are always getting involved in. You know 
— excitement .” 

Rincewind sat down heavily on the bed. 

“You want to see a fight?” he said. 

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?” 

“For a start, people get hurt.” 

“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting we get involved. I just want to see one, that’s all. 
And some of your famous heroes. You do have some, don’t you? It’s not all 
dockside talk?” And now, to the wizard’s astonishment, Twoflower was almost 
pleading. 

“Oh, yeah. We have them all right,” said Rincewind hurriedly. He pictured 
them in his mind, and recoiled from the thought. 

All the heroes of the Circle Sea passed through the gates of Ankh-Morpork 
sooner or later. Most of them were from the barbaric tribes nearer the frozen 
Hub, which had a sort of export trade in heroes. Almost all of them had crude 
magic swords, whose unsuppressed harmonics on the astral plane played hell 
with any delicate experiments in applied sorcery for miles around, but 
Rincewind didn’t object to them on that score. He knew himself to be a magical 
dropout, so it didn’t bother him that the mere appearance of a hero at the city 
gates was enough to cause retorts to explode and demons to materialize all 
through the Magical Quarter. No, what he didn’t like about heroes was that they 
were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk. 
There were too many of them, too. Some of the most notable questing grounds 
near the city were a veritable hubbub in the season. There was talk of organizing 
a rota. 



He rubbed his nose. The only heroes he had much time for were Bravd and 
the Weasel, who were out of town at the moment, and Hrun the Barbarian, who 
was practically an academic by Hub standards in that he could think without 
moving his lips. Hrun was said to be roving somewhere Turnwise.. 

“Look,” he said at last. “Have you ever met a barbarian?” 

Twoflower shook his head. 

“I was afraid of that,” said Rincewind. “Well, they’re—” 

There was a clatter of running feet in the street outside and a fresh uproar 
from downstairs. It was followed by a commotion on the stairs. The door was 
flung open before Rincewind could collect himself sufficiently to make a dash 
for the window. 

But instead of the greed-crazed madman he expected, he found himself 
looking into the round red face of a Sergeant of the Watch. He breathed again. 

Of course. The Watch were always careful not to intervene too soon in any brawl 
where the odds were not heavily stacked in their favor. The job carried a 
pension, and attracted a cautious, thoughtful kind of man. 

The Sergeant glowered at Rincewind, and then peered at Twoflower with 
interest. 

“Everything all right here, then?” he said. 

“Oh, fine,” said Rincewind. “Got held up, did you?” 

The sergeant ignored him. “This the foreigner, then?” he inquired. 

“We were just leaving,” said Rincewind quickly, and switched to Trob. 
“Twoflower, I think we ought to get lunch somewhere else. I know some 
places.” 

He marched out into the corridor with as much aplomb as he could muster. 
Twoflower followed, and a few seconds later there was a strangling sound from 
the sergeant as the Luggage closed its lid with a snap, stood up, stretched, and 
marched after them. 



Watchmen were dragging bodies out of the room downstairs. There were no 
survivors. The Watch had ensured this by giving them ample time to escape via 
the back door, a neat compromise between caution and justice that benefited all 
parties. 

“Who are all these men?” said Twoflower. 

“Oh, you know. Just men,” said Rincewind. And before he could stop 
himself some part of his brain that had nothing to do took control of his mouth 
and added, “Heroes, in fact.” 

“Really?” 

When one foot is stuck in the Grey Miasma of H’rull it is much easier to step 
right in and sink rather than prolong the struggle. Rincewind let himself go. 

“Yes, that one over there is Erig Stronginthearm, over there is Black Zenell 


“Is Hrun the Barbarian here?” said Twoflower, looking around eagerly. 
Rincewind took a deep breath. 

“That’s him behind us,” he said. 

The enormity of this lie was so great that its ripples did in fact spread out 
one of the lower astral planes as far as the Magical Quarter across the river, 
where it picked up tremendous velocity from the huge standing wave of power 
that always hovered there and bounced wildly across the Circle Sea. A harmonic 
got as far as Hrun himself, currently fighting a couple of gnolls on a crumbling 
ledge high in the Caderack Mountains, and caused him a moment’s unexplained 
discomfort. 

Twoflower, meanwhile, had thrown back the lid of the Luggage and was 
hastily pulling out a heavy black cube. 

“This is fantastic!” he said. “They’re never going to believe this at home!” 

“What’s he going on about?” said the sergeant doubtfully. 

“He’s pleased you rescued us,” said Rincewind. He looked sidelong at the 



black box, half expecting it to explode or emit strange musical tones. 

“Ah,” said the sergeant. He was staring at the box, too. 

Twoflower smiled brightly at them. 

“I’d like a record of the event,” he said. “Do you think you could ask them 
all to stand over by the window, please? This won’t take a moment. And, er, 
Rincewind?” 

“Yes?” 

Twoflower stood on tiptoe to whisper. 

“I expect you know what this is, don’t you?” 

Rincewind stared down at the box. It had a round glass eye protruding from 
the center of one face, and a lever at the back. 

“Not wholly,” he said. 

“It’s a device for making pictures quickly,” said Twoflower. “Quite a new 
invention. I’m rather proud of it but, look, I don’t think these gentlemen would 
—well, I mean they might be—sort of apprehensive? Could you explain it to 
them? I’ll reimburse them for their time, of course.” 

“He’s got a box with a demon in it that draws pictures,” said Rincewind 
shortly. “Do what the madman says and he will give you gold.” 

The Watch smiled nervously. 

“I’d like you in the picture, Rincewind. That’s fine.” Twoflower took out the 
golden disc that Rincewind had noticed before, squinted at its unseen face for a 
moment, muttered “Thirty seconds should about do it,” and said brightly, “Smile 
please!” 

“Smile,” rasped Rincewind. There was a whirr from the box. 

“Right!” 



High above the Disc the second albatross soared; so high in fact that its tiny mad 
orange eyes could see the whole of the world and the great, glittering, girdling 
Circle Sea. There was a yellow message capsule strapped to one leg. Far below 
it, unseen in the clouds, the bird that had brought the earlier message to the 
Patrician of Ankh-Morpork flapped gently back to its home. 


Rincewind looked at the tiny square of glass in astonishment. There he was, all 
right—a tiny figure, in perfect color, standing in front of a group of Watchmen 
whose faces were each frozen in a terrified rictus. A buzz of wordless terror went 
up from the men around him as they craned over his shoulder to look. 

Grinning, Twoflower produced a handful of the smaller coins Rincewind 
now recognized as quarter -rhinu. He winked at the wizard. 

“I had similar problems when I stopped over in the Brown Islands,” he said. 
“They thought the iconograph steals a bit of their souls. Laughable, isn’t it?” 

“Yarg,” said Rincewind and then, because somehow that was hardly enough 
to keep up his side of the conversation, added, “I don’t think it looks very like 
me, though.” 

“It’s easy to operate,” said Twoflower, ignoring him. “Look, all you have to 
do is press this button. The iconograph does the rest. Now, I’ll just stand over 
here next to Hrun, and you can take the picture.” 

The coins quietened the men’s agitation in the way that gold can, and 
Rincewind was amazed to find, half a minute later, that he was holding a little 
glass portrait of Twoflower wielding a huge notched sword and smiling as 
though all his dreams had come true. 


They lunched at a small eating house near the Brass Bridge, with the Luggage 
nestling under the table. The food and wine, both far superior to Rincewind’s 
normal fare, did much to relax him. Things weren’t going to be too bad, he 
decided. A bit of invention and some quick thinking, that was all that was 
needed. 


Twoflower seemed to be thinking too. Looking reflectively into his wine cup 



he said, “Tavern fights are pretty common around here, I expect?” 


“Oh, fairly.” 

“No doubt fixtures and fittings get damaged?” 

“Fixt—Oh, I see. You mean like benches and whatnot. Yes, I suppose so.” 

“That must be upsetting for the innkeepers.” 

“I’ve never really thought about it. I suppose it must be one of the risks of 
the job.” 

Twoflower regarded him thoughtfully. 

“I might be able to help there,” he said. “Risks are my business. I say, this 
food is a bit greasy, isn’t it?” 

“You did say you wanted to try some typical Morporkean food,” said 
Rincewind. “What was that about risks?” 

“Oh, I know all about risks. They’re my business.” 

“I thought that’s what you said. I didn’t believe it the first time either.” 

“Oh, I don’t take risks. About the most exciting thing that happened to me 
was knocking some ink over. I assess risks. Day after day. Do you know what 
the odds are against a house catching fire in the Red Triangle district of Bes 
Pelargic? Five hundred and thirty-eight to one. I calculated that,” he added with 
a trace of pride. 

“What—” Rincewind tried to suppress a burp—“what for? ’Scuse me.” He 
helped himself to some more wine. 

“For—” Twoflower paused. “I can’t say it in Trob,” he said. “I don’t think 
the beTrobi have a word for it. In my language we call it—” he said a collection 
of outlandish syllables. 

“Inn-sewer-ants, ” repeated Rincewind. “Tha’s a funny word. Wossit mean?” 

“Well, suppose you have a ship loaded with, say, gold bars. It might run into 



storms or, or be taken by pirates. You don’t want that to happen, so you take out 
an inn-sewer-ants-polly-sea. I work out the odds against the cargo being lost, 
based on weather reports and piracy records for the last twenty years, then I add 
a bit, then you pay me some money based on those odds—” 

“—and the bit—” Rincewind said, waggling a finger solemnly. 

“—and then, if the cargo is lost, I reimburse you.” 

“Reeburs?” 

“Pay you the value of your cargo,” said Twoflower patiently. 

“I get it. It’s like a bet, right?” 

“A wager? In a way, I suppose.” 

“And you make money at this inn-sewer-ants ?” 

“It offers a return on investment, certainly.” 

Wrapped in the warm yellow glow of the wine, Rincewind tried to think of 
inn-sewer-ants in Circle Sea terms. 

“I don’t think I unnerstan’ this inn-sewer-ants ,” he said firmly, idly watching 
the world spin by. “Magic, now. Magic I unnerstan’.” 

Twoflower grinned. “Magic is one thing, and reflected-sound-of- 
underground-spirits is another,” he said. 

“Wha’?” 

“What?” 

“That funny wor’ you used,” said Rincewind impatiently. 

“Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits ? ” 

“Never heard o’ it.” 


Twoflower tried to explain. 



Rincewind tried to understand. 


In the long afternoon they toured the city Turnwise of the river. Twoflower led 
the way, with the strange picture box slung on a strap around his neck. 

Rincewind trailed behind, whimpering at intervals and checking to see that his 
head was still there. 

A few others followed, too. In a city where public executions, duels, fights, 
magical feuds and strange events regularly punctuated the daily round the 
inhabitants had brought the profession of interested bystander to a peak of 
perfection. They were, to a man, highly skilled gawpers. In any case, Twoflower 
was delightedly taking picture after picture of people engaged in what he 
described as typical activities, and since a quarter -rhinu would subsequently 
change hands “for their trouble” a tail of bemused and happy nouveauxriches 
was soon following him in case this madman exploded in a shower of gold. 

At the Temple of the Seven-Handed Sek a hasty convocation of priests and 
ritual heart-transplant artisans agreed that the hundred-span high statue of Sek 
was altogether too holy to be made into a magic picture, but a payment of two 
rhinu left them astoundedly agreeing that perhaps He wasn’t as holy as all that. 

A prolonged session at the Whore Pits produced a number of colorful and 
instructive pictures, a number of which Rincewind concealed about his person 
for detailed perusal in private. As the fumes cleared from his brain he began to 
speculate seriously as to how the iconograph worked. 

Even a failed wizard knew that some substances were sensitive to light. 
Perhaps the glass plates were treated by some arcane process that froze the light 
that passed through them? Something like that, anyway. Rincewind often 
suspected that there was something, somewhere, that was better than magic. He 
was usually disappointed. 

However, he soon took every opportunity to operate the box. Twoflower was 
only too pleased to allow this, since that enabled the little man to appear in his 
own pictures. It was at this point that Rincewind noticed something strange. 
Possession of the box conferred a kind of power on the wielder—which was that 
anyone, confronted with the hypnotic glass eye, would submissively obey the 
most peremptory orders about stance and expression. 



It was while he was thus engaged in the Plaza of Broken Moons that disaster 
struck. 

Twoflower had posed alongside a bewildered charm seller, his crowd of 
newfound admirers watching him with interest in case he did something 
humorously lunatic. 

Rincewind got down on one knee, the better to arrange the picture, and 
pressed the enchanted lever. 

The box said, “It’s no good. I’ve run out of pink.” 

A hitherto unnoticed door opened in front of his eyes. A small, green and 
hideously warty humanoid figure leaned out, pointed at a color-encrusted palette 
in one clawed hand, and screamed at him. 

“No pink! See?” screeched the homunculus. “No good you going on 
pressing the lever when there’s no pink, is there? If you wanted pink you 
shouldn’t of took all those pictures of young ladies, should you? It’s 
monochrome from now on, friend. All right?” 

“All right. Yeah, Sure,” said Rincewind. In one dim corner of the little box 
he thought he could see an easel, and a tiny unmade bed. He hoped he couldn’t. 

“So long as that’s understood,” said the imp, and shut the door. Rincewind 
thought he could hear the muffled sound of grumbling and the scrape of a stool 
being dragged across the floor. 

“Twoflower—” he began, and looked up. 

Twoflower had vanished. As Rincewind stared at the crowd, with sensations 
of prickly horror traveling up his spine, there came a gentle prod in the small of 
his back. 

“Turn without haste,” said a voice like black silk. “Or kiss your kidneys 
goodbye.” 


The crowd watched with interest. It was turning out to be quite a good day. 
Rincewind turned slowly, feeling the point of the sword scrape along his 



ribs. At the other end of the blade he recognized Stren Withel—thief, cruel 
swordsman, disgruntled contender for the title of worst man in the world. 


“Hi,” he said weakly. A few yards away he noticed a couple of 
unsympathetic men raising the lid of the Luggage and pointing excitedly at the 
bags of gold. Withel smiled. It made an unnerving effect on his scar-crossed 
face. 

“I know you,” he said. “A gutter wizard. What is that thing?” 

Rincewind became aware that the lid of the Luggage was trembling slightly, 
although there was no wind. And he was still holding the picture box. 

“This? It makes pictures,” he said brightly. “Hey, just hold that smile, will 
you?” He backed away quickly and pointed the box. 

For a moment Withel hesitated. “What?” he said. 

“That’s fine, hold it just like that...” said Rincewind. 

The thief paused, then growled and swung his sword back. 

There was a snap, and a duet of horrible screams. Rincewind did not glance 
around for fear of the terrible things he might see, and by the time Withel looked 
for him again he was on the other side of the Plaza, and still accelerating. 


The albatross descended in wide, slow sweeps that ended in an undignified 
flurry of feathers and a thump as it landed heavily on its platform in the 
Patrician’s bird garden. 

The custodian of the birds, dozing in the sun and hardly expecting a long¬ 
distance message so soon after this morning’s arrival, jerked to his feet and 
looked up. 

A few moments later he was scuttling through the palace’s corridors holding 
the message capsule and—owing to carelessness brought on by surprise— 
sucking at the nasty beak wound on the back of his hand. 



Rincewind pounded down an alley, paying no heed to the screams of rage 
coming from the picture box, and cleared a high wall with his frayed robe 
flapping around him like the feathers of a disheveled jackdaw. He landed in the 
forecourt of a carpet shop, scattering the merchandise and customers, dived 
through its rear exit trailing apologies, skidded down another alley and stopped, 
teetering dangerously, just as he was about to plunge unthinkingly into the Ankh. 

There are said to be some mystic rivers one drop of which can steal a man’s 
life away. After its turbid passage through the twin cities the Ankh could have 
been one of them. 

In the distance the cries of rage took on a shrill note of terror. Rincewind 
looked around desperately for a boat, or a handhold up the sheer walls on either 
side of him. 

He was trapped. 

Unbidden, the Spell welled up in his mind. It was perhaps untrue to say that 
he had learned it; it had learned him. The episode had led to his expulsion from 
Unseen University, because, for a bet, he had dared to open the pages of the last 
remaining copy of the Creator’s own grimoire, the Octavo (while the University 
librarian was otherwise engaged). The spell had leapt out of the page and 
instantly burrowed deeply into his mind, whence even the combined talents of 
the Faculty of Medicine had been unable to coax it. Precisely which one it was 
they were also unable to ascertain, except that it was one of the eight basic spells 
that were intricately interwoven with the very fabric of time and space itself. 

Since then it had been showing a worrying tendency, when Rincewind was 
feeling rundown or especially threatened, to try to get itself said. 

He clenched his teeth together but the first syllable forced itself around the 
corner of his mouth. His left hand raised involuntarily and, as the magical force 
whirled him around, began to give off octarine sparks... 

The Luggage hurtled around the corner, its several hundred knees moving 
like pistons. 


Rincewind gaped. The spell died, unsaid. 

The box didn’t appear to be hampered in any way by the ornamental rug 



draped roguishly over it, nor by the thief hanging by one arm from the lid. It 
was, in a very real sense, a dead weight. Farther along the lid were the remains 
of two fingers, owner unknown. 

The Luggage halted a few feet from the wizard and, after a moment, 
retracted its legs. It had no eyes that Rincewind could see, but he was 
nevertheless sure that it was staring at him. Expectantly. 

“Shoo,” he said weakly. It didn’t budge, but the lid creaked open, releasing 
the dead thief. 

Rincewind remembered about the gold. Presumably the box had to have a 
master. In the absence of Twoflower, had it adopted him? 

The tide was turning and he could see debris drifting downstream in the 
yellow afternoon light toward the River Gate, a mere hundred yards 
downstream. It was the work of a moment to let the dead thief join them. Even if 
it was found later it would hardly cause comment. And the sharks in the estuary 
were used to solid, regular meals. 

Rincewind watched the body drift away, and considered his next move. The 
Luggage would probably float. All he had to do was wait until dusk, and then go 
out with the tide. There were plenty of wild places downstream where he could 
wade ashore, and then—well, if the Patrician really had sent out word about him 
then a change of clothing and a shave should take care of that. In any case, there 
were other lands and he had a facility for languages. Let him but get to Chimera 
or Gonim or Ecalpon and half a dozen armies couldn’t bring him back. And then 
—wealth, comfort, security... 

There was, of course, the problem of Twoflower. Rincewind allowed himself 
a moment’s sadness. 

“It could be worse,” he said by way of farewell. “It could be me.” 

It was when he tried to move that he found his robe was caught on some 
obstruction. 

By craning his neck he found that the edge of it was being gripped firmly by 
the Luggage’s lid. 



“Ah, Gorphal,” said the Patrician pleasantly. “Come in. Sit down. Can I press 
you to a candied starfish?” 

“I am yours to command, master,” said the old man calmly. “Save, perhaps, 
in the matter of preserved echinoderms.” 

The Patrician shrugged, and indicated the scroll on the table. 

“Read that,” he said. 

Gorphal picked up the parchment and raised one eyebrow slightly when he 
saw the familiar ideograms of the Golden Empire. He read in silence for perhaps 
a minute, and then turned the scroll over to examine minutely the seal on the 
obverse. 

“You are famed as a student of Empire affairs,” said the Patrician. “Can you 
explain this?” 

“Knowledge in the matter of the Empire lies less in noting particular events 
than in studying a certain cast of mind,” said the old diplomat. “The message is 
curious, yes, but not surprising.” 

“This morning the Emperor instructed,” the Patrician allowed himself the 
luxury of a scowl, “instructed me, Gorphal, to protect this Twoflower person. 
Now it seems I must have him killed. You don’t find that surprising?” 

“No. The Emperor is no more than a boy. He is—idealistic. Keen. A god to 
his people. Whereas this afternoon’s letter is, unless I am very much mistaken, 
from Nine Turning Mirrors, the Grand Vizier. He has grown old in the service of 
several Emperors. He regards them as a necessary but tiresome ingredient in the 
successful running of the Empire. He does not like things out of place. The 
Empire was not built by allowing things to get out of place. That is his view.” 

“I begin to see—” said the Patrician. 

“Quite so.” Gorphal smiled into his beard. “This tourist is a thing that is out 
of place. After acceding to his master’s wishes Nine Turning Mirrors would, I 
am quite sure, make his own arrangements with a view to ensuring that one 



wanderer would not be allowed to return home bringing, perhaps, the disease of 
dissatisfaction. The Empire likes people to stay where it puts them. So much 
more convenient, then, if this Twoflower disappears for good in the barbarian 
lands. Meaning here, master.” 

“And your advice?” said the Patrician. 

Gorphal shrugged. 

“Merely that you should do nothing. Matters will undoubtedly resolve 
themselves. However,” he scratched an ear thoughtfully, “perhaps the Assassins’ 
Guild...?” 

“Ah yes,” said the Patrician. “The Assassins’ Guild. Who is their president at 
the moment?” 

“Zlorf Flannelfoot, master.” 

“Have a word with him, will you?” 

“Quite so, master.” 

The Patrician nodded. It was all rather a relief. He agreed with Nine Turning 
Mirrors—life was difficult enough. People ought to stay where they were put. 


Brilliant constellations shone down on the Discworld. One by one the traders 
shuttered their shops. One by one the ganefs, thieves, finewirers, whores, 
illusionists, backsliders and second-story men awoke and breakfasted. Wizards 
went about their polydimensional affairs. Tonight saw the conjunction of two 
powerful planets, and already the air over the Magical Quarter was hazy with 
early spells. 

“Look,” said Rincewind, “this isn’t getting us anywhere.” He inched 
sideways. The Luggage followed faithfully, lid half open and menacing. 
Rincewind briefly considered making a desperate leap to safety. The lid smacked 
in anticipation. 


In any case, he told himself with sinking heart, the damn thing would only 
follow him again. It had that dogged look about it. Even if he managed to get to 



a horse, he had a nasty suspicion that it would follow him at its own pace. 
Endlessly. Swimming rivers and oceans. Gaining slowly every night, while he 
had to stop to sleep. And then one day, in some exotic city and years hence, he’d 
hear the sound of hundreds of tiny feet accelerating down the road behind him... 

“You’ve got the wrong man!” he moaned. “It’s not my fault! I didn’t kidnap 
him!” 

The box moved forward slightly. Now there was just a narrow strip of greasy 
jetty between Rincewind’s heels and the river. A flash of precognition told him 
that the box would be able to swim faster than he could. He tried not to imagine 
what it would be like to drown in the Ankh. 

“It won’t stop until you give in, you know,” said a small voice 
conversationally. 

Rincewind looked down at the iconograph, still hanging around his neck. Its 
trapdoor was open and the homunculus was leaning against the frame, smoking a 
pipe and watching the proceedings with amusement. 

“I’ll take you in with me, at least,” said Rincewind through gritted teeth. 

The imp took the pipe out of his mouth. “What did you say?” he said. 

“I said I’ll take you in with me, dammit!” 

“Suit yourself.” The imp tapped the side of the box meaningfully. “We’ll see 
who sinks first.” 

The Luggage yawned, and moved forward a fraction of an inch. 

“Oh, all right,” said Rincewind irritably. “But you’ll have to give me time to 
think.” 

The Luggage backed off slowly. Rincewind edged his way back onto 
reasonably safe land and sat down with his back against a wall. Across the river 
the lights of Ankh city glowed. 

“You’re a wizard,” said the picture imp. “You’ll think of some way to find 
him.” 



“Not much of a wizard, I’m afraid.” 


“You can just jump down on everyone and turn them into worms,” the imp 
added encouragingly, ignoring his last remark. 

“No. Turning To Animals is an Eighth Level spell. I never even completed 
my training. I only know one spell.” 

“Well, that’ll do.” 

“I doubt it,” said Rincewind hopelessly. 

“What does it do, then?” 

“Can’t tell you. Don’t really want to talk about it. But frankly,” he sighed, 

“no spells are much good. It takes three months to commit even a simple one to 
memory, and then once you’ve used it, poof! it’s gone. That’s what’s so stupid 
about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the 
spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you’re so 
poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half blind from reading old grimoires that 
you can’t remember what happens next.” 

“I never thought of it like that,” said the imp. 

“Hey, look—this is all wrong. When Twoflower said they’d got better kind 
of magic in the Empire I thought—I thought...” 

The imp looked at him expectantly. Rincewind cursed to himself. 

“Well, if you must know, I thought he didn’t mean magic. Not as such.” 

“What else is there, then?” 

Rincewind began to feel really wretched. “I don’t know,” he said. “Abetter 
way of doing things, I suppose. Something with a bit of sense in it. Harnessing— 
harnessing the lightning, or something.” 

The imp gave him a kind but pitying look. 

“Lightning is the spears hurled by the thunder giants when they fight,” it said 



gently. “Established meteorological fact. You can’t harness it.” 

“I know,” said Rincewind miserably. “That’s the flaw in the argument, of 
course.” 

The imp nodded, and disappeared into the depths of the iconograph. A few 
moments later Rincewind smelled bacon frying. He waited until his stomach 
couldn’t stand the strain anymore, and rapped on the box. The imp reappeared. 

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” it said before Rincewind could 
open his mouth. “And even if you could get a harness on it, how could you get it 
to pull a cart?” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” 

“Lightning. It just goes up and down. You’d want it to go along, not up and 
down. Anyway, it’d probably burn through the harness.” 

“I don’t care about the lightning! How can I think on an empty stomach?” 

“Eat something, then. That’s logic.” 

“How? Every time I move that damn box flexes its hinges at me!” 

The Luggage, on cue, gaped widely. 

“See?” 

“It’s not trying to bite you,” said the imp. “There’s food in there. You’re no 
use to it starved.” 

Rincewind peered into the dark recesses of the Luggage. There were indeed, 
among the chaos of boxes and bags of gold, several bottles and packages in oiled 
paper. He gave a cynical laugh, mooched around the abandoned jetty until he 
found a piece of wood about the right length, wedged it as politely as possible in 
the gap between the lid and the box, and pulled out one of the flat packages. 

It held biscuits that turned out to be as hard as diamondwood. 


“’Loody ’ell,” he muttered, nursing his teeth. 



“Captain Eightpanther’s Travelers’ Digestives, them,” said the imp from the 
doorway to his box. “Saved many a life at sea, they have.” 

“Oh, sure. Do you use them as a raft, or just throw them to the sharks and 
sort of watch them sink? What’s in the bottles? Poison?” 

“Water.” 

“But there’s water everywhere! Why’d he want to bring water?” 

“Trust.” 

“Trust?” 

“Yes. That’s what he didn’t, the water here. See?” 

Rincewind opened a bottle. The liquid inside might have been water. It had a 
flat, empty flavor, with no trace of life. “Neither taste nor smell,” he grumbled. 

The Luggage gave a little creak, attracting his attention. With a lazy air of 
calculated menace it shut its lid slowly, grinding Rincewind’s impromptu wedge 
like a dry loaf. 

“All right, all right,” he said. “I’m thinking.” 


Ymor’s headquarters were in the Leaning Tower at the junction of Rime Street 
and Lrost Alley. At midnight the solitary guard leaning in the shadows looked up 
at the conjoining planets and wondered idly what change in his fortunes they 
might herald. 

There was the faintest of sounds, as of a gnat yawning. 

The guard glanced down the deserted street, and now caught the glimmer of 
moonlight on something lying in the mud a few yards away. He picked it up. The 
lunar light gleamed on gold, and his intake of breath was almost loud enough to 
echo down the alleyway. 

There was a slight sound again, and another coin rolled into the gutter on the 
other side of the street. 



By the time he had picked it up there was another one, a little way off and 
still spinning. Gold was, he remembered, said to be formed from the crystallized 
light of stars. Until now he had never believed it to be true, that something as 
heavy as gold could fall naturally from the sky. 

As he drew level with the opposite alley mouth some more fell. It was still in 
its bag, there was an awful lot of it, and Rincewind brought it down heavily onto 
his head. 

When the guard came to he found himself looking up into the wild-eyed face 
of a wizard, who was menacing his throat with a sword. In the darkness, too, 
something was gripping his leg. 

It was the disconcerting sort of grip that suggested that the gripper could grip 
a whole lot harder, if he wanted to. 

“Where is he, the rich foreigner?” hissed the wizard. “Quickly!” 

“What’s holding my leg?” said the man, with a note of terror in his voice. He 
tried to wriggle free. The pressure increased. 

“You wouldn’t want to know,” said Rincewind. “Pay attention, please. 
Where’s the foreigner?” 

“Not here! They’ve got him at Broadman’s place! Everyone’s looking for 
him! You’re Rincewind, aren’t you? The box—the box that bites people— 
ononono.. .pleasssse...” 

Rincewind had gone. The guard felt the unseen leg gripper release his—or, 
as he was beginning to fear, its —hold. Then, as he tried to pull himself to his 
feet, something big and heavy and square cannoned into him out of the dark and 
plunged off after the wizard. Something with hundreds of tiny feet. 


With only his homemade phrase book to help him, Twoflower was trying to 
explain the mysteries of inn-sewer-ants to Broadman. The fat innkeeper was 
listening intently, his little black eyes glittering. 


From the other end of the table Ymor watched with mild amusement, 



occasionally feeding one of his ravens with scraps from his plate. Beside him 
Withel paced up and down. 

“You fret too much,” said Ymor, without taking his eyes from the two men 
opposite him. “I can feel it, Stren. Who would dare attack us here? And the 
gutter wizard will come. He’s too much of a coward not to. And he’ll try to 
bargain. And we shall have him. And the gold. And the chest.” 

Withel’s one eye glared, and he smacked a fist into the palm of a black- 
gloved hand. 

“Who would have thought there was so much sapient pearwood in the whole 
of the Disc?” he said. “How could we have known?” 

“You fret too much, Stren. I’m sure you can do better this time,” said Ymor 
pleasantly. 

The lieutenant snorted in disgust, and strode off around the room to bully his 
men. Ymor carried on watching the tourist. 

It was strange, but the little man didn’t seem to realize the seriousness of his 
position. Ymor had on several occasions seen him look around the room with an 
expression of deep satisfaction. He had also been talking for ages to Broadman, 
and Ymor had seen a piece of paper change hands. And Broadman had given the 
foreigner some coins. It was strange. 

When Broadman got up and waddled past Ymor’s chair the thiefmaster’s 
arm shot out like a steel spring and grabbed the fat man by his apron. 

“What was that all about, friend?” asked Ymor quietly. 

“N-nothing, Ymor. Just private business, like.” 

“There are no secrets between friends, Broadman.” 

“Yar. Well, I’m not sure about it myself, really. It’s a sort of bet, see?” said 
the innkeeper nervously. “Inn-sewer-ants, it’s called. It’s like a bet that the 
Broken Drum won’t get burned down.” 


Ymor held the man’s gaze until Broadman twitched in fear and 



embarrassment. Then the thiefmaster laughed. 


“This worm-eaten old tinder pile?” he said. “The man must be mad!” 

“Yes, but mad with money. He says now he’s got the—can’t remember the 
word, begins with a P, it’s what you might call the stake money—the people he 
works for in the Agatean Empire will pay up. If the Broken Drum burns down. 
Not that I hope it does. Burn down. The Broken Drum, I mean. I mean, it’s like a 
home to me, is the Drum...” 

“Not entirely stupid, are you?” said Ymor, and pushed the innkeeper away. 

The door slammed back on its hinges and thudded into the wall. 

“Hey, that’s my door!” screamed Broadman. Then he realized who was 
standing at the top of the steps, and ducked behind the table a mere shaving of 
time before a short black dart sped across the room and thunked into the 
woodwork. 

Ymor moved his hand carefully, and poured out another flagon of beer. 

“Won’t you join me, Zlorf?” he said levelly. “And put that sword away, 

Stren. Zlorf Flannelfoot is our friend.” 

The president of the Assassins’ Guild spun his short blowgun dexterously 
and slotted it into its holster in one smooth movement. 

“Stren!” said Ymor. 

The black-clad thief hissed, and sheathed his sword. But he kept his hand on 
the hilt, and his eyes on the assassin. 

That wasn’t easy. Promotion in the Assassins’ Guild was by competitive 
examination, the Practical being the most important—indeed, the only—part. 
Thus Zlorf’s broad, honest face was a welt of scar tissue, the result of many a 
close encounter. It probably hadn’t been all that good looking in any case—it 
was said that Zlorf had chosen a profession in which dark hoods, cloaks and 
nocturnal prowlings figured largely because there was a day-fearing trollish 
streak in his parentage. People who said this in earshot of Zlorf tended to carry 
their ears home in their hats. 



He strolled down the stairs, followed by a number of assassins. When he was 
directly in front of Ymor he said: “I’ve come for the tourist.” 

“Is it any of your business, Zlorf?” 

“Yes. Grinjo, Urmond—take him.” 

Two of the assassins stepped forward. Then Stren was in front of them, his 
sword appearing to materialize an inch from their throats without having to pass 
through the intervening air. 

“Possibly I could only kill one of you,” he murmured, “but I suggest you ask 
yourselves—which one?” 

“Look up, Zlorf,” said Ymor. 

A row of yellow, baleful eyes looked down from the darkness among the 
rafters. 

“One step more and you’ll leave here with fewer eyeballs than you came 
with,” said the thiefmaster. “So sit down and have a drink, Zlorf, and let’s talk 
about this sensibly. / thought we had an agreement. You don’t rob—I don’t kill. 
Not for payment, that is,” he added after a pause. 

Zlorf took the proferred beer. 

“So?” he said. “I’ll kill him. Then you rob him. Is he that funny looking one 
over there?” 

“Yes.” 

Zlorf stared at Twoflower, who grinned at him. He shrugged. He seldom 
wasted time wondering why people wanted other people dead. It was just a 
living. 

“Who is your client, may I ask?” said Ymor. 

Zlorf held up a hand. “Please!” he protested. “Professional etiquette.” 

“Of course. By the way—” 



“Yes?” 


“I believe I have a couple of guards outside—” 

“Had.” 

“And some others in the doorway across the street—” 

“Formerly.” 

“And two bowmen on the roof.” 

A flicker of doubt passed across Zlorf’s face, like the last shaft of sunlight 
over a badly plowed field. 

The door flew open, badly damaging the assassin who was standing beside 


“Stop doing that!” shrieked Broadman, from under his table. 

Zlorf and Ymor stared up at the figure on the threshold. It was short, fat and 
richly dressed. Very richly dressed. There were a number of tall, big shapes 
looming behind it. Very big, threatening shapes. 

“Who’s that?” said Zlorf. 

“I know him,” said Ymor. “His name’s Rerpf. He runs the Groaning Platter 
tavern down by Brass Bridge. Stren—remove him.” 

Rerpf held up a beringed hand. Stren Withel hesitated halfway to the door as 
several very large trolls ducked under the doorway and stood on either side of 
the fat man, blinking in the light. Muscles the size of melons bulged in forearms 
like floursacks. Each troll held a double-headed ax. Between thumb and 
forefinger. 

Broadman erupted from cover, his face suffused with rage. 

“Out!” he screamed. “Get those trolls out of here!” 

No one moved. The room was suddenly quiet. Broadman looked around 
quickly. It began to dawn on him just what he had said, and to whom. A 



whimper escaped from his lips, glad to be free. 

He reached the doorway to his cellars just as one of the trolls, with a lazy 
flick of one ham-sized hand, sent his ax whirling across the room. The slam of 
the door and its subsequent splitting as the ax hit it merged into one sound. 

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Zlorf Flannelfoot. 

“What do you want?” said Ymor. 

“I am here on behalf of the Guild of Merchants and Traders,” said Rerpf 
evenly. “To protect our interests, you might say. Meaning the little man.” 

Ymor wrinkled his brows. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I heard you say the Guild of Merchants?” 

“And traders,” agreed Rerpf. Behind him now, in addition to more trolls, 
were several humans that Ymor vaguely recognized. He had seen them, maybe, 
behind counters and bars. Shadowy figures, usually—easily ignored, easily 
forgotten. At the back of his mind a bad feeling began to grow. He thought about 
how it might be to be, say, a fox confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep, 
moreover, that could afford to employ wolves. 

“How long has this—Guild—been in existence, may I ask?” he said. 

“Since this afternoon,” said Rerpf. “I’m vice-guildmaster in charge of 
tourism, you know.” 

“What is this tourism of which you speak?” 

“Uh—we are not quite sure...” said Rerpf. An old bearded man poked his 
head over the guildmaster’s shoulder and cackled, “Speaking on behalf of the 
winesellers of Morpork, Tourism means Business. See?” 

“Well?” said Ymor coldly. 

“Well,” said Rerpf, “we’re protecting our interests, like I said.” 


“Thieves OUT, Thieves OUT!” cackled his elderly companion.” Several 



others took up the chant. Zlorf grinned. “And assassins,” chanted the old man. 
Zlorf growled. 


“Stands to reason,” said Rerpf. “People robbing and murdering all over 
place, what sort of impression are visitors going to take away? You come all the 
way to see our fine city with its many points of historical and civic interest, also 
many quaint customs, and you wake up dead in some back alley or as it might be 
floating down the Ankh, how are you going to tell all your friends what a great 
time you’re having? Let’s face it, you’ve got to move with the times.” 

Zlorf and Ymor met each other’s gaze. 

“We have, have we?” said Ymor. 

“Then let us move, brother,” agreed Zlorf. In one movement he brought his 
blowgun to his mouth and sent a dart hissing toward the nearest troll. It spun 
around, hurling its ax, which whirred over the assassin’s head and buried itself in 
a luckless thief behind him. 

Rerpf ducked, allowing a troll behind him to raise its huge iron crossbow 
and fire a spear length quarrel into the nearest assassin. That was the start... 


It has been remarked before that those who are sensitive to radiations in the far 
octarine—the eighth color, the pigment of the Imagination—can see things that 
others cannot. 

Thus it was that Rincewind, hurrying through the crowded, flare-lit evening 
bazaars of Morpork with the Luggage trundling behind him, jostled a tall dark 
figure, turned to deliver a few suitable curses, and beheld Death. 

It had to be Death. No one else went around with empty eye sockets and, of 
course, the scythe over one shoulder was another clue. As Rincewind stared in 
horror a courting couple, laughing at some private joke, walked straight through 
the apparition without appearing to notice it. 

Death, insofar as it was possible in a face with no movable features, looked 
surprised. 



Rincewind? Death said, in tones as deep and heavy as the slamming of 
leaden doors, far underground. 

“Um,” said Rincewind, trying to back away from that eyeless stare. 

But why are you here? (Boom, boom went crypt lids, in the worm haunted 
fastnesses under old mountains...) 

“Um, why not?” said Rincewind. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ve got lots to do, 
so if you’ll just—” 

I WAS SURPRISED THAT YOU JOSTLED ME, RINCEWIND, FOR I HAVE AN 
APPOINTMENT WITH THEE THIS VERY NIGHT. 

“Oh no, not—” 

Of course, what’s so bloody vexing about the whole business is that I 

WAS EXPECTING TO MEET THEE IN PSEPHOPOLOLIS. 

“But that’s five hundred miles away!” 

YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME. THE WHOLE SYSTEM’S GOT SCREWED UP AGAIN, I 
CAN SEE THAT. LOOK, THERE’S NO CHANCE OF YOU—? 

Rincewind backed away, hands spread protectively in front of him. The 
dried fish salesman on a nearby stall watched this madman with interest. 

“Not a chance!” 

I COULD LEND YOU A VERY FAST HORSE. 

“No!” 

IT WON’T HURT A BIT. 

“No!” Rincewind turned and ran. Death watched him go, and shrugged 
bitterly. 

Sod you, then, Death said. He turned, and noticed the fish salesman. With a 
snarl Death reached out a bony finger and stopped the man’s heart, but he didn’t 
take much pride in it. 



Then Death remembered what was due to happen later that night. It would 
not be true to say that Death smiled, because in any case His features were 
perforce frozen in a calcareous grin. But He hummed a little tune, cheery as a 
plague pit, and—pausing only to extract the life from a passing mayfly, and one 
ninth of the lives from a cat cowering under the fish stall (all cats can see into 
the octarine)—Death turned on His heel and set off toward the Broken Drum. 


Short Street, Morpork, is in fact one of the longest in the city. Filigree Street 
crosses its turnwise end in the manner of the crosspiece of a T, and the Broken 
Drum is so placed that it looks down the full length of the street. 

At the furthermost end of Short Street a dark oblong rose on hundreds of tiny 
legs, and started to run. At first it moved at no more than a lumbering trot, but by 
the time it was halfway up the street it was moving arrow-fast... 

A darker shadow inched its way along one of the walls of the Drum, a few 
yards from the two trolls who were guarding the door. Rincewind was sweating. 
If they heard the faint clinking of the specially prepared bags at his belt... 

One of the trolls tapped his colleague on the shoulder, producing a noise like 
two pebbles being knocked together. He pointed down the starlit street... 

Rincewind darted from his hiding place, turned, and hurled his burden 
through the Drum’s nearest window. 


Withel saw it arrive. The bag arced across the room, turning slowly in the air, 
and burst on the edge of a table. A moment later gold coins were rolling across 
the floor, spinning, glittering. 

The room was suddenly silent, save for the tiny noises of gold and the 
whimpers of the wounded. With a curse Withel dispatched the assassin he had 
been fighting. “It’s a trick!” he screamed. “No one move!” 

Three score men and a dozen trolls froze in mid-grope. 

Then, for the third time, the door burst open. Two trolls hurried through it, 
slammed it behind them, dropped the heavy bar across it and fled down the 



stairs. 


Outside there was a sudden crescendo of running feet. And, for the last time, 
the door opened. In fact it exploded, the great wooden bar being hurled far 
across the room and the frame itself giving way. 

Door and frame landed on a table, which flew into splinters. It was then that 
the frozen fighters noticed that there was something else in the pile of wood. It 
was a box, shaking itself madly to free itself of the smashed timber around it. 

Rincewind appeared in the ruined doorway, hurling another of his gold 
grenades. It smashed into a wall, showering coins. 


Down in the cellar Broadman looked up, muttered to himself, and carried on 
with his work. His entire spindlewinter’s supply of candles had already been 
strewn on the floor, mixed with his store of kindling wood. Now he was 
attacking a barrel of lamp oil. 

“Inn-sewer-ants, ” he muttered. Oil gushed out and swirled around his feet. 

Withel stormed across the floor, his face a mask of rage. Rincewind took 
careful aim and caught the thief full in the chest with a bag of gold. 

But now Ymor was shouting, and pointing an accusing finger. A raven 
swooped down from its perch in the rafters and dived at the wizard, talons open 
and gleaming. 

It didn’t make it. At about the halfway point the Luggage leapt from its bed 
of splinters, gaped briefly in midair, and snapped shut. 

It landed lightly. Rincewind saw its lid open again, slightly. Just far enough 
for a tongue, large as a palm leaf, red as mahogany, to lick up a few errant 
feathers. 

At the same moment the giant candlewheel fell from the ceiling, plunging 
the room into gloom. Rincewind, coiling himself like a spring, gave a standing 
jump and grasped a beam, swinging himself up into the relative safety of the 
roof with a strength that amazed him. 



“Exciting, isn’t it!” said a voice by his ear. 


Down below, thieves, assassins, trolls and merchants all realized at about the 
same moment that they were in a room made treacherous of foothold by gold 
coins and containing something, among the suddenly menacing shapes in the 
semidarkness, that was absolutely horrible. As one they made for the door, but 
had two dozen different recollections of its exact position. 

High above the chaos Rincewind stared at Twoflower. 

“Did you cut the lights down?” he hissed. 

“Yes.” 

“How come you’re up here?” 

“I thought I’d better not get in everyone’s way.” 

Rincewind considered this. There didn’t seem to be much he could say. 
Twoflower added: “Areal brawl! Better than anything I’d imagined! Do you 
think I ought to thank them? Or did you arrange it?” 

Rincewind looked at him blankly. “I think we ought to be getting down 
now,” he said hollowly. “Everyone’s gone.” 

He dragged Twoflower across the littered floor and up the steps. They burst 
out into the tail end of the night. There were still a few stars but the moon was 
down, and there was a faint gray glow to rimward. Most important, the street 
was empty. 

Rincewind sniffed. 

“Can you smell oil?” he said. 

Then Withel stepped out of the shadows and tripped him up. 


At the top of the cellar steps Broadman knelt down and fumbled in his tinderbox. 
It turned out to be damp. 



“I’ll kill that bloody cat,” he muttered, and groped for the spare box that was 
normally on the ledge by the door. It was missing. Broadman said a bad word. 

A lighted taper appeared in midair, right beside him. 

Here, take this. 

“Thanks,” said Broadman. 

Don’t mention it. 

Broadman went to throw the taper down the steps. His hand paused in 
midair. He looked at the taper, his brow furrowing. Then he turned around and 
held the taper up to illuminate the scene. It didn’t shed much light, but it did give 
the darkness a shape... 

“Oh, no—” he breathed. 

But yes, said Death. 


Rincewind rolled. 

For a moment he thought Withel was going to spit him where he lay. But it 
was worse than that. He was waiting for him to get up. 

“I see you have a sword, wizard,” he said quietly. “I suggest you rise, and we 
shall see how well you use it.” 

Rincewind stood up as slowly as he dared, and drew from his belt the short 
sword he had taken from the guard a few hours and a hundred years ago. It was a 
short blunt affair compared to Withel’s hair-thin rapier. 

“But I don’t know how to use a sword,” he wailed. 

“Good.” 

“You know that wizards can’t be killed by edged weapons?” said Rincewind 
desperately. 



Withel smiled coldly. “So I have heard,” he said. “I look forward to putting it 
to the test.” He lunged. 

Rincewind caught the thrust by sheer luck, jerked his hand away in shock, 
deflected the second stroke by coincidence, and took the third one through his 
robe at heart height. 

There was a clink. 

Withel’s snarl of triumph died in his throat. He drew the sword out and 
prodded again at the wizard, who was rigid with terror and guilt. There was 
another clink, and gold coins began to drop out of the hem of the wizard’s robe. 

“So you bleed gold, do you?” hissed Withel. “But have you got gold 
concealed in that raggedy beard, you little—” 

As his sword went back for his final sweep the sullen glow that had been 
growing in the doorway of the Broken Drum flickered, dimmed, and erupted into 
a roaring fireball that sent the walls billowing outward and carried the roof a 
hundred feet into the air before bursting through it, in a gout of red-hot tiles. 

Withel stared at the boiling flames, unnerved. And Rincewind leapt. He 
ducked under the thief’s sword arm and brought his own blade around in an arc 
so incompetently misjudged that it hit the man flat first and jolted out of the 
wizard’s hand. Sparks and droplets of flaming oil rained down as Withel reached 
out with both gauntleted hands and grabbed Rincewind’s neck, forcing him 
down. 

“You did this!” he screamed. “You and your box of trickery!” 

His thumb found Rincewind’s windpipe. This is it, the wizard thought. 
Wherever I’m going, it can’t be worse than here... 

“Excuse me,” said Twoflower. 

Rincewind felt the grip lessen. And now Withel was slowly getting up, a 
look of absolute hatred on his face. 

A glowing ember landed on the wizard. He brushed it off hurriedly, and 
scrambled to his feet. 



Twoflower was behind Withel, holding the man’s own needle-sharp sword 
with the point resting in the small of the thief’s back. Rincewind’s eyes 
narrowed. He reached into his robe, then withdrew his hand bunched into a fist. 

“Don’t move,” he said. 

“Am I doing this right?” asked Twoflower anxiously. 

“He says he’ll skewer your liver if you move,” Rincewind translated freely. 

“I doubt it,” said Withel. 

“Bet?” 

“No.” 

As Withel tensed himself to turn on the tourist Rincewind lashed out and 
caught the thief on the jaw. Withel stared at him in amazement for a moment, 
and then quietly toppled into the mud. 

The wizard uncurled his stinging fist and the roll of gold coins slipped 
between his throbbing fingers. He looked down at the recumbent thief. 

“Good grief,” he gasped. 

He looked up and yelled as another ember landed on his neck. Flames were 
racing along the rooftops on either side of the street. All around him people were 
hurling possessions from windows and dragging horses from smoking stables. 
Another explosion in the white-hot volcano that was the Drum sent a whole 
marble mantelpiece scything overhead. 

“The Widdershin Gate’s the nearest!” Rincewind shouted above the crackle 
of collapsing rafters. “Come on!” 

He grabbed Twoflower’s reluctant arm and dragged him down the street. 

“My Luggage—” 

“Blast your luggage! Stay here much longer and you’ll go where you don’t 
need luggage! Come on!” screamed Rincewind. 



They jogged on through the crowd of frightened people leaving the area, 
while the wizard took great mouthfuls of cool dawn air. Something was puzzling 
him. 

“I’m sure all the candles went out,” he said. “So how did the Drum catch 
fire?” 

“I don’t know,” moaned Twoflower. “It’s terrible, Rincewind. We were 
getting along so well, too.” 

Rincewind stopped in astonishment, so that another refugee cannoned into 
him and spun away with an oath. 

“Getting on?” 

“Yes, a great bunch of fellows, I thought—language was a bit of a problem, 
but they were so keen for me to join their party, they just wouldn’t take no for an 
answer—really friendly people, I thought...” 

Rincewind started to correct him, then realized he didn’t know how to begin. 

“It’ll be a blow for old Broadman,” Twoflower continued. “Still, he was 
wise. I’ve still got the rhinu he paid as his first premium.” 

Rincewind didn’t know the meaning of the word premium, but his mind was 
working fast. 

“You inn-sewered the Drum?” he said. “You bet Broadman it wouldn’t catch 
fire?” 

“Oh yes. Standard valuation. Two hundred rhinu. Why do you ask?” 

Rincewind turned and stared at the flames racing toward them, and 
wondered how much of Ankh-Morpork could be bought for two hundred rhinu. 
Quite a large piece, he decided. Only not now, not the way those flames were 
moving... 

He glanced down at the tourist. 

“You—” he began, and searched his memory for the worst word in the Trob 



tongue; the happy little beTrobi didn’t really know how to swear properly. 


“You,” he repeated. Another hurrying figure bumped into him, narrowly 
missing him with the blade over its shoulder. Rincewind’s tortured temper 
exploded. 

“You little (such a one who, while wearing a copper nose ring, stands in a 
footbath atop Mount Raruaruaha during a heavy thunderstorm and shouts that 
Alohura, goddess of lightning, has the facial features of a diseased uloruaha 
root)!” 

Just doing my job, said the figure, stalking away. 

Every word fell as heavily as slabs of marble; moreover, Rincewind was 
certain that he was the only one who heard them. 

He grabbed Twoflower again. 

“Let’s get out of here!” he suggested. 


One interesting side effect of the fire in Ankh-Morpork concerns the inn-sewer- 
ants policy, which left the city through the ravaged roof of the Broken Drum, 
was wafted high into the Discworld’s atmosphere on the ensuing thermal, and 
came to earth several days and a few thousand miles away on an uloruaha bush 
in the beTrobi islands. The simple, laughing islanders subsequently worshipped 
it as a god, much to the amusement of their more sophisticated neighbors. 
Strangely enough the rainfall and harvests in the next few years were almost 
supernaturally abundant, and this led to a research team being dispatched to the 
islands by the Minor Religions faculty of Unseen University. Their verdict was 
that it only went to show. 


The fire, driven by the wind, spread out from the Drum faster than a man could 
walk. The timbers of the Widdershin Gate were already on fire when Rincewind, 
his face blistered and reddened from the flames, reached them. By now he and 
Twoflower were on horseback—mounts hadn’t been that hard to obtain. A wily 
merchant had asked fifty times their worth, and had been left gaping when one 
thousand times their worth had been pressed into his hands. 



They rode through just before the first of the big gate timbers descended in 
an explosion of sparks. Morpork was already a cauldron of flame. 

As they galloped up the red-lit road Rincewind glanced sideways at his 
traveling companion, currently trying hard to learn to ride a horse. 

Bloody hell, he thought. He’s alive! Me too. Who’d have thought it? Perhaps 
there is something in this reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits ? It was a 
cumbersome phrase. Rincewind tried to get his tongue around the thick syllables 
that were the word in Twoflower’s own language. 

“Ecolirix?” he tried. “Ecro-gnothics? Echo-gnomics?” 

That would do. That sounded about right. 


Several hundred yards downriver from the last smoldering suburb of the city a 
strangely rectangular and apparently heavily waterlogged object touched the 
mud on the widdershin bank. Immediately it sprouted numerous legs and 
scrabbled for a purchase. 

Hauling itself to the top of the bank the Luggage—streaked with soot, 
stained with water and very, very angry—shook itself and took its bearings. 
Then it moved away at a brisk trot, the small and incredibly ugly imp that was 
perching on its lid watching the scenery with interest. 


Bravd looked at the Weasel and raised his eyebrows. 

“And that’s it,” said Rincewind. “The Luggage caught up with us, don’t ask 
me how. Is there any more wine?” 

The Weasel picked up the empty wineskin. 

“I think you have had just about enough wine this night,” he said. 

Bravd’s forehead wrinkled. 


“Gold is gold,” he said finally. “How can a man with plenty of gold consider 



himself poor? You’re either poor or rich. It stands to reason.” 

Rincewind hiccupped. He was finding Reason rather difficult to hold on to. 
“Well,” he said, “what I think is, the point is, well, you know octiron?” 

The two adventurers nodded. The strange iridescent metal was almost as 
highly valued in the lands around the Circle Sea as sapient pearwood, and was 
about as rare. A man who owned a needle made of octiron would never lose his 
way, since it always pointed to the Hub of the Discworld, being acutely sensitive 
to the Disc’s magical field; it would also miraculously darn his socks. 

“Well, my point is, you see, that gold also has its sort of magical field. Sort 
of financial wizardry. Echo-gnomics.” Rincewind giggled. 

The Weasel stood up and stretched. The sun was well up now, and the city 
below them was wreathed in mists and full of foul vapors. Also gold, he decided. 
Even a citizen of Morpork would, at the very point of death, desert his treasure 
to save his skin. Time to move. 

The little man called Twoflower appeared to be asleep. The Weasel looked 
down at him and shook his head. 

“The city awaits, such as it is,” he said. “Thank you for a pleasant tale, 
Wizard. What will you do now?” He eyed the Luggage, which immediately 
backed away and snapped its lid at him. 

“Well, there are no ships leaving the city now,” giggled Rincewind. “I 
suppose we’ll take the coast road to Chirm. I’ve got to look after him, you see. 
But look, I didn’t make it—” 

“Sure, sure,” said the Weasel soothingly. He turned away and swung himself 
into the saddle of the horse that Bravd was holding. A few moments later the two 
heroes were just specks under a cloud of dust, heading down toward the charcoal 
city. 


Rincewind stared muzzily at the recumbent tourist. At two recumbent 
tourists. In his somewhat defenseless state a stray thought, wandering through 
the dimensions in search of a mind to harbor it, slid into his brain. 


“Here’s another fine mess you’ve got me into,” he moaned, and slumped 



backward. 


“Mad,” said the Weasel. Bravd, galloping along a few feet away, nodded. 

“All wizards get like that,” he said. “It’s the quicksilver fumes. Rots their 
brains. Mushrooms, too.” 

“However—” said the brown clad one. He reached into his tunic and took 
out a golden disc on a short chain. Bravd raised his eyebrows. 

“The wizard said that the little man had some sort of golden disc that told 
him the time,” said the Weasel. 

“Arousing your cupidity, little friend? You always were an expert thief, 
Weasel.” 

“Aye,” agreed the Weasel modestly. He touched the knob at the disc’s rim, 
and it flipped open. 

The very small demon imprisoned within looked up from its tiny abacus and 
scowled. “It lacks but ten minutes to eight of the clock,” it snarled. The lid 
slammed shut, almost trapping the Weasel’s fingers. 

With an oath the Weasel hurled the time-teller far out into the heather, where 
it possibly hit a stone. Something, in any event, caused the case to split; there 
was a vivid octarine flash and a whiff of brimstone as the time being vanished 
into whatever demonic dimension it called home. 

“What did you do that for?” said Bravd, who hadn’t been close enough to 
hear the words. 

“Do what?” said the Weasel. “I didn’t do anything. Nothing happened at all. 
Come on—we’re wasting opportunities!” 

Bravd nodded. Together they turned their steeds and galloped toward ancient 
Ankh, and honest enchantments. 



2 


Thf, Sending of Eight 


The road from Ankh-Morpork to Chirm is high, white and winding, a thirty- 
league stretch of potholes and half-buried rocks that spirals around mountains 
and dips into cool green valleys of citrus trees, crosses liana-webbed gorges on 
creaking rope bridges and is generally more picturesque than useful. 

Picturesque. That was a new word to Rincewind the wizard (B. Mgc., 

Unseen University [failed]). It was one of a number he had picked up since 
leaving the charred ruins of Ankh-Morpork. Quaint was another one. Picturesque 
meant—he decided after careful observation of the scenery that inspired 
Twoflower to use the word—that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Quaint, 
when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant 
fever-ridden and tumbledown. 

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, 
Rincewind had decided, meant “idiot.” 

As they rode leisurely through the thyme-scented, bee-humming air, 
Rincewind pondered on the experiences of the last few days. While the little 
foreigner was obviously insane, he was also generous and considerably less 
lethal than half the people the wizard had mixed with in the city. Rincewind 
rather liked him. Disliking him would be like kicking a puppy. 

Currently Twoflower was showing a great interest in the theory and practice 
of magic. 

“It all seems, well, rather useless to me,” he said. “I always thought that, you 
know, a wizard just said the magic words and that was that. Not all this tedious 
memorizing.” 



Rincewind agreed moodily. He tried to explain that magic had indeed once 
been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the 
Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of 
Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal 
should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant 
that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it 
involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a 
genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several 
hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple 
principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears. 

He went on to add that some of the ancient magic could still be found in its 
raw state, recognizable—to the initiated—by the eightfold shape it made in the 
crystalline structure of space-time. There was the metal octiron, for example, and 
the gas octogen. Both radiated dangerous amounts of raw enchantment. 

“It’s all very depressing,” he finished. 

“Depressing?” 

Rincewind turned in his saddle and glanced at Twoflower’s Luggage, which 
was currently ambling along on its little legs, occasionally snapping its lid at 
butterflies. He sighed. 

“Rincewind thinks he ought to be able to harness the lightning,” said the 
picture imp, who was observing the passing scene from the tiny doorway of the 
box slung around Twoflower’s neck. He had spent the morning painting 
picturesque views and quaint scenes for his master, and had been allowed to 
knock off for a smoke. 

“When I said harness I didn’t mean harness,” snapped Rincewind. “I meant, 
well, I just meant that—I dunno, I just can’t think of the right words. I just think 
the world ought to be more sort of organized.” 

“That’s just fantasy,” said Twoflower. 

“I know. That’s the trouble.” Rincewind sighed again. It was all very well 
going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the 
harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was 
manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit 



of going around to atheists’ houses and smashing their windows. 


There was a faint sound, hardly louder than the noise of the bees in the 
rosemary by the road. It had a curiously bony quality, as of rolling skulls or a 
whirling dice box. Rincewind peered around. There was no one nearby. 

For some reason that worried him. 

Then came a slight breeze, that grew and went in the space of a few 
heartbeats. It left the world unchanged save in a few interesting particulars. 

There was now, for example, a five-meter tall mountain troll standing in the 
road. It was exceptionally angry. This was partly because trolls generally are, in 
any case, but it was exacerbated by the fact that the sudden and instantaneous 
teleportation from its lair in the Rammerorck Mountains three thousand miles 
away and a thousand yards closer to the Rim had raised its internal temperature 
to a dangerous level, in accordance with the laws of conservation of energy. So it 
bared its fangs and charged. 

“What a strange creature,” Twoflower remarked. “Is it dangerous?” 

“Only to people!” shouted Rincewind. He drew his sword and, with a 
smooth overarm throw, completely failed to hit the troll. The blade plunged on 
into the heather at the side of the track. 

There was the faintest of sounds, like the rattle of old teeth. 

The sword struck a boulder concealed in the heather—concealed, a watcher 
might have considered, so artfully that a moment before it had not appeared to 
be there at all. It sprang up like a leaping salmon and in mid-ricochet plunged 
deeply into the back of the troll’s gray neck. 

The creature grunted, and with one swipe of a claw gouged a wound in the 
flank of Twoflower’s horse, which screamed and bolted into the trees at the 
roadside. The troll spun around and made a grab for Rincewind. 

Then its sluggish nervous system brought it the message that it was dead. It 
looked surprised for a moment, and then toppled over and shattered into gravel 
(trolls being silica-ceous life-forms, their bodies reverted instantly to stone at the 
moment of death). 



“Aaargh,” thought Rincewind as his horse reared in terror. He hung on 
desperately as it staggered two-legged across the road and then, screaming, 
turned and galloped into the woods. 

The sound of hoofbeats died away, leaving the air to the hum of bees and the 
occasional rustle of butterfly wings. There was another sound, too, a strange 
noise for the bright time of noonday. 

It sounded like dice. 


“Rincewind?” 

The long aisles of trees threw Twoflower’s voice from side to side and 
eventually tossed it back to him, unheeded. He sat down on a rock and tried to 
think. 

Firstly, he was lost. That was vexing, but it did not worry him unduly. The 
forest looked quite interesting and probably held elves or gnomes, perhaps both. 
In fact on a couple of occasions he had thought he had seen strange green faces 
peering down at him from the branches. Twoflower had always wanted to meet 
an elf. In fact what he really wanted to meet was a dragon, but an elf would do. 
Or a real goblin. 

His Luggage was missing, and that was annoying. It was also starting to rain. 
He squirmed uncomfortably on the damp stone, and tried to look on the bright 
side. For example, during its mad dash his plunging horse had burst through 
some bushes and disturbed a she-bear with her cubs, but had gone on before the 
bear could react. Then it had suddenly been galloping over the sleeping bodies of 
a large wolf pack and, again, its mad speed had been such that the furious 
yelping had been left far behind. Nevertheless, the day was wearing on and 
perhaps it would be a good idea—Twoflower thought—not to hang about in the 
open. Perhaps there was a.. .he racked his brains trying to remember what sort of 
accommodation forests traditionally offered.. .perhaps there was a gingerbread 
house or something? 

The stone really was uncomfortable. Twoflower looked down and, for the 
first time, noticed the strange carving. 



It looked like a spider. Or was it a squid? Moss and lichens rather blurred the 
precise details. But they didn’t blur the runes carved below it. Twoflower could 
read them clearly, and they said: Traveler, the hospitable temple of Bel- 
Shamharoth lies one thousand paces hubward. Now this was strange, Twoflower 
realized, because although he could read the message the actual letters were 
completely unknown to him. Somehow the message was arriving in his brain 
without the tedious necessity of passing through his eyes. 

He stood up and untied his now-biddable horse from a sapling. He wasn’t 
sure which way the Hub lay, but there seemed to be an old track of sorts leading 
away between the trees. This Bel-Shamharoth seemed prepared to go out of his 
way to help stranded travelers. In any case, it was that or the wolves. Twoflower 
nodded decisively. 

It is interesting to note that, several hours later, a couple of wolves who were 
following Twoflower’s scent arrived in the glade. Their green eyes fell on the 
strange eight-legged carving—which may indeed have been a spider, or an 
octopus, or may yet again have been something altogether more strange—and 
they immediately decided that they weren’t so hungry, at that. 


About three miles away a failed wizard was hanging by his hands from a high 
branch in a beech tree. 

This was the end result of five minutes of crowded activity. First, an enraged 
she-bear had barged through the undergrowth and taken the throat out of his 
horse with one swipe of her paw. Then, as Rincewind had fled the carnage, he 
had run into a glade in which a number of irate wolves were milling about. His 
instructors at Unseen University, who had despaired of Rincewind’s inability to 
master levitation, would have then been amazed at the speed with which he 
reached and climbed the nearest tree, without apparently touching it. 

Now there was just the matter of the snake. 

It was large and green, and wound itself along the branch with reptilian 
patience. Rincewind wondered if it was poisonous, then chided himself for 
asking such a silly question. Of course it would be poisonous. 


“What are you grinning for?” he asked the figure on the next branch. 



I can’t help it, said Death. Now would you be so kind as to let go? I cant 

HANG AROUND ALL DAY. 

“I can,” said Rincewind defiantly. 

The wolves clustered around the base of the tree looked up with interest at 
their next meal talking to himself. 

It wont hurt, said Death. If words had weight, a single sentence from 
Death would have anchored a ship. 

Rincewind’s arms screamed their agony at him. He scowled at the 
vulturelike, slightly transparent figure. 

“Won’t hurt?” he said. “Being torn apart by wolves won’t hurt?” 

He noticed another branch crossing his dangerously narrowing one a few 
feet away. If he could just reach it... 

He swung himself forward, one hand outstretched. 

The branch, already bending, did not break. It simply made a wet little sound 
and twisted. 

Rincewind found that he was now hanging onto the end of a tongue of bark 
and fiber, lengthening as it peeled away from the tree. He looked down, and with 
a sort of fatal satisfaction realized that he would land right on the biggest wolf. 

Now he was moving slowly as the bark peeled back in a longer and longer 
strip. The snake watched him thoughtfully. 

But the growing length of bark held. Rincewind began to congratulate 
himself until, looking up, he saw what he had hitherto not noticed. There was the 
largest hornets’ nest he had ever seen, hanging right in his path. 

He shut his eyes tightly. 

Why the troll? he asked himself. Everything else is just my usual luck, but 
why the troll? What the hell is going on? 



Click. It may have been a twig snapping, except that the sound appeared to 
be inside Rincewind’s head. Click, click. And a breeze that failed to set a single 
leaf atremble. 

The hornets’ nest was ripped from the branch as the strip passed by. It shot 
past the wizard’s head and he watched it grow smaller as it plummeted toward 
the circle of upturned muzzles. 

The circle suddenly closed. 

The circle suddenly expanded. 

The concerted yelp of pain as the pack fought to escape the furious cloud 
echoed among the trees. Rincewind grinned inanely. 

Rincewind’s elbow nudged something. It was the tree trunk. The strip had 
carried him right to the end of the branch. But there were no other branches. The 
smooth bark beside him offered no handholds. 

It offered hands, though. Two were even now thrusting through the mossy 
bark beside him; slim hands, green as young leaves. Then a shapely arm 
followed, and then the hamadryad leaned right out and grasped the astonished 
wizard firmly and, with that vegetable strength that can send roots questing into 
rock, drew him into the tree. The solid bark parted like a mist, closed like a clam. 

Death watched impassively. 

He glanced at the cloud of mayflies that were dancing their joyful zigzags 
near His skull. He snapped His fingers. The insects fell out of the air. But, 
somehow, it wasn’t quite the same. 


Blind Io pushed his stack of chips across the table, glowered through such of his 
eyes that were currently in the room, and strode out. A few demigods tittered. At 
least Offler had taken the loss of a perfectly good troll with precise, if somewhat 
reptilian, grace. 

The Lady’s last opponent shifted his seat until he faced her across the board. 

“Lord,” she said, politely. 



“Lady,” he acknowledged. Their eyes met. 


He was a taciturn god. It was said that he had arrived in the Discworld after 
some terrible and mysterious incident in another Eventuality. It is of course the 
privilege of gods to control their apparent outward form, even to other gods; the 
Fate of the Discworld was currently a kindly man in late middle age, graying 
hair brushed neatly around features that a maiden would confidently proffer a 
glass of small beer to, should they appear at her back door. It was a face a kindly 
youth would gladly help over a stile. Except for his eyes, of course. 

No deity can disguise the manner and nature of his eyes. The nature of the 
two eyes of the Fate of the Discworld was this: that while at a mere glance they 
were simply dark, a closer look would reveal—too late!—that they were but 
holes opening onto a blackness so remote, so deep that the watcher would feel 
himself inexorably drawn into the twin pools of infinite night and their terrible, 
wheeling stars... 

The Lady coughed politely, and laid twenty-one white chips on the table. 
Then from her robe she took another chip, silvery and translucent and twice the 
size of the others. The soul of a true Hero always finds a better rate of exchange, 
and is valued highly by the gods. 

Fate raised an eyebrow. 

“And no cheating, Fady,” he said. 

“But who could cheat Fate?” she asked. He shrugged. 

“No one. Yet everyone tries.” 

“And yet, again, I believe I felt you giving me a little assistance against the 
others?” 

“But of course. So that the endgame could be the sweeter, Lady. And 
now...” 

He reached into his gaming box and brought forth a piece, setting it down on 
the board with a satisfied air. The watching deities gave a collective sigh. Even 
the Lady was momentarily taken aback. 



It was certainly ugly. The carving was uncertain, as if the craftsman’s hands 
were shaking in horror of the thing taking shape under his reluctant fingers. It 
seemed to be all suckers and tentacles. And mandibles, the Lady observed. And 
one great eye. 

“I thought such as He died out at the beginnings of Time,” she said. 

“Mayhap our necrotic friend was loath even to go near this one,” laughed 
Fate. He was enjoying himself. 

“It should never have been spawned.” 

“Nevertheless,” said Fate gnomically. He scooped the dice into their unusual 
box, and then glanced up at her. 

“Unless,” he added, “you wish to resign...?” 

She shook her head. 

“Play,” she said. 

“You can match my stake?” 

“Play. ” 


Rincewind knew what was inside trees: wood, sap, possibly squirrels. Not a 
palace. 

Still—the cushions underneath him were definitely softer than wood, the 
wine in the wooden cup beside him was much tastier than sap, and there could 
be absolutely no comparison between a squirrel and the girl sitting before him, 
clasping her knees and watching him thoughtfully, unless mention was made of 
certain hints of furriness. 

The room was high, wide and lit with a soft yellow light which came from 
no particular source that Rincewind could identify. Through gnarled and knotted 
archways he could see other rooms, and what looked like a very large winding 
staircase. And it had looked a perfectly normal tree from the outside, too. 



The girl was green—flesh green. Rincewind could be absolutely certain 
about that, because all she was wearing was a medallion around her neck. Her 
long hair had a faintly mossy look about it. Her eyes had no pupils and were a 
luminous green. Rincewind wished he had paid more attention to anthropology 
lectures at University. 

She had said nothing. Apart from indicating the couch and offering him the 
wine she had done no more than sit watching him, occasionally rubbing a deep 
scratch on her arm. 

Rincewind hurriedly recalled that a dryad was so linked to her tree that she 
suffered wounds in sympathy— 

“Sorry about that,” he said quickly. “It was just an accident. I mean, there 
were these wolves, and—” 

“You had to climb my tree, and I rescued you,” said the dryad smoothly. 
“How lucky for you. And for your friend, perhaps?” 

“Friend?” 

“The little man with the magic box,” said the dryad. 

“Oh, sure, him,” said Rincewind vaguely. “Yeah. I hope he’s okay.” 

“He needs your help.” 

“He usually does. Did he make it to a tree, too?” 

“He made it to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth.” 

Rincewind choked on his wine. His ears tried to crawl into his head in terror 
of the syllables they had just heard. The Soul Eater! Before he could stop them 
the memories came galloping back. Once, while a student of practical magic at 
Unseen University, and for a bet, he’d slipped into the little room off the main 
library—the room with walls covered in protective lead pentagrams, the room no 
one was allowed to occupy for more than four minutes and thirty-two seconds, 
which was a figure arrived at after two hundred years of cautious 
experimentation... 



He had gingerly opened the Book, which was chained to the octiron pedestal 
in the middle of the rune-strewn floor not lest someone steal it, but lest it escape; 
for it was the Octavo, so full of magic that it had its own vague sentience. One 
spell had indeed leapt from the crackling pages and lodged itself in the dark 
recesses of his brain. And, apart from knowing that it was one of the Eight Great 
Spells, no one would know which one until he said it. Even Rincewind did not. 
But he could feel it sometimes, sidling out of sight behind his Ego, biding its 
time... 

On the front of the Octavo had been a representation of Bel-Shamharoth. He 
was not Evil, for even Evil has a certain vitality—Bel-Shamharoth was the flip 
side of the coin of which Good and Evil are but one side. 

“The Soul Eater. His number lyeth between seven and nine; it is twice four,” 
Rincewind quoted, his mind frozen with fear. “Oh no. Where’s the Temple?” 

“Hubward, toward the center of the forest,” said the dryad. “It is very old.” 

“But who would be so stupid as to worship Bel—him? I mean, devils yes, 
but he’s the Soul Eater—” 

“There were—certain advantages. And the race that used to live in these 
parts had strange notions.” 

“What happened to them, then?” 

“I did say they used to live in these parts.” The dryad stood up and stretched 
out her hand. “Come. I am Druellae. Come with me and watch your friend’s fate. 
It should be interesting.” 

“I’m not sure that—” began Rincewind. 

The dryad turned her green eyes on him. 

“Do you believe you have a choice?” she asked. 


A staircase broad as a major highway wound up through the tree, with vast 
rooms leading off at every landing. The sourceless yellow light was everywhere. 
There was also a sound like—Rincewind concentrated, trying to identify it—like 



far off thunder, or a distant waterfall. 

“It’s the tree,” said the dryad shortly. 

“What’s it doing?” said Rincewind. 

“Living.” 

“I wondered about that. I mean, are we really in a tree? Have I been reduced 
in size? From outside it looked narrow enough for me to put my arms around.” 

“It is.” 

“Um, but here I am inside it?” 

“You are.” 

“Um,” said Rincewind. 

Druellae laughed. 

“I can see into your mind, false wizard! Am I not a dryad? Do you not know 
that what you belittle by the name tree is but the mere four-dimensional 
analogue of a whole multidimensional universe which—no, I can see you do not. 
I should have realized that you weren’t a real wizard when I saw you didn’t have 
a staff.” 

“Lost it in a fire,” lied Rincewind automatically. 

“No hat with magic sigils embroidered on it.” 

“It blew off.” 

“No familiar.” 

“It died. Look, thanks for rescuing me, but if you don’t mind I think I ought 
to be going. If you could show me the way out—” 

Something in her expression made him turn around. There were three he- 
dryads behind him. They were as naked as the woman, and unarmed. That last 
fact was irrelevant, however. They didn’t look as though they would need 



weapons to fight Rincewind. They looked as though they could shoulder their 
way through solid rock and beat up a regiment of trolls into the bargain. The 
three handsome giants looked down at him with wooden menace. Their skins 
were the color of walnut husks, and under it muscles bulged like sacks of 
melons. 

He turned around again and grinned weakly at Druellae. Life was beginning 
to take on a familiar shape again. 

“I’m not rescued, am I?” he said. “I’m captured, right?” 

“Of course.” 

“And you’re not letting me go?” It was a statement. 

Druellae shook her head. “You hurt the Tree. But you are lucky. Your friend 
is going to meet Bel-Shamharoth. You will only die.” 

From behind two hands gripped his shoulders in much the same way that an 
old tree root coils relentlessly around a pebble. 

“With a certain amount of ceremony, of course,” the dryad went on. “After 
the Sender of Eight has finished with your friend.” 

All Rincewind could manage to say was, “You know, I never imagined there 
were he-dryads. Not even in an oak tree.” 

One of the giants grinned at him. 

Druellae snorted. “Stupid! Where do you think acorns come from?” 

There was a vast empty space like a hall, its roof lost in the golden haze. The 
endless stair ran right up through it. 

Several hundred dryads were clustered at the other end of the hall. They 
parted respectfully when Druellae approached, and stared through Rincewind as 
he was propelled firmly along behind. 


Most of them were females, although there were a few of the giant males 
among them. They stood like god-shaped statues among the small, intelligent 



females. Insects, thought Rincewind. The Tree is like a hive. 


But why were there dryads at all? As far as he could recall, the tree people 
had died out centuries before. They had been out-evolved by humans, like most 
of the other Twilight Peoples. Only elves and trolls had survived the coming of 
Man to the Discworld; the elves because they were altogether too clever by half, 
and the trollen folk because they were at least as good as humans at being nasty, 
spiteful and greedy. Dryads were supposed to have died out, along with gnomes 
and pixies. 

The background roar was louder here. Sometimes a pulsing golden glow 
would race up the translucent walls until it was lost in the haze overhead. Some 
power in the air made it vibrate. 

“O incompetent wizard,” said Druellae, “see some magic. Not your weasel¬ 
faced tame magic, but root-and-branch magic, the old magic. Wild magic. 
Watch.” 

Fifty or so of the females formed a tight cluster, joined hands and walked 
backward until they formed the circumference of a large circle. The rest of the 
dryads began a low chant. Then, at a nod from Druellae, the circle began to spin 
widder shins. 

As the pace began to quicken and the complicated threads of the chant began 
to rise Rincewind found himself watching, fascinated. He had heard about the 
Old Magic at University, although it was forbidden to wizards. He knew that 
when the circle was spinning fast enough against the standing magical field of 
the Discworld itself in its slow turning, the resulting astral friction would build 
up a vast potential difference which would earth itself by a vast discharge of the 
Elemental Magical Force. 

The circle was a blur now, and the walls of the Tree rang with the echoes of 
the chant— 

Rincewind felt the familiar sticky prickling in the scalp that indicated the 
build up of a heavy charge of raw enchantment in the vicinity, and so he was not 
utterly amazed when, a few seconds later, a shaft of vivid octarine light speared 
down from the invisible ceiling and focused, crackling, in the center of the 
circle. 



There it formed an image of a storm-swept, tree-girt hill with a temple on its 
crest. Its shape did unpleasant things to the eye. Rincewind knew that if it was a 
temple to Bel-Shamharoth it would have eight sides. (Eight was also the Number 
of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard would never mention the 
number if he could avoid it. Or youTl be eight alive, apprentices were jocularly 
warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially attracted to dabblers in magic who, by 
being as it were beachcombers on the shores of the unnatural, were already half- 
enmeshed in his nets. Rincewind’s room number in his hall of residence had 
been 7a. He hadn’t been surprised.) 


Rain streamed off the black walls of the temple. The only sign of life was the 
horse tethered outside, and it wasn’t Twoflower’s horse. For one thing, it was too 
big. It was a white charger with hooves the size of meat dishes and leather 
harness aglitter with ostentatious gold ornamentation. It was currently enjoying a 
nosebag. 

There was something familiar about it. Rincewind tried to remember where 
he had seen it before. 

It looked as though it was capable of a fair turn of speed, anyway. A speed 
which, once it had lumbered up to it, it could maintain for a long time. All 
Rincewind had to do was shake off his guards, fight his way out of the Tree, find 
the temple and steal the horse out from under whatever it was that Bel- 
Shamharoth used for a nose. 

“The Sender of Eight has two for dinner, it seems,” said Druellae, looking 
hard at Rincewind. “Who does that steed belong to, false wizard?” 

“I’ve no idea.” 

“No? Well, it does not matter. We shall see soon enough.” 

She waved a hand. The focus of the image moved inward, darted through a 
great octagonal archway and sped along the corridor within. 

There was a figure there, sidling along stealthily with its back against one 
wall. Rincewind saw the gleam of gold and bronze. 



There was no mistaking that shape. He’d seen it many times. The wide chest, 
the neck like a tree trunk, the surprisingly small head under its wild thatch of 
black hair looking like a tomato on a coffin.. .he could put a name to the 
creeping figure, and that name was Hrun the Barbarian. 

Hrun was one of the Circle Sea’s more durable heroes: a fighter of dragons, 
a despoiler of temples, a hired sword, the kingpost of every street brawl. He 
could even—and unlike many heroes of Rincewind’s acquaintance—speak 
words of more than two syllables, if given time and maybe a hint or two. 

There was a sound on the edge of Rincewind’s hearing. It sounded like 
several skulls bouncing down the steps of some distant dungeon. He looked 
sideways at his guards to see if they had heard it. 

They had all their limited attention focused on Hrun, who was admittedly 
built on the same lines as themselves. Their hands were resting lightly on the 
wizard’s shoulders. 

Rincewind ducked, jerked backward like a tumbler, and came up running. 
Behind him he heard Druellae shout, and he redoubled his speed. 

Something caught the hood of his robe, which tore off. A he-dryad waiting at 
the stairs spread his arms wide and grinned woodenly at the figure hurtling 
toward him. Without breaking his stride Rincewind ducked again, so low that his 
chin was on a level with his knees, while a fist like a log sizzled through the air 
by his ear. 

Ahead of him a whole spinney of the tree men awaited. He spun around, 
dodged another blow from the puzzled guard, and sped back toward the circle, 
passing on the way the dryads who were pursuing him and leaving them as 
disorganized as a set of skittles. 

But there were still more in front, pushing their way through the crowds of 
females and smacking their fists into the horny palms of their hands with 
anticipatory concentration. 

“Stand still, false wizard,” said Druellae, stepping forward. Behind her the 
enchanted dancers spun on; the focus of the circle was now drifting along a 
violet-lit corridor. 



Rincewind cracked. 


“Will you knock that off!” he snarled. “Let’s just get this straight, right? I am 
a real wizard!” He stamped a foot pettulantly. 

“Indeed?” said the dryad. “Then let us see you pass a spell.” 

“Uh—” began Rincewind. The fact was that, since the ancient and 
mysterious spell had squatted in his mind, he had been unable to remember even 
the simplest cantrap for, say, killing cockroaches or scratching the small of his 
back without using his hands. The mages at Unseen University had tried to 
explain this by suggesting that the involuntary memorizing of the spell had, as it 
were, tied up all his spellretention cells. In his darker moments Rincewind had 
come up with his own explanation as to why even minor spells refused to stay in 
his head for more than a few seconds. 

They were scared, he decided. 

“Um—” he repeated. 

“A small one would do,” said Druellae, watching him curl his lips in a frenzy 
of anger and embarrassment. She signaled, and a couple of he-dryads closed in. 

The Spell chose that moment to vault into the temporarily abandoned saddle 
of Rincewind’s consciousness. He felt it sitting there, leering defiantly at him. 

“I do know a spell,” he said wearily. 

“Yes? Pray tell,” said Druellae. 

Rincewind wasn’t sure that he dared, although the Spell was trying to take 
control of his tongue. He fought it. 

“You thed you could read by bind,” he said indistinctly. “Read it.” 

She stepped forward, looking mockingly into his eyes. 

Her smile froze. Her hands raised protectively, she crouched back. From her 
throat came a sound of pure terror. 



Rincewind looked around. The rest of the dryads were also backing away. 
What had he done? Something terrible, apparently. 

But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance 
of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him. 
He backed away, ducked between the still spinning dryads who were creating the 
magic circle, and watched to see what Druellae would do next. 

“Grab him,” she screamed. “Take him a long way from the Tree and kill 
him!” 

Rincewind turned and bolted. 

Across the focus of the circle. 

There was a brilliant flash. 

There was a sudden darkness. 

There was a vaguely Rincewind-shaped violet shadow, dwindling to a point 
and winking out. 

There was nothing at all. 


Hrun the Barbarian crept soundlessly along the corridors, which were lit with a 
light so violet that it was almost black. His earlier confusion was gone. This was 
obviously a magical temple, and that explained everything. 

It explained why, earlier in the afternoon, he had espied a chest by the side 
of the track while riding through this benighted forest. Its top was invitingly 
open, displaying much gold. But when he had leapt off his horse to approach it 
the chest had sprouted legs and had gone trotting off into the forest, stopping 
again a few hundred yards away. 

Now, after several hours of teasing pursuit, he had lost it in these hell-lit 
tunnels. On the whole, the unpleasant carvings and occasional disjointed 
skeletons he passed held no fears for Hrun. This was partly because he was not 
exceptionally bright while being at the same time exceptionally unimaginative, 
but it was also because odd carvings and perilous tunnels were all in a day’s 



work. He spent a great deal of time in similar situations, seeking gold or demons 
or distressed virgins and relieving them respectively of their owners, their lives 
and at least one cause of their distress. 

Observe Hrun, as he leaps cat-footed across a suspicious tunnel mouth. Even 
in this violet light his skin gleams coppery. There is much gold about his person, 
in the form of anklets and wristlets, but otherwise he is naked except for a 
leopardskin loincloth. He took that in the steaming forests of Howondaland, after 
killing its owner with his teeth. 

In his right hand he carries the magical black sword Kring, which was forged 
from a thunderbolt and has a soul but suffers no scabbard. Hrun had stolen it 
only three days before from the impregnable palace of the Archmandrite of 
BTtuni, and he was already regretting it. It was beginning to get on his nerves. 

“I tell you it went down that last passage on the right,” hissed Kring in a 
voice like the scrape of a blade over stone. 

“Be silent!” 

“All I said was—” 

“Shut up!” 


And Twoflower... 

He was lost, he knew that. Either the building was much bigger than it 
looked, or he was now on some wide underground level without having gone 
down any steps, or—as he was beginning to suspect—the inner dimensions of 
the place disobeyed a fairly basic rule of architecture by being bigger than the 
outside. And why all these strange lights? They were eight-sided crystals set at 
regular intervals in the walls and ceiling, and they shed a rather unpleasant glow 
that didn’t so much illuminate as outline the darkness. 

And whoever had done those carvings on the wall, Twoflower thought 
charitably, had probably been drinking too much. For years. 


On the other hand, it was certainly a fascinating building. Its builders had 



been obsessed with the number eight. The floor was a continuous mosaic of 
eight-sided tiles, the corridor walls were angled to give the corridors eight sides 
if the walls and ceilings were counted and, in those places where part of the 
masonry had fallen in, Twoflower noticed that even the stones themselves had 
eight sides. 

“I don’t like it,” said the picture imp, from his box around Twoflower’s neck. 

“Why not?” inquired Twoflower. 

“It’s weird.” 

“But you’re a demon. Demons can’t call things weird. I mean, what’s weird 
to a demon?” 

“Oh, you know,” said the demon cautiously, glancing around nervously and 
shifting from claw to claw. “Things. Stuff.” 

Twoflower looked at him sternly. “What things?” 

The demon coughed nervously (demons do not breathe; however, every 
intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its 
life. And this was one of them as far as the demon was concerned). 

“Oh, things,” it said wretchedly. “Evil things. Things we don’t talk about is 
the point I’m broadly trying to get across, master.” 

Twoflower shook his head wearily. “I wish Rincewind was here,” he said. 
“He’d know what to do.” 

“Him?” sneered the demon. “Can’t see a wizard coming here. They can’t 
have anything to do with the number eight.” The demon slapped a hand across 
his mouth guiltily. 

Twoflower looked up at the ceiling. 

“What was that?” he asked. “Didn’t you hear something?” 

“Me? Hear? No! Not a thing!” the demon insisted. It jerked back into its box 
and slammed the door. Twoflower tapped on it. The door opened a crack. 



“It sounded like a stone moving,” he explained. The door banged shut. 
Twoflower shrugged. 

“The place is probably falling to bits,” he said to himself. He stood up. 

“I say!” he shouted. “Is anyone there?” 

AIR, Air, air, replied the dark tunnels. 

“Hullo?” he tried. 

LO, Lo, lo. 

“I know there’s someone here, I just heard you playing dice!” 

ICE, Ice, ice. 

“Look, I had just—” 

Twoflower stopped. The reason for this was the bright point of light that had 
popped into existence a few feet from his eyes. It grew rapidly, and after a few 
seconds was the tiny bright shape of a man. At this stage it began to make a 
noise, or, rather, Twoflower started to hear the noise it had been making all 
along. It sounded like a sliver of a scream, caught in one long instant of time. 

The iridescent man was doll-sized now, a tortured shape tumbling in slow 
motion while hanging in midair. Twoflower wondered why he had thought of the 
phrase “a sliver of a scream”.. .and began to wish he hadn’t. 

It was beginning to look like Rincewind. The wizard’s mouth was open, and 
his face was brilliantly lit by the light of—what? Strange suns, Twoflower found 
himself thinking. Suns men don’t usually see. He shivered. 

Now the turning wizard was half man-size. At that point the growth was 
faster, there was a sudden crowded moment, a rush of air, and an explosion of 
sound. Rincewind tumbled out of the air, screaming. He hit the floor hard, 
choked, then rolled over with his head cradled in his arms and his body curled up 
tightly. 


When the dust had settled Twoflower reached out gingerly and tapped the 



wizard on the shoulder. The human ball rolled up tighter. 

“It’s me,” explained Twoflower helpfully. The wizard unrolled a fraction. 
“What?” he said. 

“Me.” 

In one movement Rincewind unrolled and bounced up in front of the little 
man, his hands gripping his shoulders desperately. His eyes were wild and wide. 

“Don’t say it!” he hissed. “Don’t say it and we might get out!” 

“Get out? How did you get in? Don’t you know—” 

“Don’t say it!” 

Twoflower backed away from this madman. 

“Don’t say it!” 

“Don’t say what?” 

“The number!” 

“Number?” said Twoflower. “Hey, Rincewind—” 

“Yes, number! Between seven and nine. Four plus four!” 

“What, ei—” 

Rincewind’s hands clapped over the man’s mouth. “Say it and we’re 
doomed. Just don’t think about it, right? Trust me!” 

“I don’t understand!” wailed Twoflower. Rincewind relaxed slightly, which 
was to say that he still made a violin string look like a bowl of jelly. 

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s try and get out. And I’ll try and tell you.” 



After the first Age of Magic the disposal of grimoires began to become a severe 
problem on the Discworld. A spell is still a spell even when imprisoned 
temporarily in parchment and ink. It has potency. This is not a problem while the 
book’s owner still lives, but on his death the spell book becomes a source of 
uncontrolled power that cannot easily be defused. 

In short, spell books leak magic. Various solutions have been tried. Countries 
near the Rim simply loaded down the books of dead mages with leaden 
pentalphas and threw them over the Edge. Near the Hub less satisfactory 
alternatives were available. Inserting the offending books in canisters of 
negatively polarized octiron and sinking them in the fathomless depths of the sea 
was one (burial in deep caves on land was earlier ruled out after some districts 
complained of walking trees and five headed cats) but before long the magic 
seeped out and eventually fishermen complained of shoals of invisible fish or 
psychic clams. 

A temporary solution was the construction, in various centers of magical 
lore, of large rooms made of denatured octiron, which is impervious to most 
forms of magic. Here the more critical grimoires could be stored until their 
potency had attenuated. 

That was how there came to be at Unseen University the Octavo, greatest of 
all grimoires, formerly owned by the Creator of the Universe. It was this book 
that Rincewind had once opened for a bet. He had only a second to stare at a 
page before setting off various alarm spells, but that was time enough for one 
spell to leap from it and settle in his memory like a toad in a stone. 


“Then what?” said Twoflower. 

“Oh, they dragged me out. Thrashed me, of course.” 

“And no one knows what the spell does?” 

Rincewind shook his head. 

“It’d vanished from the page,” he said. “No one will know until I say it. Or 
until I die, of course. Then it will sort of say itself. For all I know it stops the 
universe, or ends Time, or anything.” 



Twoflower patted him on the shoulder. 


“No sense in brooding,” he said cheerfully. “Let’s have another look for a 
way out.” 

Rincewind shook his head. All the terror had been spent now. He had broken 
through the terror barrier, perhaps, and was in the dead calm state of mind that 
lies on the other side. Anyway, he had ceased to gibber. 

“We’re doomed,” he stated. “We’ve been walking around all night. I tell you, 
this place is a spiderweb. It doesn’t matter which way we go, we’ll end up in the 
center.” 

“It was kind of you to come looking for me, anyway,” said Twoflower. 

“How did you manage it exactly? It was very impressive.” 

“Oh, well,” began the wizard awkwardly. “I just thought “I can’t leave old 
Twoflower there’ and—” 

“So what we’ve got to do now is find this Bel-Shamharoth person and 
explain things to him and perhaps he’ll let us out,” said Twoflower. 

Rincewind ran a finger around his ear. 

“It must be the funny echoes in here,” he said. “I thought I heard you use 
words like find and explain” 

“That’s right.” 

Rincewind glared at him in the hellish purple glow. 

“Find Bel-Shamharoth?” he said. 

“Yes. We don’t have to get involved.” 

“Find the Soul Render and not get involved? Just give him a nod, I suppose, 
and ask the way to the exit? Explain things to the Sender of Eignnnngh,” 
Rincewind bit off the end of the word just in time and finished, “You’re insane ! 
Hey! Come back!” 



He darted down the passage after Twoflower, and after a few moments came 
to a halt with a groan. 

The violet light was intense here, giving everything new and unpleasant 
colors. This wasn’t a passage, it was a wide room with walls to a number that 
Rincewind didn’t dare to contemplate, and ei—and 7a passages radiating from it. 

Rincewind saw, a little way off, a low altar with the same number of sides as 
four times two. It didn’t occupy the center of the room, however. The center was 
occupied by a huge stone slab with twice as many sides as a square. It looked 
massive. In the strange light it appeared to be slightly tilted, with one edge 
standing proud of the slabs around it. 

Twoflower was standing on it. 

“Hey. Rincewind! Look what’s here!” 

The Luggage came ambling down one of the other passages that radiated 
from the room. 

“That’s great,” said Rincewind. “Fine. It can lead us out of here. Now.” 

Twoflower was already rummaging in the chest. 

“Yes,” he said. “After I’ve taken a few pictures. Just let me fit the attachment 


“I said now —” 

Rincewind stopped. Hrun the Barbarian was standing in the passage mouth 
directly opposite him, a great black sword held in one ham-sized fist. 

“You?” said Hrun uncertainly. 

“Ahaha. Yes,” said Rincewind. “Hrun, isn’t it? Long time no see. What 
brings you here?” 

Hrun pointed to the Luggage. 

“That,” he said. This much conversation seemed to exhaust Hrun. Then he 



added, in a tone that combined statement, claim, threat and ultimatum: “Mine.” 


“It belongs to Twoflower here,” said Rincewind. “Here’s a tip. Don’t touch 
it.” 


It dawned on him that this was precisely the wrong thing to say, but Hrun 
had already pushed Twoflower away and was reaching for the Luggage... 

.. .which sprouted legs, backed away, and raised its lid threateningly. In the 
uncertain light Rincewind thought he could see rows of enormous teeth, white as 
bleached beech-wood. 

“Hrun,” he said quickly, “there’s something I ought to tell you.” 

Hrun turned a puzzled face to him. 

“What?” he said. 

“It’s about numbers. Look, you know if you add seven and one, or three and 
five, or take two from ten, you get a number. While you’re here don’t say it, and 
we might all stand a chance of getting out of here alive. Or merely just dead.” 

“Who is he?” asked Twoflower. He was holding a cage in his hands, dredged 
from the bottommost depths of the Luggage. It appeared to be full of sulking 
pink lizards. 

“I am Hrun,” said Hrun proudly. Then he looked at Rincewind. 

“What?” he said. 

“Just don’t say it, okay?” said Rincewind. 

He looked at the sword in Hrun’s hand. It was black, the sort of black that is 
less a color than a graveyard of colors, and there was a highly ornate runic 
inscription up the blade. More noticeable still was the faint octarine glow that 
surrounded it. The sword must have noticed him, too, because it suddenly spoke 
in a voice like a claw being scraped across glass. 

“Strange,” it said. “Why can’t he say eight?” 



EIGHT, Hate, ate said the echoes. There was the faintest of grinding noises, 
deep under the earth. 

And the echoes, although they became softer, refused to die away. They 
bounced from wall to wall, crossing and recrossing, and the violet light flickered 
in time with the sound. 

“You did it!” screamed Rincewind. “I said you shouldn’t say eight!” 

He stopped, appalled at himself. But the word was out now, and joined its 
colleagues in the general susurration. 

Rincewind turned to run, but the air suddenly seemed to be thicker than 
treacle. A charge of magic bigger than he had ever seen was building up; when 
he moved, in painful slow motion, his limbs left trails of golden sparks that 
traced their shape in the air. 

Behind him there was a rumble as the great octagonal slab rose into the air, 
hung for a moment on one edge, and crashed down on the floor. 

Something thin and black snaked out of the pit and wrapped itself around his 
ankle. He screamed as he landed heavily on the vibrating flagstones. The 
tentacle started to pull him across the floor. 

Then Twoflower was in front of him, reaching out for his hands. He grasped 
the little man’s arms desperately and they lay looking into each other’s faces. 
Rincewind slid on, even so. 

“What’s holding you?” he gasped. 

“N-nothing!” said Twoflower. “What’s happening?” 

“I’m being dragged into this pit, what do you think?” 

“Oh, Rincewind, I’m sorry—” 

“You’re sorry—” 


There was a noise like a singing saw and the pressure on Rincewind’s legs 
abruptly ceased. He turned his head and saw Hrun crouched by the pit, his sword 



a blur as it hacked at the tentacles racing out toward him. 

Twoflower helped the wizard to his feet and they crouched by the altar stone, 
watching the manic figure as it battled the questing arms. 

“It won’t work,” said Rincewind. “The Sender can materialize tentacles. 
What are you doing?” 

Twoflower was feverishly attaching the cage of subdued lizards to the 
picture box, which he had mounted on a tripod. 

“I’ve just got to get a picture of this,” he muttered. “It’s stupendous! Can you 
hear me, imp?” 

The picture imp opened his tiny hatch, glanced momentarily at the scene 
around the pit, and vanished into the box. Rincewind jumped as something 
touched his leg, and brought his heel down on a questing tentacle. 

“Come on,” he said. “Time to go zoom.” He grabbed Twoflower’s arm, but 
the tourist resisted. 

“Run away and leave Hrun with that thing?” he said. 

Rincewind looked blank. “Why not?” he said. “It’s his job.” 

“But it’ll kill him!” 

“It could be worse,” said Rincewind. 

“What?” 

“It could be us,” Rincewind pointed out logically. “Come on!” 

Twoflower pointed. “Hey!” he said. “It’s got my Luggage!” 

Before Rincewind could restrain him Twoflower ran around the edge of the 
pit to the box, which was being dragged across the floor while its lid snapped 
ineffectually at the tentacle that held it. The little man began to kick at the 
tentacle in fury. 


Another one snapped out of the melee around Hrun and caught him around 



the waist. Hrun himself was already an indistinct shape amid the tightening coils. 
Even as Rincewind stared in horror the Hero’s sword was wrenched from his 
grasp and hurled against a wall. 

“Your spell!” shouted Twoflower. 

Rincewind did not move. He was looking at the Thing rising out of the pit. It 
was an enormous eye, and it was staring directly at him. He whimpered as a 
tentacle fastened itself around his waist. 

The words of the spell rose unbidden in his throat. He opened his mouth as 
in a dream, shapping it around the first barbaric syllable. 

Another tentacle shot out like a whip and coiled around his throat, choking 
him. Staggering and gasping, Rincewind was dragged across the floor. 

One flailing arm caught Twoflower’s picture box as it skittered past on its 
tripod. He snatched it up instinctively, as his ancestors might have snatched up a 
stone when faced with a marauding tiger. If only he could get enough room to 
swing it against the Eye... 

...the Eye filled the whole universe in front of him. Rincewind felt his will 
draining away like water from a sieve. 

In front of him the torpid lizards stirred in their cage on the picture box. 
Irrationally, as a man about to be beheaded notices every scratch and stain on the 
executioner’s block, Rincewind saw that they had overlarge tails that were 
bluish-white and, he realized, throbbing alarmingly. 

As he was drawn toward the Eye the terror-struck Rincewind raised the box 
protectively, and at the same time heard the picture imp say, “They’re about ripe 
now, can’t hold them any longer. Everyone smile, please.” 

There was a— 

—flash of light so white and so bright— 

—it didn’t seem like light at all. 


Bel-Shamharoth screamed, a sound that started in the far ultrasonic and 



finished somewhere in Rincewind’s bowels. The tentacles went momentarily as 
stiff as rods, hurling their various cargoes around the room, before bunching up 
protectively in front of the abused Eye. The whole mass dropped into the pit and 
a moment later the big slab was snatched up by several dozen tentacles and 
slammed into place, leaving a number of thrashing limbs trapped around the 
edge. 

Hrun landed rolling, bounced off a wall and came up on his feet. He found 
his sword and started to chop methodically at the doomed arms. Rincewind lay 
on the floor, concentrating on not going mad. A hollow wooden noise made him 
turn his head. 

The Luggage had landed on its curved lid. Now it was rocking angrily and 
kicking its little legs in the air. 

Warily, Rincewind looked around for Twoflower. The little man was in a 
crumpled heap against the wall, but at least he was groaning. 

The wizard pulled himself across the floor, painfully, and whispered, “What 
the hell was that?” 

“Why were they so bright?” muttered Twoflower. “Gods, my head...” 

“Too bright?” said Rincewind. He looked across the floor to the cage on the 
picture box. The lizards inside, now noticeably thinner, were watching him with 
interest. 

“The salamanders,” moaned Twoflower. “The pictureT1 be overexposed, I 
know it...” 

“They’re salamanders?” asked Rincewind incredulously. 

“Of course. Standard attachment.” 

Rincewind staggered across to the box and picked it up. He’d seen 
salamanders before, of course, but they had been small specimens. They had also 
been floating in a jar of pickle in the curiobiological museum down in the cellars 
of Unseen University, since live salamanders were extinct around the Circle Sea. 


He tried to remember the little he knew about them. They were magical 



creatures. They also had no mouths, since they subsisted entirely on the 
nourishing quality of the octarine wavelength in the Discworld’s sunlight, which 
they absorbed through their skins. Of course, they also absorbed the rest of the 
sunlight as well, storing it in a special sac until it was excreted in the normal 
way. A desert inhabited by Discworld salamanders was a veritable lighthouse at 
night. 

Rincewind put them down and nodded grimly. With all the octarine light in 
this magical place the creatures had been gorging themselves, and then nature 
had taken its course. 

The picture box sidled away on its tripod. Rincewind aimed a kick at it, and 
missed. He was beginning to dislike sapient pearwood. 

Something small stung his cheek. He brushed it away irritably. 

He looked around at a sudden grinding noise, and a voice like a carving 
knife cutting through silk said, “This is very undignified.” 

“Shuddup,” said Hrun. He was using Kring to lever the top off the altar. He 
looked up at Rincewind and grinned. Rincewind hoped that rictus-strung 
grimace was a grin. 

“Mighty magic,” commented the barbarian, pushing down heavily on the 
complaining blade with a hand the size of a ham. “Now we share the treasure, 
eh?” 


Rincewind grunted as something small and hard stmck his ear. There was a 
gust of wind, hardly felt. 

“How do you know there’s treasure in there?” he said. 

Hrun heaved, and managed to hook his fingers under the stone. “You find 
chokeapples under a chokeapple tree,” he said. “You find treasure under altars. 
Logic.” 

He gritted his teeth. The stone swung up and landed heavily on the floor. 

This time something struck Rincewind’s hand, heavily. He clawed at the air 
and looked at the thing he had caught. It was a piece of stone with five-plus- 



three sides. He looked up at the ceiling. Should it be sagging like that? Hrun 
hummed a little tune as he began to pull crumbling leather from the desecrated 
altar. 

The air crackled, fluoresced, hummed. Intangible winds gripped the wizard’s 
robe, flapping it out in eddies of blue and green sparks. Around Rincewind’s 
head mad, half-formed spirits howled and gibbered as they were sucked past. 

He tried raising a hand. It was immediately surrounded by a glowing 
octarine corona as the rising magical wind roared past. The gale raced through 
the room without stirring one iota of dust, yet it was blowing Rincewind’s 
eyelids inside out. It screamed along the tunnels, its banshee-wail bouncing 
madly from stone to stone. 

Twoflower staggered up, bent double in the teeth of the astral gale. 

“What the hell is this?” he shouted. 

Rincewind half-turned. Immediately the howling wind caught him, nearly 
pitching him over. Poltergeist eddies, spinning in the rushing air, snatched at his 
feet. 


Hrun’s arm shot out and caught him. A moment later he and Twoflower had 
been dragged into the lee of the ravaged altar, and lay panting on the floor. 

Beside them the talking sword Kring sparkled, its magical field boosted a 
hundredfold by the storm. 

“Hold on!” screamed Rincewind. 

“The wind!” shouted Twoflower. “Where’s it coming from? Where’s it 
blowing to?” He looked into Rincewind’s mask of sheer terror, which made him 
redouble his own grip on the stones. 

“We’re doomed,” murmured Rincewind, while overhead the roof cracked 
and shifted. “Where do shadows come from? That’s where the wind is blowing!” 

What was in fact happening, as the wizard knew, was that as the abused 
spirit of Bel-Shamharoth sank through the deeper chthonic planes his brooding 
spirit was being sucked out of the very stones into the region which, according to 
the Discworld’s most reliable priests, was both under the ground and Somewhere 



Else. In consequence his temple was being abandoned to the ravages of Time, 
who for thousands of shamefaced years had been reluctant to go near the place. 
Now the suddenly released, accumulated weight of all those pent-up seconds 
was bearing down heavily on the unbraced stones. 

Hrun glanced up at the widening cracks and sighed. Then he put two fingers 
into his mouth and whistled. 

Strangely the real sound rang out loudly over the pseudo-sound of the 
widening astral whirlpool that was forming in the middle of the great octagonal 
slab. It was followed by a hollow echo which sounded, he fancied, strangely like 
the bouncing of strange bones. Then came a noise with no hint of strangeness. It 
was hollow hoofbeats. 

Hrun’s warhorse cantered through a creaking archway and reared up by its 
master, its mane streaming in the gale. The barbarian pulled himself to his feet 
and slung his treasure bags into a sack that hung from the saddle, then hauled 
himself onto the beast’s back. He reached down and grabbed Twoflower by the 
scruff of his neck, dragging him across the saddle tree. As the horse turned 
around Rincewind took a desperate leap and landed behind Hrun, who raised no 
objection. 

The horse pounded surefooted along the tunnels, leaping sudden slides of 
mbble and adroitly sidestepping huge stones as they thundered down from the 
straining roof. Rincewind, clinging on grimly, looked behind them. 

No wonder the horse was moving so swiftly. Close behind, speeding through 
the flickering violet light, were a large ominous-looking chest and a picture box 
that skittered along dangerously on its three legs. So great was the ability of 
sapient pearwood to follow its master anywhere, the gravegoods of dead 
emperors had traditionally been made of it... 

They reached the outer air a moment before the octagonal arch finally broke 
and smashed into the flags. 

The sun was rising. Behind them a column of dust rose as the temple 
collapsed in on itself, but they did not look back. That was a shame, because 
Twoflower might have been able to obtain pictures unusual even by Discworld 
standards. 



There was a movement in the smoking mins. They seemed to be growing a 
green carpet. Then an oak tree spiraled up, branching out like an exploding green 
rocket, and was in the middle of a venerable copse even before the tips of its 
aged branches had stopped quivering. A beech burst out like a fungus, matured, 
rotted, and fell in a cloud of tinder dust amid its struggling offspring. Already the 
temple was a half-buried heap of mossy stones. 

But Time, having initially gone for the throat, was now setting out to 
complete the job. The boiling interface between decaying magic and ascendant 
entropy roared down the hill and overtook the galloping horse, whose riders, 
being themselves creatures of Time, completely failed to notice it. But it lashed 
into the enchanted forest with the whip of centuries. 

“Impressive, isn’t it?” observed a voice by Rincewind’s knee as the horse 
cantered through the haze of decaying timber and falling leaves. 

The voice had an eerie metallic ring to it. Rincewind looked down at Kring 
the sword. It had a couple of rubies set in the pommel. He got the impression 
they were watching him. 

From the moorland rimward of the wood they watched the battle between 
the trees and Time, which could only have one ending. It was a sort of cabaret to 
the main business of the halt, which was the consumption of quite a lot of a bear 
which had incautiously come within bowshot of Hrun. 

Rincewind watched Hrun over the top of his slab of greasy meat. Hrun going 
about the business of being a hero, he realized, was quite different to the wine- 
bibbing, carousing Hrun who occasionally came to Ankh-Morpork. He was cat- 
cautious, lithe as a panther, and thoroughly at home. 

And I’ve survived Bel-Shamharoth, Rincewind reminded himself. Fantastic. 

Twoflower was helping the hero sort through the treasure stolen from the 
temple. It was mostly silver set with unpleasant purple stones. Representations 
of spiders, octopi and the tree-dwelling octarsier of the Hubland wastes figured 
largely in the heap. 

Rincewind tried to shut his ears to the grating voice beside him. It was no 


use. 



“—and then I belonged to the Pasha of Re’durat and played a prominent part 
in the battle of the Great Nef, which is where I received the slight nick you may 
have noticed some two-thirds of the way up my blade,” Kring was saying from 
its temporary home in a tussock. “Some infidel was wearing an octiron collar, 
most unsporting, and of course I was a lot sharper in those days and my master 
used to use me to cut silk handkerchiefs in midair and—am I boring you?” 

“Huh? Oh, no, no, not at all. It’s all very interesting,” said Rincewind, with 
his eyes still on Hrun. How trustworthy would he be? Here they were, out in the 
wilds, there were trolls about... 

“I could see you were a cultured person,” Kring went on. “So seldom do I 
get to meet really interesting people, for any length of time, anyway. What I’d 
really like is a nice mantelpiece to hang over, somewhere nice and quiet. I spent 
a couple of hundred years on the bottom of a lake once.” 

“That must have been fun,” said Rincewind absently. 

“Not really,” said Kring. 

“No, I suppose not.” 

“What I’d really like is to be a plowshare. I don’t know what that is, but it 
sounds like an existence with some point to it.” 

Twoflower hurried over to the wizard. 

“I had a great idea,” he burbled. 

“Yah,” said Rincewind, wearily. “Why don’t we get Hrun to accompany us 
to Quirm?” 

Twoflower looked amazed. “How did you know?” he said. 

“I just thought you’d think it,” said Rincewind. 

Hrun ceased stuffing silverware into his saddlebags and grinned 
encouragingly at them. Then his eyes strayed back to the Luggage. 


“If we had him with us, who’d attack us?” said Twoflower. 



Rincewind scratched his chin. “Hrun?” he suggested. 


“But we saved his life in the Temple!” 

“Well, if by attack you mean kill,” said Rincewind, “I don’t think he’d do 
that. He’s not that sort. He’d just rob us and tie us up and leave us for the 
wolves, I expect.” 

“Oh, come on.” 

“Look, this is real life,” snapped Rincewind. “I mean, here you are, carrying 
around a box full of gold, don’t you think anyone in their right minds would 
jump at the chance of pinching it?” I would, he added mentally—if I hadn’t seen 
what the Luggage does to prying fingers. 

Then the answer hit him. He looked from Hrun to the picture box. The 
picture imp was doing its laundry in a tiny tub, while the salamanders dozed in 
their cage. 

“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “I mean, what is it heroes really want?” 

“Gold?” said Twoflower. 

“No. I mean really want.” 

Twoflower frowned. “I don’t quite understand,” he said. Rincewind picked 
up the picture box. 

“Hrun,” he said. “Come over here, will you?” 


The days passed peacefully. True, a small band of bridge trolls tried to ambush 
them on one occasion, and a party of brigands nearly caught them unawares one 
night (but unwisely tried to investigate the Luggage before slaughtering the 
sleepers). Hrun demanded, and got, double pay for both occasions. 

“If any harm comes to us,” said Rincewind, “then there will be no one to 
operate the magic box. No more pictures of Hrun, you understand?” 

Hrun nodded, his eyes fixed on the latest picture. It showed Hrun striking a 



heroic pose, with one foot on a heap of slain trolls. 

“Me and you and little friend Twoflowers, we all get on hokay,” he said. 
“Also tomorrow, may we get a better profile, hokay?” 

He carefully wrapped the picture in trollskin and stowed it in his saddlebag, 
along with the others. 

“It seems to be working,” said Twoflower admiringly, as Hrun rode ahead to 
scout the road. 

“Sure,” said Rincewind. “What heroes like best is themselves.” 

“You’re getting quite good at using the picture box, you know that?” 

“Yar.” 

“So you might like to have this.” Twoflower held out a picture. 

“What is it?” asked Rincewind. 

“Oh, just the picture you took in the temple.” 

Rincewind looked in horror. There, bordered by a few glimpses of tentacle, 
was a huge, whorled, callused, potion-stained and unfocused thumb. 

“That’s the story of my life,” he said wearily. 


“You win,” said Fate, pushing the heap of souls across the gaming table. The 
assembled gods relaxed. “There will be other games,” he added. 

The Lady smiled into two eyes that were like holes in the universe. 


And then there was nothing but the ruin of the forests and a cloud of dust on the 
horizon, which drifted away on the breeze. And, sitting on a pitted and moss- 
grown milestone, a black and raggedy figure. His was the air of one who is 
unjustly put upon, who is dreaded and feared, yet who is the only friend of the 



poor and the best doctor for the mortally wounded. 


Death, although of course completely eyeless, watched Rincewind 
disappearing with what would, had His face possessed any mobility at all, have 
been a frown. Death, although exceptionally busy at all times, decided that He 
now had a hobby. There was something about the wizard that irked Him beyond 
measure. He didn’t keep appointments, for one thing. 

I’ll get you yet, cully, said Death, in the voice like the slamming of leaden 
coffin lids, see if I don’t. 



3 


Thf, Lure of thf. Wyrm 


It was called the Wyrmberg and it rose almost one half of a mile above the green 
valley; a mountain huge, gray and upside down. 

At its base it was a mere score of yards across. Then it rose through clinging 
cloud, curving gracefully outward like an upturned trumpet until it was truncated 
by a plateau fully a quarter of a mile across. There was a tiny forest up there, its 
greenery cascading over the lip. There were buildings. There was even a small 
river, tumbling over the edge in a waterfall so wind-whipped that it reached the 
ground as rain. 

There were also a number of cave mouths, a few yards below the plateau. 
They had a crudely carved, regular look about them, so that on this crisp autumn 
morning the Wyrmberg hung over the clouds like a giant’s dovecote. 

This would mean that the “doves” had a wingspan slightly in excess of forty 
yards. 


“I knew it,” said Rincewind. “We’re in a strong magical field.” 

Twoflower and Hrun looked around the little hollow where they had made 
their noonday halt. Then they looked at each other. 

The horses were quietly cropping the rich grass by the stream. Yellow 
butterflies skittered among the bushes. There was a smell of thyme and a 
buzzing of bees. The wild pigs on the spit sizzled gently. 



Hrun shrugged and went back to oiling his biceps. They gleamed. 


“Looks all right to me,” he said. 

“Try tossing a coin,” said Rincewind. 

“What?” 

“Go on. Toss a coin.” 

“Hokay,” said Hrun. “If it gives you any pleasure.” He reached into his 
pouch and withdrew a handful of loose change plundered from a dozen realms. 
With some care he selected a Zchloty leaden quarter-iotum and balanced it on a 
purple thumbnail. 

“You call,” he said. “Heads or—” he inspected the obverse with an air of 
intense concentration, “some sort of a fish with legs.” 

“When it’s in the air,” said Rincewind. Hrun grinned and flicked his thumb. 

The iotum rose, spinning. 

“Edge,” said Rincewind, without looking at it. 


Magic never dies. It merely fades away. 

Nowhere was this more evident on the wide blue expanse of the Discworld 
than in those areas that had been the scene of the great battles of the Mage Wars, 
which had happened very shortly after Creation. In those days magic in its raw 
state had been widely available, and had been eagerly utilized by the First Men 
in their war against the gods. 

The precise origins of the Mage Wars have been lost in the fogs of Time, but 
Disc philosophers agree that the First Men, shortly after their creation, 
understandably lost their temper. And great and pyrotechnic were the battles that 
followed—the sun wheeled across the sky, the seas boiled, weird storms ravaged 
the land, small white pigeons mysteriously appeared in people’s clothing, and 
the very stability of the Disc (carried as it was through space on the backs of four 
giant turtle-riding elephants) was threatened. This resulted in stern action by the 



Old High Ones, to whom even the gods themselves are answerable. The gods 
were banished to high places, men were re-created a good deal smaller, and 
much of the old wild magic was sucked out of the earth. 

That did not solve the problem of those places on the Disc which, during the 
wars, had suffered a direct hit by a spell. The magic faded away—slowly, over 
the millennia, releasing as it decayed myriads of sub-astral particles that severely 
distorted the reality around it... 


Rincewind, Twoflower and Hmn stared at the coin. 

“Edge it is,” said Hrun. “Well, you’re a wizard. So what?” 

“I don’t do—that sort of spell.” 

“You mean you can’t.” 

Rincewind ignored this, because it was true. “Try it again,” he suggested. 

Hrun pulled out a fistful of coins. 

The first two landed in the usual manner. So did the fourth. The third landed 
on its edge and balanced there. The fifth turned into a small yellow caterpillar 
and crawled away. The sixth, upon reaching its zenith, vanished with a sharp 
“spang!” A moment later there was a small thunder clap. 

“Hey, that one was silver!” exclaimed Hrun, rising to his feet and staring 
upward. “Bring it back!” 

“I don’t know where it’s gone,” said Rincewind wearily. “It’s probably still 
accelerating. The ones I tried this morning didn’t come down, anyway.” 

Hrun was still staring into the sky. 

“What?” said Twoflower. 


Rincewind sighed. He had been dreading this. 

“We’ve strayed into a zone with a high magical index,” he said. “Don’t ask 



me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been 
generated here, and we’re feeling the aftereffects.” 

“Precisely,” said a passing bush. 

Hrun’s head jerked down. 

“You mean this is one of those places?” he asked. “Let’s get out of here!” 

“Right,” agreed Rincewind. “If we retrace our steps we might make it. We 
can stop every mile or so and toss a coin.” 

He stood up urgently and started stuffing things into his saddlebags. 

“What?” said Twoflower. 

Rincewind stopped. “Look,” he snapped. “Just don’t argue. Come on.” 

“It looks all right,” said Twoflower. “Just a bit underpopulated, that’s all...” 

“Yes,” said Rincewind. “Odd, isn’t it? Come on!” 

There was a noise high above them, like a strip of leather being slapped on a 
wet rock. Something glassy and indistinct passed over Rincewind’s head, 
throwing up a cloud of ashes from the fire, and the pig carcass took off from the 
spit and rocketed into the sky. 

It banked to avoid a clump of trees, righted itself, roared around in a tight 
circle, and headed hubward leaving a trail of hot pork-fat droplets. 


“What are they doing now?” asked the old man. 

The young woman glanced at the scrying glass. 

“Heading rimward at speed,” she reported. “By the way—they’ve still got 
that box on legs.” 


The old man chuckled, an oddly disturbing sound in the dark and dusty 
crypt. “Sapient pearwood,” he said. “Remarkable. Yes, I think we will have that. 



Please see to it, my dear—before they go beyond your power, perhaps?” 


“Silence! Or—” 

“Or what, Liessa?” said the old man (in this dim light there was something 
odd about the way he was slumped in the stone chair). “You killed me once 
already, remember?” 

She snorted and stood up, tossing back her hair scornfully. It was red, 
flecked with gold. Erect, Liessa Wyrmbidder was entirely a magnificent sight. 
She was also almost naked, except for a couple of mere scraps of the lightest 
chain mail and riding boots of iridescent dragonhide. In one boot was thrust a 
riding crop, unusual in that it was as long as a spear and tipped with tiny steel 
barbs. 

“My power will be quite sufficient,” she said coldly. 

The indistinct figure appeared to nod, or at least to wobble. “As you keep 
assuring me,” he said. Liessa snorted, and strode out of the hall. 

Her father did not bother to watch her go. One reason for this was, of course, 
that since he had been dead for three months his eyes were in any case not in the 
best of condition. The other was that as a wizard—even a dead wizard of the 
fifteenth grade, his optic nerves had long since become attuned to seeing into 
levels and dimensions far removed from common reality, and were therefore 
somewhat inefficient at observing the merely mundane. (During his life they had 
appeared to others to be eight-faceted and eerily insectile). Besides, since he was 
now suspended in the narrow space between the living world and the dark 
shadow-world of Death he could survey the whole of Causality itself. That was 
why, apart from a mild hope that this time his wretched daughter would get 
herself killed, he did not devote his considerable powers to learning more about 
the three travelers galloping desperately out of his realm. 


Several hundred yards away, Liessa was in a strange humor as she strode down 
the worn steps that led into the hollow heart of the Wyrmberg, followed by half a 
dozen Riders. Would this be the opportunity? Perhaps here was the key to break 
the deadlock, the key to the throne of the Wyrmberg. It was rightfully hers, of 
course; but tradition said that only a man could rule the Wyrmberg. That irked 



Liessa, and when she was angry the Power flowed stronger and the dragons were 
especially big and ugly. 

If she had a man, things would be different. Someone who, for preference, 
was a big strapping lad but short on brains. Someone who would do what he was 
told... 

The biggest of the three now fleeing the dragonlands might do. And if it 
turned out that he wouldn’t, then dragons were always hungry and needed to be 
fed regularly. She could see to it that they got ugly. 

Uglier than usual, anyway. 

The stairway passed through a stone arch and ended in a narrow ledge near 
the roof of the great cavern where the Wyrms roosted. 

Sunbeams from the myriad entrances around the walls crisscrossed the dusty 
gloom like amber rods in which a million golden insects had been preserved. 
Below, they revealed nothing but a thin haze. Above... 

The walking rings started so close to Liessa’s head that she could reach up 
and touch one. They stretched away in their thousands across the upturned acres 
of the cavern roof. It had taken a score of masons a score of years to hammer the 
pitons for all those, hanging from their work as they progressed. Yet they were as 
nothing compared to the eighty-eight major rings that clustered near the apex of 
the dome. A further fifty had been lost in the old days, as they were swung into 
place by teams of sweating slaves (and there had been slaves aplenty, in the first 
days of the Power) and the great rings had gone crashing into the depths, 
dragging their unfortunate manipulators with them. 

But eighty-eight had been installed, huge as rainbows, rusty as blood. From 
them... 


The dragons sense Liessa’s presence. Air swishes around the cavern as eighty- 
eight pairs of wings unfold like a complicated puzzle. Great heads with green, 
multifaceted eyes peer down at her. 


The beasts are still faintly transparent. While the men around her take their 



hookboots from the rack, Liessa bends her mind to the task of full visualization; 
above her in the musty air the dragons become fully visible, bronze scales dully 
reflecting the sunbeam shafts. Her mind throbs, but now that the Power is 
flowing fully she can, with barely a waver of concentration, think of other things. 

Now she too buckles on the hookboots and turns a graceful cartwheel to 
bring their hooks, with a faint clang, against a couple of the walking rings in the 
ceiling. 

Only now it is the floor. The world has changed. Now she is standing on the 
edge of a deep bowl or crater, floored with the little rings across which the 
dragonriders are already strolling with a pendulum gait. In the center of the 
bowl their huge mounts wait among the herd. Far above are the distant rocks of 
the cavern floor, discolored by centuries of dragon droppings. 

Moving with the easy gliding movement that is second nature Liessa sets off 
toward her own dragon, Laolith, who turns his great horsey head toward her. 

His jowls are greasy with pork fat. 

It was very enjoyable, he says in her mind. 

“I thought I said there were to be no unaccompanied flights?” she snaps. 

I was hungry, Liessa. 

“Curb your hunger. Soon there will be horses to eat. ” 

The reins stick in our teeth. Are there any warriors ? We like warriors. 

Liessa swings down the mounting ladder and lands with her legs locked 
around Laolith’s leathery neck. 

“The warrior is mine. There are a couple of others you can have. One 
appears to be a wizard of sorts,” she adds by way of encouragement. 

Oh, you know how it is with wizards. Half an hour afterward you could do 
with another one, the dragon grumbles. 


He spreads his wings and drops. 



“They’re gaining!” screamed Rincewind. He bent even lower over his horse’s 
neck and groaned. Twoflower was trying to keep up while at the same time 
craning round to look at the flying beasts. 

“You don’t understand!” screamed the tourist, above the terrible noise of the 
wingbeats. “All my life I’ve wanted to see dragons!” 

“From the inside?” shouted Rincewind. “Shut up and ride!” He whipped at 
his horse with the reins and stared at the wood ahead, trying to drag it closer by 
sheer willpower. Under those trees they’d be safe. Under those trees no dragons 
could fly... 

He heard the clap of wings before shadows folded around him. Instinctively 
he rolled in the saddle and felt the white-hot stab of pain as something sharp 
scored a line across his shoulders. 

Behind him Hrun screamed, but it sounded more like a bellow of rage than a 
cry of pain. The barbarian had vaulted down into the heather and had drawn the 
black sword, Kring. He flourished it as one of the dragons curved in for another 
low pass. 

“No bloody lizard does that to me!” he roared. 

Rincewind leaned over and grabbed Twoflower’s reins. 

“Come on!” he hissed. 

“But, the dragons—” said Twoflower, entranced. 

“Blast the—” began the wizard, and froze. Another dragon had peeled off 
from the circling dots overhead and was gliding toward them. Rincewind let go 
of Twoflower’s horse, swore bitterly, and spurred his own mount toward the 
trees, alone. He didn’t look back at the sudden commotion behind him and, when 
a shadow passed over him, merely gibbered weakly and tried to burrow into the 
horse’s mane. 

Then, instead of the searing, piercing pain he had expected, there was a 
series of stinging blows as the terrified animal passed under the eaves of the 
wood. The wizard tried to hang on but another low branch, stouter than the 
others, knocked him out of the saddle. The last thing he heard before the flashing 



blue lights of unconsciousness closed in was a high reptilian scream of 
frustration, and the thrashing of talons in the treetops. 


When he awoke a dragon was watching him; at least, it was staring in his general 
direction. Rincewind groaned and tried to dig his way into the moss with his 
shoulderblades, then gasped as the pain hit him. 

Through the mists of agony and fear he looked back at the dragon. 

The creature was hanging from a branch of a large dead oak tree, several 
hundred feet away. Its bronze-gold wings were tightly wrapped around its body 
but the long equine head turned this way and that at the end of a remarkably 
prehensile neck. It was scanning the forest. 

It was also semitransparent. Although the sun glinted off its scales, 
Rincewind could clearly make out the outlines of the branches behind it. 

On one of them a man was sitting, dwarfed by the hanging reptile. He 
appeared to be naked except for a pair of high boots, a tiny leather hold-all in the 
region of his groin, and a high-crested helmet. He was swinging a short sword 
back and forth idly, and stared out across the treetops with the air of one carrying 
out a tedious and unglamorous assignment. 

A beetle began to crawl laboriously up Rincewind’s leg. 

The wizard wondered how much damage a half-solid dragon could do. 
Would it only half-kill him? He decided not to stay and find out. 

Moving on heels, fingertips and shoulder muscles, Rincewind wriggled 
sideways until foliage masked the oak and its occupants. Then he scrambled to 
his feet and hared off between the trees. 

He had no destination in mind, no provisions, and no horse. But while he 
still had legs he could run. Ferns and brambles whipped at him, but he didn’t feel 
them at all. 

When he had put about a mile between him and the dragon he stopped and 
collapsed against a tree, which then spoke to him. 



“Psst,” it said. 


Dreading what he might see, Rincewind let his gaze slide upward. It tried to 
fasten on innocuous bits of bark and leaf, but the scourge of curiosity forced it to 
leave them behind. Finally it fixed on a black sword thrust straight through the 
branch above Rincewind’s head. 

“Don’t just stand there,” said the sword (in a voice like the sound of a finger 
dragged around the rim of a large empty wine glass). “Pull me out.” 

“What?” said Rincewind, his chest still heaving. 

“Pull me out,” repeated Kring. “It’s either that or I’ll be spending the next 
million years in a coal measure. Did I ever tell you about the time I was thrown 
into a lake up in the—” 

“What happened to the others?” said Rincewind, still clutching the tree 
desperately. 

“Oh, the dragons got them. And the horses. And that box thing. Me too, 
except that Hrun dropped me. What a stroke of luck for you.” 

“Well—” began Rincewind. Kring ignored him. 

“I expect you’ll be in a hurry to rescue them,” it added. 

“Yes, well—” 

“So if you’ll just pull me out we can be off.” 

Rincewind squinted up at the sword. A rescue attempt had hitherto been so 
far at the back of his mind that, if some advanced speculations on the nature and 
shape of the many-dimensioned multiplexity of the universe were correct, it was 
right at the front; but a magic sword was a valuable item... 

And it would be a long trek back home, wherever that was... 

He scrambled up the tree and inched along the branch. Kring was buried 
very firmly in the wood. He gripped the pommel and heaved until lights flashed 
in front of his eyes. 



“Try again,” said the sword encouragingly. 

Rincewind groaned and gritted his teeth. 

“Could be worse,” said Kring. “This could have been an anvil.” 

“Yaargh,” hissed the wizard, fearing for the future of his groin. 

“I have had a multidimensional existence,” said the sword. 

“Ungh?” 

“I have had many names, you know.” 

“Amazing,” said Rincewind. He swayed backward as the blade slid free. It 
felt strangely light. 

Back on the ground again he decided to break the news. 

“I really don’t think rescue is a good idea,” he said. “I think we’d better head 
back to a city, you know. To raise a search party.” 

“The dragons headed hubward,” said Kring. “However, I suggest we start 
with the one in the trees over there.” 

“Sorry, but—” 

“You can’t leave them to their fate!” 

Rincewind looked surprised. “I can’t?” he said. 

“No. You can’t. Look, I’ll be frank. I’ve worked with better material than 
you, but it’s either that or—have you ever spent a million years in a coal 
measure?” 

“Look, I—” 

“So if you don’t stop arguing I’ll chop your head off.” 


Rincewind saw his own arm snap up until the shimmering blade was 
humming a mere inch from his throat. He tried to force his fingers to let go. 



They wouldn’t. 


“I don’t know how to be a hero!” he shouted. 
“I propose to teach you.” 


Bronze Psepha rumbled deep in his throat. 

KIsdra the dragonrider leaned forward and squinted across the clearing. 

“I see him,” he said. He swung himself down easily from branch to branch 
and landed lightly on the tussocky grass, drawing his sword. 

He took a long look at the approaching man, who was obviously not keen on 
leaving the shelter of the trees. He was armed, but the dragonrider observed with 
some interest the strange way in which the man held the sword in front of him at 
arm’s length, as though embarrassed to be seen in its company. 

KIsdra hefted his own sword and grinned expansively as the wizard shuffled 
toward him. Then he leapt. 

Later, he remembered only two things about the fight. He recalled the 
uncanny way in which the wizard’s sword curved up and caught his own blade 
with a shock that jerked it out of his grip. The other thing—and it was this, he 
averred, that led to his downfall—was that the wizard was covering his eyes with 
one hand. 

KIsdra jumped back to avoid another thrust and fell full length on the turf. 
With a snarl Psepha unfolded his great wings and launched himself from his tree. 

A moment later the wizard was standing over him, shouting, “Tell it that if it 
singes me I’ll let the sword go! I will! I’ll let it go! So tell it!” The tip of the 
black sword was hovering over KIsdra’s throat. What was odd was that the 
wizard was obviously struggling with it, and it appeared to be singing to itself. 

“Psepha!” KIsdra shouted. 

The dragon roared in defiance, but pulled out of the dive that would have 
removed Rincewind’s head, and flapped ponderously back to the tree. 



“Talk!” screamed Rincewind. 


KIsdra squinted at him up the length of the sword. 

“What would you like me to say?” he asked. 

“What?” 

“I said what would you like me to say? 

“Where are my friends? The barbarian and the little man is what I mean!” 

“I expect they have been taken back to the Wyrmberg.” 

Rincewind tugged desperately against the surge of the sword, trying to shut 
his mind to Kring’s bloodthirsty humming. 

“What’s a Wyrmberg?” he said. 

“The Wyrmberg. There is only one. It is Dragonhome.” 

“And I suppose you were waiting to take me there, eh?” 

K!sdra yelped involuntarily as the tip of the sword pricked a bead of blood 
from his Adam’s apple. 

“Don’t want people to know you’ve got dragons here, eh?” snarled 
Rincewind. The dragonrider forgot himself enough to nod, and came within a 
quarter-inch of cutting his own throat. 

Rincewind looked around desperately, and realized that this was something 
he was really going to have to go through with. 

“Right then,” he said as diffidently as he could manage. “You’d better take 
me to this Wyrmberg of yours, hadn’t you?” 

“I was supposed to take you in dead,” muttered KJsdra sullenly. 

Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic and 
utterly humorless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally accompanied by 
small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps out of the teeth. 



“Alive will do,” said Rincewind. “If we’re talking about anyone being dead, 
remember whose sword is in which hand.” 

“If you kill me nothing will prevent Psepha killing you!” shouted the prone 
dragonrider. 

“So what I’ll do is, I’ll chop bits off,” agreed the wizard. He tried the effect 
of the grin again. 

“Oh, all right,” said K!sdra sulkily. “Do you think I’ve got no imagination?” 

He wriggled out from under the sword and waved at the dragon, which took 
wing again and glided in toward them. Rincewind swallowed. 

“You mean we’ve got to go on that?” he said. KIsdra looked at him 
scornfully, the point of Kring still aimed at his neck. 

“How else would anyone get to the Wyrmberg?” 

“I don’t know,” said Rincewind. “How else?” 

“I mean, there is no other way. It’s flying or nothing.” 

Rincewind looked again at the dragon before him. He could quite clearly see 
through it to the crushed grass on which it lay but, when he gingerly touched a 
scale that was a mere golden sheen on thin air, it felt solid enough. Either 
dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half- 
existing was worse than the extremes. 

“I didn’t know dragons could be seen through,” he said. 

KIsdra shrugged. “Didn’t you?” he said. 

He swung himself astride the dragon awkwardly, because Rincewind was 
hanging on to his belt. Once uncomfortably aboard the wizard moved his white- 
knuckle grip to a convenient piece of harness and prodded KIsdra lightly with 
the sword. 

“Have you ever flown before?” said the dragonrider, without looking 
around. 



“Not as such, no.” 

“Would you like something to suck?” 

Rincewind gazed at the back of the man’s head, then dropped to the bag of 
red and yellow sweets that was being proffered. 

“Is it necessary?” he asked. 

“It is traditional,” said K!sdra. “Please yourself.” 

The dragon stood up, lumbered heavily across the meadow, and fluttered 
into the air. 

Rincewind occasionally had nightmares about teetering on some intangible 
but enormously high place, and seeing a blue-distanced, cloud-punctuated 
landscape reeling away below him (this usually woke him up with his ankles 
sweating; he would have been even more worried had he known that the 
nightmare was not, as he thought, just the usual Discworld vertigo. It was a 
backward memory of an event in his future so terrifying that it had generated 
harmonics of fear all the way along his lifeline). 

This was not that event, but it was good practice for it. 

Psepha clawed its way into the air with a series of vertebrae-shattering 
bounds. At the top of its last leap the wide wings unfolded with a snap and 
spread out with a thump which shook the trees. 

Then the ground was gone, dropping away in a series of gentle jerks. Psepha 
was suddenly rising gracefully, the afternoon sunlight gleaming off wings that 
were still no more than a golden film. Rincewind made the mistake of glancing 
downward, and found himself looking through the dragon to the treetops below. 
Far below. His stomach shrank at the sight. 

Closing his eyes wasn’t much better, because it gave his imagination full 
rein. He compromised by gazing fixedly into the middle distance, where 
moorland and forest drifted by and could be contemplated almost casually. 


Wind snatched at him. K!sdra half turned and shouted into his ear. 



“Behold the Wyrmberg!” 


Rincewind turned his head slowly, taking care to keep Kring resting lightly 
on the dragon’s back. His streaming eyes saw the impossibly inverted mountain 
rearing out of the deep forested valley like a trumpet in a tub of moss. Even at 
this distance he could make out the faint octarine glow in the air that must be 
indicating a stable magic aura of at least—he gasped—several milliPrime? At 
least! 

“Oh no,” he said. 

Even looking at the ground was better than that. He averted his eyes quickly, 
and realized that he could now no longer see the ground through the dragon. As 
they glided around in a wide circle toward the Wyrmberg it was definitely taking 
on a more solid form, as if the creature’s body was filling with a gold mist. By 
the time the Wyrmberg was in front of them, swinging wildly across the sky, the 
dragon was as real as a rock. 

Rincewind thought he could see a faint streak in the air, as if something from 
the mountain had reached out and touched the beast. He got the strange feeling 
that the dragon was being made more genuine. 

Ahead of it the Wyrmberg turned from a distant toy to several billion tons of 
rock poised between heaven and earth. He could see small fields, woods and a 
lake up there, and from the lake a river spilled out and over the edge... 

He made the mistake of following the thread of foaming water with his eyes, 
and jerked himself back just in time. 

The flared plateau of the upturned mountain drifted toward them. The 
dragon didn’t even slow. 

As the mountain loomed over Rincewind like the biggest fly-swatter in the 
universe he saw a cave mouth. Psepha skimmed toward it, shoulder muscles 
pumping. 

The wizard screamed as the dark spread and enfolded him. There was a brief 
vision of rock flashing past, blurred by speed. Then the dragon was in the open 
again. 



It was inside a cave, but bigger than any cave had a right to be. The dragon, 
gliding across its vast emptiness, was a mere gilded fly in a banqueting hall. 

There were other dragons—gold, silver, black, white—flapping across the 
sun-shafted air on errands of their own or perched on outcrops of rock. High in 
the domed roof of the cavern scores of others hung from huge rings, their wings 
wrapped batlike around their bodies. There were men up there, too. Rincewind 
swallowed hard when he saw them, because they were walking on that broad 
expanse of ceiling like flies. 

Then he made out the thousands of tiny rings that studded the ceiling. A 
number of inverted men were watching Psepha’s flight with interest. Rincewind 
swallowed again. For the life of him he couldn’t think of what to do next. 

“Well?” he asked, in a whisper. “Any suggestions?” 

“Obviously you attack,” said Kring scornfully. 

“Why didn’t I think of that?” said Rincewind. “Could it be because they all 
have crossbows?” 

“You’re a defeatist.” 

“Defeatist! That’s because I’m going to be defeated!” 

“You’re your own worst enemy, Rincewind,” said the sword. 

Rincewind looked up at grinning men. 

“Bet?” he said wearily. 

Before Kring could reply Psepha reared in midair and alighted on one of the 
large rings, which rocked alarmingly. 

“Would you like to die now, or surrender first?” asked K!sdra calmly. 

Men were converging on the ring from all directions, walking with a 
swaying motion as their hooked boots engaged the ceiling rings. 


There were more boots on a rack that hung in a small platform built on the 



side of the perch-ring. Before Rincewind could stop him the dragonrider had 
leapt from the creature’s back to land on the platform, where he stood grinning at 
the wizard’s discomforture. 

There was a small expressive sound made by a number of crossbows being 
cocked. Rincewind looked up at a number of impassive, upside down faces. The 
dragonfolk’s taste in clothing didn’t run to anything much more imaginative than 
a leather harness, studded with bronze ornaments. Knives and sword sheaths 
were worn inverted. Those who were not wearing helmets let their hair flow 
freely, so that it moved like seaweed in the ventilation breeze near the roof. 

There were several women among them. The inversion did strange things to 
their anatomy. Rincewind stared. 

“Surrender,” said KIsdra again. 

Rincewind opened his mouth to do so. Kring hummed a warning, and 
agonizing waves of pain shot up his arm. “Never,” he squeaked. The pain 
stopped. 

“Of course he won’t!” boomed an expansive voice behind him. “He’s a hero, 
isn’t he?” 

Rincewind turned and looked into a pair of hairy nostrils. They belonged to a 
heavily built young man, hanging nonchalantly from the ceiling by his boots. 

“What is your name, hero?” said the man. “So that we know who you were.” 

Agony shot up Rincewind’s arm. “I—I’m Rincewind of Ankh,” he managed 
to gasp. 

“And I am Lio!rt Dragonlord,” said the hanging man, pronouncing the word 
with the harsh click in the back of the throat that Rincewind could only think of 
as a kind of integral punctuation. “You have come to challenge me in mortal 
combat.” 

“Well, no, I didn’t—” 

“You are mistaken. KIsdra, help our hero into a pair of hookboots. I am sure 
he is anxious to get started.” 



“No, look, I just came here to find my friends. I’m sure there’s no—” 
Rincewind began, as the dragonrider guided him firmly onto the platform, 
pushed him onto a seat, and proceeded to strap hookboots to his feet. 

“Hurry up, KIsdra. We mustn’t keep our hero from his destiny,” said Lio!rt. 

“Look, I expect my friends are happy enough here, so if you could just, you 
know, set me down somewhere—” 

“You will see your friends soon enough,” said the dragonlord airily. “If you 
are religious, I mean. None who enter the Wyrmberg ever leave again. Except 
metaphorically, of course. Show him how to reach the rings, KIsdra.” 

“Look what you’ve got me into!” Rincewind hissed. 

Kring vibrated in his hand. “Remember that I am a magic sword,” it 
hummed. 

“How can I forget?” 

“Climb the ladder and grab a ring,” said the dragonrider, “then bring your 
feet up until the hooks catch.” He helped the protesting wizard climb until he 
was hanging upside down, robe tucked into his britches, Kring dangling from 
one hand. At this angle the dragonfolk looked reasonably bearable but the 
dragons themselves, hanging from their perches, loomed over the scene like 
immense gargoyles. Their eyes glowed with interest. 

“Attention, please,” said Liolrt. A dragonrider handed him a long shape, 
wrapped in red silk. 

“We fight to the death,” he said. “Yours.” 

“And I suppose I earn my freedom if I win?” said Rincewind, without much 
hope. 

Liolrt indicated the assembled dragonriders with a tilt of his head. 

“Don’t be naive,” he said. 


Rincewind took a deep breath. “I suppose I should warn you,” he said, his 



voice hardly quavering at all, “that this is a magic sword.” 


Lio!rt let the red silk wrapping drop away into the gloom and flourished a 
jet-black blade. Runes glowed on its surface. 

“What a coincidence,” he said, and lunged. 

Rincewind went rigid with fright, but his arm swung out as Kring shot 
forward. The swords met in an explosion of octarine light. 

Lio!rt swung himself backward, his eyes narrowing. Kring leapt past his 
guard and, although the dragonlord’s sword jerked up to deflect most of the 
force, the result was a thin red line across its master’s torso. 

With a growl he launched himself at the wizard, boots clattering as he slid 
from ring to ring. The swords met again in another violent discharge of magic 
and, at the same time, Liolrt brought his other hand down against Rincewind’s 
head, jarring him so hard that one foot jerked out of its ring and flailed 
desperately. 


Rincewind knew himself to be almost certainly the worst wizard on the 
Discworld since he knew but one spell; yet for all that he was still a wizard, and 
thus by the inexorable laws of magic this meant that upon his demise it would be 
Death himself who appeared to claim him (instead of sending one of his 
numerous servants, as is usually the case). 

Thus it was that, as a grinning Lio!rt swung back and brought his sword 
around in a lazy arc, time ran into treacle. 

To Rincewind’s eyes the world was suddenly lit by a flickering octarine 
light, tinged with violet as photons impacted on the sudden magical aura. Inside 
it the dragonlord was a ghastly-hued statue, his sword moving at a snail’s pace in 
the glow. 

Beside Liolrt was another figure, visible only to those who can see into the 
extra four dimensions of magic. It was tall and dark and thin and, against a 
sudden night of frosty stars, it swung two-handed a scythe of proverbial 
sharpness... 



Rincewind ducked. The blade hissed coldly through the air beside his head 
and entered the rock of the cavern roof without slowing. Death screamed a curse 
in his cold crypt voice. The scene vanished. What passed for reality on the 
Discworld reasserted itself with a rush of sound. Liolrt gasped at the sudden turn 
of speed with which the wizard had dodged his killing stroke and, with that 
desperation only available to the really terrified, Rincewind uncoiled like a snake 
and launched himself across the space between them. He locked both hands 
around the dragonlord’s sword arm, and wrenched. 

It was at that moment that Rincewind’s one remaining ring, already 
overburdened, slid out of the rock with a nasty little metal sound. 

He plunged down, swung wildly, and ended up dangling over a bone- 
splintering death with his hands gripping the dragonlord’s arm so tightly that the 
man screamed. 

Lio!rt looked up at his feet. Small flakes of rock were dropping out of the 
roof around the ring pitons. 

“Let go, damn you!” he screamed. “Or we’ll both die!” 

Rincewind said nothing. He was concentrating on maintaining his grip and 
keeping his mind closed to the pressing images of his fate on the rocks below. 

“Shoot him!” bellowed Lio!rt. 

Out of the corner of his eye Rincewind saw several crossbows leveled at 
him. Lio!rt chose that moment to flail down with his free hand, and a fistful of 
rings stabbed into the wizard’s fingers. 

He let go. 


Twoflower grabbed the bars and pulled himself up. 

“See anything?” said Hrun, from the region of his feet. 
“Just clouds.” 


Hrun lifted him down again, and sat on the edge of one of the wooden beds 



that were the only furnishings in the cell. “Bloody hell,” he said. 


“Don’t despair,” said Twoflower. 

“I’m not despairing.” 

“I expect it’s all some sort of misunderstanding. I expect they’ll release us 
soon. They seem very civilized.” 

Hrun stared at him from under bushy eyebrows. He started to say something, 
then appeared to think better of it. He sighed instead. 

“And when we get back we can say we’ve seen dragons!” Twoflower 
continued. “What about that, eh?” 

“Dragons don’t exist,” said Hrun flatly. “Codice of Chimeria killed the last 
one two hundred years ago. I don’t know what we’re seeing, but they aren’t 
dragons.” 

“But they carried us up in the air! In that hall there must have been hundreds 

55 


“I expect it was just magic,” said Hrun, dismissively. 

“Well, they looked like dragons,” said Twoflower, an air of defiance about 
him. “I always wanted to see dragons, ever since I was a little lad. Dragons 
flying around in the sky, breathing flames...” 

“They just used to crawl around in swamps and stuff, and all they breathed 
was stink,” said Hrun, lying down in the bunk. “They weren’t very big, either. 
They used to collect firewood.” 

“I heard they used to collect treasure,” said Twoflower. 

“And firewood. Hey,” Hrun added, brightening up, “did you notice all those 
rooms they brought us through? Pretty impressive, I thought. Lot of good stuff 
about, plus some of those tapestries have got to be worth a fortune.” He 
scratched his chin thoughtfully, making a noise like a porcupine shouldering its 
way through gorse. 



“What happens next?” asked Twoflower. 

Hrun screwed a finger in his ear and inspected it absently. 

“Oh,” he said, “I expect in a minute the door will be flung back and I’ll be 
dragged off to some sort of temple arena where I’ll fight maybe a couple of giant 
spiders and an eight-foot slave from the jungles of Klatch and then I’ll rescue 
some kind of a princess from the altar and then kill off a few guards or whatever 
and then this girl will show me the secret passage out of the place and we’ll 
liberate a couple of horses and escape with the treasure.” Hrun leaned his head 
back on his hands and looked at the ceiling, whistling tunelessly. 

“All that?” said Twoflower. 

“Usually.” 

Twoflower sat down on his bunk and tried to think. This proved difficult, 
because his mind was awash with dragons. 

Dragons! 

Ever since he was two years old he had been captivated by the pictures of 
the fiery beasts in The Octarine Fairy Book. His sister had told him they didn’t 
really exist, and he recalled the bitter disappointment. If the world didn’t contain 
those beautiful creatures, he’d decided, it wasn’t half the world it ought to be. 
And then later he had been bound apprentice to Ninereeds the Masteraccount, 
who in his gray-mindedness was everything that dragons were not, and there was 
no time for dreaming. 

But there was something wrong with these dragons. They were too small and 
sleek, compared to the ones in his mind’s eye. Dragons ought to be big and green 
and clawed and exotic and firebreathing—big and green with long sharp... 

Something moved at the edge of his vision, in the furthest, darkest corner of 
the dungeon. When he turned his head it vanished, although he thought he heard 
the faintest of noises that might have been made by claws scrabbling on stone. 

“Hrun?” he said. 


There was a snore from the other bunk. 



Twoflower padded over to the corner, poking gingerly at the stones in case 
there was a secret panel. At that moment the door was flung back, thumping 
against the wall. Half a dozen guards hurtled through it, spread out and flung 
themselves down on one knee. Their weapons were aimed exclusively at Hrun. 
When he thought about this later, Twoflower felt quite offended. 

Hrun snored. 

A woman strode into the room. Not many women can stride convincingly, 
but she managed it. She glanced briefly at Twoflower, as one might look at a 
piece of furniture, then glared down at the man on the bed. 

She was wearing the same sort of leather harness that the dragonriders had 
been wearing, but in her case it was much briefer. That, and the magnificent 
mane of chestnut-red hair that fell to her waist, was her only concession to what 
even on the Discworld passed for decency. She was also wearing a thoughtful 
expression. 

Hrun made a glubbing noise, turned over, and slept on. 

With a careful movement, as though handling some instrument of rare 
delicacy, the woman drew a slim black dagger from her belt and stabbed 
downward. 

Before it was halfway through its arc Hrun’s right hand moved so fast that it 
appeared to travel between two points in space without at any time occupying 
the intervening air. It closed around the woman’s wrist with a dull smack. His 
other hand groped feverishly for a sword that wasn’t there... 

Hrun awoke. 

“Gngh?” he said, looking up at the woman with a puzzled frown. Then he 
caught sight of the bowmen. 

“Let go,” said the woman, in a voice that was calm and quiet and edged with 
diamonds. Hrun released his grip slowly. 

She stepped back, massaging her wrist and looking at Hrun in much the 
same way that a cat watches a mousehole. 



“So,” she said at last. “You pass the first test. What is your name, 
barbarian?” 

“Who are you calling a barbarian?” snarled Hrun. 

“That is what I want to know.” 

Hrun counted the bowmen slowly and made a brief calculation. His 
shoulders relaxed. 

“I am Hrun of Chimeria. And you?” 

“Liessa Dragonlady.” 

“You are the lord of this place?” 

“That remains to be seen. You have the look about you of a hired sword, 
Hrun of Chimeria. I could use you—if you pass the tests, of course. There are 
three of them. You have passed the first.” 

“What are the other—” Hrun paused, his lips moved soundlessly and then he 
hazarded, “two?” 

“Perilous.” 

“And the fee?” 

“Valuable.” 

“Excuse me,” said Twoflower. 

“And if I fail these tests?” said Hrun, ignoring him. The air between Hrun 
and Liessa crackled with small explosions of charisma as their gazes sought for a 
hold. 

“If you had failed the first test you would now be dead. This may be 
considered a typical penalty.” 

“Urn, look,” began Twoflower. Liessa spared him a brief glance, and 
appeared actually to notice him for the first time. 



“Take that away,” she said calmly, and turned back to Hrun. Two of the 
guards shouldered their bows, grasped Twoflower by the elbows and lifted him 
off the ground. Then they trotted smartly through the doorway. 

“Hey,” said Twoflower, as they hurried down the corridor outside, “where” 
(as they stopped in front of another door) “is my” (as they dragged the door 
open) “Luggage?” He landed in a heap of what might once have been straw. The 
door banged shut, its echoes punctuated by the sound of bolts being slammed 
home. 

In the other cell Hrun had barely blinked. 

“Okay,” he said, “what is the second test?” 

“You must kill my two brothers.” Hrun considered this. 

“Both at the same time, or one after the other?” he said. 

“Consecutively or concurrently,” she assured him. 

“What?” 

“Just kill them,” she said sharply. 

“Good fighters, are they?” 

“Renowned.” 

“So in return for all this...?” 

“You will wed me and become Lord of the Wyrmberg.” 

There was a long pause. Hrun’s eyebrows twisted themselves in 
unaccustomed calculation. 

“I get you and this mountain?” he said at last. 

“Yes.” She looked him squarely in the eye, and her lips twitched. “The fee is 
worthwhile, I assure you.” 

Hrun dropped his gaze to the rings on her hand. The stones were large, being 



the incredibly rare blue milk diamonds from the clay basins of Mithos. When he 
managed to turn his eyes from them he saw Liessa glaring down at him in fury. 


“So calculating?” she rasped. “Hrun the Barbarian, who would boldly walk 
into the jaws of Death Himself?” 

Hrun shrugged. “Sure,” he said, “the only reason for walking into the jaws of 
Death is so’s you can steal His gold teeth.” He brought one arm around 
expansively, and the wooden bunk was at the end of it. It cannoned into the 
bowmen and Hrun followed it joyously, felling one man with a blow and 
snatching the weapon from another. A moment later it was all over. 

Liessa had not moved. 

“Well?” she said. 

“Well what?” said Hrun, from the carnage. 

“Do you intend to kill me?” 

“What? Oh no. No, this is just, you know, kind of a habit. Just keeping in 
practice. So where are these brothers?” He grinned. 


Twoflower sat on his straw and stared into the darkness. He wondered how long 
he had been there. Hours, at least. Days, probably. He speculated that perhaps it 
had been years, and he had simply forgotten. 

No, that sort of thinking wouldn’t do. He tried to think of something else— 
grass, trees, fresh air, dragons. Dragons... 

There was the faintest of scrabblings in the darkness. Twoflower felt the 
sweat prickle on his forehead. 

Something was in the cell with him. Something that made small noises, but 
even in the pitch blackness gave the impression of hugeness. He felt the air 
move. 

When he lifted his arm there was the greasy feel and faint shower of sparks 
that betokened a localized magical field. Twoflower found himself fervently 



wishing for light. 


A gout of flame rolled past his head and struck the far wall. As the rocks 
flashed into furnace heat he looked up at the dragon that now occupied more 
than half the cell. 

I obey, lord said a voice in his head. 

By the glow of the crackling, spitting stone Twoflower looked into his own 
reflection in two enormous green eyes. Beyond them the dragon was as 
multihued, horned, spiked and lithe as the one in his memory—a real dragon. Its 
folded wings were nevertheless still wide enough to scrape the wall on both 
sides of the room. It lay with him between its talons. 

“Obey?” he said, his voice vibrating with terror and delight. 

Of course, lord. 

The glow faded away. Twoflower pointed a trembling finger at where he 
remembered the door to be and said, “Open it!” 

The dragon raised its huge head. Again the ball of flame rolled out but this 
time, as the dragon’s neck muscles contracted, its color faded from orange to 
yellow, from yellow to white, and finally to the faintest of blues. By that time the 
flame was also very thin, and where it touched the wall the molten rock spat and 
ran. When it reached the door the metal exploded into a shower of hot droplets. 

Black shadows arced and jigggered over the walls. The metal bubbled for an 
eye-aching moment, and then the door fell in two pieces in the passage beyond. 
The flame winked out with a suddenness that was almost as startling as its 
arrival. 

Twoflower stepped gingerly over the cooling door and looked up and down 
the corridor. It was empty. 

The dragon followed. The heavy door frame caused it some minor difficulty, 
which it overcame with a swing of its shoulders that tore the timber out and 
tossed it to one side. The creature looked expectantly at Twoflower, its skin 
rippling and twitching as it sought to open its wings in the confines of the 
passage. 



“How did you get in there?” said Twoflower. 

You summoned me, master. 

“I don’t remember doing that.” 

In your mind. You called me up, in your mind, thought the dragon, patiently. 

“You mean I just thought of you and there you were?” 

Yes. 

“It was magic?” 

Yes. 

“But I’ve thought about dragons all my life!” 

In this place the frontier between thought and reality is probably a little 
confused. All I know is that once I was not, and then you thought me, and then I 
was. Therefore, of course, I am yours to command. 

“Good grief!” 

Half a dozen guards chose that moment to turn the bend in the corridor. They 
stopped, open-mouthed. Then one remembered himself sufficiently to raise his 
crossbow and fire. 

The dragon’s chest heaved. The quarrel exploded into flaming fragments in 
midair. The guards scurried out of sight. A fraction of a second later a wash of 
flame played over the stones where they had been standing. 

Twoflower looked up in admiration. 

“Can you fly, too?” he said. 

Of course. 

Twoflower glanced up and down the corridor, and decided against following 
the guards. Since he knew himself to be totally lost already, any direction was 
probably an improvement. He edged past the dragon and hurried away, the huge 



beast turning with difficulty to follow him. 


They padded down a series of passages that crisscrossed like a maze. At one 
point Twoflower thought he heard shouts, a long way behind them, but they soon 
faded away. Sometimes the dark arch of a crumbling doorway loomed past them 
in the gloom. Light filtered through dimly from various shafts and, here and 
there, bounced off big mirrors that had been mortared into angles of the passage. 
Sometimes there was a brighter glow from a distant light-well. 

What was odd, thought Twoflower as he strolled down a wide flight of stairs 
and kicked up billowing clouds of silver dust motes, was that the tunnels here 
were much wider. And better constructed, too. There were statues in niches set in 
the walls, and here and there faded but interesting tapestries had been hung. 

They mainly showed dragons—dragons by the hundred, in flight or hanging 
from their perch rings, dragons with men on their backs hunting down deer and, 
sometimes, other men. Twoflower touched one tapestry gingerly. The fabric 
crumbled instantly in the hot dry air, leaving only a dangling mesh where some 
threads had been plaited with fine gold wire. 

“I wonder why they left all this?” he said. 

I don’t know said a polite voice in his head. 

He turned and looked up into the scaly horse face above him. 

“What is your name, dragon?” said Twoflower. 

I don’t know. 

“I think I shall call you Ninereeds.” 

That is my name, then. 

They waded through the all-encroaching dust in a series of huge, dark- 
pillared halls which had been carved out of the solid rock. With some cunning 
too; from floor to ceiling the walls were a mass of statues, gargoyles, bas-reliefs 
and fluted columns that cast weirdly-moving shadows when the dragon gave an 
obliging illumination at Twoflower’s request. They crossed the lengthy galleries 
and vast carven amphitheaters, all awash with deep soft dust and completely 
uninhabited. No one had come to these dead caverns in centuries. 



Then he saw the path, leading away into yet another dark tunnel mouth. 
Someone had been using it regularly, and recently. It was a deep narrow trail in 
the gray blanket. 

Twoflower followed it. It led through still more lofty halls and winding 
corridors quite big enough for a dragon (and dragons had come this way once, it 
seemed; there was a room full of rotting harness, dragon-sized, and another room 
containing plate and chain mail big enough for elephants). They ended in a pair 
of green bronze doors, each so high that they disappeared into the gloom. In 
front of Twoflower, at chest height, was a small handle shaped like a brass 
dragon. 

When he touched it the doors swung open instantly and with a disconcerting 
noiselessness. 

Instantly sparks crackled in Twoflower’s hair and there was a sudden gust of 
hot dry wind that didn’t disturb the dust in the way that ordinary wind should 
but, instead, whipped it up momentarily into unpleasantly half-living shapes 
before it settled again. In Twoflower’s ears came the strange shrill twittering of 
the Things locked in the distant dungeon Dimensions, out beyond the fragile 
lattice of time and space. Shadows appeared where there was nothing to cause 
them. The air buzzed like a hive. 

In short, there was a vast discharge of magic going on around him. 

The chamber beyond the door was lit by a pale green glow. Stacked around 
the walls, each on its own marble shelf, were tier upon tier of coffins. In the 
center of the room was a stone chair on a raised dais, and it contained a slumped 
figure which did not move but said, in a brittle old voice, “Come in, young 
man.” 

Twoflower stepped forward. The figure in the seat was human, as far as he 
could make out in the murky light, but there was something about the awkward 
way it was sprawled in the chair that made him glad he couldn’t see it any 
clearer. 

“I’m dead, you know,” came a voice from what Twoflower fervently hoped 
was a head, in conversational tones. “I expect you can tell.” 


“Urn,” said Twoflower. “Yes.” He began to back away. 



“Obvious, isn’t it?” agreed the voice. “You’d be Twoflower, wouldn’t you? 
Or is that later?” 

“Later?” said Twoflower. “Later than what?” He stopped. 

“Well,” said the voice. “You see, one of the advantages of being dead is that 
one is released as it were from the bonds of time and therefore I can see 
everything that has happened or will happen, all at the same time except that of 
course I now know that Time does not, for all practical purposes, exist.” 

“That doesn’t sound like a disadvantage,” said Twoflower. 

“You don’t think so? Imagine every moment being at one and the same time 
a distant memory and a nasty surprise and you’ll see what I mean. Anyway, I 
now recall what it was I am about to tell you. Or have I already done so? That’s 
a fine-looking dragon, by the way. Or don’t I say that yet?” 

“It is rather good. It just turned up,” said Twoflower. 

“It turned up?” said the voice. “You summoned it!” 

“Yes, well, all I did—” 

“You have the Power!” 

“All I did was think of it.” 

“That’s what the Power is! Have I already told you that I am Greicha the 
First? Or is that next? I’m sorry, but I haven’t had too much experience of 
transcendence. Anyway, yes—the Power. It summons dragons, you know.” 

“I think you already told me that,” said Twoflower. 

“Did I? I certainly intended to,” said the dead man. 

“But how does it? I’ve been thinking about dragons all my life, but this is the 
first time one has turned up.” 

“Oh well, you see, the truth of the matter is that dragons have never existed 
as you (and, until I was poisoned some three months ago, /) understand 



existence. I’m talking about the true dragon, draconis nobilis, you understand; 
the swamp dragon, draconis vulgaris, is a base creature and not worth our 
consideration. The true dragon, on the other hand, is a creature of such 
refinement of spirit that they can only take on form in this world if they are 
conceived by the most skilled imagination. And even then the said imagination 
must be in some place heavily impregnated with magic, which helps to weaken 
the walls between the world of the seen and unseen. Then the dragons pop 
through, as it were, and impress their form on this world’s possibility matrix. I 
was very good at it when I was alive. I could imagine up to, oh, five hundred 
dragons at a time. Now Liessa, the most skilled of my children, can barely 
imagine fifty rather nondescript creatures. So much for a progressive education. 
She doesn’t really believe in them. That’s why her dragons are rather boring— 
while yours,” said the voice of Greicha, “is almost as good as some of mine used 
to be. A sight for sore eyes, not that I have any to speak of now.” 

Twoflower said hurriedly, “You keep saying you’re dead...” 

“Well?” 

“Well, the dead, er, they, you know, don’t talk much. As a rule.” 

“I used to be an exceptionally powerful wizard. My daughter poisoned me, 
of course. It is the generally accepted method of succession in our family, but,” 
the corpse sighed, or at least a sigh came from the air a few feet above it, “it 
soon became obvious that none of my three children is sufficiently powerful to 
wrest the lordship of the Wyrmberg from the other two. A most unsatisfactory 
arrangement. A kingdom like ours has to have one ruler. So I resolved to remain 
alive in an unofficial capacity, which of course annoys them all immensely. I 
won’t give my children the satisfaction of burying me until there is only one of 
them left to perform the ceremony.” There was a nasty wheezing noise. 
Twoflower decided that it was meant to be a chuckle. 

“So it was one of them that kidnapped us?” said Twoflower. 

“Liessa,” said the dead wizard’s voice. “My daughter. Her power is 
strongest, you know. My sons’ dragons are incapable of flying more than a few 
miles before they fade.” 

“Fade? I did notice that we could see through the one that brought us here,” 
said Twoflower. “I thought that was a bit odd.” 



“Of course,” said Greicha. “The Power only works near the Wyrmberg. It’s 
the inverse square law, you know. At least, I think it is. As the dragons fly 
further away they begin to dwindle. Otherwise my little Liessa would be ruling 
the whole world by now, if I know anything about it. But I can see I mustn’t 
keep you. I expect you’ll be wanting to rescue your friend.” 

Twoflower gaped. “Hrun?” he said. 

“Not him. The skinny wizard. My son Lio!rt is trying to hack him to pieces. 

I admired the way you rescued him. Will, I mean.” 

Twoflower drew himself up to his full height, an easy task. “Where is he?” 
he said, heading toward the door with what he hoped was an heroic stride. 

“Just follow the pathway in the dust,” said the voice. “Liessa comes to see 
me sometimes. She still comes to see her old dad, my little girl. She was the only 
one with the strength of character to murder me. A chip off the old block. Good 
luck, by the way. I seem to recall I said that. Will say it now, I mean.” 

The rambling voice got lost in a maze of tenses as Twoflower ran along the 
dead tunnels, with the dragon loping along easily behind him. But soon he was 
leaning against a pillar, completely out of breath. It seemed ages since he’d had 
anything to eat. 

Why don’t you fly? said Ninereeds, inside his head. The dragon spread its 
wings and gave an experimental flap, which lifted it momentarily off the ground. 
Twoflower stared for a moment, then ran forward and clambered quickly onto 
the beast’s neck. Soon they were airborne, the dragon skimming along easily a 
few feet from the floor and leaving a billowing cloud of dust in its wake. 

Twoflower hung on as best he could as Ninereeds swooped through a 
succession of caverns and soared around a spiral staircase that could easily have 
accommodated a retreating army. At the top they emerged into the more 
inhabited regions, the mirrors at every corridor corner brightly polished and 
reflecting a pale light. 

I smell other dragons. 

The wings became a blur and Twoflower was jerked back as the dragon 
veered and sped off down a side corridor like a gnat-crazed swallow. Another 



sharp turn sent them soaring out of a tunnel mouth in the side of a vast cavern. 
There were rocks far below, and up above were broad shafts of light from great 
holes near the roof. A lot of activity on the ceiling, too.. .as Ninereeds hovered, 
thumping the air with his wings, Twoflower peered up at the shapes of roosting 
beasts and tiny men-shaped dots that were somehow walking upside down. 

This is a roosting hall said the dragon in a satisfied tone. 

As Twoflower watched, one of the shapes far above detached itself from the 
roof and began to grow larger... 


Rincewind watched as Lio!rt’s pale face dropped away from him. This is funny, 
gibbered a small part of his mind, why am I rising? 

Then he began to tumble in the air and reality took over. He was dropping to 
the distant, guano-speckled rocks. 

His brain reeled with the thought. The words of the Spell picked just that 
moment to surface from the depths of his mind, as they always did in time of 
crisis. Why not say us, they seemed to urge. What have you got to lose? 

Rincewind waved a hand in the gathering slipstream. 

“Ashonai,” he called. The word formed in front of him in a cold blue flame 
that streamed in the wind. 

He waved the other hand, drunk with terror and magic. 

“Ebiris,” he intoned. The sound froze into a flickering orange word that hung 
beside its companion. 

“Urshoring. Kvanti. Pythan. N’gurad. Feringomalee.” As the words blazed 
their rainbow colors around him he flung his hands back and prepared to say the 
eighth and final word that would appear in corruscating octarine and seal the 
spell. The imminent rocks were forgotten. 

“—” he began. 


The breath was knocked out of him, the spell scattered and snuffed out. A 



pair of arms locked around his waist and the whole world jerked sideways as the 
dragon rose out of its long dive, claws grazing just for a moment the topmost 
rock on the Wyrmberg’s noisome floor. Twoflower laughed triumphantly. 

“Got him!” 

And the dragon, curving gracefully at the top of his flight, gave a lazy flip of 
his wings and soared through a cavemouth into the morning air. 


At noon, in a wide green meadow on the lush tableland that was the top of the 
impossibly balanced Wyrmberg, the dragons and their riders formed a wide 
circle. There was room beyond them for a rabble of servants and slaves and 
others who scratched a living here on the roof of the world, and they were all 
watching the figures clustered in the center of the grassy arena. 

The group contained a number of senior dragonlords, and among them were 
Lio!rt and his brother Liartes. The former was still rubbing his legs, with small 
grimaces of pain. Slightly to one side stood Liessa and Hrun, with some of the 
woman’s own followers. Between the two factions stood the Wyrmberg’s 
hereditary Loremaster. 

“As you know,” he said uncertainly, “the not-fully-late Lord of the 
Wyrmberg, Greicha the First, has stipulated that there will be no succession until 
one of his children feels himself—or as it might be, herself—powerful enough to 
challenge and defeat his or her siblings in mortal combat.” 

“Yes, yes, we know all that. Get on with it,” said a thin peevish voice from 
the air beside him. 

The Loremaster swallowed. He had never come to terms with his former 
master’s failure to expire properly. Is the old buzzard dead or isn’t he? he 
wondered. 

“It is not certain,” he quavered, “whether it is allowable to issue a challenge 
by proxy—” 

“It is, it is,” snapped Greicha’s disembodied voice. “It shows intelligence. 
Don’t take all day about it.” 



“I challenge you,” said Hrun, glaring at the brothers, “both at once.” 

Lio!rt and Liartes exchanged looks. 

“You’ll fight us both together?” said Liartes, a tall, wiry man with long black 

hair. 


“Yah.” 

“That’s pretty uneven odds, isn’t it?” 

“Yah. I outnumber you one to two.” 

Lio!rt scowled. “You arrogant barbarian—” 

“That just about does it!” growled Hrun. “I’ll—” 

The Loremaster put out a blue-veined hand to restrain him. 

“It is forbidden to fight on the Killing Ground,” he said, and paused while he 
considered the sense of this. “You know what I mean, anyway,” he hazarded, 
giving up, and added “As the challenged parties my lords Lio!rt and Liartes have 
choice of weapons.” 

“Dragons,” they said together. Liessa snorted. 

“Dragons can be used offensively, therefore they are weapons,” said Lio!rt 
firmly. “If you disagree we can fight over it.” 

“Yah,” said his brother, nodding at Hrun. 

The Loremaster felt a ghostly finger prod him in the chest. 

“Don’t stand there with your mouth open,” said Greicha’s graveyard voice. 
“Just hurry up, will you?” 

Hrun stepped back, shaking his head. 

“Oh no,” he said. “Once was enough. I’d rather be dead than fight on one of 
those things.” 



“Die, then,” said the Loremaster, as kindly as he could manage. 


Liolrt and Liartes were already striding back across the turf to where the 
servants stood waiting with their mounts. Hrun turned to Liessa. She shrugged. 

“Don’t I even get a sword?” he pleaded. “A knife, even?” 

“No,” she said. “I didn’t expect this.” She suddenly looked smaller, all 
defiance gone. “I’m sorry.” 

“You’re sorry?” 

“Yes. I’m sorry.” 

“Yes, I thought you said you’re sorry.” 

“Don’t glare at me like that! I can imagine you the finest dragon to ride—” 

“No!” 

The Loremaster wiped his nose on a handkerchief, held the little silken 
square aloft for a moment, then let it fall. 

A boom of wings made Hrun spin around. Lio!rt’s dragon was already 
airborne and circling around toward them. As it swooped low over the turf a 
billow of flame shot from its mouth, scoring a black streak across the grass that 
mshed toward Hrun. 

At the last minute he pushed Liessa aside, and felt the wild pain of the flame 
on his arm as he dived for safety. He rolled as he hit the ground, and flipped onto 
his feet again while he looked around frantically for the other dragon. It came in 
from one side, and Hrun was forced to take a badly judged standing jump to 
escape the flame. The dragon’s tail whipped around as it passed and caught him 
a stinging blow across the forehead. He pushed himself upright, shaking his head 
to make the wheeling stars go away. His blistered back screamed pain at him. 

Lio!rt came in for a second run, but slower this time to allow for the big 
man’s unexpected agility. As the ground drifted up he saw the barbarian standing 
stock still, chest heaving, arms hanging loosely by his sides. An easy target. 



As his dragon swooped away Lio!rt turned his head, expecting to see a 
dreadfully big cinder. 

There was nothing there. Puzzled, Lio!rt turned back. 

Hrun, heaving himself over the dragon’s shoulder scales with one hand and 
beating out his flaming hair with the other, presented himself to his view. Lio!rt’s 
hand flew to his dagger, but pain had sharpened Hrun’s normally excellent 
reflexes to needle point. A backhand blow hammered into the dragonlord’s wrist, 
sending the dagger arcing away toward the ground, and another caught the man 
full on the chin. 

The dragon, carrying the weight of two men, was only a few yards above the 
grass. This turned out to be fortunate, because at the moment Lio!rt lost 
consciousness the dragon winked out of existence. 

Liessa hurried across the grass and helped Hrun stagger to his feet. He 
blinked at her. 

“What happened? What happened?” he said thickly. 

“That was really fantastic!” she said. “The way you turned that somersault in 
midair and everything!” 

“Yah, but what happened ?” 

“It’s rather difficult to explain—” 

Hrun peered up at the sky. Liartes, by far the most cautious of the two 
brothers, was circling high above them. 

“Well, you’ve got about ten seconds to try,” he said. 

“The dragons—” 

“Yah?” 

“They’re imaginary.” 


“Like all these imaginary burns on my arm, you mean?” 



“Yes. No!” she shook her head violently. “I’ll have to tell you later!” 


“Fine, if you can find a really good medium,” snapped Hrun. He glared up at 
Liartes, who was beginning to descend in wide sweeps. 

“Just listen, will you? Unless my brother is conscious his dragon can’t exist, 
it’s got no pathway through to this—” 

“Run!” shouted Hrun. He threw her away from him and flung himself flat on 
the ground as Liartes’s dragon thundered by, leaving another smoking scar 
across the turf. 

While the creature sought height for another sweep Hrun scrambled to his 
feet and set off at a dead run for the woods at the edge of the arena. They were 
sparse, little more than a wide and overgrown hedge, but at least no dragon 
would be able to fly through them. 

It didn’t try. Liartes brought his mount in to land on the turf a few yards 
away and dismounted casually. The dragon folded its wings and poked its head 
in among the greenery, while its master leaned against a tree and whistled 
tunelessly. 

“I can burn you out,” said Liartes, after a while. 

The bushes remained motionless. 

“Perhaps you’re in that holly bush over there?” 

The holly bush became a waxy ball of flame. 

“I’m sure I can see movement in those ferns.” 

The ferns became mere skeletons of white ash. 

“You’re only prolonging it, barbarian. Why not give in now? I’ve burned 
lots of people; it doesn’t hurt a bit,” said Liartes, looking sideways at the bushes. 

The dragon continued through the spinney, incinerating every likely looking 
bush and clump of ferns. Liartes drew his sword and waited. 



Hrun dropped from a tree and landed running. Behind him the dragon roared 
and crashed through the bushes as it tried to turn around, but Hrun was running, 
running, with his gaze fixed on Liartes and a dead branch in his hands. 

It is a little known but true fact that a two legged creature can usually beat a 
four legged creature over a short distance, simply because of the time it takes the 
quadruped to get its legs sorted out. Hrun heard the scrabble of claws behind him 
and then an ominous thump. The dragon had half-opened its wings and was 
trying to fly. 

As Hrun bore down on the dragonlord Liartes’s sword came up wickedly, to 
be caught on the branch. Then Hrun cannoned into him and the two men 
sprawled on the ground. 

The dragon roared. 

Liartes screamed as Hrun brought a knee upward with anatomical precision, 
but managed a wild blow that rebroke the barbarian’s nose for him. 

Hrun kicked away and scrambled to his feet, to find himself looking up into 
the wild horse-face of the dragon, its nostrils distended. 

He lashed out with a foot and caught Liartes, who was trying to stand up, on 
the side of his head. The man slumped. 

The dragon vanished. The ball of fire that was billowing toward Hrun faded 
until, when it reached him, it was no more than a puff of warm air. Then there 
was no sound but the crackle of burning bushes. 

Hrun slung the unconscious dragonlord over his shoulder and set off at a trot 
back to the arena. Halfway there he found Lio!rt sprawled on the ground, one leg 
bent awkwardly. He stooped and, with a grunt, hoisted the man onto his vacant 
shoulder. 

Liessa and the Loremaster were waiting on a raised dais at one end of the 
meadow. The dragonwoman had quite recovered her composure now, and looked 
levelly at Hrun as he threw the two men down on the steps before her. The 
people around her were standing in deferential poses, like a court. 


“Kill them,” she said. 



“I kill in my own time,” he said. “In any case, killing unconscious people 
isn’t right.” 

“I can’t think of a more opportune time,” said the Loremaster. Liessa 
snorted. 

“Then I shall banish them,” she said. “Once they are beyond the reach of the 
Wyrmberg’s magic then they’ll have no Power. They’ll be simply brigands. Will 
that satisfy you?” 

“Yes.” 

“I am surprised that you are so merciful, ba—Hrun.” 

Hrun shrugged. “A man in my position, he can’t afford to be anything else, 
he’s got to consider his image.” He looked around. “Where’s the next test, then?” 

“I warn you that it is perilous. If you wish, you may leave now. If you pass 
the test, however, you will become Lord of the Wyrmberg and, of course, my 
lawful husband.” 

Hrun met her gaze. He thought about his life, to date. It suddenly seemed to 
him to have been full of long damp nights sleeping under the stars, desperate 
fights with trolls, city guards, countless bandits and evil priests and, on at least 
three occasions, actual demigods—and for what? Well, for quite a lot of treasure, 
he had to admit—but where had it all gone? Rescuing beleaguered maidens had 
a certain passing reward, but most of the time he’d finished up by setting them 
up in some city somewhere with a handsome dowry, because after a while even 
the most agreeable ex-maiden became possessive and had scant sympathy for his 
efforts to rescue her sister sufferers. In short, life had really left him with little 
more than a reputation and a network of scars. Being a lord might be fun. Hrun 
grinned. With a base like this, all these dragons and a good bunch of fighting 
men, a man could really be a contender. 

Besides, the wench was not uncomely. 

“The third test?” she said. 

“Am I to be weaponless again?” said Hrun. 



Liessa reached up and removed her helmet, letting the coils of red hair 
tumble out. Then she unfastened the brooch of her robe. Underneath, she was 
naked. 

As Hrun’s gaze swept over her his mind began to operate two notional 
counting machines. One assessed the gold in her bangles, the tiger-rubies that 
ornamented her toe-rings, the diamond spangle that adorned her navel, and two 
highly individual whirligigs of silver filigree. The other was plugged straight 
into his libido. Both produced tallies that pleased him mightily. 

As she raised a hand and proffered a glass of wine she smiled, and said, “I 
think not.” 


“He didn’t attempt to rescue you,” Rincewind pointed out as a last resort. 

He clung desperately to Twoflower’s waist as the dragon circled slowly, 
tilting the world at a dangerous angle. The new knowledge that the scaly back he 
was astride only existed as a sort of three-dimensional daydream did not, he had 
soon realized, do anything at all for his ankle-wrenching sensations of vertigo. 
His mind kept straying toward the possible results of Twoflower losing his 
concentration. 

“Not even Hrun could have prevailed against those crossbows,” said 
Twoflower stoutly. 

As the dragon rose higher above the patch of woodland, where the three of 
them had slept a damp and uneasy sleep, the sun rose over the edge of the Disc. 
Instantly the gloomy blues and grays of pre-dawn were transformed into a bright 
bronze river that flowed across the world, flaring into gold where it struck ice or 
water or a light-dam. (Owing to the density of the magical field surrounding the 
Disc, light itself moved at subsonic speeds; this interesting property was well 
utilized by the Sorca people of the Great Nef, for example, who over the 
centuries had constructed intricate and delicate dams, and valleys walled with 
polished silica, to catch the slow sunlight and sort of store it. The scintillating 
reservoirs of the Nef, overflowing after several weeks of uninterrupted sunlight, 
were a truly magnificent sight from the air and it is therefore unfortunate that 
Twoflower and Rincewind did not happen to glance in that direction.) 



In front of them the billion-ton impossibility that was the magic-wrought 
Wyrmberg hung against the sky and that was not too bad, until Rincewind turned 
his head and saw the mountain’s shadow slowly unroll itself across the 
cloudscape of the world... 

“What can you see?” said Twoflower to the dragon. 

I see fighting on the top of the mountain came the gentle reply. 

“See?” said Twoflower. “Hrun’s probably fighting for his life at this very 
moment.” 

Rincewind was silent. After a moment Twoflower looked around. The 
wizard was staring intently at nothing at all, his lips moving soundlessly. 

“Rincewind?” 

The wizard made a small croaking noise. 

“I’m sorry,” said Twoflower. “What did you say?” 

“.. .all the way.. .the great fall...” muttered Rincewind. His eyes focused, 
looked puzzled for a moment, then widened in terror. He made the mistake of 
looking down. 

“Aargh,” he opined, and began to slide. Twoflower grabbed him. 

“What’s the matter?” 

Rincewind tried shutting his eyes, but there were no eyelids to his 
imagination and it was staring widely. 

“Don’t you get scared of heights?” he managed to say. 

Twoflower looked down at the tiny landscape, mottled with cloud shadows. 
The thought of fear hadn’t actually occurred to him. 

“No,” he said. “Why should I? You’re just as dead if you fall from forty feet 
as you are from four thousand fathoms, that’s what I say.” 


Rincewind tried to consider this dispassionately, but couldn’t see the logic of 



it. It wasn’t the actual falling, it was the hitting he... 

Twoflower grabbed him quickly. 

“Steady on,” he said cheerfully. “We’re nearly there.” 

“I wish I was back in the city,” moaned Rincewind. “I wish I was back on 
the ground!” 

“I wonder if dragons can fly all the way to the stars?” mused Twoflower. 
“Now that would be something...” 

“You’re mad,” said Rincewind flatly. There was no reply from the tourist, 
and when the wizard craned around he was horrified to see Twoflower looking 
up at the paling stars with an odd smile on his face. 

“Don’t you even think about it,” added Rincewind, menacingly. 

The man you seek is talking to the dragonwoman said the dragon. 

“Hmm?” said Twoflower, still looking at the paling stars. 

“What?” said Rincewind urgently. 

“Oh yes. Hrun.” said Twoflower. “I hope we’re in time. Dive now! Go low!” 

Rincewind opened his eyes as the wind increased to a whistling gale. 

Perhaps they were blown open—the wind certainly made them impossible to 
shut. 

The flat summit of the Wyrmberg rose up at them, lurched alarmingly, then 
somersaulted into a green blur that flashed by on either side. Tiny woods and 
fields blurred into a rushing patchwork. A brief silvery flash in the landscape 
may have been the little river that overflowed into the air at the plateau’s rim. 
Rincewind tried to force the memory out of his mind, but it was rather enjoying 
itself there, terrorizing the other occupants and kicking over the furniture. 


“I think not,” said Liessa. 



Hrun took the wine cup, slowly. He grinned like a pumpkin. 


Around the arena the dragons started to bay. Their riders looked up. And 
something like a green blur flashed across the arena, and Hrun had gone. 

The winecup hung momentarily in the air, then crashed down on the steps. 
Only then did a single drop spill. 

This was because, in the instant of enfolding Hrun gently in his claws, 
Ninereeds the dragon had momentarily synchronized their bodily rhythms. Since 
the dimension of the imagination is much more complex than those of time and 
space, which are very junior dimensions indeed, the effect of this was to 
instantly transform a stationary and priapic Hrun into a Hrun moving sideways at 
eighty miles an hour with no ill effects whatsoever, except for a few wasted 
mouthfuls of wine. Another effect was to cause Liessa to scream with rage and 
summon her dragon. As the gold beast materialized in front of her she leapt 
astride it, still naked, and snatched a crossbow from one of the guards. Then she 
was airborne, while the other dragonriders swarmed toward their own beasts. 

The Loremaster, watching from the pillar he had prudently slid behind in the 
mad scramble, happened at that moment to catch the cross-dimensional echoes 
of a theory being at the same instant hatched in the mind of an early psychiatrist 
in an adjacent universe, possibly because the dimension-leak was flowing both 
ways, and for a moment the psychiatrist saw the girl on the dragon. The 
Loremaster smiled. 

“Want to bet that she won’t catch him?” said Greicha, in a voice of worms 
and sepulchers, right by his ear. 

The Loremaster shut his eyes and swallowed hard. 

“I thought that my Lord would now be residing fully in the Dread Land,” he 
managed. 

“I am a wizard,” said Greicha. “Death Himself must claim a wizard. And, 
aha, He doesn’t appear to be in the neighborhood...” 

Shall we go? asked Death. 

He was on a white horse, a horse of flesh and blood but red of eye and fiery 



of nostril, and He stretched out a bony hand and took Greicha’s soul out of the 
air and rolled it up until it was a point of painful light, and then He swallowed it. 


Then He clapped spurs to his steed and it sprang into the air, sparks 
corruscating from its hooves. 

“Lord Greicha!” whispered the old Loremaster, as the universe flickered 
around him. 

“That was a mean trick,” came the wizard’s voice, a mere speck of sound 
disappearing into the infinite black dimensions. 

“My Lord.. .what is Death like?” called the old man tremulously. 

“When I have investigated it fully, I will let you know,” came the faintest of 
modulations on the breeze. 

“Yes,” murmured the Loremaster. A thought struck him. “During daylight, 
please,” he added. 


“You clowns,” screamed Hrun, from his perch on Ninereeds’s foreclaws. 

“What did he say?” roared Rincewind, as the dragon ripped its way through 
the air in the race for the heights. 

“Didn’t hear!” bellowed Twoflower, his voice torn away by the gale. As the 
dragon banked slightly he looked down at the little toy spinning top that was the 
mighty Wyrmberg and saw the swarm of creatures rising in pursuit. Ninereed’s 
wings pounded and flicked the air away contemptuously. Thinner air, too. 
Twoflower’s ear popped for the third time. 

Ahead of the swarm, he noticed, was a golden dragon. Someone on it, too. 

“Hey, are you all right?” said Rincewind urgently. He had to drink in several 
lungfuls of the strangely distilled air in order to get the words out. 

“I could have been a lord, and you clowns had to go and—” Hrun gasped, as 
the chill thin air drew the life even out of his mighty chest. 



“Wass happnin to the air?” muttered Rincewind. Blue lights appeared in 
front of his eyes. 

“Unk,” said Twoflower, and passed out. 

The dragon vanished. 

For a few seconds the three men continued upward, Twoflower and the 
wizard presenting an odd picture as they sat one in front of the other with their 
legs astride something that wasn’t there. Then what passed for gravity on the 
Disc recovered from the surprise, and claimed them. 

At that moment Liessa’s dragon flashed by, and Hrun landed heavily across 
its neck. Liessa leaned over and kissed him. 

This detail was lost to Rincewind as he dropped away, with his arms still 
clasped around Twoflower’s waist. The Disc was a little round map pinned 
against the sky. It didn’t appear to be moving, but Rincewind knew that it was. 
The whole world was coming toward him like a giant custard pie. 

“Wake up!” he shouted, above the roar of the wind. “Dragons! Think of 
dragons!” 

There was a flurry of wings as they plummeted through the host of pursuing 
creatures, which fell away and up. Dragons screamed and wheeled across the 
sky. 


No answer came from Twoflower. Rincewind’s robe whipped around him, 
but he did not wake. 

Dragons, thought Rincewind in a panic. He tried to concentrate his mind, 
tried to envisage a really lifelike dragon. If he can do it, he thought, then so can 
I. But nothing happened. 

The Disc was bigger now, a cloud-swirled circle rising gently underneath 
them. 

Rincewind tried again, screwing up his eyes and straining every nerve in his 
body. A dragon. His imagination, a somewhat battered and overused organ, 
reached out for a dragon.. .any dragon. 



It won’t work, laughed a voice like the dull toning of a funeral bell, you 
don’t believe in them. 

Rincewind looked at the terrible mounted apparition grinning at him, and his 
mind bolted in terror. 

There was a brilliant flash. 

There was utter darkness. 

There was a soft floor under Rincewind’s feet, a pink light around him, and 
the sudden shocked cries of many people. 

He looked around wildly. He was standing in some kind of tunnel, which 
was mostly filled with seats in which out-landishly dressed people had been 
strapped. They were all shouting at him. 

“Wake up!” he hissed. “Help me!” 

Dragging the still-unconscious tourist with him he backed away from the 
mob until his free hand found an oddly shaped door handle. He twisted it and 
ducked through, then slammed it hard. 

He stared around the new room in which he found himself and met the 
terrified gaze of a young woman who dropped the tray she was holding and 
screamed. 

It sounded like the sort of scream that brings muscular help. Rincewind, 
awash with fear-distilled adrenaline, turned and barged past her. There were 
more seats here, and the people in them ducked as he dragged Twoflower 
urgently along the central gangway. Beyond the rows of seats were little 
windows. Beyond the windows, against a background of fleecy clouds, was a 
dragon’s wing. It was silver. 

I’ve been eaten by a dragon, he thought. That’s ridiculous, he replied, you 
can’t see out of dragons. Then his shoulder hit the door at the far end of the 
tunnel, and he followed it through into a cone-shaped room that was even 
stranger than the tunnel. 


It was full of tiny glittering lights. Among the lights, in contoured chairs, 



were four men who were now staring at him open-mouthed. As he stared back 
he saw their gazes dart sideways. 


Rincewind turned slowly. Beside him was a fifth man—youngish, bearded, 
as swarthy as the nomad folk of the Great Nef. 

“Where am I?” said the wizard. “In the belly of a dragon?” 

The young man crouched back and shoved a small black box in the wizard’s 
face. The men in the chairs ducked down. 

“What is it?” said Rincewind. “A picture box?” He reached out and took it, a 
movement which appeared to surprise the swarthy man, who shouted and tried to 
snatch it back. There was another shout, this time from one of the men in the 
chairs. Only now he wasn’t sitting. He was standing up, pointing something 
small and metallic at the young man. 

It had an amazing effect. The man crouched back with his hands in the air. 

“Please give me the bomb, sir,” said the man with the metallic thing. 
“Carefully, please.” 

“This thing?” said Rincewind. “You have it! I don’t want it!” The man took 
it very carefully and put it on the floor. The seated men relaxed, and one of them 
started speaking urgently to the wall. The wizard watched him in amazement. 

“Don’t move!” snapped the man with the metal—an amulet, Rincewind 
decided, it must be an amulet. The swarthy man backed into the corner. 

“That was a very brave thing you did,” said Amuletholder to Rincewind. 
“You know that?” 

“What?” 

“What’s the matter with your friend.” 

“Friend?” 

Rincewind looked down at Twoflower, who was still slumbering peacefully. 
That was no surprise. What was really surprising was that Twoflower was 



wearing new clothes. Strange clothes. His britches now ended just above his 
knees. Above that he wore some sort of vest of brightly-striped material. On his 
head was a ridiculous little straw hat. With a feather in it. 

An awkward feeling around the leg regions made Rincewind look down. His 
clothes had changed, too. Instead of the comfortable old robe, so marvelously 
well-adapted for speed into action in all possible contingencies, his legs were 
encased in cloth tubes. He was wearing a jacket of the same gray material... 

Until now he’d never heard the language the man with the amulet was using. 
It was uncouth and vaguely Hublandish—so why could he understand every 
word? 

Let’s see, they’d suddenly appeared in this dragon after, they’d materialized 
in this drag, they’d sudd, they’d, they’d— they had struck up a conversation in 
the airport so naturally they had chosen to sit together on the plane, and he’d 
promised to show Jack Zweiblumen around when they got back to the States. 

Yes, that was it. And then Jack had been taken ill and he’d panicked and come 
through here and surprised this hijacker. Of course. What on earth was 
“Hublandish?” 

Dr. Rjinswand rubbed his forehead. What he could do with was a drink. 


Ripples of paradox spread out across the sea of causality. 

Possibly the most important point that would have to be borne in mind by 
anyone outside the sum totality of the multiverse was that although the wizard 
and the tourist had indeed only recently appeared in an aircraft in midair, they 
had also at one and the same time been riding on that airplane in the normal 
course of things. That is to say: while it was true that they had just appeared in 
this particular set of dimensions, it was also true that they had been living in 
them all along. It is at this point that normal language gives up, and goes and has 
a drink. 

The point is that several quintillion atoms had just materialized (however, 
they had not. See below) in a universe where they should not strictly had been. 
The usual upshot of this sort of thing is a vast explosion but, since universes are 
fairly resilient things, this particular universe had saved itself by instantaneously 



unraveling its space-time continuum back to a point where the surplus atoms 
could safely be accommodated and then rapidly rewinding back to that circle of 
firelight which for want of a better term its inhabitants were wont to call The 
Present. This had of course changed history—there had been a few less wars, a 
few extra dinosaurs and so on—but on the whole the episode passed remarkably 
quietly. 

Outside of this particular universe, however, the repercussions of the sudden 
double-take bounced to and fro across the face of The Sum of Things, bending 
whole dimensions and sinking galaxies without a trace. 

A11 this was however totally lost on Dr. Rjinswand, 33, a bachelor, born in 
Sweden, raised in New Jersey, and a specialist in the breakaway oxidation 
phenomena of certain nuclear reactors. Anyway, he probably would not have 
believed any of it. 

Zweiblumen still seemed to be unconscious. The stewardess, who had 
helped Rjinswand to his seat to the applause of the rest of the passengers, was 
bending over him anxiously. 

“We’ve radioed ahead,” she told Rjinswand. “There’ll be an ambulance 
waiting when we land. Uh, it says on the passenger list that you’re a doctor—” 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” said Rjinswand hurriedly. “It might 
be a different matter if he was a Magnox reactor of course. Is it shock of some 
kind?” 

“I’ve never—” 

Her sentence terminated in a tremendous crash from the rear of the plane. 
Several passengers screamed. A sudden gale of air swept every loose magazine 
and newspaper into a screaming whirlwind that twisted madly down the aisle. 

Something else was coming up the aisle. Something big and oblong and 
wooden and brass-bound. It had hundreds of legs. If it was what it seemed—a 
walking chest of the kind that appeared in pirate stories brim full of ill-gotten 
gold and jewels—then what would have been its lid suddenly gaped open. 

There were no jewels. But there were lots of big square teeth, white as 
sycamore, and a pulsating tongue, red as mahogany. 



An ancient suitcase was coming to eat him. 

Rjinswand clutched at the unconscious Zweiblumen for what little comfort 
there was there, and gibbered. He wished fervently that he was somewhere 
else... 

There was a sudden darkness. 

There was a brilliant flash. 

The sudden departure of several quintillion atoms from a universe that they 
had no right to be in anyway caused a wild imbalance in the harmony of the Sum 
Totality which it tried frantically to retrieve, wiping out a number of subrealities 
in the process. Huge surges of raw magic boiled uncontrolled around the very 
foundations of the multiverse itself, welling up through every crevice into 
hitherto peaceful dimensions and causing novas, supernovas, stellar collisions, 
wild flights of geese and drowning of imaginary continents. Worlds as far away 
as the other end of time experienced brilliant sunsets of corruscating octarine as 
highly charged magical particles roared through the atmosphere. In the cometary 
halo around the fabled Ice System of Zeret a noble comet died as a prince flamed 
across the sky. 

All this was however lost on Rincewind as, clutching the inert Twoflower 
around the waist, he plunged toward the Disc’s sea several hundred feet below. 
Not even the convulsions of all the dimensions could break the iron Law of the 
Conservation of Energy, and Rjinswand’s brief journey in the plane had sufficed 
to carry him several hundred miles horizontally and seven thousand feet 
vertically. 

The word “plane” flamed and died in Rincewind’s mind. 

Was that a ship down there? 

The cold waters of the Circle Sea roared up at him and sucked him down 
into their green, suffocating embrace. A moment later there was another splash 
as the luggage, still bearing a label carrying the powerful traveling rune TWA, 
also hit the sea. 


Later on, they used it as a raft. 



4 


Cl.OSF, TO THF, Enr.F 


It had been a long time in the making. Now it was almost completed, and the 
slaves hacked away at the last clay remnants of the mantle. 

Where other slaves were industriously rubbing its metal flanks with silver 
sand it was already beginning to gleam in the sun with the silken, organic sheen 
of young bronze. It was still warm, even after a week of cooling in the casting 
pit. 


The Arch-astronomer of Krull motioned lightly with his hand and his bearers 
set the throne down in the shadow of the hull. 

Like a fish, he thought. A great flying fish. And of what seas? 

“It is indeed magnificent,” he whispered. “A work of true art.” 

“Craft,” said the thickset man by his side. The Arch-astronomer turned 
slowly and looked up at the man’s impassive face. It isn’t particularly hard for a 
face to look impassive when there are two golden spheres where the eyes should 
be. They glowed disconcertingly. 

“Craft, indeed,” said the astronomer, and smiled. “I would imagine that there 
is no greater craftsman on the entire Disc than you, Goldeneyes. Would I be 
right?” 

The craftsman paused, his naked body—naked, at least, were it not for a 
toolbelt, a wrist abacus and a deep tan—tensing as he considered the 
implications of this last remark. The golden eyes appeared to be looking into 
some other world. 



“The answer is both yes and no,” he said at last. Some of the lesser 
astronomers behind the throne gasped at this lack of etiquette, but the Arch¬ 
astronomer appeared not to have noticed it. 

“Continue,” he said. 

“There are some essential skills that I lack. Yet I am Goldeneyes Silverhand 
Dactylos,” said the craftsman. “I made the Metal Warriors that guard the Tomb 
of Pitchiu, I designed the Light Dams of the Great Nef, I built the Palace of the 
Seven Deserts. And yet—” he reached up and tapped one of his eyes, which rang 
faintly, “when I built the golem army for Pitchiu he loaded me down with gold 
and then, so that I would create no other work to rival my work for him, he had 
my eyes put out.” 

“Wise but cruel,” said the Arch-astronomer sympathetically. 

“Yah. So I learned to hear the temper of metals and to see with my fingers. I 
learned how to distinguish ores by taste and smell. I made these eyes, but I 
cannot make them see. 

“Next I was summoned to build the Palace of the Seven Deserts, as a result 
of which the Emir showered me with silver and then, not entirely to my surprise, 
had my right hand cut off.” 

“A grave hindrance in your line of business,” nodded the Arch-astronomer. 

“I used some of the silver to make myself this new hand, putting to use my 
unrivaled knowledge of levers and fulcrums. It suffices. After I created the first 
great Light Dam, which had a capacity of 50,000 daylight hours, the tribal 
councils of the Nef loaded me down with fine silks and then hamstrung me so 
that I could not escape. As a result I was put to some inconvenience to use the 
silk and some bamboo to build a flying machine from which I could launch 
myself from the topmost turret of my prison.” 

“Bringing you, by various diversions, to Krull,” said the Arch-astronomer. 
“And one cannot help feeling that some alternative occupation—lettuce farming, 
say—would offer somewhat less of a risk of being put to death by installments. 
Why do you persist in it?” 


Goldeneyes Dactylos shrugged. 



“I’m good at it,” he said. 


The Arch-astronomer looked up again at the bronze fish, shining now like a 
gong in the noontime sun. 

“Such beauty,” he murmured. “And unique. Come, Dactylos. Recall to me 
what it was that I promised should be your reward?” 

“You asked me to design a fish that would swim through the seas of space 
that lie between the worlds,” intoned the master craftsman. “In return for which 
—in return—” 

“Yes? My memory is not what it used to be,” purred the Arch-astronomer, 
stroking the warm bronze. 

“In return,” continued Dactylos, without much apparent hope, “you would 
set me free, and refrain from chopping off any appendages. I require no 
treasure.” 

“Ah, yes. I recall now.” The old man raised a blue-veined hand, and added, 
“I lied.” ' 

There was the merest whisper of sound, and the goldeneyed man rocked on 
his feet. Then he looked down at the arrowhead protruding from his chest, and 
nodded wearily. A speck of blood bloomed on his lips. 

There was no sound in the entire square (save for the buzzing of a few 
expectant flies) as his silver hand came up, very slowly, and fingered the 
arrowhead. 

Dactylos grunted. 

“Sloppy workmanship,” he said, and toppled backward. 

The Arch-astronomer prodded the body with his toe, and sighed. 

“There will be a short period of mourning, as befits a master craftsman,” he 
said. He watched a bluebottle alight on one golden eye and fly away 
puzzled...“That would seem to be long enough,” said the Arch-astronomer, and 
beckoned a couple of slaves to carry the corpse away. 



“Are the chelonauts ready?” he asked. 

The master launchcontroller bustled forward. 

“Indeed, your prominence,” he said. 

“The correct prayers are being intoned?” 

“Quite so, your prominence.” 

“How long to the doorway?” 

“The launch window,” corrected the master launchcontroller carefully. 
“Three days, your prominence. Great A’Tuin’s tail will be in an unmatched 
position.” 

“Then all that remains,” concluded the Arch-astronomer, “is to find the 
appropriate sacrifices.” 

The master launchcontroller bowed. 

“The ocean shall provide,” he said. 

The old man smiled. “It always does,” he said. 


“If only you could navigate—” 

“If only you could steer—” 

A wave washed over the deck. Rincewind and Twoflower looked at each 
other. “Keep bailing!” they screamed in unison, and reached for the buckets. 

After a while Twoflower’s peevish voice filtered up from the waterlogged 
cabin. 

“I don’t see how it’s my fault,” he said. He handed up another bucket, which 
the wizard tipped over the side. 


“You were supposed to be on watch,” snapped Rincewind. 



“I saved us from the slavers, remember,” said Twoflower. 


“I’d rather be a slave than a corpse,” replied the wizard. He straightened up 
and looked out to sea. He appeared puzzled. 

He was a somewhat different Rincewind from the one that escaped the fire 
of Ankh-Morpork some six months before. More scarred, for one thing, and 
much more traveled. He had visited the Hublands, discovered the curious 
folkways of many colorful peoples—invariably obtaining more scars in the 
process—and had even, for a never-to-be-forgotten few days, sailed on the 
legendary Dehydrated Ocean at the heart of the incredibly dry desert known as 
the Great Nef. On a colder and wetter sea he had seen floating mountains of ice. 
He had ridden on an imaginary dragon. He had very nearly said the most 
powerful spell on the Disc. He had— 

—there was definitely less horizon than there ought to be. 

“Hmm?” said Rincewind. 

“I said nothing’s worse than slavery,” said Twoflower. His mouth opened as 
the wizard flung his bucket far out to sea and sat down heavily on the 
waterlogged deck, his face a gray mask. 

“Look, I’m sorry I steered us into the reef, but this boat doesn’t seem to want 
to sink and we’re bound to strike land sooner or later,” said Twoflower 
comfortingly. “This current must go somewhere.” 

“Look at the horizon,” said Rincewind, in a monotone. 

Twoflower squinted. 

“It looks all right,” he said after a while. “Admittedly, there seems to be less 
than there usually is, but—” 

“That’s because of the Rimfall,” said Rincewind. “We’re being carried over 
the edge of the world.” 

There was a long silence, broken only by the lapping of the waves as the 
foundering ship spun slowly in the current. It was already quite strong. 



“That’s probably why we hit that reef,” Rincewind added. “We got pulled off 
course during the night.” 

“Would you like something to eat?” asked Twoflower. He began to rummage 
through the bundle that he had tied to the rail, out of the damp. 

“Don’t you understand?” snarled Rincewind. “We are going over the Edge, 
godsdammit!” 

“Can’t we do anything about it?” 

“No!” 

“Then I can’t see the sense in panicking,” said Twoflower calmly. 

“I knew we shouldn’t have come this far Edgewise,” complained Rincewind 
to the sky, “I wish—” 

“I wish I had my picture box,” said Twoflower, “but it’s back on that slaver 
ship with the rest of the Luggage and—” 

“You won’t need luggage where we’re going,” said Rincewind. He sagged, 
and stared moodily at a distant whale that had carelessly strayed into the 
rimward current and was now struggling against it. 

There was a line of white on the foreshortened horizon, and the wizard 
fancied he could hear a distant roaring. 

“What happens after a ship goes over the Rimfall?” said Twoflower. 

“Who knows?” 

“Well, in that case perhaps we’ll just sail on through space and land on 
another world.” A faraway look came into the little man’s eyes. “I’d like that,” 
he said. 

Rincewind snorted. 


The sun rose in the sky, looking noticeably bigger this close to the Edge. 
They stood with their backs against the mast, busy with their own thoughts. 



Every so often one or other would pick up a bucket and do a bit of desultory 
bailing, for no very intelligent reason. 


The sea around them seemed to be getting crowded. Rincewind noticed 
several tree trunks keeping station with them, and just below the surface the 
water was alive with fish of all sorts. Of course—the current must be teeming 
with food washed from the continents near the Hub. He wondered what kind of 
life it would be, having to keep swimming all the time to stay exactly in the 
same place. Pretty similar to his own, he decided. He spotted a small green frog 
which was paddling desperately in the grip of the inexorable current. To 
Twoflower’s amazement he found a paddle and carefully extended it toward the 
little amphibian, which scrambled onto it gratefully. A moment later a pair of 
jaws broke the water and snapped impotently at the spot where it had been 
swimming. 

The frog looked up at Rincewind from the cradle of his hands, and then bit 
him thoughtfully on the thumb. Twoflower giggled. Rincewind tucked the frog 
away in a pocket, and pretended he hadn’t heard. 

“All very humanitarian, but why?” said Twoflower. “It’ll all be the same in 
an hour.” 

“Because,” said Rincewind vaguely, and did a bit of bailing. Spray was 
being thrown up now and the current was so strong that waves were forming and 
breaking all around them. It all seemed unnaturally warm. There was a hot 
golden haze on the sea. 

The roaring was louder now. A squid bigger than anything Rincewind had 
seen before broke the surface a few hundred yards away and thrashed madly 
with its tentacles before sinking away. Something else that was large and 
fortunately unidentifiable howled in the mist. A whole squadron of flying fish 
tumbled up in a cloud of rainbow-edged droplets and managed to gain a few 
yards before dropping back and being swept away in an eddy. 

They were running out of world. Rincewind dropped his bucket and 
snatched at the mast as the roaring, final end of everything raced toward them. 

“I must see this—” said Twoflower, half falling and half diving toward the 
prow. 



Something hard and unyielding smacked into the hull, which spun ninety 
degrees and came side-on to the invisible obstacle. Then it stopped suddenly and 
a wash of cold sea foam cascaded over the deck, so that for a few seconds 
Rincewind was under several feet of boiling green water. He began to scream 
and then the underwater world became the deep clanging purple color of fading 
consciousness, because it was at about this point that Rincewind started to 
drown. 


He awoke with his mouth full of burning liquid and, when he swallowed, the 
searing pain in his throat jerked him into full consciousness. 

The boards of a boat pressed into his back and Twoflower was looking down 
at him with an expression of deep concern. Rincewind groaned, and sat up. 

This turned out to be a mistake. The edge of the world was a few feet away. 

Beyond it, at a level just below that of the lip of the endless Rimfall, was 
something altogether magical. 


Some seventy miles away, and well beyond the tug of the Rim current, a dhow 
with the red sails typical of a freelance slaver drifted aimlessly through the 
velvety twilight. The crew—such as remained—were clustered on the foredeck, 
surrounding the men working feverishly on the raft. 

The captain, a thickset man who wore the elbow-turbans typical of a Great 
Nef tribesman, was much traveled and had seen many strange peoples and 
curious things, many of which he had subsequently enslaved or stolen. He had 
begun his career as a sailor on the Dehydrated Ocean in the heart of the Disc’s 
driest desert. (Water on the Disc has an uncommon fourth state, caused by 
intense heat combined with the strange dessicating effects of octarine light; it 
dehydrates, leaving a silvery residue like free-flowing sand through which a 
well-designed hull can glide with ease. The Dehydrated Ocean is a strange place, 
but not so strange as its fish.) The captain had never before been really 
frightened. Now he was terrified. 


“I can’t hear anything,” he muttered to the first mate. 



The mate peered into the gloom. 


“Perhaps it fell overboard?” he suggested hopefully. As if in answer there 
came a furious pounding from the oar deck below their feet, and the sound of 
splintering wood. The crewmen drew together fearfully, brandishing axes and 
torches. 

They probably wouldn’t dare to use them, even if the Monster came rushing 
toward them. Before its terrible nature had been truly understood several men 
had attacked it with axes, whereupon it had turned aside from its single-minded 
searching of the ship and had either chased them overboard or had —eaten them? 
The captain was not quite certain. The Thing looked like an ordinary wooden sea 
chest. A bit larger than usual, maybe, but not suspiciously so. But while it 
sometimes seemed to contain things like old socks and miscellaneous luggage, at 
other times—and he shuddered—it seemed to be, seemed to be, seemed to 
have.. .He tried not to think about it. It was just that the men who had been 
drowned overboard had probably been more fortunate than those it had caught. 
He tried not to think about it. There had been teeth, teeth like white wooden 
gravestones, and a tongue red as mahogany... 

He tried not to think about it. It didn’t work. 

But he thought bitterly about one thing. This was going to be the last time he 
rescued ungrateful drowning men in mysterious circumstances. Slavery was 
better than sharks, wasn’t it? And then they had escaped and when his sailors 
had investigated their big chest—how had they appeared in the middle of an 
untroubled ocean sitting on a big chest, anyway?—and it had bitt.. .He tried not 
to think about it again, but he found himself wondering what would happen 
when the damned thing realized that its owner wasn’t on board any longer... 

“Raft’s ready, lord,” said the first mate. 

“Into the water with it,” shouted the captain, and “Get aboard!” and “Fire the 
ship!” 

After all, another ship wouldn’t be too hard to come by, he philosophized, 
but a man might have to wait a long time in that Paradise the mullahs advertised 
before he was granted another life. Let the magical box eat lobsters. 

Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. 



Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long 
ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not 
dying. 


“What the hell is that?” demanded Rincewind. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Twoflower beatifically. 

“I’ll decide about that when I know what it is,” said the wizard. 

“It is the Rimbow,” said a voice immediately behind his left ear, “and you 
are fortunate indeed to be looking at it. From above, at any rate.” 

The voice was accompanied by a gust of cold, fishy breath. Rincewind sat 
quite still. 

“Twoflower?” he said. 

“Yes?” 

“If I turn around, what will I see?” 

“His name is Tethis. He says he’s a sea troll. This is his boat. He rescued us,” 
explained Twoflower. “Will you look around now?” 

“Not just at the moment, thank you. So why aren’t we going over the Edge, 
then?” asked Rincewind with glassy calmness. 

“Because your boat hit the Circumfence,” said the voice behind him (in 
tones that made Rincewind imagine submarine chasms and lurking Things in 
coral reefs). 

“The Circumfence?” he repeated. 

“Yes. It runs along the edge of the world,” said the unseen troll. Above the 
roar of the waterfall Rincewind thought he could make out the splash of oars. He 
hoped they were oars. 


“Ah. You mean the circumference ,” said Rincewind. “The circumference 



makes the edge of things.” 


“So does the Circumfence,” said the troll. 

“He means this,” said Twoflower, pointing down. Rincewind’s eyes followed 
the finger, dreading what they might see... 

Hubward of the boat was a rope suspended a few feet above the surface of 
the white water. The boat was attached to it, moored yet mobile, by a 
complicated arrangement of pulleys and little wooden wheels. They ran along 
the rope as the unseen rower propelled the craft along the very lip of the Rimfall. 
That explained one mystery—but what supported the rope? 

Rincewind peered along its length and saw a stout wooden post sticking up 
out of the water a few yards ahead. As he watched the boat neared it and then 
passed it, the little wheels clacking neatly around it in a groove obviously cut for 
the purpose. 

Rincewind also noticed that smaller ropes hung down from the main rope at 
intervals of a yard or so. 

He turned back to Twoflower. 

“I can see what it is,” he said, “but what is it?” 

Twoflower shrugged. Behind Rincewind the sea troll said, “Up ahead is my 
house. We will talk more when we are there. Now I must row.” 

Rincewind found that looking ahead meant that he would have to turn and 
find out what a sea troll actually looked like, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do 
that yet. He looked at the Rimbow instead. 

It hung in the mists a few lengths beyond the edge of the world, appearing 
only at morning and evening when the light of the Disc’s little orbiting sun shone 
past the massive bulk of Great A’Tuin the World Turtle and struck the Disc’s 
magical field at exactly the right angle. 

A double rainbow corruscated into being. Close into the lip of the Rimfall 
were the seven lesser colors, sparkling and dancing in the spray of the dying 
seas. 



But they were pale in comparison to the wider band that floated beyond 
them, not deigning to share the same spectrum. 

It was the King Color, of which all the lesser colors are merely partial and 
wishy-washy reflections. It was octarine, the color of magic. It was alive and 
glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination, 
because wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere matter was a servant of the 
powers of the magical mind. It was enchantment itself. 

But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish purple. 


After a while a small speck on the rim of the world resolved itself into a eyot or 
crag, so perilously perched that the waters of the fall swirled around it at the start 
of their long drop. A driftwood shanty had been built on it, and Rincewind saw 
that the top rope of the Circumfence climbed over the rocky island on a number 
of iron stakes and actually passed through the shack by a small round window. 

He learned later that this was so that the troll could be alerted to the arrival of 
any salvage on his stretch of the Circumfence by means of a series of small 
bronze bells, balanced delicately on the rope. 

A crude floating stockade had been built out of rough timber on the hubward 
side of the island. It contained one or two hulks and quite a large amount of 
floating wood in the form of planks, baulks and even whole natural tree trunks, 
some still sporting green leaves. This close to the Edge the Disc’s magical field 
was so intense that a hazy corona flickered across everything as raw illusion 
spontaneously discharged itself. 

With a last few squeaky jerks the boat slid up against a small driftwood jetty. 
As it grounded itself and formed a circuit Rincewind felt all the familiar 
sensations of a huge occult aura—oily, bluish tasting, and smelling of tin. All 
around them pure, unfocused magic was sleeting soundlessly into the world. 

The wizard and Twoflower scrambled onto the planking and for the first 
time Rincewind saw the troll. 


It wasn’t half so dreadful as he had imagined. 
Umm, said his imagination after a while. 



It wasn’t that the troll was horrifying. Instead of the rotting, betentacled 
monstrosity he had been expecting Rincewind found himself looking at a rather 
squat but not particularly ugly old man who would quite easily have passed for 
normal on any city street, always provided that other people on the street were 
used to seeing old men who were apparently composed of water and very little 
else. It was as if the ocean had decided to create life without going through all 
that tedious business of evolution, and had simply formed a part of itself into a 
biped and sent it walking squishily up the beach. The troll was a pleasant 
translucent blue color. As Rincewind stared a small shoal of silver fish flashed 
across its chest. 

“It’s rude to stare,” said the troll. Its mouth opened with a little crest of foam, 
and shut again in exactly the same way that water closes over a stone. 

“Is it? Why?” asked Rincewind. How does he hold himself together, his 
mind screamed at him. Why doesn’t he spill? 

“If you will follow me to my house I will find you food and a change of 
clothing,” said the troll solemnly. He set off over the rocks without turning to see 
if they would follow him. After all, where else could they go? It was getting 
dark, and a chilly damp breeze was blowing over the edge of the world. Already 
the transient Rimbow had faded and the mists above the waterfall were 
beginning to thin. 

“Come on,” said Rincewind, grabbing Twoflower’s elbow. But the tourist 
didn’t appear to want to move. 

“Come on,” the wizard repeated. 

“When it gets really dark, do you think we’ll be able to look down and see 
Great A’tuin the World Turtle?” asked Twoflower, staring at the rolling clouds. 

“I hope not,” said Rincewind, “I really do. Now let’s go, shall we?” 

Twoflower followed him reluctantly into the shack. The troll had lit a couple 
of lamps and was sitting comfortably in a rocking chair. He got to his feet as 
they entered and poured two cups of a green liquid from a tall pitcher. In the dim 
light he appeared to phosphoresce, in the manner of warm seas on velvety 
summer nights. Just to add a baroque gloss to Rincewind’s dull terror he seemed 
to be several inches taller, too. 



Most of the furniture in the room appeared to be boxes. 


“Uh. Really great place you’ve got here,” said Rincewind. “Ethnic.” 

He reached for a cup and looked at the green pool shimmering inside it. It’d 
better be drinkable, he thought. Because I’m going to drink it. He swallowed. 

It was the same stuff Twoflower had given him in the rowing boat but, at the 
time, his mind had ignored it because there were more pressing matters. Now it 
had the leisure to savor the taste. 

Rincewind’s mouth twisted. He whimpered a little. One of his legs came up 
convulsively and caught him painfully in the chest. 

Twoflower swirled his own drink thoughtfully while he considered the 
flavor. 

“Ghlen Livid,” he said. “The fermented vul nut drink they freeze-distill in 
my home country. A certain smoky quality.. .Piquant. From the western 
plantations in, ah, Rehigreed Province, yes? Next year’s harvest, I fancy, from 
the color. May I ask how you came by it?” 

(Plants on the Disc, while including the categories known commonly as 
annuals, which were sown this year to come up later this year, biennials, sown 
this year to grow next year, and perennials, sown this year to grow until further 
notice, also included a few rare re-annuals which, because of an unusual four¬ 
dimensional twist in their genes, could be planted this year to come up last year. 
The vul nut vine was particularly exceptional in that it could flourish as many as 
eight years prior to its seed actually being sown. Vul nut wine was reputed to 
give certain drinkers an insight into the future which was, from the nut’s point of 
view, the past. Strange but true.) 

“All things drift into the Circumfence in time,” said the troll, gnomically, 
gently rocking in his chair. “My job is to recover the flotsam. Timber, of course, 
and ships. Barrels of wine. Bales of cloth. You.” 

Light dawned inside Rincewind’s head. 

“It’s a net, isn’t it? You’ve got a net right on the edge of the sea!” 



“The Circumfence,” nodded the troll. Ripples ran across his chest. 


Rincewind looked out into the phosphorescent darkness that surrounded the 
island, and grinned inanely. 

“Of course,” he said. “Amazing! You could sink piles and attach it to reefs 
and—good grief! The net would have to be very strong.” 

“It is,” said Tethis. 

“It could be extended for a couple of miles, if you found enough rocks and 
things,” said the wizard. 

“Ten thousands of miles. I just patrol this league.” 

“That’s a third of the way around the Disc!” 

Tethis sloshed a little as he nodded again. While the two men helped 
themselves to some more of the green wine, he told them about the Circumfence, 
the great effort that had been made to build it, and the ancient and wise Kingdom 
of Krull which had constructed it several centuries before, and the seven navies 
that patrolled it constantly to keep it in repair and bring its salvage back to Krull, 
and the manner in which Krull had become a land of leisure ruled by the most 
learned seekers after knowledge, and the way in which they sought constantly to 
understand in every possible particular the wondrous complexity of the 
Circumfence were turned into slaves, and usually had their tongues cut out. After 
some interjections at this point he spoke, in a friendly way, on the futility of 
force, the impossibility of escaping from the island except by boat to one of the 
other three hundred and eighty isles that lay between the island and Krull itself, 
or by leaping over the Edge, and the high merit of muteness in comparison to, 
for example, death. 

There was a pause. The muted night-roar of the Rimfall only served to give 
the silence a heavier texture. 

Then the rocking chair started to creak again. Tethis seemed to have grown 
alarmingly during the monologue. 

“There is nothing personal in all this,” he added. “I too am a slave. If you try 
to overpower me I shall have to kill you, of course, but I won’t take any 



particular pleasure in it.” 


Rincewind looked at the shimmering fists that rested lightly in the troll’s lap. 
He suspected they could strike with all the force of a tsunami. 

“I don’t think you understand,” explained Twoflower. “I am a citizen of the 
Golden Empire. I’m sure Krull would not wish to incur the displeasure of the 
Emperor.” 

“How will the Emperor know?” asked the troll. “Do you think you’re the 
first person from the Empire who has ended up on the Circumfence?” 

“I won’t be a slave!” shouted Rincewind. “I’d—I’d jump over the Edge 
first!” He was amazed at the sound in his own voice. 

“Would you, though?” asked the troll. The rocking chair flicked back against 
the wall and one blue arm caught the wizard around the waist. A moment later 
the troll was striding out of the shack with Rincewind gripped carelessly in one 
fist. 


He did not stop until he came to the rimward edge of the island. Rincewind 
squealed. 

“Stop that or I really will throw you over the edge,” snapped the troll. “I’m 
holding you, aren’t I? Look” 

Rincewind looked. 

In front of him was a soft black night whose mist-muted stars glowed 
peacefully. But his eyes turned downward, drawn by some irresistible 
fascination. 

It was midnight on the Disc and so, therefore, the sun was far, far below, 
swinging slowly under Great A’Tuin’s vast and frosty plastron. Rincewind tried 
a last attempt to fix his gaze on the tips of his boots, which were protruding over 
the rim of the rock, but the sheer drop wrenched it away. 

On either side of him two glittering curtains of water hurtled toward infinity 
as the sea swept around the island on its way to the long fall. A hundred yards 
below the wizard the largest sea salmon he had ever seen flicked itself out of the 



foam in a wild, jerky and ultimately hopeless leap. Then it fell back, over and 
over, in the golden underworld light. 

Huge shadows grew out of that light like pillars supporting the roof of the 
universe. Hundreds of miles below him the wizard made out the shape of 
something, the edge of something— 

Like those curious little pictures where the silhouette of an ornate glass 
suddenly becomes the outline of two faces, the scene beneath him flipped into a 
whole, new, terrifying perspective. Because down there was the head of an 
elephant as big as a reasonablysized continent. One mighty tusk cut like a 
mountain against the golden light, trailing a widening shadow toward the stars. 
The head was slightly tilted, and a huge ruby eye might almost have been a red 
supergiant that had managed to shine at noonday. 

Below the elephant— 

Rincewind swallowed and tried not to think— 

Below the elephant there was nothing but the distant, painful Disc of the sun. 
And, sweeping slowly past it, was something that for all its city-sized scales, its 
crater-pocks, its Junar cragginess, was indubitably a flipper. 

“Shall I let go?” suggested the troll. 

“Gnah,” said Rincewind, straining backward. 

“I have lived here on the Edge for five years and I have not had the 
courage,” boomed Tethis. “Nor have you, if I’m any judge.” He stepped back, 
allowing Rincewind to fling himself onto the ground. 

Twoflower strolled up to the Rim and peered over. 

“Fantastic,” he said. “If only I had my picture box.. .What else is down 
there? I mean, if you jumped off, what would you see?” 

Tethis sat down on an outcrop. High over the Disc the moon came out from 
behind a cloud, giving him the appearance of ice. 


“My home is down there, perhaps,” he said slowly. “Beyond your silly 



elephants and that ridiculous turtle. Areal world. Sometimes I come out here and 
look, but somehow I can never bring myself to take that extra step.. .A real 
world, with real people. I have wives and little ones, somewhere down there...” 
He stopped, and blew his nose. “You soon learn what you’re made of, here on 
the Edge” 

“Stop saying that. Please,” moaned Rincewind. He turned over and saw 
Twoflower standing unconcernedly at the very lip of the rock. “Gnah,” he said, 
and tried to burrow into the stone. 

“There’s another world down there?” said Twoflower, peering over. “Where, 
exactly?” 

The troll waved an arm vaguely. “Somewhere,” he said. “That’s all I know. 

It was quite a small world. Mostly blue.” 

“So why are you here?” said Twoflower. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” snapped the troll. “I fell off the edge!” 


He told them of the world of Bathys, somewhere among the stars, where the 
seafolk had built a number of thriving civilizations in the three large oceans that 
sprawled across its Disc. He had been a meatman, one of the caste which earned 
a perilous living in large, sail-powered land yachts that ventured far out to land 
and hunted the shoals of deer and buffalo that abounded in the storm-haunted 
continents. His particular yacht had been blown into uncharted lands by a freak 
gale. The rest of the crew had taken the yacht’s little rowing trolley and had 
struck out for a distant lake, but Tethis, as master, had elected to remain with his 
vessel. The storm had carried it right over the rocky rim of the world, smashing 
it to matchwood in the process. 

“At first I fell,” said Tethis, “but falling isn’t so bad, you know. It’s only the 
landing that hurts, and there was nothing below me. As I fell I saw the world 
spin off into space until it was lost against the stars.” 

“What happened next?” said Twoflower breathlessly, glancing toward the 
misty universe. 



“I froze solid,” said Tethis simply. “Fortunately it is something my race can 
survive. But I thawed out occasionally when I passed near other worlds. There 
was one, I think it was the one with what I thought was this strange ring of 
mountains around it that turned out to be the biggest dragon you could ever 
imagine, covered in snow and glaciers and holding its tail in its mouth—well, I 
came within a few leagues of that, I shot over the landscape like a comet, in fact, 
and then I was off again. Then there was a time I woke up and there was your 
world coming at me like a custard piethrown by the Creator and, well, I landed 
in the sea not far from the Circumfence widdershins of Krull. All sorts of 
creatures get washed up against the Fence, and at the time they were looking for 
slaves to man the way stations, and I ended up here.” He stopped and stared 
intently at Rincewind. “Every night I come out here and look down,” he 
finished, “and I never jump. Courage is hard to come by, here on the Edge.” 

Rincewind began to crawl determinedly toward the shack. He gave a little 
scream as the troll picked him up, not unkindly, and set him on his feet. 

“Amazing,” said Twoflower, and leaned farther out over the Edge. “There 
are lots of other worlds out there?” 

“Quite a number, I imagine,” said the troll. 

“I suppose one could contrive some sort of, I don’t know, some sort of a 
thing that could preserve one against the cold,” said the little man thoughtfully. 
“Some sort of a ship that one could sail over the Edge and sail to far-off worlds, 
too. I wonder...” 

“Don’t even think about it!” moaned Rincewind. “Stop talking like that, do 
you hear?” 

“They all talk like that in Krull,” said Tethis. 

“Those with tongues, of course,” he added. 


“Are you awake?” 


Twoflower snored on. Rincewind jabbed him viciously in the ribs. 



“I said, are you awake?” he snarled. 


“Scrdfngh...” 

“We’ve got to get out of here before this salvage fleet comes!” 

The dishwater light of dawn oozed through the shack’s one window, 
slopping across the piles of salvaged boxes and bundles that were strewn around 
the interior. Twoflower grunted again and tried to burrow into the pile of furs and 
blankets that Tethis had given them. 

“Look, there’s all kinds of weapons and stuff in here,” said Rincewind. 

“He’s gone out somewhere. When he comes back we could overpower him and 
—and—well, then we can think of something. How about it?” 

“That doesn’t sound like a very good idea,” said Twoflower. “Anyhow, it’s a 
bit ungracious isn’t it?” 

“Tough buns,” snapped Rincewind. “This is a rough universe.” 

He rummaged through the piles around the walls and selected a heavy, 
wavy-bladed scimitar that had probably been some pirate’s pride and joy. It 
looked the sort of weapon that relied as much on its weight as its edge to cause 
damage. He raised it awkwardly. 

“Would he leave that sort of thing around if it could hurt him?” Twoflower 
wondered aloud. 

Rincewind ignored him and took up a position beside the door. When it 
opened some ten minutes later he moved unhesitatingly, swinging it across the 
opening at what he judged was the troll’s head height. It swished harmlessly 
through nothing at all and struck the doorpost, jerking him off his feet and onto 
the floor. 

There was a sigh above him. He looked up into Tethis’s face, which was 
shaking sadly from side to side. 

“It wouldn’t have harmed me,” said the troll, “but nevertheless I am hurt. 
Deeply hurt.” He reached over the wizard and jerked the sword out of the wood. 
With no apparent effort he bent its blade into a circle and sent it bowling away 



over the rocks until it hit a stone and sprang, still spinning, in a silver arc that 
ended in the mists forming over the Rimfall. 

“Very deeply hurt,” he concluded. He reached down beside the door and 
tossed a sack toward Twoflower. 

“It’s the carcass of a deer that is just about how you humans like it, and a 
few lobsters, and a sea salmon. The Circumfence provides,” he said casually. 

He looked hard at the tourist, and then down again at Rincewind. 

“What are you staring at?” he said. 

“It’s just that—” said Twoflower. 

“—compared to last night—” said Rincewind. 

“You’re so small,” finished Twoflower. 

“I see, said the troll carefully. “Personal remarks now.” He drew himself up 
to his full height, which was currently about four feet. “Just because I’m made of 
water doesn’t mean I’m made of wood, you know.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Twoflower, climbing hastily out of the furs. 

“You’re made of dirt,” said the troll, “but I didn’t pass comments about 
things you can’t help, did I? Oh, no. We can’t help the way the Creator made us, 
that’s my view. But if you must know, your moon here is rather more powerful 
than the ones around my own world.” 

“The moon?” said Twoflower. “I don’t under—” 

“If I’ve got to spell it out,” said the troll, testily, “I’m suffering from chronic 
tides.” 

Abell jangled in the darkness of the shack. Tethis strode across the creaking 
floor to the complicated devices of levers, strings and bells that was mounted on 
the Circumfence’s topmost strand where it passed through the hut. 


The bell rang again, and then started to clang away in an odd jerky rhythm 



for several minutes. The troll stood with his ear pressed close to it. 


When it stopped he turned slowly and looked at them with a worried frown. 

“You’re more important than I thought,” he said. “You’re not to wait for the 
salvage fleet. You’re to be collected by a flyer. That’s what they say in Krull.” 
He shrugged. “And I hadn’t even sent a message that you’re here, yet. 
Someone’s been drinking vul nut wine again.” 

He picked up a large mallet that hung on a pillar beside the bell and used it 
to tap out a brief carillon. 

“That’ll be passed from lengthman to lengthman all the way back to Krull,” 
he said. “Marvelous really, isn’t it?” 


It came speeding across the sea, floating a man-length above it, but still leaving a 
foaming wake as whatever power that held it up smacked brutally into the water. 
Rincewind knew what power held it up. He was, he would be the first to admit, a 
coward, an incompetent, and not even very good at being a failure; but he was 
still a wizard of sorts, he knew one of the Eight Great Spells, he would be 
claimed by Death himself when he died, and he recognized really finely honed 
magic when he saw it. 

The lens skimming toward the island was perhaps twenty feet across, and 
totally transparent. Sitting around its circumference were a large number of 
black-robed men, each one strapped securely to the Disc by a leather harness and 
each one staring down at the waves with an expression so tormented, so 
agonizing, that the transparent disc seemed to be ringed with gargoyles. 

Rincewind sighed with relief. This was such an unusual sound that it made 
Twoflower take his eyes off the approaching disc and turn them on him. 

“We’re important, no lie,” explained Rincewind. “They wouldn’t be wasting 
all that magic on a couple of potential slaves.” He grinned. 

“What is it?” said Twoflower. 

“Well, the disc itself would have been created by Fresnel’s Wonderful 



Concentrator,” said Rincewind, authoritatively. “That calls for many rare and 
unstable ingredients, such as demon’s breath and so forth, and it takes at least 
eight fourth-grade wizards a week to envision. Then there’s those wizards on it, 
who must all be gifted hydrophobes—” 

“You mean they hate water?” said Twoflower. 

“No, that wouldn’t work,” said Rincewind. “Hate is an attracting force, just 
like love. They really loathe it, the very idea of it revolts them. A really good 
hydrophobe has to be trained on dehydrated water from birth. I mean, that costs 
a fortune in magic alone. But they make great weather magicians. Rain clouds 
just give up and go away.” 

“It sounds terrible,” said the water troll behind them. 

“And they all die young,” said Rincewind, ignoring him. “They just can’t 
live with themselves.” 

“Sometimes I think a man could wander across the Disc all his life and not 
see everything there is to see,” said Twoflower. “And now it seems there are lots 
of other worlds as well. When I think I might die without seeing a hundredth of 
all there is to see it makes me feel,” he paused, then added, “well, humble, I 
suppose. And very angry, of course.” 

The flyer halted a few yards hubward of the island, throwing up a sheet of 
spray. It hung there, spinning slowly. A hooded figure standing by the stubby 
pillar at the exact center of the lens beckoned to them. 

“You’d better wade out,” said the troll. “It doesn’t do to keep them waiting. 

It has been nice to make your acquaintance.” He shook them both, wetly, by the 
hand. As he waded out a little way with them the two nearest loathers on the lens 
shied away with expressions of extreme disgust. 

The hooded figure reached down with one hand and released a rope ladder. 
In its other hand it held a silver rod, which had about it the unmistakable air of 
something designed for killing people. Rincewind’s first impression was 
reinforced when the figure raised the stick and waved it carelessly toward the 
shore. A section of rock vanished, leaving a small gray haze of nothingness. 


“That’s so you don’t think I’m afraid to use it,” said the figure. 



“Don’t think you’re afraid?” said Rincewind. The hooded figure snorted. 


“We know all about you, Rincewind the magician. You are a man of great 
cunning and artifice. You laugh in the face of Death. Your affected air of craven 
cowardice does not fool me.” 

It fooled Rincewind. “I—” he began, and paled as the nothingness-stick was 
turned toward him. “I see you know all about me,” he finished weakly, and sat 
down heavily on the slippery surface. He and Twoflower, under instructions 
from the hooded commander, strapped themselves down to rings set in the 
transparent disc. 

“If you make the merest suggestion of weaving a spell,” said the darkness 
under the hood, “you die. Third quadrant reconcile, ninth quadrant redouble, 
forward a//!” 

A wall of water shot into the air behind Rincewind and the disc jerked 
suddenly. The dreadful presence of the sea troll had probably concentrated the 
hydrophobes’ minds wonderfully, because it then rose at a very steep angle and 
didn’t begin level flight until it was a dozen fathoms above the waves. 

Rincewind glanced down through the transparent surface and wished he hadn’t. 

“Well, off again then,” said Twoflower cheerfully. He turned and waved at 
the troll, now no more than a speck on the edge of the world. 

Rincewind glared at him. “Doesn’t anything every worry you?” he asked. 

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” asked Twoflower. “And you yourself said they 
wouldn’t be going to all this trouble if we were just going to be slaves. I expect 
Tethis was exaggerating. I expect it’s all a misunderstanding. I expect we’ll be 
sent home. After we’ve seen Krull, of course. And I must say it all sounds 
fascinating.” 

“Oh yes,” said Rincewind, in a hollow voice. “Fascinating.” He was 
thinking: I’ve seen excitement, and I’ve seen boredom. And boredom was best. 

Had either of them happened to look down at that moment they would have 
noticed a strange v-shaped wave surging through the water far below them, its 
apex pointing directly at Tethis’s island. But they weren’t looking. The twenty- 
four hydrophobic magicians were looking, but to them it was just another piece 



of dreadfulness, not really any different from the liquid horror around it. They 
were probably right. 


Sometime before all this the blazing pirate ship had hissed under the waves 
and started the long slow slide toward the distant ooze. It was more distant than 
average, because directly under the stricken keel was the Gorunna Trench—a 
chasm in the Disc’s surface that was so black, so deep and so reputedly evil that 
even the krakens went there fearfully, and in pairs. In less reputedly evil chasms 
the fish went about with natural lights on their heads and on the whole managed 
quite well. In Gorunna they left them unlit and, insofar as it is possible for 
something without legs to creep, they crept; they tended to bump into things, too. 
Horrible things. 

The water around the ship turned from green to purple, from purple to black, 
from black to a darkness so complete that blackness itself seemed merely gray 
by comparison. Most of its timbers had already been crushed into splinters under 
the intense pressure. 

It spiraled past groves of nightmare polyps and drifting forests of seaweed 
which glowed with faint, diseased colors. Things brushed it briefly with soft, 
cold tentacles as they darted away into the freezing silence. 

Something rose up from the murk and ate it in one mouthful. 

Some time later the islanders on a little rimward atoll were amazed to find, 
washed into their little local lagoon, the wave-rocked corpse of a hideous sea 
monster, all beaks, eyes and tentacles. They were further astonished at its size, 
since it was rather larger than their village. But their surprise was tiny compared 
to the huge, stricken expression on the face of the dead monster, which appeared 
to have been trampled to death. 

Somewhat farther rimward of the atoll a couple of little boats, trolling a net 
for the ferocious free-swimming oysters which abounded in those seas, caught 
something that dragged both vessels for several miles before one captain had the 
presence of mind to sever the lines. 

But even his bewilderment was as nothing compared to that of the islanders 
on the last atoll in the archipelago. During the following night they were 



awakened by a terrific crashing and splintering noise coming from their minute 
jungle; when some of the bolder spirits went to investigate in the morning they 
found that the trees had been smashed in a broad swath that started on the 
hubmost shore of the atoll and made a line of total destruction pointing precisely 
Edgewise, littered with broken lianas, crushed bushes and a few bewildered and 
angry oysters. 


They were high enough now to see the wide curve of the Rim sweeping away 
from them, lapped by the fluffy clouds that mercifully hid the waterfall for most 
of the time. From up here the sea, a deep blue dappled with cloud-shadows, 
looked almost inviting. Rincewind shuddered. 

“Excuse me,” he said. The hooded figure turned from its contemplation of 
the distant haze and raised its wand threateningly. 

“I don’t want to use this,” it said. 

“You don’t?” said Rincewind. 

“What is it, anyway?” said Twoflower. 

“Ajandurah’s Wand of Utter Negativity,” said Rincewind. “And I wish you’d 
stop waving it about. It might go off,” he added, nodding at the wand’s glittering 
point. “I mean, it’s all very flattering, all this magic being used just for our 
benefit, but there’s no need to go quite that far. And—” 

“Shut up. The figure reached up and pulled back its hood, revealing itself to 
be a most unusually tinted young woman. Her skin was black. Not the dark 
brown of Urabewe, or the polished blue-black of monsoon-haunted Klatch, but 
the deep black of midnight at the bottom of a cave. Her hair and eyebrows were 
the color of moonlight. There was the same pale sheen around her lips. She 
looked about fifteen, and very frightened. 

Rincewind couldn’t help noticing that the hand holding the wand was 
shaking; this was because a piece of sudden death, wobbling uncertainly a mere 
five feet from your nose, is very hard to miss. It dawned on him—very slowly, 
because it was a completely new sensation—that someone in the world was 
frightened of him. The complete reverse was so often the case that he had come 



to think of it as a kind of natural law. 

“What is your name?” he said, as reassuringly as he could manage. She 
might be frightened, but she did have the wand. If I had a wand like that, he 
thought, I wouldn’t be frightened of anything. So what in Creation can she 
imagine I could do? 

“My name is immaterial,” she said. 

“That’s a pretty name,” said Rincewind. “Where are you taking us, and why? 
I can’t see any harm in your telling us.” 

“You are being brought to Krull,” said the girl. “And don’t mock me, 
Hublander. Else I’ll use the wand. I must bring you in alive, but no one said 
anything about bringing you in whole. My name is Marchesa, and I am a wizard 
of the fifth level. Do you understand?” 

“Well, since you know all about me then you know that I never even made it 
to Neophyte,” said Rincewind. “I’m not even a wizard, really.” He caught 
Twoflower’s astonished expression, and added hastily, “Just a wizard of sorts.” 

“You can’t do magic because one of the Eight Great Spells is indelibly 
lodged in your mind,” said Marchesa, shifting her balance gracefully as the great 
lens described a wide arc over the sea. “That’s why you were thrown out of 
Unseen University. We know.” 

“But you said just now that he was a magician of great cunning and artifice,” 
protested Twoflower. 

“Yes, because anyone who survives all that he has survived—most of which 
was brought on himself by his tendency to think of himself as a wizard—well, 
he must be some kind of a magician,” said Marchesa. “I warn you, Rincewind. If 
you give me the merest suspicion that you are intoning the Great Spell I really 
will kill you.” She scowled at him nervously. 

“Seems to me your best course would be to just, you know, drop us off 
somewhere,” said Rincewind. “I mean, thanks for rescuing us and everything, so 
if you’d just let us get on with leading our lives I’m sure we’d all—” 


“I hope you’re not proposing to enslave us,” said Twoflower. 



Marchesa looked genuinely shocked. “Certainly not! Whatever could have 
given you that idea? Your lives in Krull will be rich, full and comfortable—” 

“Oh, good,” said Rincewind. 

“—just not very long.” 


Krull turned out to be a large island, quite mountainous and heavily wooded, 
with pleasant white buildings visible here and there among the trees. The land 
sloped gradually up toward the Rim, so that the highest point in Krull in fact 
slightly overhung the Edge. Here the Krullians had built their major city, also 
called Krull, and since so much of their building material had been salvaged 
from the Circumfence the houses of Krull had a decidedly nautical persuasion. 

To put it bluntly, entire ships had been mortised artfully together and 
converted into buildings. Triremes, dhows and caravels protruded at strange 
angles from the general wooden chaos. Painted figureheads and Hublandish 
dragonprows reminded the citizens of Krull that their good fortune stemmed 
from the sea; barquentines and carracks lent a distinctive shape to the larger 
buildings. And so the city rose tier on tier between the blue-green ocean of the 
Disc and the soft cloud sea of the Edge, the eight colors of the Rimbow reflected 
in every window and in the many telescope lenses of the city’s multitude of 
astronomers. 

“It’s absolutely awful,” said Rincewind gloomily. 

The lens was approaching now along the very lip of the Rimfall. The island 
not only got higher as it neared the Edge. It got narrower, too, so that the lens 
was able to remain over water until it was very near the city. The parapet along 
the edgewise cliff was dotted with gantries projecting into nothingness. The lens 
glided smoothly toward one of them and docked with it as smoothly as a boat 
might glide up to a quay. Four guards, with the same moonlight hair and 
nightblack faces as Marchesa, were waiting. They did not appear to be armed, 
but as Twoflower and Rincewind stumbled onto the parapet they were each 
grabbed by the arms and held quite firmly enough for any thought of escape to 
be instantly dismissed. 


Then Marchesa and the watching hydrophobic wizards were quickly left 



behind and the guards and their prisoners set off briskly along a lane that wound 
between the ship houses. Soon it led downward, into what turned out to be a 
palace of some sort, half-hewn out of the rock of the cliff itself. Rincewind was 
vaguely aware of brightly lit tunnels, and courtyards open to the distant sky. A 
few elderly men, their robes covered in mysterious occult symbols, stood aside 
and watched with interest as the sextet passed. Several times Rincewind noticed 
hydrophobes—their ingrained expressions of self-revulsion at their own body- 
fluids was distinctive—and here and there trudging men who could only be 
slaves. He didn’t have much time to reflect on all this before a door was opened 
ahead of them and they were pushed, gently but firmly, into a room. Then the 
door slammed behind them. 

Rincewind and Twoflower regained their balance and stared around the 
room in which they now found themselves. 

“Gosh,” said Twoflower ineffectually, after a pause during which he had 
tried unsuccessfully to find a better word. 

“This is a prison cell?” wondered Rincewind aloud. 

“All that gold and silk and stuff,” Twoflower added. “I’ve never seen 
anything like it!” 

In the center of the richly decorated room, on a carpet that was so deep and 
furry that Rincewind trod on it gingerly lest it be some kind of shaggy, floor- 
loving beast, was a long gleaming table laden with food. Most were fish dishes, 
including the biggest and most ornately prepared lobster Rincewind had ever 
seen, but there were also plenty of bowls and platters piled with strange creations 
that he had never seen before. He reached out cautiously and picked up some 
sort of purple fruit cmsted with green crystals. 

“Candied sea urchin,” said a cracked, cheerful voice behind him. “A great 
delicacy.” 

He dropped it quickly and turned around. An old man had stepped out from 
behind the heavy curtains. He was tall, thin and looked almost benign compared 
to some of the faces Rincewind had seen recently. 

“The puree of sea cucumbers is very good, too,” said the face, 
conversationally. “Those little green bits are baby starfish.” 



“Thank you for telling me,” said Rincewind weakly. 

“Actually, they’re rather good,” said Twoflower, his mouth full. “I thought 
you liked seafood?” 

“Yes, I thought I did,” said Rincewind. “What’s this wine—crushed octopus 
eyeballs?” 

“Sea grape,” said the old man. 

“Great,” said Rincewind, and swallowed a glassful. “Not bad. A bit salty, 
maybe.” 

“Sea grape is a kind of small jellyfish,” explained the stranger. “And now I 
really think I should introduce myself. Why has your friend gone that strange 
color?” 

“Culture shock, I imagine,” said Twoflower. “What did you say your name 
was?” 

“I didn’t. It’s Garhartra. I’m the Guestmaster, you see. It is my pleasant task 
to make sure that your stay here is as delightful as possible.” He bowed. “If there 
is anything you want you have only to say.” 

Twoflower sat down on an ornate mother-of-pearl chair with a glass of oily 
wine in one hand and a crystallized squid in the other. He frowned. 

“I think I’ve missed something along the way,” he said. “First we were told 
we were going to be slaves—” 

“Abase canard!” interrupted Garhartra. 

“What’s a canard?” said Twoflower. 

“I think it’s a kind of duck,” said Rincewind from the far end of the long 
table. “Are these biscuits made of something really nauseating, do you 
suppose?” 


55 


“—and then we were rescued at great magical expense 



“They’re made of pressed seaweed,” snapped the Guestmaster. 

“—but then we’re threatened, also at a vast expenditure of magic—” 

“Yes, I thought it would be something like seaweed,” agreed Rincewind. 
“They certainly taste like seaweed would taste if anyone was masochistic 
enough to eat seaweed.” 

“—and then we’re manhandled by guards and thrown in here—” 

“Pushed gently,” corrected Garhartra. 

“—which turned out to be this amazingly rich room and there’s all this food 
and a man saying he’s devoting his life to making us happy,” Twoflower 
concluded. “What I’m getting at is this sort of lack of consistency.” 

“Yar,” said Rincewind. “What he means is, are you about to start being 
generally unpleasant again? Is this just a break for lunch?” 

Garhartra held up his hands reassuringly. 

“Please, please,” he protested. “It was just necessary to get you here as soon 
as possible. We certainly do not want to enslave you. Please be reassured on that 
score.” 

“Well, fine,” said Rincewind. 

“Yes, you will in fact be sacrificed,” Garhartra continued placidly. 

“Sacrificed? You’re going to kill us?” shouted the wizard. 

“Kill? Yes, of course. Certainly! It would hardly be a sacrifice if we didn’t, 
would it? But don’t worry—it’ll be comparatively painless.” 

“Comparatively? Compared to what?” said Rincewind. He picked up a tall 
green bottle that was full of sea grape jellyfish wine and hurled it hard at the 
Guestmaster, who flung up a hand as if to protect himself. 

There was a crackle of octarine flame from his fingers and the air suddenly 
took on the thick, greasy feel that indicated a powerful magical discharge. The 



flung bottle slowed and then stopped in midair, rotating gently. 


At the same time an invisible force picked Rincewind up and hurled him 
down the length of the room, pinning him awkwardly halfway up the far wall 
with no breath left in his body. He hung there with his mouth open in rage and 
astonishment. 

Garhartra lowered his hand and brushed it slowly on his robe. 

“I didn’t enjoy doing that, you know,” he said. 

“I could tell,” muttered Rincewind. 

“But what do you want to sacrifice us for?” asked Twoflower. “You hardly 
know us!” 

“That’s rather the point, isn’t it? It’s not very good manners to sacrifice a 
friend. Besides, you were, um, specified. I don’t know a lot about the god in 
question, but He was quite clear on that point. Look, I must be running along 
now. So much to organize, you know how it is,” the Guestmaster opened the 
door, and then peered back around it. “Please make yourselves comfortable, and 
don’t worry.” 

“But you haven’t actually told us anything!” wailed Twoflower. 

“It’s not really worth it, is it? What with you being sacrificed in the 
morning,” said Garhartra, “it’s hardly worth the bother of knowing, really. Sleep 
well. Comparatively well, anyway.” 

He shut the door. A brief octarine flicker of balefire around it suggested that 
it had now been sealed beyond the skills of any earthly locksmith. 


Gling, clang, tang went the bells along the Circumfence in the moonlit, Rimfall¬ 
roaring night. 

Terton, lengthman of the 45th Length, hadn’t heard such a clashing since the 
night a giant kraken had been swept into the Fence five years ago. He leaned out 
of his hut, which for the lack of any convenient eyot on this Length had been 
built on wooden piles driven into the seabed, and stared into the darkness. Once 



or twice he thought he could see movement, far off. Strictly speaking, he should 
row out to see what was causing the din. But here in the clammy darkness it 
didn’t seem like an astoundingly good idea, so he slammed the door, wrapped 
some sacking around the madly jangling bells, and tried to get back to sleep. 

That didn’t work, because even the top strand of the Fence was thrumming 
now, as if something big and heavy was bouncing on it. After staring at the 
ceiling for a few minutes, and trying hard not to think of great long tentacles and 
pond-sized eyes, Terton blew out the lantern and opened the door a crack. 

Something was coming along the Fence, in giant loping bounds that covered 
meters at a time. It loomed up at him and for a moment Terton saw something 
rectangular, multilegged, shaggy with seaweed and—although it had absolutely 
no features from which he could have deduced this—it was also very angry 
indeed. 

The hut was smashed to fragments as the monster charged through it, 
although Terton survived by clinging to the Circumfence; some weeks later he 
was picked up by a returning salvage fleet, subsequently escaped from Krull on a 
hijacked lens (having developed hydrophobia to an astonishing degree) and after 
a number of adventures eventually found his way to the Great Nef, an area of the 
Disc so dry that it actually has negative rainfall, which he nevertheless 
considered uncomfortably damp. 


“Have you tried the door?” 

“Yes,” said Twoflower. “And it isn’t any less locked than it was last time you 
asked. There’s the window, though.” 

“A great way of escape,” muttered Rincewind, from his perch halfway up the 
wall. “You said it looks out over the Edge. Just step out, eh, and plunge through 
space and maybe freeze solid or hit some other world at incredible speeds or 
plunge wildly into the burning heart of a sun?” 

“Worth a try,” said Twoflower. “Want a seaweed biscuit?” 


“No!” 



“When are you coming down?” 

Rincewind snarled. This was partly in embarrassment. Garhartra’s spell had 
been the little-used and hard-to-master Atavarr’s Personal Gravitational Upset, 
the practical result of which was that until it wore off Rincewind’s body was 
convinced that “down” lay at ninety degrees to that direction normally accepted 
as of a downward persuasion by the majority of the Disc’s inhabitants. He was in 
fact standing on the wall. 

Meanwhile the flung bottle hung supportless in the air a few yards away. In 
its case time had—well, not actually been stopped, but had been slowed by 
several orders of magnitude, and its trajectory had so far occupied several hours 
and a couple of inches as far as Twoflower and Rincewind were concerned. The 
glass gleamed in the moonlight. Rincewind sighed and tried to make himself 
comfortable on the wall. 

“Why don’t you ever worry?” he demanded petulantly. “Here we are, going 
to be sacrificed to some god or other in the morning, and you just sit there eating 
barnacle canapes.” 

“I expect something will turn up,” said Twoflower. 

“I mean, it’s not as if we know why we’re going to be killed,” the wizard 
went on. 

You’d like to, would you? 

“Did you say that?” asked Rincewind. 

“Say what?” 

You’re hearing things said the voice in Rincewind’s head. 

He sat bolt sideways. “Who are you?” he demanded. 

Twoflower gave him a worried look. 

“I’m Twoflower,” he said. “Surely you remember?” 


Rincewind put his head in his hands. 



“It’s happened at last,” he moaned. “I’m going out of my mind.” 

Good idea said the voice. It’s getting pretty crowded in here 

The spell pinning Rincewind to the wall vanished with a faint “pop.” He fell 
forward and landed in a heap on the floor. 

Careful—you nearly squashed me 

Rincewind struggled to his elbows and reached into the pocket of his robe. 
When he withdrew his hand the green frog was sitting on it, its eyes oddly 
luminous in the half-light. 

“You?” said Rincewind. 

Put me down on the floor and stand back The frog blinked. 

The wizard did so, and dragged a bewildered Twoflower out of the way. 

The room darkened. There was a windy, roaring sound. Streamers of green, 
purple and octarine cloud appeared out of nowhere and began to spiral rapidly 
toward the recumbent amphibian, shedding small bolts of lightning as they 
whirled. Soon the frog was lost in a golden haze which began to elongate 
upward, filling the room with a warm yellow light. Within it was a darker, 
indistinct shape, which wavered and changed even as they watched. And all the 
time there was the high, brain-curdling whine of a huge magical field... 

As suddenly as it had appeared, the magical tornado vanished. And there, 
occupying the space where the frog had been, was a frog. 

“Fantastic,” said Rincewind. 

The frog gazed at him reproachfully. 

“Really amazing,” said Rincewind sourly. “A frog magically transformed 
into a frog. Wondrous.” 

“Turn around,” said a voice behind them. It was a soft, feminine voice, 
almost an inviting voice, the sort of voice you could have a few drinks with, but 
it was coming from a spot where there oughtn’t to be a voice at all. They 



managed to turn without really moving, like a couple of statues revolving on 
plinths. 

There was a woman standing in the pre-dawn light. She looked—she was— 
she had a—in point of actual fact she... 

Later Rincewind and Twoflower couldn’t quite agree on any single fact 
about her, except that she had appeared to be beautiful (precisely what physical 
features made her beautiful they could not, definitively, state) and that she had 
green eyes. Not the pale green of ordinary eyes, either—these were the green of 
fresh emeralds and as iridescent as a dragonfly. And one of the few genuinely 
magical facts that Rincewind knew was that no god or goddess, contrary and 
volatile as they might be in all other respects, could change the color or nature of 
their eyes... 

“L—” he began. She raised a hand. 

“You know that if you say my name I must depart,” she hissed. “Surely you 
recall that I am the one goddess who comes only when not invoked?” 

“Uh. Yes, I suppose I do,” croaked the wizard, trying not to look at the eyes. 
“You’re the one they call the Lady?” 

“Yes.” 

“Are you a goddess then?” said Twoflower excitedly. “I’ve always wanted to 
meet one.” 

Rincewind tensed, waiting for the explosion of rage. Instead, the Lady 
merely smiled. 

“Your friend the wizard should introduce us,” she said. 

Rincewind coughed. “Uh, yar,” he said. “This is Twoflower, Lady, he’s a 
tourist—” 

“—I have attended him on a number of occasions—” 

“—and, Twoflower, this is the Lady. Just the Lady, right? Nothing else. 

Don’t try and give her any other name, okay?” he went on desperately, his eyes 



darting meaningful glances that were totally lost on the little man. 

Rincewind shivered. He was not, of course, an atheist; on the Disc the gods 
dealt severely with atheists. On the few occasions when he had some spare 
change he had always made a point of dropping a few coppers into a temple 
coffer, somewhere, on the principle that a man needed all the friends he could 
get. But usually he didn’t bother the gods, and he hoped the gods wouldn’t 
bother him. Life was quite complicated enough. 

There were two gods, however, who were really terrifying. The rest of the 
gods were usually only sort of large-scale humans, fond of wine and war and 
whoring. But Fate and the Lady were chilling. 

In the Gods’ Quarter, in Ankh-Morpork, Fate had a small, heavy, leaden 
temple, where hollow-eyed and gaunt worshippers met on dark nights for their 
predestined and fairly pointless rites. There were no temples at all to the Lady, 
although she was arguably the most powerful goddess in the entire history of 
Creation. A few of the more daring members of the Gamblers’ Guild had once 
experimented with a form of worship, in the deepest cellars of Guild 
headquarters, and had all died of penury, murder or just Death within the week. 
She was the Goddess Who Must Not Be Named; those who sought her never 
found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, 
then again, sometimes she didn’t. She was like that. She didn’t like the clicking 
of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She 
looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his 
life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare 
Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn’t. Among all the gods she was 
at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed. 

“We don’t have gods where I come from,” said Two flower. 

“You do, you know,” said the Lady. “Everyone has gods. You just don’t 
think they’re gods.” 

Rincewind shook himself mentally. 

“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to sound impatient, but in a few minutes some 
people are going to come through that door and take us away and kill us.” 


“Yes,” said the Lady. 



“I suppose you wouldn’t tell us why?” said Twoflower. 


“Yes,” said the Lady. “The Krullians intend to launch a bronze vessel over 
the edge of the Disc. Their prime purpose is to learn the sex of A’Tuin the World 
Turtle.” 

“Seems rather pointless,” said Rincewind. 

“No. Consider. One day Great A’Tuin may encounter another member of the 
species chelys galacdca, somewhere in the vast night in which we move. Will 
they fight? Will they mate? A little imagination will show you that the sex of 
Great A’Tuin could be very important to us. At least, so the Krullians say.” 

Rincewind tried not to think of World Turtles mating. It wasn’t completely 
easy. 

“So,” continued the goddess, “they intend to launch this ship of space, with 
two voyagers aboard. It will be the culmination of decades of research. It will 
also be very dangerous for the travelers. And so, in an attempt to reduce the 
risks, the Arch-astronomer of Krull has bargained with Fate to sacrifice two men 
at the moment of launch. Fate, in His turn, has agreed to smile on the space ship. 
A neat barter, is it not?” 

“And we’re the sacrifices,” said Rincewind. 

“Yes.” 

“I thought Fate didn’t go in for that sort of bargaining. I thought Fate was 
implaccable,” said Rincewind. 

“Normally, yes. But you two have been thorns in his side for some time. He 
specified that the sacrifices should be you. He allowed you to escape from the 
pirates. He allowed you to drift into the Circumfence. Fate can be one mean god 
at times.” 

There was a pause. The frog sighed and wandered off under the table. 

“But you can help us?” prompted Twoflower. 

“You amuse me,” said the Lady. “I have a sentimental streak. You’d know 



that, if you were gamblers. So for a little while I rode in a frog’s mind and you 
kindly rescued me, for, as we all know, no one likes to see pathetic and helpless 
creatures swept to their death.” 

“Thank you,” said Rincewind. 

“The whole mind of Fate is bent against you,” said the Lady. “But all I can 
do is give you one chance. Just one, small chance. The rest is up to you.” 

She vanished. 

“Gosh,” said Twoflower, after a while. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a 
goddess.” 

The door swung open. Garhartra entered, holding a wand in front of him. 
Behind him were two guards, armed more conventionally with swords. 

“Ah,” he said conversationally. “You are ready, I see.” 

Ready said a voice inside Rincewind’s head. 

The bottle that the wizard had flung some eight hours earlier had been 
hanging in the air, imprisoned by magic in its own personal time-field. But 
during all those hours the original mana of the spell had been slowly leaking 
away until the total magical energy was no longer sufficient to hold it against the 
universe’s own powerful normality field, and when that happened Reality 
snapped back in a matter of microseconds. The visible sign of this was that the 
bottle suddenly completed the last part of its parabola and burst against the side 
of the Guestmaster’s head, showering the guards with glass and jellyfish wine. 

Rincewind grabbed Twoflower’s arm, kicked the nearest guard in the groin, 
and dragged the startled tourist into the corridor. Before the stunned Garhartra 
had sunk to the floor his two guests were already pounding across distant 
flagstones. 

Rincewind skidded around a corner and found himself on a balcony that ran 
around the four sides of a courtyard. Below them, most of the floor of the yard 
was taken up by an ornamental pond in which a few terrapins sunbathed among 
the lily leaves. 



And ahead of Rincewind were a couple of very surprised wizards wearing 
the distinctive dark blue and black robes of trained hydrophobes. One of them, 
quicker on the uptake than his companion, raised a hand and began the first 
words of a spell. 

There was a short sharp noise by Rincewind’s side. Twoflower had spat. The 
hydrophobe screamed and dropped his hand as though it had been stung. 

The other didn’t have time to move before Rincewind was on him, fists 
swinging wildly. One stiff punch with the weight of terror behind it sent the man 
tumbling over the balcony rail and into the pond, which did a very strange thing; 
the water smacked aside as though a large invisible balloon had been dropped 
into it, and the hydrophobe hung screaming in his own revulsion field. 

Twoflower watched him in amazement until Rincewind snatched at his 
shoulder and indicated a likely looking passage. They hurried down it, leaving 
the remaining hydrophobe writhing on the floor and snatching at his damp hand. 

For a while there was some shouting behind them, but they scuttled along a 
cross corridor and another courtyard and soon left the sounds of pursuit behind. 
Finally Rincewind picked a safe looking door, peered around it, found the room 
beyond to be unoccupied, dragged Twoflower inside, and slammed it behind 
him. Then he leaned against it, wheezing horribly. 

“We’re totally lost in a palace on an island we haven’t a hope of leaving,” he 
panted. “And what’s more we—hey!” he finished, as the sight of the contents of 
the room filtered up his deranged optic nerves. 

Twoflower was already staring at the walls. 

Because what was so odd about the room was, it contained the whole 
universe. 


Death sat in His garden, running a whetstone along the edge of His scythe. It 
was already so sharp that any passing breeze that blew across it was sliced 
smoothly into two puzzled zephyrs, although breezes were rare indeed in Death’s 
silent garden. It lay on a sheltered plateau overlooking the Discworld’s complex 
dimensions, and behind it loomed the cold, still, immensely high and brooding 



mountains of Eternity. 


Swish! went the stone. Death hummed a dirge, and tapped one bony foot on 
the frosty flagstones. 

Someone approached through the dim orchard where the nightapples grew, 
and there came the sickly sweet smell of crushed lilies. Death looked up angrily, 
and found Himself staring into eyes that were black as the inside of a cat and full 
of distant stars that had no counterpart among the familiar constellations of the 
Realtime universe. 

Death and Fate looked at each other. Death grinned—He had no alternative, 
of course, being made of implaccable bone. The whetstone sang rhythmically 
along the blade as He continued His task. 

“I have a task for you,” said Fate. His words drifted across Death’s scythe 
and split tidily into two ribbons of consonants and vowels. 

I have tasks enough this day, said Death in a voice as heavy as neutronium. 
The white plague abides even now in Pseudopolis and I am bound there to 

RESCUE MANY OF ITS CITIZENS FROM HIS GRASP. SUCH A ONE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN 
THESE HUNDRED YEARS. I AM EXPECTED TO STALK THE STREETS, AS IS MY DUTY. 

“I refer to the matter of the little wanderer and the rogue wizard,” said Fate 
softly, seating himself beside Death’s black-robed form and staring down at the 
distant, multifaceted jewel which was the Disc universe as seen from this extra- 
dimensional vantage point. 

The scythe ceased its song. 

“They die in a few hours,” said Fate. “It is fated.” 

Death stirred, and the stone began to move again. 

“I thought you would be pleased,” said Fate. 

Death shrugged, a particularly expressive gesture for someone whose visible 
shape was that of a skeleton. 

I DID INDEED CHASE THEM MIGHTILY, ONCE, he Said, BUT AT LAST THE THOUGHT 



CAME TO ME THAT SOONER OR LATER ALL MEN MUST DIE. EVERYTHING DIES IN THE 
END. I CAN BE ROBBED BUT NEVER DENIED, I TOLD MYSELF. WHY WORRY? 


“I too cannot be cheated,” snapped Fate. 

So I have heard, said Death, still grinning. 

“Enough!” shouted Fate, jumping to his feet. “They will die!” He vanished 
in a sheet of blue fire. 

Death nodded to Himself and continued at His work. After some minutes the 
edge of the blade seemed to be finished to His satisfaction. He stood up and 
leveled the scythe at the fat and noisome candle that burned on the edge of the 
bench and then, with two deft sweeps, cut the flame into three bright slivers. 
Death grinned. 

A short while later he was saddling his white stallion, which lived in a stable 
at the back of Death’s cottage. The beast snuffled at him in a friendly fashion; 
though it was crimson-eyed and had flanks like oiled silk, it was nevertheless a 
real flesh-and-blood horse and, indeed, was in all probability better treated than 
most beasts of burden on the Disc. Death was not an unkind master. He weighed 
very little and, although He often rode back with His saddlebags bulging, they 
weighed nothing whatsoever. 


“All those worlds!” said Twoflower. “It’s fantastic!” 

Rincewind grunted, and continued to prowl warily around the star-filled 
room. Twoflower turned to a complicated astrolabe, in the center of which was 
the entire Great A’Tuin-Elephant-Disc system wrought in brass and picked out 
with tiny jewels. Around it stars and planets wheeled on fine silver wires. 

“Fantastic!” he said again. On the walls around him constellations made of 
tiny phosphorescent seed pearls had been picked out on vast tapestries made of 
jet-black velvet, giving the room’s occupants the impression of floating in the 
interstellar gulf. Various easels held huge sketches of Great A’Tuin as viewed 
from various parts of the Circumfence, with every mighty scale and cratered 
pock-mark meticulously marked in. Twoflower stared about him with a faraway 
look in his eyes. 



Rincewind was deeply troubled. What troubled him most of all were the two 
suits that hung from supports in the center of the room. He circled them uneasily. 

They appeared to be made of fine white leather, hung about with straps and 
brass nozzles and other highly unfamiliar and suspicious contrivances. The 
leggings ended in high, thick-soled boots, and the arms were shoved into big 
supple gauntlets. Strangest of all were the big copper helmets that were 
obviously supposed to fit on heavy collars around the neck of the suits. The 
helmets were almost certainly useless for protection—a light sword would have 
no difficulty in splitting them, even if it didn’t hit the ridiculous little glass 
windows in the front. Each helmet had a crest of white feathers on top, which 
went absolutely no way at all toward improving their overall appearance. 

Rincewind was beginning to have the glimmerings of a suspicion about 
those suits. 

In front of them was a table covered with celestial charts and scraps of 
parchment covered with figures. Whoever would be wearing those suits, 
Rincewind decided, was expecting to boldly go where no man—other than the 
occasional luckless sailor, who didn’t really count—had boldly gone before, and 
he was now beginning to get not just a suspicion but a horrible premonition. 

He turned around and found Twoflower looking at him with a speculative 
expression. 

“No—” began Rincewind, urgently. Twoflower ignored him. 

“The goddess said two men were going to be sent over the Edge,” he said, 
his eyes gleaming, “and you remember Tethis the troll saying you’d need some 
kind of protection? The Krullians have got over that. These are suits of space 
armor.” 

“They don’t look very roomy to me,” said Rincewind hurriedly, and grabbed 
the tourist by the arm, “so if you’d just come on, no sense in staying here—” 

“Why must you always panic?” asked Twoflower petulantly. 

“Because the whole of my future life just flashed in front of my eyes, and it 
didn’t take very long, and if you don’t move now I’m going to leave without you 
because any second now you’re going to suggest that we put on—” 



The door opened. 


Two husky young men stepped into the room. All they were wearing was a 
pair of woolen pants apiece. One of them was still toweling himself briskly. 

They both nodded at the two escapees with no apparent surprise. 

The taller of the two men sat down on one of the benches in front of the 
seats. He beckoned to Rincewind, and said: 

“?Ty0yur atl h0 sooten gatrunen?” 

And this was awkward, because although Rincewind considered himself an 
expert in most of the tongues of the western segments of the Disc it was the first 
time that he had ever been addressed in Krullian, and he did not understand one 
word of it. Neither did Twoflower, but that did not stop him stepping forward 
and taking a breath. 

The speed of light through a magical aura such as the one that surrounded 
the Disc was quite slow, being not much faster than the speed of sound in less 
highly tuned universes. But it was still the fastest thing around with the 
exception, in moments like this, of Rincewind’s mind. 

In an instant he became aware that the tourist was about to try his own 
peculiar brand of linguistics, which meant that he would speak loudly and slowly 
in his own language. 

Rincewind’s elbow shot back, knocking the breath from Twoflower’s body. 
When the little man looked up in pain and astonishment Rincewind caught his 
eye and pulled an imaginary tongue out of his mouth and cut it with an 
imaginary pair of scissors. 

The second chelonaut—for such was the profession of the men whose fate it 
would shortly be to voyage to Great A’Tuin—looked up from the chart table and 
watched this in puzzlement. His big heroic brow wrinkled with the effort of 
speech. 

“?H 0 ryu latruin mr ii?” he said. 

Rincewind smiled and nodded and pushed Twoflower in his general 
direction. With an inward sigh of relief he saw the tourist pay sudden attention to 



a big brass telescope that lay on the table. 


“/ Sooten ii!” commanded the seated chelonaut. Rincewind nodded and 
smiled and took one of the big copper helmets from the rack and brought it down 
on the man’s head as hard as he possibly could. The chelonaut fell forward with 
a soft grunt. 

The other man took one startled step before Twoflower hit him amateurishly 
but effectively with the telescope. He crumpled on top of his colleague. 

Rincewind and Twoflower looked at each other over the carnage. 

“All right]” snapped Rincewind, aware that he had lost some kind of contest 
but not entirely certain what it was. “Don’t bother to say it. Someone out there is 
expecting these two guys to come out in the suits in a minute. I suppose they 
thought we were slaves. Help me hide these behind the drapes and then, and then 


“—we’d better suit up,” said Twoflower, picking up the second helmet. 

“Yes,” said Rincewind. “You know, as soon as I saw the suits I just knew I’d 
end up wearing one. Don’t ask me how I knew—I suppose it was because it was 
just about the worst possible thing that was likely to happen.” 

“Well, you said yourself we have no way of escaping,” said Twoflower, his 
voice muffled as he pulled the top half of a suit over his head. “Anything’s better 
than being sacrificed.” 

“As soon as we get a chance we run for it,” said Rincewind. “Don’t get any 
ideas.” 

He thrust an arm savagely into his suit and banged his head on the helmet. 
He reflected briefly that someone up there was watching over him. 

“Thanks a lot,” he said bitterly. 


At the very edge of the city and country of Krull was a large semicircular 
amphitheater, with seating for several tens of thousands of people. The arena was 
only semicircular for the very elegant reason that it overlooked the cloud sea that 



boiled up from the Rimfall, far below, and now every seat was occupied. And the 
crowd was growing restive. It had come to see a double sacrifice and also the 
launching of the great bronze space ship. Neither event had yet materialized. 

The Arch-astronomer beckoned the Master Launchcontroller to him. 

“Well?” he said, filling a mere four letters with a full lexicon of anger and 
menace. The Master Launchcontroller went pale. 

“No news, lord,” said the Launchcontroller, and added with a brittle 
brightness, “except that your prominence will be pleased to hear that Garhartra 
has recovered.” 

“That is a fact he may come to regret,” said the Arch astronomer. 

“Yes, lord.” 

“How much longer do we have?” 

The Launchcontroller glanced at the rapidly climbing sun. 

“Thirty minutes, your prominence. After that Krull will have revolved away 
from Great A’Tuin’s tail and the Potent Voyager will be doomed to spin away 
into the interterrapene gulf. I have already set the automatic controls, so—” 

“All right, all right,” the Arch-astronomer said, waving him away. “The 
launch must go ahead. Maintain the watch on the harbor, of course. When the 
wretched pair are caught I will personally take a great deal of pleasure in 
executing them myself.” 

“Yes, lord. Er—” 

The Arch-astronomer frowned. “What else have you got to say, man?” 

The Launchcontroller swallowed. All this was very unfair on him, he was a 
practical magician rather than a diplomat, and that was why some wiser brains 
had seen to it that he would be the one to pass on the news. 

“A monster has come out of the sea and it’s attacking the ships in the 
harbor,” he said. “A runner just arrived from there.” 



“A big monster?” said the Arch-astronomer. 

“Not particularly, although it is said to be exceptionally fierce, lord.” 

The ruler of Krull and the Circumfence considered this for a moment, then 
shrugged. 

“The sea is full of monsters,” he said. “It is one of its prime attributes. Have 
it dealt with. And—Master Launchcontroller?” 

“Lord?” 

“If I am further vexed, you will recall that two people are due to be 
sacrificed. I may feel generous and increase the number.” 

“Yes, lord.” The Master Launchcontroller scuttled away, relieved to be out of 
the autocrat’s sight. 

The Potent Voyager, no longer the blank bronze shell that had been smashed 
from the mold a few days earlier, rested in its cradle on top of a wooden tower in 
the center of the arena. In front of it a railway ran down toward the Edge, where 
for the space of a few yards it turned suddenly upward. 

The late Dactylos Goldeneyes, who had designed the launching pad as well 
as the Potent Voyager itself, had claimed that this last touch was merely to 
ensure that the ship would not snag on any rocks as it began its long plunge. 
Maybe it was merely coincidental that it would also, because of that little twitch 
in the track, leap like a salmon and shine theatrically in the sunlight before 
disappearing into the cloud sea. 

There was a fanfare of trumpets at the edge of the arena. The chelonauts’ 
honor guard appeared, to much cheering from the crowd. Then the white-suited 
explorers themselves stepped out into the light. 

It immediately dawned on the Arch-astronomer that something was wrong. 
Heroes always walked in a certain way, for example. They certainly didn’t 
waddle, and one of the chelonauts was definitely waddling. 

The roar of the assembled people of Krull was deafening. As the chelonauts 
and their guards crossed the great arena, passing between the many altars that 



had been set up for the various wizards and priests of KrulTs many sects to 
ensure the success of the launch, the Arch-astronomer frowned. By the time the 
party was halfway across the floor his mind had reached a conclusion. By the 
time the chelonauts were standing at the foot of the ladder that led to the ship— 
and was there more than a hint of reluctance about them?—the Arch-astronomer 
was on his feet, his words lost in the noise of the crowd. One of his arms shot out 
and back, fingers spread dramatically in the traditional spell-casting position, 
and any passing lip-reader who was also familiar with the standard texts on 
magic would have recognized the opening words of Vestcake’s Floating Curse, 
and would then have prudently run away. 

Its final words remained unsaid, however. The Arch-astronomer turned in 
astonishment as a commotion broke out around the big arched entrance to the 
arena. Guards were running out into the daylight, throwing down their weapons 
as they scuttled among the altars or vaulted the parapet into the stands. 

Something emerged behind them, and the crowd around the entrance ceased 
its raucous cheering and began a silent, determined scramble to get out of the 
way. 

The something was a low dome of seaweed, moving slowly but with a 
sinister sense of purpose. One guard overcame his horror sufficiently to stand in 
its path and hurl his spear, which landed squarely among the weeds. The crowd 
cheered—then went deathly silent as the dome surged forward and engulfed the 
man completely. 

The Arch-astronomer dismissed the half-formed shape of Vestcake’s famous 
Curse with a sharp wave of his hand, and quickly spoke the words of one of the 
most powerful spells in his repertoire: the Infernal Combustion Enigma. 

Octarine fire spiraled around and between his fingers as he shaped the 
complex rune of the spell in midair and sent it, screaming and trailing blue 
smoke, toward the shape. 

There was a satisfying explosion and a gout of flame shot up into the clear 
morning sky, shedding flakes of burning seaweed on the way. A cloud of smoke 
and steam concealed the monster for several minutes, and when it cleared the 
dome had completely disappeared. 


There was a large charred circle on the flagstones, however, in which a few 



clumps of kelp and bladderwrack still smoldered. 


And in the center of the circle was a perfectly ordinary, if somewhat large, 
wooden chest. It was not even scorched. Someone on the far side of the arena 
started to laugh, but the sound was broken off abruptly as the chest rose up on 
dozens of what could only be legs and turned to face the Arch-Astronomer. A 
perfectly ordinary if somewhat large wooden chest does not, of course, have a 
face with which to face, but this one was quite definitely facing. In precisely the 
same way as he understood that, the Arch-astronomer was also horribly aware 
that this perfectly normal box was in some indescribable way narrowing its eyes. 

It began to move resolutely toward him. He shuddered. 

“Magicians!” he screamed. “Where are my magicians?” 

Around the arena pale-faced men peeped out from behind altars and under 
benches. One of the bolder ones, seeing the expression on the Arch-astronomer’s 
face, raised an arm tremulously and essayed a hasty thunderbolt. It hissed toward 
the chest and struck it squarely in a shower of white sparks. 

That was the signal for every magician, enchanter and thaumaturgist in Krull 
to leap up eagerly and, under the terrified eyes of their master, unleash the first 
spell that came to each desperate mind. Charms curved and whistled through the 
air. 


Soon the chest was lost to view again in an expanding cloud of magical 
particles, which billowed out and wreathed it in twisting, disquieting shapes. 
Spell after spell screamed into the melee. Flame and lightning bolts of all eight 
colors stabbed out brightly from the seething thing that now occupied the space 
where the box had been. 

Not since the Mage Wars had so much magic been concentrated on one 
small area. The air itself wavered and glittered. Spell ricocheted off spell, 
creating short-lived wild spells whose brief half-life was both weird and 
uncontrolled. The stones under the heaving mass began to buckle and split. One 
of them in fact turned into something best left undescribed and slunk off into 
some dismal dimension. Other strange side effects began to manifest themselves. 
A shower of small lead cubes bounced out of the storm and rolled across the 
heaving floor, and eldritch shapes gibbered and beckoned obscenely; four-sided 
triangles and double-ended circles existed momentarily before merging again 



into the booming, screaming tower of runaway raw magic that boiled up from 
the molten flagstones and spread out over Krull. It no longer mattered that most 
of the magicians had ceased their spell casting and fled—the thing was now 
feeding on the stream of octarine particles that were always at their thickest near 
the Edge of the Disc. Throughout the island of Krull every magical activity 
failed as all the available mana in the area was sucked into the cloud, which was 
already a quarter of a mile high and streaming out into mind-curdling shapes; 
hydrophobes on their sea-skimming lenses crashed screaming into the waves, 
magic potions turned to mere impure water in their phials, magic swords melted 
and dripped from their scabbards. 

But none of this in any way prevented the thing at the base of the cloud, now 
gleaming mirror-bright in the intensity of the power storm around it, from 
moving at a steady walking pace toward the Arch-astronomer. 


Rincewind and Twoflower watched in awe from the shelter of Potent Voyager’s 
launch tower. The honor party had long since vanished, leaving their weapons 
scattered behind them. 

“Well,” sighed Twoflower at last, “there goes the Luggage.” He sighed. 

“Don’t you believe it,” said Rincewind. “Sapient pearwood is totally 
impervious to all known forms of magic. It’s been constructed to follow you 
anywhere. I mean, when you die, if you go to Heaven, you’ll at least have a 
clean pair of socks in the afterlife. But I don’t want to die yet, so let’s just get 
going, shall we?” 

“Where?” said Twoflower. 

Rincewind picked up a crossbow and a handful of quarrels. “Anywhere that 
isn’t here,” he said. 

“What about the Luggage?” 

“Don’t worry. When the storm has used up all the free magic in the vicinity 
it’ll just die out.” 


In fact that was already beginning to happen. The billowing cloud was still 



flowing up from the area but now it had a tenuous, harmless look about it. Even 
as Twoflower stared, it began to flicker uncertainly. 

Soon it was a pale ghost. The Luggage was now visible as a squat shape 
among the almost invisible flames. Around it the rapidly cooling stones began to 
crack and buckle. 

Twoflower called softly to his Luggage. It stopped its stolid progression 
across the tortured flags and appeared to be listening intently; then, moving its 
dozens of feet in an intricate pattern, it turned on its length and headed toward 
the Potent Voyager. Rincewind watched it sourly. The Luggage had an elemental 
nature, absolutely no brain, a homicidal attitude toward anything that threatened 
its master, and he wasn’t quite sure that its inside occupied the same space-time 
framework as its outside. 

“Not a mark on it,” said Twoflower cheerfully, as the box settled down in 
front of him. He pushed open the lid. 

“This is a fine time to change your underwear,” snarled Rincewind. “In a 
minute all those guards and priests are going to come back, and they’re going to 
be upset, man!” 

“Water,” murmured Twoflower. “The whole box is full of water!” 

Rincewind peered over his shoulder. There was no sign of clothes, 
moneybags, or any other of the tourist’s belongings. The whole box was full of 
water. 

A wave sprang up from nowhere and lapped over the edge. It hit the 
flagstones but, instead of spreading out, began to take the shape of a foot. 
Another foot and the bottom half of a pair of legs followed as more water 
streamed down as if filling an invisible mold. A moment later Tethis the sea troll 
was standing in front of them, blinking. 

“I see,” he said at last. “You two. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” 

He looked around, ignoring their astonished expressions. 


“I was just sitting outside my hut, watching the sun set, when this thing came 
roaring up out of the water and swallowed me,” he said. “I thought it was rather 



strange. Where is this place?” 


“Krull,” said Rincewind. He stared hard at the now closed Luggage, which 
was managing to project a smug expression. Swallowing people was something 
it did quite frequently, but always when the lid was next opened there was 
nothing inside but Twoflower’s laundry. Savagely he wrenched the lid up. There 
was nothing inside but Twoflower’s laundry. It was perfectly dry. 

“Well, well,” said Tethis. He looked up. 

“Hey!” he said. “Isn’t this the ship they’re going to send over the Edge? Isn’t 
it? It must be!” 

An arrow zipped through his chest, leaving a faint ripple. He didn’t appear to 
notice. Rincewind did. Soldiers were beginning to appear at the edge of the 
arena, and a number of them were peering around the entrances. 

Another arrow bounced off the tower behind Twoflower. At this range the 
bolts did not have a lot of force, but it would only be a matter of time... 

“Quick!” said Twoflower. “Into the ship! They won’t dare fire at that!” 

“I knew you were going to suggest that,” groaned Rincewind. “I just knew 
it!” 


He aimed a kick at the Luggage. It backed off a few inches, and opened its 
lid threateningly. 

A spear arced out of the sky and trembled to a halt in the woodwork by the 
wizard’s ear. He screamed briefly and scrambled up the ladder after the others. 

Arrows whistled around them as they came out onto the narrow catwalk that 
led along the spine of the Potent Voyager. Twoflower led the way, jogging along 
with what Rincewind considered to be too much suppressed excitement. 

Atop the center of the ship was a large round bronze hatch with hasps around 
it. The troll and the tourist knelt down and started to work on them. 

In the heart of the Potent Voyager fine sand had been trickling into a 
carefully designed cup for several hours. Now the cup was filled by exactly the 



right amount to dip down and upset a carefully balanced weight. The weight 
swung away, pulling a pin from an intricate little mechanism. A chain began to 
move. There was a clonk... 

“What was that?” said Rincewind urgently. He looked down. 

The hail of arrows had stopped. The crowd of priests and soldiers were 
standing motionless, staring intently at the ship. A small worried man elbowed 
his way through them and started to shout something. 

“What was what?” said Twoflower, busy with a wing-nut. 

“I thought I heard something,” said Rincewind. “Look,” he said, “we’ll 
threaten to damage the thing if they don’t let us go, right? That’s all we’re going 
to do, right?” 

“Yah,” said Twoflower vaguely. He sat back on his heels. “That’s it,” he 
said. “It ought to lift off now.” 

Several muscular men were swarming up the ladder to the ship. Rincewind 
recognized the two chelonauts among them. They were carrying swords. 

“I—” he began. 

The ship lurched. Then, with infinite slowness, it began to move along the 
rails. 

In that moment of black horror Rincewind saw that Twoflower and the troll 
had managed to pull the hatch up. A metal ladder inside led into the cabin below. 
The troll disappeared. 

“We’ve got to get off,” whispered Rincewind. Twoflower looked at him, a 
strange mad smile on his face. 

“Stars,” said the tourist. “Worlds. The whole damn sky full of worlds. Places 
no one will ever see. Except me.” He stepped through the hatchway. 

“You’re totally mad,” said Rincewind hoarsely, trying to keep his balance as 
the ship began to speed up. He turned as one of the chelonauts tried to leap the 
gap between the Voyager and the tower, landed on the curving flank of the ship, 



scrabbled for an instant for purchase, failed to find any, and dropped away with a 
shriek. 


The Voyager was traveling quite fast now. Rincewind could see past 
Twoflower’s head to the sunlit cloud sea and the impossible Rimbow, floating 
tantalizingly beyond it, beckoning fools to venture too far... 

He also saw a gang of men climbing desperately over the lower slopes of the 
launching ramp and manhandling a large bulk of timber onto the track, in a 
frantic attempt to derail the ship before it vanished over the Edge. The wheels 
slammed into it, but the only effect was to make the ship rock, Twoflower to lose 
his grip on the ladder and fall into the cabin, and the hatch to slam down with the 
horrible sound of a dozen fiddly little catches snapping into place. Rincewind 
dived forward and scrabbled at them, whimpering. 

The cloud sea was much nearer now. The Edge itself, a rocky perimeter to 
the arena, was startlingly close. 

Rincewind stood up. There was only one thing to do now, and he did it. He 
panicked blindly, just as the ship’s bogeys hit the little upgrade and flung it, 
sparkling like a salmon, into the sky and over the Edge. 

A few seconds later there was a thunder of little feet and the Luggage cleared 
the rim of the world, legs still pumping determinedly, and plunged down into the 
universe. 


THE END 

Rincewind woke up and shivered. He was freezing cold. 

So this is it, he thought. When you die you go to a cold, damp, misty 
freezing place. Hades, where the mournful spirits of the Dead troop forever 
across the sorrowful marshes, corpse-lights flickering fitfully in the encircling— 
hang on a minute... 

Surely Hades wasn’t this uncomfortable? And he was very uncomfortable 
indeed. His back ached where a branch was pressing into it, his legs and arms 
hurt where the twigs had lacerated them and, judging by the way his head was 
feeling, something hard had recently hit it. If this was Hades it sure was hell— 



hang on a minute... 


Tree. He concentrated on the word that floated up from his mind, although 
the buzzing in his ears and the flashing lights in front of his eyes made this an 
unexpected achievement. Tree. Wooden thing. That was it. Branches and twigs 
and things. And Rincewind, lying in it. Tree. Dripping wet. Cold white cloud all 
around. Underneath, too. Now that was odd. 

He was alive and lying covered in bruises in a small thorn tree that was 
growing in a crevice in a rock that projected out of the foaming white wall that 
was the Rimfall. The realization hit him in much the same way as an icy 
hammer. He shuddered. The tree gave a warning creak. 

Something blue and blurred shot past him, dipped briefly into the thundering 
waters, and whirred back and settled on a branch near Rincewind’s head. It was a 
small bird with a tuft of blue and green feathers. It swallowed the little silver fish 
that it had snatched from the Fall and eyed him curiously. 

Rincewind became aware that there were lots of similar birds around. 

They hovered, darted and swooped easily across the face of the water, and 
every so often one would raise an extra plume of spray as it stole another 
doomed morsel from the waterfall. Several of them were perching in the tree. 
They were as iridescent as jewels. Rincewind was entranced. 

He was in fact the first man ever to see the rimfishers, the tiny creatures who 
had long ago evolved a lifestyle quite unique even for the Disc. Long before the 
Krullians had built the Circumfence the rimfishers had devised their own 
efficient method of policing the edge of the world for a living. 

They didn’t seem bothered about Rincewind. He had a brief but chilling 
vision of himself living the rest of his life out in this tree, subsisting on raw birds 
and such fish as he could snatch as they plummeted past. 

The tree moved distinctly. Rincewind gave a whimper as he found himself 
sliding backward, but managed to grab a branch. Only, sooner or later, he would 
fall asleep... 

There was a subtle change of scene, a slight purplish tint to the sky. A tall, 
black-cloaked figure was standing on the air next to the tree. It had a scythe in 



one hand. Its face was hidden in the shadows of the hood. 


I have come for thee, said the invisible mouth, in tones as heavy as a 
whale’s heartbeat. 

The trunk of the tree gave another protesting creak, and a pebble bounced off 
Rincewind’s helmet as one root tore loose from the rock. 

Death Himself always came in person to harvest the souls of wizards. 

“What am I going to die of?” said Rincewind. 

The tall figure hesitated. 

Pardon? it said. 

“Well, I haven’t broken anything, and I haven’t drowned, so what am I about 
to die of? You can’t just be killed by Death; there has to be a reason,” said 
Rincewind. To his utter amazement he didn’t feel terrified anymore. For about 
the first time in his life he wasn’t frightened. Pity the experience didn’t look like 
lasting for long. 

Death appeared to reach a conclusion. 

You could die of terror, the hood intoned. The voice still had its graveyard 
ring, but there was a slight tremor of uncertainty. 

“Won’t work,” said Rincewind smugly. 

THERE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A REASON, Said Death. I CAN JUST KILL YOU. 

“Hey, you can’t do that! It’d be murder!” 

The cowled figure sighed and pulled back its hood. Instead of the grinning 
death’s head that Rincewind had been expecting he found himself looking up 
into the pale and slightly transparent face of a rather worried demon, of sorts. 

“I’m making rather a mess of this, aren’t I?” it said wearily. 

“You’re not Death! Who are you?” cried Rincewind. 



“Scrofula.” 


“Scrofula?” 

“Death couldn’t come,” said the demon wretchedly. “There’s a big plague on 
in Pseudopolis. He had to go and stalk the streets. So he sent me.” 

“No one dies of scrofula! I’ve got rights. I’m a wizard!” 

“All right, all right. This was going to be my big chance,” said Scrofula, “but 
look at it this way—if I hit you with this scythe you’ll be just as dead as you 
would be if Death had done it. Who’d know?” 

“I’d know!” snapped Rincewind. 

“You wouldn’t. You’d be dead,” said Scrofula logically. 

“Piss off,” said Rincewind. 

“That’s all very well,” said the demon, hefting the scythe, “but why not try 
to see things from my point of view? This means a lot to me, and you’ve got to 
admit that your life isn’t all that wonderful. Reincarnation can only be an 
improvement—uh.” 

His hand flew to his mouth but Rincewind was already pointing a trembling 
finger at him. 

“Reincarnation!” he said excitedly. “So it is true what the mystics say!” 

“I’m admitting nothing,” said Scrofula testily. “It was a slip of the tongue. 
Now—are you going to die willingly or not?” 

“No,” said Rincewind. 

“Please yourself,” replied the demon. He raised the scythe. It whistled down 
in quite a professional way, but Rincewind wasn’t there. He was in fact several 
meters below, and the distance was increasing all the time, because the branch 
had chosen that moment to snap and send him on his intermpted journey toward 
the interstellar gulf. 



“Come back!” screamed the demon. 


Rincewind didn’t answer. He was lying belly down in the rushing air, staring 
down into the clouds that even now were thinning. 

They vanished. 

Below, the whole universe twinkled at Rincewind. There was Great A’Tuin, 
huge and ponderous and pocked with craters. There was the little Disc moon. 
There was a distant gleam that could only be the Potent Voyager. And there were 
all the stars, looking remarkably like powdered diamonds spilled on black 
velvet, the stars that lured and ultimately called the boldest toward them... 

The whole of Creation was waiting for Rincewind to drop in. 

He did so. 

There didn’t seem to be any alternative. 



* The shape and cosmology of the disc system are perhaps worthy of note at this point. 

There are, of course, two major directions on the disc: hubward and rimward. But since the disc itself revolves at the rate of once 
every eight hundred days (in order to distribute the weight fairly upon its supportive pachyderms, according to Reforgule of Krull) 
there are also two lesser directions, which are Turnwise and Widdershins. 

Since the disc’s tiny orbiting sunlet maintains a fixed orbit while the majestic disc turns slowly beneath it, it will be readily 
deduced that a disc year consists of not four but eight seasons. The summers are those times when the sun rises or sets at the nearest 
point on the Rim, the winters those occasions when it rises or sets at a point around ninety degrees along the circumference. 

Thus, in the lands around the Circle Sea, the year begins on Hogs’ Watch Night, progresses through a Spring Prime to its first 
midsummer (Small Gods’ Eve) which is followed by Autumn Prime and, straddling the half-year point of Crueltide, Winter Secundus 
(also known as the Spindlewinter, since at this time the sun rises in the direction of spin). Then comes Secundus Spring with Summer 
Two on its heels, the three quarter mark of the year being the night of Alls Fallow—the one night of the year, according to legend, 
when witches and warlocks stay in bed. Then drifting leaves and frosty nights drag on toward Backspindlewinter and a new Hogs’ 
Watch Night nestling like a frozen jewel at its heart. 

Since the Hub is never closely warmed by the weak sun the lands there are locked in permafrost. The Rim, on the other hand, is a 
region of sunny islands and balmy days. 

There are, of course, eight days in a disc week and eight colors in its light spectrum. Eight is a number of some considerable occult 
significance on the disc and must never, ever, be spoken by a wizard. 

Precisely why all the above should be so is not clear, but goes some way to explain why, on the disc, the Gods are not so much 
worshipped as blamed. 


About the Author 


Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing 
Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire 
Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of 
France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the 
whole business true. Any questions? 


Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite EiarperCollins author. 



Unanimous Praise For Terry Pratchett 


“For lighthearted escape with a thoughtful center, you can’t do better than.. .any.. .Discworld novel.” 

—Washington Post Book World 

“If I were making my list of Best Books of the Twentieth Century, Terry Pratchett’s would be most of 

them.” 

—Elizabeth Peters 

“Consistently, inventively mad.. .wild and wonderful!” 

—Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 

“Simply the best humorous writer of the twentieth century.” 

—Oxford Times 

“A brilliant story—teller with a sense of humour.. .whose infectious fun completely engulfs you.. .The 

Dickens of the twentieth century.” 

—Mail on Sunday (London) 

“If you are unfamiliar with Pratchett’s unique blend of philosophical badinage interspersed with slapstick, 
you are on the threshold of a mind—expanding opportunity.” 

—Financial Times (London) 

“If you don’t know Pratchett and Discworld, you’ve got a treat in store.” 

—Jerry Pournelle 

“The funniest parodist working in the field today, period.” 

—New York Review of Science Fiction 

“Pratchett demonstrates just how great the distance is between one-or two-joke writers and the comic 
masters whose work will be read into the next century.” 


—Locus 



“Terry Pratchett is fast, funny and going places. Try him!” 
—Piers Anthony 


“As always he is head and shoulders above the best of the rest. He is screamingly funny. He is wise. He has 

style.” 

—Daily Telegraph (London) 

“Pratchett is a comic genius.” 

—Express (London) 

“Pratchett is as funny as Wodehouse and as witty as Waugh.” 

—Independent (London) 

“Terry Pratchett does for fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction.” 

—Today (Great Britain) 

’’What makes Terry Pratchett’s fantasies so entertaining is that their humour depends on the characters first, 
on the plot second, rather than the other way around. The story isn’t there simply to lead from one slapstick 
pratfall to another pun. Its humour is genuine and unforced.” 

—Ottawa Citizen 

’’Terry Pratchett ought to be locked in a padded cell. And forced to write a book a month.” 

—Barbara Michaels 

“Terry Pratchett is more than a magician. He is the kindest, most fascinating teacher you ever had.” 

—Harlan Ellison 

“It is his unexpected insights into human mortality that make the Discworld series stand out.” 

—Times Literary Supplement (London) 

“Quite probably the funniest living author, bar nobody.” 

—Good Book Guide (England) 

“Delightful.. .Logically illogical as only Terry Pratchett can write.” 



—Anne McCaffrey 



Books by Terry Pratchett 


The Carpet People 
The Dark Side of the Sun 
Strata ■ Truckers 
Diggers ■ Wings 
Only You Can Save Mankind 
Johnny and the Dead ■ Johnny and the Bomb 
The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Jollife) 

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman) 

The Disc world® Series: 

Going Postal ■ Monstrous Regiment • Night Watch 
The Last Hero • The Truth ■ Thief of Time 
The Fifth Elephant ■ Carpe Jugulum 
The Last Continent ■ Jingo 
Hogfather ■ Feet of Clay ■ Maskerade 
Interesting Times ■ Soul Music ■ Men at Arms 
Lords and Ladies ■ Small Gods 
Witches Abroad • Reaper Man 
Moving Pictures ■ Eric (with Josh Kirby) 
Guards! Guards! ■ Pyramids 
Wyrd Sisters ■ Sourcery ■ Mort ■ Equal Rites 
The Light Fantastic ■ The Color of Magic 
Mort: A Discworld Big Comic (with Graham Higgins) 
The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (with Stephen Briggs) 
The Discworld Companion (with Stephen Briggs) 



The Discworld Mapp (with Stephen Briggs) 
The Pratchett Portfolio (with Paul Kidby) 



Copyrig ht 


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination 
or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, 
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

THE COLOR OF MAGIC. Copyright © 2007 by Terry Pratchett. All rights reserved under International 
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the 
non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this 
text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or 
introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether 
electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of 
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ePub edition © February 2007 ISBN: 9780061796845 
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-

THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY 
ISAAC ASIMOV 


Contents 

Introduction 

Foundation 

Foundation and Empire 

Second Foundation 

About the author 


THE STORY BEHIND THE "FOUNDATION" 

By ISAAC ASIMOV 


The date was August 1, 1941. World War II had been raging for two years. France had fallen, the Battle 
of Britain had been fought, and the Soviet Union had just been invaded by Nazi Germany. The bombing 
of Pearl Harbor was four months in the future. 

But on that day, with Europe in flames, and the evil shadow of Adolf Hitler apparently falling over all 
the world, what was chiefly on my mind was a meeting toward which I was hastening. 

I was 2 1 years old, a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University, and I had been writing 
science fiction professionally for three years. In that time, I had sold five stories to John Campbell, editor 
of Astounding, and the fifth story, "Nightfall," was about to appear in the September 1941 issue of the 
magazine. I had an appointment to see Mr. Campbell to tell him the plot of a new story I was planning to 
write, and the catch was that I had no plot in mind, not the trace of one. 

I therefore tried a device I sometimes use. I opened a book at random and set up free association, 
beginning with whatever I first saw. The book I had with me was a collection of the Gilbert and Sullivan 
plays. I happened to open it to the picture of the Fairy Queen of lolanthe throwing herself at the feet of 
Private Willis. I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the Roman Empire - of a Galactic Empire - 
aha! 

Why shouldn't I write of the fall of the Galactic Empire and of the return of feudalism, written from the 
viewpoint of someone in the secure days of the Second Galactic Empire? After all, I had read Gibbon's 


Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not once, but twice. 

I was bubbling over by the time I got to Campbell's, and my enthusiasm must have been catching for 
Campbell blazed up as I had never seen him do. In the course of an hour we built up the notion of a vast 
series of connected stories that were to deal in intricate detail with the thousand-year period between the 
First and Second Galactic Empires. This was to be illuminated by the science of psychohistory, which 
Campbell and I thrashed out between us. 

On August 11, 1941, therefore, I began the story of that interregnum and called it "Foundation." In it, I 
described how the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, established a pair of Foundations at opposite ends of the 
Universe under such circumstances as to make sure that the forces of history would bring about the 
second Empire after one thousand years instead of the thirty thousand that would be required otherwise. 

The story was submitted on September 8 and, to make sure that Campbell really meant what he said 
about a series, I ended "Foundation" on a cliff-hanger. Thus, it seemed to me, he would b e forced to buy 
a second story. 

However, when I started the second story (on October 24), I found that I had outsmarted myself. I 
quickly wrote myself into an impasse, and the Foundation series would have died an ignominious death 
had I not had a conversation with Fred Pohl on November 2 (on the Brooklyn Bridge, as it happened). I 
don't remember what Fred actually said, but, whatever it was, it pulled me out of the hole. 

"Foundation" appeared in the May 1942 issue of As founding and the succeeding story, "Bridle and 
Saddle," in the June 1942 issue. 

After that there was only the routine trouble of writing the stories. Through the remainder of the decade, 
John Campbell kept my nose to the grindstone and made sure he got additional Foundation stories. 

"The Big and the Little" was in the August 1944 Astounding, "The Wedge" in the October 1944 issue, 
and "Dead Hand" in the April 1945 issue. (These stories were written while I was working at the Navy 
Yard in Philadelphia.) 

On January 26, 1945, 1 began "The Mule," my personal favorite among the Foundation stories, and the 
longest yet, for it was 50,000 words. It was printed as a two-part serial (the very first serial I was ever 
responsible for) in the November and December 1945 issues. By the time the second part appeared I was 
in the army. 

After I got out of the army, I wrote "Now You See It-" which appeared in the January 1948 issue. By this 
time, though, I had grown tired of the Foundation stories so I tried to end them by setting up, and solving, 
the mystery of the location of the Second Foundation. Campbell would have none of that, however. He 
forced me to change the ending, and made me promise I would do one more Foundation story. 

Well, Campbell was the kind of editor who could not be denied, so I wrote one more Foundation story, 
vowing to myself that it would be the last. I called it "-And Now You Don't," and it appeared as a 
three-part serial in the November 1949, December 1949, and January 1950 issues of Astounding. 

By then, I was on the biochemistry faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, my first book had 
just been published, and I was determined to move on to new things. I had spent eight years on the 
Foundation, written nine stories with a total of about 220,000 words. My total earnings for the series 
came to $3,641 and that seemed enough. The Foundation was over and done with, as far as I was 



concerned. 


In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just coming into existence. I had no objection to earning 
a little more money by having the Foundation series reprinted in book form. I offered the series to 
Doubleday (which had already published a science-fiction novel by me, and which had contracted for 
another) and to Little-Brown, but both rejected it. In that year, though, a small publishing firm, Gnome 
Press, was beginning to be active, and it was prepared to do the Foundation series as three books. 

The publisher of Gnome felt, however, that the series began too abruptly. He persuaded me to write a 
small Foundation story, one that would serve as an introductory section to the first book (so that the first 
part of the Foundation series was the last written). 

In 1951, the Gnome Press edition of Foundation was published, containing the introduction and the first 
four stories of the series. In 1952, Foundation and Empire appeared, with the fifth and sixth stories; and 
in 1953, Second Foundation appeared, with the seventh and eighth stories. The three books together 
came to be called The Foundation Trilogy. 

The mere fact of the existence of the Trilogy pleased me, but Gnome Press did not have the financial 
clout or the publishing knowhow to get the books distributed properly, so that few copies were sold and 
fewer still paid me royalties. (Nowadays, copies of first editions of those Gnome Press books sell at $50 
a copy and up-but I still get no royalties from them.) 

Ace Books did put out paperback editions of Foundation and of Foundation and Empire, but they 
changed the titles, and used cut versions. Any money that was involved was paid to Gnome Press and I 
didn't see much of that. In the first decade of the existence of The Foundation Trilogy it may have earned 
something like $1500 total. 

And yet there was some foreign interest. In early 1961, Timothy Seldes, who was then my editor at 
Doubleday, told me that Doubleday had received a request for the Portuguese rights for the Foundation 
series and, since they weren't Doubleday books, he was passing them on to me. I sighed and said, "The 
heck with it, Tim. I don't get royalties on those books." 

Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the books away from Gnome Press so that 
Doubleday could publish them instead. He paid no attention to my loudly expressed fears that Doubleday 
"would lose its shirt on them." In August 1961 an agreement was reached and the Foundation books 
became Doubleday property. What’s more, Avon Books, which had published a paperback version of 
Second Foundation, set about obtaining the rights to all three from Doubleday, and put out nice editions. 

From that moment on, the Foundation books took off and began to earn increasing royalties. They have 
sold well and steadily, both in hardcover and softcover, for two decades so far. Increasingly, the letters I 
received from the readers spoke of them in high praise. They received more attention than all my other 
books put together. 

Doubleday also published an omnibus volume, The Foundation Trilogy, for its Science Fiction Book 
Club. That omnibus volume has been continuously featured by the Book Club for over twenty years. 

Matters reached a climax in 1966. The fans organizing the World Science Fiction Convention for that 
year (to be held in Cleveland) decided to award a Hugo for the best all-time series, where the series, to 
qualify, had to consist of at least three connected novels. It was the first time such a category had been 



set up, nor has it been repeated since. The Foundation series was nominated, and I felt that was going to 
have to be glory enough for me, since I was sure that Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" would win. 

It didn't. The Foundation series won, and the Hugo I received for it has been sitting on my bookcase in 
the livingroom ever since. 

In among all this litany of success, both in money and in fame, there was one annoying side-effect. 
Readers couldn't help but notice that the books of the Foundation series covered only three hundred-plus 
years of the thousand-year hiatus between Empires. That meant the Foundation series "wasn't finished." I 
got innumerable letters from readers who asked me to finish it, from others who demanded I finish it, and 
still others who threatened dire vengeance if I didn't finish it. Worse yet, various editors at Doubleday 
over the years have pointed out that it might be wise to finish it. 

It was flattering, of course, but irritating as well. Years had passed, then decades. Back in the 1940s, I 
had been in a Foundation- writing mood. Now I wasn't. Starting in the late 1950s, I had been in a more 
and more nonfiction-writing mood. 

That didn't mean I was writing no fiction at all. In the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, I wrote two 
science-fiction novels and a mystery novel, to say nothing of well over a hundred short stories - but 
about eighty percent of what I wrote was nonfiction. 

One of the most indefatigable nags in the matter of finishing the Foundation series was my good friend, 
the great science-fiction writer, Lester del Rey. He was constantly telling me I ought to finish the series 
and was just as constantly suggesting plot devices. He even told Larry Ashmead, then my editor at 
Doubleday, that if I refused to write more Foundation stories, he, Lester, would be willing to take on the 
task. 

When Ashmead mentioned this to me in 1973, 1 began another Foundation novel out of sheer 
desperation. I called it "Lightning Rod" and managed to write fourteen pages before other tasks called me 
away. The fourteen pages were put away and additional years passed. 

In January 1977, Cathleen Jordan, then my editor at Doubleday, suggested I do "an important book - a 
Foundation novel, perhaps." I said, "I'd rather do an autobiography," and I did - 640,000 words of it. 

In January 1981, Doubleday apparently lost its temper. At least, Hugh O'Neill, then my editor there, said, 
"Betty Prashker wants to see you," and marched me into her office. She was then one of the senior 
editors, and a sweet and gentle person. 

She wasted no time. "Isaac," she said, "you are going to write a novel for us and you are going to sign a 
contract to that effect." 

"Betty," I said, "I am already working on a big science book for Doubleday and I have to revise the 
Biographical Encyclopedia for Doubleday and 

"It can all wait," she said. "You are going to sign a contract to do a novel. What's more, we're going to 
give you a $50,000 advance." 

That was a stunner. I don't like large advances. They put me under too great an obligation. My average 
advance is something like $3,000. Why not? It's all out of royalties. 



I said, "That's way too much money, Betty." 

"No, it isn't," she said. 

"Doubleday will lose its shirt," I said. 

"You keep telling us that all the time. It won't." 

I said, desperately, "All right. Have the contract read that I don't get any money until I notify you in 
writing that I have begun the novel." 

"Are you crazy?" she said. "You'll never start if that clause is in the contract. You get $25,000 on signing 
the contract, and $25,000 on delivering a completed manuscript." 

"But suppose the novel is no good." 

"Now you're being silly," she said, and she ended the conversation. 

That night, Pat LoBrutto, the science-fiction editor at Doubleday called to express his pleasure. "And 
remember," he said, "that when we say 'novel' we mean ’science-fiction novel,’ not anything else. And 
when we say ’science-fiction novel,’ we mean 'Foundation novel' and not anything else." 

On February 5, 1981, 1 signed the contract, and within the week, the Doubleday accounting system 
cranked out the check for $25,000. 

I moaned that I was not my own master anymore and Hugh O'Neill said, cheerfully, "That’s right, and 
from now on, we're going to call every other week and say, ’Where’s the manuscript?’" (But they didn't. 
They left me strictly alone, and never even asked for a progress report.) 

Nearly four months passed while I took care of a vast number of things I had to do, but about the end of 
May, I picked up my own copy of The Foundation Trilogy and began reading. 

I had to. For one thing, I hadn't read the Trilogy in thirty years and while I remembered the general plot, I 
did not remember the details. Besides, before beginning a new Foundation novel I had to immerse myself 
in the style and atmosphere of the series. 

I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did. All 
three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No 
action. No physical suspense. 

What was all the fuss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? - To be sure, I couldn't 
help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I finished the book, and 
that I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness' sake. You couldn't go by me. 

I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the money, 
when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction writer and critic, 

James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, "Action and romance have little to do 
with the success of the Trilogy - virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost 
invisible - but the stories provide a detective- story fascination with the permutations and reversals of 
ideas." 

Oh, well, if what was needed were "permutations and reversals of ideas," then that I could supply. Panic 



receded, and on June 10, 1981, 1 dug out the fourteen pages I had written more than eight years before 
and reread them. They sounded good to me. I didn't remember where I had been headed back then, but I 
had worked out what seemed to me to be a good ending now, and, starting page 15 on that day, I 
proceeded to work toward the new ending. 

I found, to my infinite relief, that I had no trouble getting back into a "Foundation-mood," and, fresh 
from my rereading, I had Foundation history at my finger-tips. 

There were differences, to be sure: 

1) The original stories were written for a science-fiction magazine and were from 7,000 to 50,000 words 
long, and no more. Consequently, each book in the trilogy had at least two stories and lacked unity. I 
intended to make the new book a single story. 

2) I had a particularly good chance for development since Hugh said, "Let the book find its own length, 
Isaac. We don't mind a long book." So I planned on 140,000 words, which was nearly three times the 
length of "The Mule," and this gave me plenty of elbow-room, and I could add all sorts of little touches. 

3) The Foundation series had been written at a time when our knowledge of astronomy was primitive 
compared with what it is today. I could take advantage of that and at least mention black holes, for 
instance. I could also take advantage of electronic computers, which had not been invented until I was 
half through with the series. 

The novel progressed steadily, and on January 17, 1982, 1 began final copy. I brought the manuscript to 
Hugh O'Neill in batches, and the poor fellow went half-crazy since he insisted on reading it in this 
broken fashion. On March 25, 1982, 1 brought in the last bit, and the very next day got the second half of 
the advance. 

I had kept "Lightning Rod" as my working title all the way through, but Hugh finally said, "Is there any 
way of putting 'Foundation' into the title, Isaac?" I suggested Foundations at Bay, therefore, and that may 
be the title that will actually be used. * 

You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the plot of the new Foundation novel. Well, 
naturally. I would rather you buy and read the book. 

And yet there is one thing I have to confess to you. I generally manage to tie up all the loose ends into 
one neat little bow-knot at the end of my stories, no matter how complicated the plot might be. In this 
case, however, I noticed that when I was all done, one glaring little item remained unresolved. 

I am hoping no one else notices it because it clearly points the way to the continuation of the series. 

It is even possible that I inadvertently gave this away for at the end of the novel, I wrote: "The End (for 
now)." 

I very much fear that if the novel proves successful, Doubleday will be at my throat again, as Campbell 
used to be in the old days. And yet what can I do but hope that the novel is very successful indeed. What 
a quandary ! 

*Editor's note: The novel was published in October 1982 as Foundation's Edge. 



ABOUT THE AUTHOR 


Isaac Asimov was born in the Soviet Union to his great surprise. He moved quickly to correct the 
situation. When his parents emigrated to the United States, Isaac (three years old at the time) stowed 
away in their baggage. He has been an American citizen since the age of eight. 

Brought up in Brooklyn, and educated in its public schools, he eventually found his way to Columbia 
University and, over the protests of the school administration, managed to annex a series of degrees in 
chemistry, up to and including a Ph.D. He then infiltrated Boston University and climbed the academic 
ladder, ignoring all cries of outrage, until he found himself Professor of Biochemistry. 

Meanwhile, at the age of nine, he found the love of his life (in the inanimate sense) when he discovered 
his first science-fiction magazine. By the time he was eleven, he began to write stories, and at eighteen, 
he actually worked up the nerve to submit one. It was rejected. After four long months of tribulation and 
suffering, he sold his first story and, thereafter, he never looked back. 

In 1941, when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote the classic short story "Nightfall" and his future 
was assured. Shortly before that he had begun writing his robot stories, and shortly after that he had 
begun his Foundation series. 

What was left except quantity? At the present time, he has published over 260 books, distributed through 
every major division of the Dewey system of library classification, and shows no signs of slowing up. He 
remains as youthful, as lively, and as lovable as ever, and grows more handsome with each year. You can 
be sure that this is so since he has written this little essay himself and his devotion to absolute objectivity 
is notorious. 

He is married to Janet Jeppson, psychiatrist and writer, has two children by a previous marriage, and 
lives in New York City. 



ejusir jyj ecows 


ASIMOV 


THE FOUNDATION NOVELS 


FOUNDATION 








FOUNDATION 
ISAAC ASIMOV 


Contents 

Introduction 

Part I The Psvchohistorians 

Part II The Encyclopedists 

Part III The Mayors 

Part IV The Traders 
Part V The Merchant Princes 


THE STORY BEHIND THE "FOUNDATION" 

By ISAAC ASIMOV 


The date was August 1 , 1941 . World War II had been raging for two years. France had fallen, 
the Battle of Britain had been fought, and the Soviet Union had just been invaded by Nazi 
Germany. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was four months in the future. 

But on that day, with Europe in flames, and the evil shadow of Adolf Hitler apparently falling 
over all the world, what was chiefly on my mind was a meeting toward which I was hastening. 

I was 21 years old, a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University, and I had been 
writing science fiction professionally for three years. In that time, I had sold five stories to John 
Campbell, editor of Astounding, and the fifth story, "Nightfall," was about to appear in the 
September 1941 issue of the magazine. I had an appointment to see Mr. Campbell to tell him 
the plot of a new story I was planning to write, and the catch was that I had no plot in mind, not 
the trace of one. 

I therefore tried a device I sometimes use. I opened a book at random and set up free 
association, beginning with whatever I first saw. The book I had with me was a collection of the 
Gilbert and Sullivan plays. I happened to open it to the picture of the Fairy Queen of lolanthe 
throwing herself at the feet of Private Willis. I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the 
Roman Empire - of a Galactic Empire - aha! 


Why shouldn't I write of the fall of the Galactic Empire and of the return of feudalism, written 
from the viewpoint of someone in the secure days of the Second Galactic Empire? After all, I 
had read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not once, but twice. 

I was bubbling over by the time I got to Campbell's, and my enthusiasm must have been 
catching for Campbell blazed up as I had never seen him do. In the course of an hour we built 
up the notion of a vast series of connected stories that were to deal in intricate detail with the 
thousand-year period between the First and Second Galactic Empires. This was to be 
illuminated by the science of psychohistory, which Campbell and I thrashed out between us. 

On August 11,1 941 , therefore, I began the story of that interregnum and called it "Foundation." 
In it, I described how the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, established a pair of Foundations at 
opposite ends of the Universe under such circumstances as to make sure that the forces of 
history would bring about the second Empire after one thousand years instead of the thirty 
thousand that would be required otherwise. 

The story was submitted on September 8 and, to make sure that Campbell really meant what 
he said about a series, I ended "Foundation" on a cliff-hanger. Thus, it seemed to me, he would 
be forced to buy a second story. 

Flowever, when I started the second story (on October 24), I found that I had outsmarted 
myself. I quickly wrote myself into an impasse, and the Foundation series would have died an 
ignominious death had I not had a conversation with Fred Pohl on November 2 (on the 
Brooklyn Bridge, as it happened). I don't remember what Fred actually said, but, whatever it 
was, it pulled me out of the hole. 

"Foundation" appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding and the succeeding story, "Bridle 
and Saddle," in the June 1942 issue. 

After that there was only the routine trouble of writing the stories. Through the remainder of the 
decade, John Campbell kept my nose to the grindstone and made sure he got additional 
Foundation stories. 

"The Big and the Little" was in the August 1944 Astounding, "The Wedge" in the October 1944 
issue, and "Dead Fland" in the April 1945 issue. (These stories were written while I was working 
at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia.) 

On January 26, 1945, I began "The Mule," my personal favorite among the Foundation stories, 
and the longest yet, for it was 50,000 words. It was printed as a two-part serial (the very first 
serial I was ever responsible for) in the November and December 1945 issues. By the time the 
second part appeared I was in the army. 

After I got out of the army, I wrote "Now You See It-" which appeared in the January 1948 
issue. By this time, though, I had grown tired of the Foundation stories so I tried to end them by 
setting up, and solving, the mystery of the location of the Second Foundation. Campbell would 
have none of that, however. Fie forced me to change the ending, and made me promise I would 
do one more Foundation story. 

Well, Campbell was the kind of editor who could not be denied, so I wrote one more Foundation 



story, vowing to myself that it would be the last. I called it "-And Now You Don't," and it 
appeared as a three-part serial in the November 1949, December 1949, and January 1950 
issues of Astounding. 

By then, I was on the biochemistry faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, my first 
book had just been published, and I was determined to move on to new things. I had spent 
eight years on the Foundation, written nine stories with a total of about 220,000 words. My total 
earnings for the series came to $3,641 and that seemed enough. The Foundation was over and 
done with, as far as I was concerned. 

In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just coming into existence. I had no objection 
to earning a little more money by having the Foundation series reprinted in book form. I offered 
the series to Doubleday (which had already published a science-fiction novel by me, and which 
had contracted for another) and to Little-Brown, but both rejected it. In that year, though, a 
small publishing firm, Gnome Press, was beginning to be active, and it was prepared to do the 
Foundation series as three books. 

The publisher of Gnome felt, however, that the series began too abruptly. Fie persuaded me to 
write a small Foundation story, one that would serve as an introductory section to the first book 
(so that the first part of the Foundation series was the last written). 

In 1951 , the Gnome Press edition of Foundation was published, containing the introduction and 
the first four stories of the series. In 1 952, Foundation and Empire appeared, with the fifth and 
sixth stories; and in 1953, Second Foundation appeared, with the seventh and eighth stories. 
The three books together came to be called The Foundation Trilogy. 

The mere fact of the existence of the Trilogy pleased me, but Gnome Press did not have the 
financial clout or the publishing knowhow to get the books distributed properly, so that few 
copies were sold and fewer still paid me royalties. (Nowadays, copies of first editions of those 
Gnome Press books sell at $50 a copy and up-but I still get no royalties from them.) 

Ace Books did put out paperback editions of Foundation and of Foundation and Empire, but 
they changed the titles, and used cut versions. Any money that was involved was paid to 
Gnome Press and I didn't see much of that. In the first decade of the existence of The 
Foundation Trilogy it may have earned something like $1500 total. 

And yet there was some foreign interest. In early 1961 , Timothy Seldes, who was then my 
editor at Doubleday, told me that Doubleday had received a request for the Portuguese rights 
for the Foundation series and, since they weren't Doubleday books, he was passing them on to 
me. I sighed and said, "The heck with it, Tim. I don't get royalties on those books." 

Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the books away from Gnome Press so that 
Doubleday could publish them instead. Fie paid no attention to my loudly expressed fears that 
Doubleday "would lose its shirt on them." In August 1961 an agreement was reached and the 
Foundation books became Doubleday property. What's more, Avon Books, which had 
published a paperback version of Second Foundation, set about obtaining the rights to all three 
from Doubleday, and put out nice editions. 

From that moment on, the Foundation books took off and began to earn increasing royalties. 



They have sold well and steadily, both in hardcover and softcover, for two decades so far. 
Increasingly, the letters I received from the readers spoke of them in high praise. They received 
more attention than all my other books put together. 

Doubleday also published an omnibus volume, The Foundation Trilogy, for its Science Fiction 
Book Club. That omnibus volume has been continuously featured by the Book Club for over 
twenty years. 

Matters reached a climax in 1966. The fans organizing the World Science Fiction Convention 
for that year (to be held in Cleveland) decided to award a Flugo for the best all-time series, 
where the series, to qualify, had to consist of at least three connected novels. It was the first 
time such a category had been set up, nor has it been repeated since. The Foundation series 
was nominated, and I felt that was going to have to be glory enough for me, since I was sure 
that Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" would win. 

It didn't. The Foundation series won, and the Hugo I received for it has been sitting on my 
bookcase in the livingroom ever since. 

In among all this litany of success, both in money and in fame, there was one annoying 
side-effect. Readers couldn't help but notice that the books of the Foundation series covered 
only three hundred-plus years of the thousand-year hiatus between Empires. That meant the 
Foundation series "wasn't finished." I got innumerable letters from readers who asked me to 
finish it, from others who demanded I finish it, and still others who threatened dire vengeance if 
I didn't finish it. Worse yet, various editors at Doubleday over the years have pointed out that it 
might be wise to finish it. 

It was flattering, of course, but irritating as well. Years had passed, then decades. Back in the 
1940s, I had been in a Foundation-writing mood. Now I wasn't. Starting in the late 1950s, I had 
been in a more and more nonfiction-writing mood. 

That didn't mean I was writing no fiction at all. In the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, I wrote two 
science-fiction novels and a mystery novel, to say nothing of well over a hundred short stories - 
but about eighty percent of what I wrote was nonfiction. 

One of the most indefatigable nags in the matter of finishing the Foundation series was my 
good friend, the great science-fiction writer, Lester del Rey. He was constantly telling me I 
ought to finish the series and was just as constantly suggesting plot devices. He even told Larry 
Ashmead, then my editor at Doubleday, that if I refused to write more Foundation stories, he, 
Lester, would be willing to take on the task. 

When Ashmead mentioned this to me in 1973, I began another Foundation novel out of sheer 
desperation. I called it "Lightning Rod" and managed to write fourteen pages before other tasks 
called me away. The fourteen pages were put away and additional years passed. 

In January 1977, Cathleen Jordan, then my editor at Doubleday, suggested I do "an important 
book - a Foundation novel, perhaps." I said, "I'd rather do an autobiography," and I did- 
640,000 words of it. 


In January 1981, Doubleday apparently lost its temper. At least, Hugh O'Neill, then my editor 



there, said, "Betty Prashker wants to see you," and marched me into her office. She was then 
one of the senior editors, and a sweet and gentle person. 

She wasted no time. "Isaac," she said, "you are going to write a novel for us and you are going 
to sign a contract to that effect." 

"Betty," I said, "I am already working on a big science book for Doubleday and I have to revise 
the Biographical Encyclopedia for Doubleday and 

"It can all wait," she said. "You are going to sign a contract to do a novel. What's more, we're 
going to give you a $50,000 advance." 

That was a stunner. I don't like large advances. They put me under too great an obligation. My 
average advance is something like $3,000. Why not? It's all out of royalties. 

I said, "That's way too much money, Betty." 

"No, it isn't," she said. 

"Doubleday will lose its shirt," I said. 

"You keep telling us that all the time. It won't." 

I said, desperately, "All right. Have the contract read that I don't get any money until I notify you 
in writing that I have begun the novel." 

"Are you crazy?" she said. "You'll never start if that clause is in the contract. You get $25,000 
on signing the contract, and $25,000 on delivering a completed manuscript." 

"But suppose the novel is no good." 

"Now you're being silly," she said, and she ended the conversation. 

That night, Pat LoBrutto, the science-fiction editor at Doubleday called to express his pleasure. 
"And remember," he said, "that when we say 'novel' we mean 'science-fiction novel,' not 
anything else. And when we say 'science-fiction novel,' we mean 'Foundation novel' and not 
anything else." 

On February 5, 1981 , I signed the contract, and within the week, the Doubleday accounting 
system cranked out the check for $25,000. 

I moaned that I was not my own master anymore and Hugh O'Neill said, cheerfully, "That's 
right, and from now on, we're going to call every other week and say, 'Where's the 
manuscript?’" (But they didn't. They left me strictly alone, and never even asked for a progress 
report.) 

Nearly four months passed while I took care of a vast number of things I had to do, but about 
the end of May, I picked up my own copy of The Foundation Trilogy and began reading. 

I had to. For one thing, I hadn't read the Trilogy in thirty years and while I remembered the 
general plot, I did not remember the details. Besides, before beginning a new Foundation novel 
I had to immerse myself in the style and atmosphere of the series. 



I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever 
did. All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of 
conversations. No action. No physical suspense. 

What was all the fuss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? - To be sure, I 
couldn't help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I 
finished the book, and that I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness' sake. You 
couldn't go by me. 

I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the 
money, when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction 
writer and critic, James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, "Action and 
romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy- virtually all the action takes place 
offstage, and the romance is almost invisible - but the stories provide a detective-story 
fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas." 

Oh, well, if what was needed were "permutations and reversals of ideas," then that I could 
supply. Panic receded, and on June 10, 1981, I dug out the fourteen pages I had written more 
than eight years before and reread them. They sounded good to me. I didn't remember where I 
had been headed back then, but I had worked out what seemed to me to be a good ending 
now, and, starting page 15 on that day, I proceeded to work toward the new ending. 

I found, to my infinite relief, that I had no trouble getting back into a "Foundation-mood," and, 
fresh from my rereading, I had Foundation history at my finger-tips. 

There were differences, to be sure: 

1 ) The original stories were written for a science-fiction magazine and were from 7,000 to 
50,000 words long, and no more. Consequently, each book in the trilogy had at least two 
stories and lacked unity. I intended to make the new book a single story. 

2) I had a particularly good chance for development since Flugh said, "Let the book find its own 
length, Isaac. We don't mind a long book." So I planned on 140,000 words, which was nearly 
three times the length of "The Mule," and this gave me plenty of elbow-room, and I could add 
all sorts of little touches. 

3) The Foundation series had been written at a time when our knowledge of astronomy was 
primitive compared with what it is today. I could take advantage of that and at least mention 
black holes, for instance. I could also take advantage of electronic computers, which had not 
been invented until I was half through with the series. 

The novel progressed steadily, and on January 17, 1982, I began final copy. I brought the 
manuscript to Hugh O'Neill in batches, and the poor fellow went half-crazy since he insisted on 
reading it in this broken fashion. On March 25, 1982, I brought in the last bit, and the very next 
day got the second half of the advance. 

I had kept "Lightning Rod" as my working title all the way through, but Hugh finally said, "Is 
there any way of putting 'Foundation' into the title, Isaac?" I suggested Foundations at Bay, 
therefore, and that may be the title that will actually be used. * 



You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the plot of the new Foundation novel. Well, 
naturally. I would rather you buy and read the book. 

And yet there is one thing I have to confess to you. I generally manage to tie up all the loose 
ends into one neat little bow-knot at the end of my stories, no matter how complicated the plot 
might be. In this case, however, I noticed that when I was all done, one glaring little item 
remained unresolved. 

I am hoping no one else notices it because it clearly points the way to the continuation of the 
series. 

It is even possible that I inadvertently gave this away for at the end of the novel, I wrote: "The 
End (for now)." 

I very much fear that if the novel proves successful, Doubleday will be at my throat again, as 
Campbell used to be in the old days. And yet what can I do but hope that the novel is very 
successful indeed. What a quandary! 

*Editor's note: The novel was published in October 1982 as Foundation's Edge. 


PART I 

THE PSYCHOHISTORIANS 

i. 

HARI SELDON-... bom In the 1 1,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069. The dates are 
more commonly given In terms of the current Foundational Era as - 79 to the year 1 F.E. Born 
to middle-class parents on Flelicon, Arcturus sector (where his father, In a legend of doubtful 
authenticity, was a tobacco grower in the hydroponic plants of the planet), he early showed 
amazing ability in mathematics. Anecdotes concerning his ability are innumerable, and some 
are contradictory. At the age of two, he is said to have ... 

... Undoubtedly his greatest contributions were in the field of psychohistory. Seldon found the 
field little more than a set of vague axioms; he left it a profound statistical science.... 

... The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is the biography written by Gaal 
Dornick who. as a young man, met Seldon two years before the great mathematician's death. 
The story of the meeting ... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA* 

* All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 1 1 6th 
Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with 
permission of the publishers. 




His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before. 
That is, not in real life. He had seen it many times on the hyper-video, and occasionally in 
tremendous three-dimensional newscasts covering an Imperial Coronation or the opening of a 
Galactic Council. Even though he had lived all his life on the world of Synnax, which circled a 
star at the edges of the Blue Drift, he was not cut off from civilization, you see. At that time, no 
place in the Galaxy was. 

There were nearly twenty-five million inhabited planets in the Galaxy then, and not one but 
owed allegiance to the Empire whose seat was on Trantor. It was the last halfcentury in which 
that could be said. 

To Gaal, this trip was the undoubted climax of his young, scholarly life. He had been in space 
before so that the trip, as a voyage and nothing more, meant little to him. To be sure, he had 
traveled previously only as far as Synnax's only satellite in order to get the data on the 
mechanics of meteor driftage which he needed for his dissertation, but space-travel was all one 
whether one travelled half a million miles, or as many light years. 

He had steeled himself just a little for the Jump through hyper-space, a phenomenon one did 
not experience in simple interplanetary trips. The Jump remained, and would probably remain 
forever, the only practical method of travelling between the stars. Travel through ordinary space 
could proceed at no rate more rapid than that of ordinary light (a bit of scientific knowledge that 
belonged among the items known since the forgotten dawn of human history), and that would 
have meant years of travel between even the nearest of inhabited systems. Through 
hyper-space, that unimaginable region that was neither space nor time, matter nor energy, 
something nor nothing, one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval between two 
neighboring instants of time. 

Gaal had waited for the first of those Jumps with a little dread curled gently in his stomach, and 
it ended in nothing more than a trifling jar, a little internal kick which ceased an instant before 
he could be sure he had felt it. That was all. 

And after that, there was only the ship, large and glistening; the cool production of 12,000 years 
of Imperial progress; and himself, with his doctorate in mathematics freshly obtained and an 
invitation from the great Hari Seldon to come to Trantor and join the vast and somewhat 
mysterious Seldon Project. 

What Gaal was waiting for after the disappointment of the Jump was that first sight of Trantor. 
He haunted the View-room. The steel shutter-lids were rolled back at announced times and he 
was always there, watching the hard brilliance of the stars, enjoying the incredible hazy swarm 
of a star cluster, like a giant conglomeration of fire-flies caught in mid-motion and stilled forever, 
At one time there was the cold, blue-white smoke of a gaseous nebula within five light years of 
the ship, spreading over the window like distant milk, filling the room with an icy tinge, and 
disappearing out of sight two hours later, after another Jump. 

The first sight of Trantor's sun was that of a hard, white speck all but lost in a myriad such, and 
recognizable only because it was pointed out by the ship's guide. The stars were thick here 
near the Galactic center. But with each Jump, it shone more brightly, drowning out the rest, 
paling them and thinning them out. 



An officer came through and said, "View-room will be closed for the remainder of the trip. 
Prepare for landing." 

Gaal had followed after, clutching at the sleeve of the white uniform with the 
Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire on it. 

He said, "Would it be possible to let me stay? I would like to see Trantor." 

The officer smiled and Gaal flushed a bit. It occurred to him that he spoke with a provincial 
accent. 

The officer said, "We'll be landing on Trantor by morning." 

"I mean I want to see it from Space." 

"Oh. Sorry, my boy. If this were a space-yacht we might manage it. But we're spinning down, 
sunside. You wouldn't want to be blinded, burnt, and radiation-scarred all at the same time, 
would you?" 

Gaal started to walk away. 

The officer called after him, "Trantor would only be gray blur anyway, Kid. Why don't you take a 
space-tour once you hit Trantor. They're cheap." 

Gaal looked back, "Thank you very much." 

It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a 
child, and there was a lump in Gaal's throat. He had never seen Trantor spread out in all its 
incredibility, as large as life, and he hadn't expected to have to wait longer. 


2 . 

The ship landed in a medley of noises. There was the far-off hiss of the atmosphere cutting and 
sliding past the metal of the ship. There was the steady drone of the conditioners fighting the 
heat of friction, and the slower rumble of the engines enforcing deceleration. There was the 
human sound of men and women gathering in the debarkation rooms and the grind of the 
hoists lifting baggage, mail, and freight to the long axis of the ship, from which they would be 
later moved along to the unloading platform. 

Gaal felt the slight jar that indicated the ship no longer had an independent motion of its own. 
Ship's gravity had been giving way to planetary gravity for hours. Thousands of passengers had 
been sitting patiently in the debarkation rooms which swung easily on yielding force-fields to 
accommodate its orientation to the changing direction of the gravitational forces. Now they 
were crawling down curving ramps to the large, yawning locks. 

Gaal's baggage was minor. He stood at a desk, as it was quickly and expertly taken apart and 
put together again. His visa was inspected and stamped. He himself paid no attention. 

This was Trantor! The air seemed a little thicker here, the gravity a bit greater, than on his 



home planet of Synnax, but he would get used to that. He wondered if he would get used to 
immensity. 

Debarkation Building was tremendous. The roof was almost lost in the heights. Gaal could 
almost imagine that clouds could form beneath its immensity. He could see no opposite wall; 
just men and desks and converging floor till it faded out in haze. 

The man at the desk was speaking again. He sounded annoyed. He said, "Move on, Dornick." 
He had to open the visa, look again, before he remembered the name. 

Gaal said, "Where- where-" 

The man at the desk jerked a thumb, "Taxis to the right and third left." 

Gaal moved, seeing the glowing twists of air suspended high in nothingness and reading, 
"TAXIS TO ALL POINTS." 

A figure detached itself from anonymity and stopped at the desk, as Gaal left. The man at the 
desk looked up and nodded briefly. The figure nodded in return and followed the young 
immigrant. 

He was in time to hear Gaal's destination. 

Gaal found himself hard against a railing. 

The small siqn said, "Supervisor." The man to whom the siqn referred did not look up. He said, 
"Where to?" 

Gaal wasn't sure, but even a few seconds hesitation meant men queuing in line behind him. 
The Supervisor looked up, "Where to?" 

Gaal's funds were low, but there was only this one night and then he would have a job. He tried 
to sound nonchalant, "A good hotel, please." 

The Supervisor was unimpressed, "They're all good. Name one." 

Gaal said, desperately, "The nearest one, please." 

The Supervisor touched a button. A thin line of light formed along the floor, twisting among 
others which brightened and dimmed in different colors and shades. A ticket was shoved into 
Gaal's hands. It glowed faintly. 

The Supervisor said, "One point twelve." 

Gaal fumbled for the coins. He said, "Where do I go?" 

"Follow the light. The ticket will keep glowing as long as you're pointed in the tight direction." 

Gaal looked up and began walking. There were hundreds creeping across the vast floor, 
following their individual trails, sifting and straining themselves through intersection points to 
arrive at their respective destinations. 



His own trail ended. A man in glaring blue and yellow uniform, shining and new in unstainable 
plasto-textile, reached for his two bags. 

"Direct line to the Luxor," he said. 

The man who followed Gaal heard that. He also heard Gaal say, "Fine," and watched him enter 
the blunt-nosed vehicle. 

The taxi lifted straight up. Gaal stared out the curved, transparent window, marvelling at the 
sensation of airflight within an enclosed structure and clutching instinctively at the back of the 
driver's seat. The vastness contracted and the people became ants in random distribution. The 
scene contracted further and began to slide backward. 

There was a wall ahead. It began high in the air and extended upward out of sight. It was 
riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels. Gaal's taxi moved toward one then plunged 
into it. For a moment, Gaal wondered idly how his driver could pick out one among so many. 

There was now only blackness, with nothing but the past-flashing of a colored signal light to 
relieve the gloom. The air was full of a rushing sound. 

Gaal leaned forward against deceleration then and the taxi popped out of the tunnel and 
descended to ground-level once more. 

"The Luxor Hotel," said the driver, unnecessarily. He helped Gaal with his baggage, accepted a 
tenth-credit tip with a businesslike air, picked up a waiting passenger, and was rising again. 

In all this, from the moment of debarkation, there had been no glimpse of sky. 


3 . 

TRANTOR-...At the beginning of the thirteenth millennium, this tendency reached its climax. As 
the center of the imperial Government for unbroken hundreds of generations and located, as it 
was, toward the central regions of the Galaxy among the most densely populated and 
industrially advanced worlds of the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richest 
clot of humanity the Race had ever seen. 

Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface of 
Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city. The population, at its height, was 
well in excess of forty billions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the 
administrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few for the complications of 
the task. (It is to be remembered that the impossibility of proper administration of the Galactic 
Empire under the uninspired leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor in the 
Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural 
worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor.... 

Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made 
Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the 
monotonously numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial 



policy became little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugular vein.... 
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

Gaal was not certain whether the sun shone, or, for that matter, whether it was day or night. He 
was ashamed to ask. All the planet seemed to live beneath metal. The meal of which he had 
just partaken had been labelled luncheon, but there were many planets which lived a standard 
timescale that took no account of the perhaps inconvenient alternation of day and night. The 
rate of planetary turnings differed, and he did not know that of Trantor. 

At first, he had eagerly followed the signs to the "Sun Room" and found it but a chamber for 
basking in artificial radiation. He lingered a moment or two, then returned to the Luxor's main 
lobby. 

He said to the room clerk, "Where can I buy a ticket for a planetary tour?" 

"Right here." 

"When will it start?" 

"You just missed it. Another one tomorrow. Buy a ticket now and we'll reserve a place for you." 

"Oh." Tomorrow would be too late. He would have to be at the University tomorrow. He said, 
"There wouldn't be an observation tower - or something? I mean, in the open air." 

"Sure! Sell you a ticket for that, if you want. Better let me check if it's raining or not." He closed 
a contact at his elbow and read the flowing letters that raced across a frosted screen. Gaal read 
with him. 

The room clerk said, "Good weather. Come to think of it, I do believe it's the dry season now." 
He added, conversationally, "I don't bother with the outside myself. The last time I was in the 
open was three years ago. You see it once, you know and that's all there is to it. Here's your 
ticket. Special elevator in the rear. It's marked 'To the Tower.' Just take it." 

The elevator was of the new sort that ran by gravitic repulsion. Gaal entered and others flowed 
in behind him. The operator closed a contact. For a moment, Gaal felt suspended in space as 
gravity switched to zero, and then he had weight again in small measure as the elevator 
accelerated upward. Deceleration followed and his feet left the floor. He squawked against his 
will. 

The operator called out, "Tuck your feet under the railing. Can't you read the sign?" 

The others had done so. They were smiling at him as he madly and vainly tried to clamber back 
down the wall. Their shoes pressed upward against the chromium of the railings that stretched 
across the floor in parallels set two feet apart. He had noticed those railings on entering and 
had ignored them. 

Then a hand reached out and pulled him down. 

He gasped his thanks as the elevator came to a halt. 

He stepped out upon an open terrace bathed in a white brilliance that hurl his eyes. The man, 



whose helping hand he had just now been the recipient of, was immediately behind him. 

The man said, kindly, "Plenty of seats." 

Gaal closed his mouth; he had been gaping; and said, "It certainly seems so." He started for 
them automatically, then stopped. 

He said, "If you don't mind, I'll just stop a moment at the railing. I - I want to look a bit." 

The man waved him on, good-naturedly, and Gaal leaned out over the shoulder-high railing 
and bathed himself in all the panorama. 

He could not see the ground. It was lost in the ever increasing complexities of man-made 
structures. He could see no horizon other than that of metal against sky, stretching out to 
almost uniform grayness, and he knew it was so over all the land-surface of the planet. There 
was scarcely any motion to be seen - a few pleasure-craft lazed against the sky-but all the 
busy traffic of billions of men were going on, he knew, beneath the metal skin of the world. 

There was no green to be seen; no green, no soil, no life other than man. Somewhere on the 
world, he realized vaguely, was the Emperor's palace, set amid one hundred square miles of 
natural soil, green with trees, rainbowed with flowers. It was a small island amid an ocean of 
steel, but it wasn't visible from where he stood. It might be ten thousand miles away. He did not 
know. 

Before very long, he must have his tour! 

He sighed noisily, and realized finally that he was on Trantor at last; on the planet which was 
the center of all the Galaxy and the kernel of the human race. He saw none of its weaknesses. 
He saw no ships of food landing. He was not aware of a jugular vein delicately connecting the 
forty billion of Trantor with the rest of the Galaxy. He was conscious only of the mightiest deed 
of man; the complete and almost contemptuously final conquest of a world. 

He came away a little blank-eyed. His friend of the elevator was indicating a seat next to 
himself and Gaal took it. 

The man smiled. "My name is Jerril. First time on Trantor?" 

"Yes, Mr. Jerril." 

"Thought so. Jerril's my first name. Trantor gets you if you've got the poetic temperament. 
Trantorians never come up here, though. They don't like it. Gives them nerves." 

"Nerves! - My name's Gaal, by the way. Why should it give them nerves? It's glorious." 

"Subjective matter of opinion, Gaal. If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and 
work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing 
but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown. They make the children come up 
here once a year, after they're five. I don't know if it does any good. They don't get enough of it, 
really, and the first few times they scream themselves into hysteria. They ought to start as soon 
as they're weaned and have the trip once a week." 



He went on, "Of course, it doesn't really matter. What if they never come out at all? They're 
happy down there and they run the Empire. How high up do you think we are?" 

He said, "Half a mile?" and wondered if that sounded naive. 

It must have, for Jerril chuckled a little. He said, "No. Just five hundred feet." 

"What? But the elevator took about 

"I know. But most of the time it was just getting up to ground level. Trantor is tunneled over a 
mile down. It's like an iceberg. Nine-tenths of it is out of sight. It even works itself out a few 
miles into the sub-ocean soil at the shorelines. In fact, we're down so low that we can make use 
of the temperature difference between ground level and a couple of miles under to supply us 
with all the energy we need. Did you know that?" 

"No, I thought you used atomic generators." 

"Did once. But this is cheaper." 

"I imagine so." 

"What do you think of it all?" For a moment, the man's good nature evaporated into 
shrewdness. He looked almost sly. 

Gaal fumbled. "Glorious," he said, again. 

"Here on vacation? Traveling? Sight-seeing?" 

"No exactly. At least, I've always wanted to visit Trantor but I came here primarily for a job." 
"Oh?" 

Gaal felt obliged to explain further, "With Dr. Seldon's project at the University of Trantor." 
"Raven Seldon?" 

"Why, no. The one I mean is Hari Seldon. -The psychohistorian Seldon. I don't know of any 
Raven Seldon." 

"Hari's the one I mean. They call him Raven. Slang, you know. He keeps predicting disaster." 
"He does?" Gaal was genuinely astonished. 

"Surely, you must know." Jerril was not smiling. "You're coming to work for him, aren't you?" 
"Well, yes, I'm a mathematician. Why does he predict disaster? What kind of disaster?" 

"What kind would you think?" 

"I'm afraid I wouldn't have the least idea. I've read the papers Dr. Seldon and his group have 
published. They're on mathematical theory." 

"Yes, the ones they publish." 



Gaal felt annoyed. He said, "I think I'll go to my room now. Very pleased to have met you." 

Jerril waved his arm indifferently in farewell. 

Gaal found a man waiting for him in his room. For a moment, he was too startled to put into 
words the inevitable, "What are you doing here?" that came to his lips. 

The man rose. He was old and almost bald and he walked with a limp, but his eyes were very 
bright and blue. 

He said, "I am Hari Seldon," an instant before Gaal's befuddled brain placed the face alongside 
the memory of the many times he had seen it in pictures. 


4 . 

PSYCHOHISTORY-.. .Gaal Dornick, using nonmathematical concepts, has defined 
psychohistory to be that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human 
conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli.... 

... Implicit in all these definitions is the assumption that the human conglomerate being dealt 
with is sufficiently large for valid statistical treatment. The necessary size of such a 
conglomerate may be determined by Seldon 's First Theorem which ...A further necessary 
assumption is that the human conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in 
order that its reactions be truly random ... 

The basis of all valid psychohistory lies in the development of the Seldon. Functions which 
exhibit properties congruent to those of such social and economic forces as ... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

"Good afternoon, sir," said Gaal. "I- I-" 

"You didn't think we were to meet before tomorrow? Ordinarily, we would not have. It is just that 
if we are to use your services, we must work quickly. It grows continually more difficult to obtain 
recruits." 

"I don't understand, sir." 

"You were talking to a man on the observation tower, were you not?" 

"Yes. His first name is Jerril. I know no more about him. " 

"His name is nothing. He is an agent of the Commission of Public Safety. He followed you from 
the space-port." 

"But why? I am afraid I am very confused." 

"Did the man on the tower say nothing about me?" 

Gaal hesitated, "He referred to you as Raven Seldon." 



"Did he say why?" 

"He said you predict disaster." 

"I do. What does Trantor mean to you?" 

Everyone seemed to be asking his opinion of Trantor. Gaal felt incapable of response beyond 
the bare word, "Glorious." 

"You say that without thinking. What of psychohistory?" 

"I haven't thought of applying it to the problem." 

"Before you are done with me, young man, you will learn to apply psychohistory to all problems 
as a matter of course. -Observe." Seldon removed his calculator pad from the pouch at his 
belt. Men said he kept one beneath his pillow for use in moments of wakefulness. Its gray, 
glossy finish was slightly worn by use. Seldon's nimble fingers, spotted now with age, played 
along the files and rows of buttons that filled its surface. Red symbols glowed out from the 
upper tier. 

He said, "That represents the condition of the Empire at present." 

He waited. 

Gaal said finally, "Surely that is not a complete representation." 

"No, not complete," said Seldon. "I am glad you do not accept my word blindly. However, this is 
an approximation which will serve to demonstrate the proposition. Will you accept that?" 

"Subject to my later verification of the derivation of the function, yes." Gaal was carefully 
avoiding a possible trap. 

"Good. Add to this the known probability of Imperial assassination, viceregal revolt, the 
contemporary recurrence of periods of economic depression, the declining rate of planetary 
explorations, the. . ." 

He proceeded. As each item was mentioned, new symbols sprang to life at his touch, and 
melted into the basic function which expanded and changed. 

Gaal stopped him only once. "I don't see the validity of that set-transformation." 

Seldon repeated it more slowly. 

Gaal said, "But that is done by way of a forbidden sociooperation." 

"Good. You are quick, but not yet quick enough. It is not forbidden in this connection. Let me do 
it by expansions." 


The procedure was much longer and at its end, Gaal said, humbly, "Yes, I see now." 

Finally, Seldon stopped. "This is Trantor three centuries from now. How do you interpret that? 



Eh?" He put his head to one side and waited. 

Gaal said, unbelievingly, "Total destruction! But - but that is impossible. Trantor has never 
been -" 

Seldon was filled with the intense excitement of a man whose body only had grown old. "Come, 
come. You saw how the result was arrived at. Put it into words. Forget the symbolism for a 
moment." 

Gaal said, "As Trantor becomes more specialized, it be comes more vulnerable, less able to 
defend itself. Further, as it becomes more and more the administrative center of Empire, it 
becomes a greater prize. As the Imperial succession becomes more and more uncertain, and 
the feuds among the great families more rampant, social responsibility disappears. " 

"Enough. And what of the numerical probability of total destruction within three centuries?" 

"I couldn't tell." 

"Surely you can perform a field-differentiation?" 

Gaal felt himself under pressure. He was not offered the calculator pad. It was held a foot from 
his eyes. He calculated furiously and felt his forehead grow slick with sweat. 

He said, "About 85%?" 

"Not bad," said Seldon, thrusting out a lower lip, "but not good. The actual figure is 92.5%." 

Gaal said, "And so you are called Raven Seldon? I have seen none of this in the journals." 

"But of course not. This is unprintable. Do you suppose the Imperium could expose its 
shakiness in this manner. That is a very simple demonstration in psychohistory. But some of 
our results have leaked out among the aristocracy." 

"That's bad." 

"Not necessarily. All is taken into account." 

"But is that why I'm being investigated?" 

"Yes. Everything about my project is being investigated." 

"Are you in danger, sir?" 

"Oh, yes. There is probability of 1 .7% that I will be executed, but of course that will not stop the 
project. We have taken that into account as well. Well, never mind. You will meet me, I 
suppose, at the University tomorrow?" 

"I will," said Gaal. 


5 . 



COMMISSION OF PUBLIC SAFETY-... The aristocratic coterie rose to power after the 
assassination of Cleon I, last of the Entuns. In the main, they formed an element of order during 
the centuries of instability and uncertainty in the Imperium. Usually under the control of the 
great families of the Chens and the Divarts, it degenerated eventually into a blind instrument for 
maintenance of the status quo.... They were not completely removed as a power in the state 
until after the accession of the last strong Emperor, Cleon H. The first Chief Commissioner.... 

... In a way, the beginning of the Commission's decline can be traced to the trial of Fiari Seldon 
two years before the beginning of the Foundational Era. That trial is described in Gaal Dornick's 
biography of Fiari Seldon.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

Gaal did not carry out his promise. He was awakened the next morning by a muted buzzer. He 
answered it, and the voice of the desk clerk, as muted, polite and deprecating as it well might 
be, informed him that he was under detention at the orders of the Commission of Public Safety. 

Gaal sprang to the door and found it would no longer open. He could only dress and wait. 

They came for him and took him elsewhere, but it was still detention. They asked him questions 
most politely. It was all very civilized. He explained that he was a provincial of Synnax; that he 
had attended such and such schools and obtained a Doctor of Mathematics degree on such 
and such a date. He had applied for a position on Dr. Seldon's staff and had been accepted. 
Over and over again, he gave these details; and over and over again, they returned to the 
question of his joining the Seldon Project. How had he heard of it; what were to be his duties; 
what secret instructions had he received; what was it all about? 

He answered that he did not know. He had no secret instructions. He was a scholar and a 
mathematician. He had no interest in politics. 

And finally the gentle inquisitor asked, "When will Trantor be destroyed?" 

Gaal faltered, "I could not say of my own knowledge." 

"Could you say of anyone's?" 

"How could I speak for another?" He felt warm; overwarm. 

The inquisitor said, "Has anyone told you of such destruction; set a date?" And, as the young 
man hesitated, he went on, "You have been followed, doctor. We were at the airport when you 
arrived; on the observation tower when you waited for your appointment; and, of course, we 
were able to overhear your conversation with Dr. Seldon." 

Gaal said, "Then you know his views on the matter." 

"Perhaps. But we would like to hear them from you." 

"He is of the opinion that Trantor would be destroyed within three centuries." 

"He proved it, - uh - mathematically?" 

"Yes, he did," - defiantly. 



"You maintain the - uh - mathematics to be valid, I suppose. 

"If Dr. Seldon vouches for it, it is valid." 

"Then we will return." 

"Wait. I have a right to a lawyer. I demand my rights as an Imperial citizen." 

"You shall have them." 

And he did. 

It was a tall man that eventually entered, a man whose face seemed all vertical lines and so 
thin that one could wonder whether there was room for a smile. 

Gaal looked up. He felt disheveled and wilted. So much had happened, yet he had been on 
Trantor not more than thirty hours. 

The man said, "I am Lors Avakim. Dr. Seldon has directed me to represent you." 

"Is that so? Well, then, look here. I demand an instant appeal to the Emperor. I'm being held 
without cause. I'm innocent of anything. Of anything." He slashed his hands outward, palms 
down, "You've got to arrange a hearing with the Emperor, instantly." 

Avakim was carefully emptying the contents of a flat folder onto the floor. If Gaal had had the 
stomach for it, he might have recognized Cellomet legal forms, metal thin and tapelike, adapted 
for insertion within the smallness of a personal capsule. He might also have recognized a 
pocket recorder. 

Avakim, paying no attention to Gaal's outburst, finally looked up. He said, "The Commission 
will, of course, have a spy beam on our conversation. This is against the law, but they will use 
one nevertheless." 

Gaal ground his teeth. 

"However," and Avakim seated himself deliberately, "the recorder I have on the table, - which 
is a perfectly ordinary recorder to all appearances and performs it duties well - has the 
additional property of completely blanketing the spy beam. This is something they will not find 
out at once." 

"Then I can speak." 

"Of course." 

"Then I want a hearing with the Emperor." 

Avakim smiled frostily, and it turned out that there was room for it on his thin face after all. His 
cheeks wrinkled to make the room. He said, "You are from the provinces." 

"I am none the less an Imperial citizen. As good a one as you or as any of this Commission of 
Public Safety." 

"No doubt; no doubt. It is merely that, as a provincial, you do not understand life on Trantor as it 



is, There are no hearings before the Emperor." 

"To whom else would one appeal from this Commission? Is there other procedure?" 

"None. There is no recourse in a practical sense. Legalistically, you may appeal to the 
Emperor, but you would get no hearing. The Emperor today is not the Emperor of an Entun 
dynasty, you know. Trantor, I am afraid is in the hands of the aristocratic families, members of 
which compose the Commission of Public Safety. This is a development which is well predicted 
by psychohistory." 

Gaal said, "Indeed? In that case, if Dr. Seldon can predict the history of Trantor three hundred 
years into the future 

"He can predict it fifteen hundred years into the future." 

"Let it be fifteen thousand. Why couldn't he yesterday have predicted the events of this morning 
and warned me. -No, I'm sorry." Gaal sat down and rested his head in one sweating palm, "I 
quite understand that psychohistory is a statistical science and cannot predict the future of a 
single man with any accuracy. You'll understand that I'm upset." 

"But you are wrong. Dr. Seldon was of the opinion that you would be arrested this morning." 
"What!" 

"It is unfortunate, but true. The Commission has been more and more hostile to his activities. 
New members joining the group have been interfered with to an increasing extent. The graphs 
showed that for our purposes, matters might best be brought to a climax now. The Commission 
of itself was moving somewhat slowly so Dr. Seldon visited you yesterday for the purpose of 
forcing their hand. No other reason." 

Gaal caught his breath, "I resent-" 

"Please. It was necessary. You were not picked for any personal reasons. You must realize that 
Dr. Seldon's plans, which are laid out with the developed mathematics of over eighteen years 
include all eventualities with significant probabilities. This is one of them. I've been sent here for 
no other purpose than to assure you that you need not fear. It will end well; almost certainly so 
for the project; and with reasonable probability for you." 

"What are the figures?" demanded Gaal. 

"For the project, over 99.9%." 

"And for myself?" 

"I am instructed that this probability is 77.2%." 

"Then I've got better than one chance in five of being sentenced to prison or to death." 

"The last is under one per cent." 

"Indeed. Calculations upon one man mean nothing. You send Dr. Seldon to me." 



"Unfortunately, I cannot. Dr. Seldon is himself arrested." 

The door was thrown open before the rising Gaal could do more than utter the beginning of a 
cry. A guard entered, walked to the table, picked up the recorder, looked upon all sides of it and 
put it in his pocket. 

Avakim said quietly, "I will need that instrument." 

"We will supply you with one, Counsellor, that does not cast a static field." 

"My interview is done, in that case." 

Gaal watched him leave and was alone. 


6 . 

The trial (Gaal supposed it to be one, though it bore little resemblance legalistically to the 
elaborate trial techniques Gaal had read of) had not lasted long. It was in its third day. Yet 
already, Gaal could no longer stretch his memory back far enough to embrace its beginning. 

He himself had been but little pecked at. The heavy guns were trained on Dr. Seldon himself. 
Hari Seldon, however, sat there unperturbed. To Gaal, he was the only spot of stability 
remaining in the world. 

The audience was small and drawn exclusively from among the Barons of the Empire. Press 
and public were excluded and it was doubtful that any significant number of outsiders even 
knew that a trial of Seldon was being conducted. The atmosphere was one of unrelieved 
hostility toward the defendants. 

Five of the Commission of Public Safety sat behind the raised desk. They wore scarlet and gold 
uniforms and the shining, close-fitting plastic caps that were the sign of their judicial function. In 
the center was the Chief Commissioner Linge Chen. Gaal had never before seen so great a 
Lord and he watched him with fascination. Chen, throughout the trial, rarely said a word. He 
made it quite clear that much speech was beneath his dignity. 

The Commission's Advocate consulted his notes and the examination continued, with Seldon 
still on the stand: 

Q. Let us see, Dr. Seldon. How many men are now engaged in the project of which you are 
head? 

A. Fifty mathematicians. 

Q. Including Dr. Gaal Dornick? 

A. Dr. Dornick is the fifty-first, 

Q. Oh, we have fifty-one then? Search your memory, Dr. Seldon. Perhaps there are fifty-two or 
fifty-three? Or perhaps even more? 



A. Dr. Dornick has not yet formally joined my organization. When he does, the membership will 
be fifty-one. It is now fifty, as I have said. 

Q. Not perhaps nearly a hundred thousand? 

A. Mathematicians? No. 

Q. I did not say mathematicians. Are there a hundred thousand in all capacities? 

A. In all capacities, your figure may be correct. 

Q. May be? I say it is. I say that the men in your project number ninety-eight thousand, five 
hundred and seventy-two. 

A. I believe you are counting women and children. 

Q. (raising his voice) Ninety eight thousand five hundred and seventy-two individuals is the 
intent of my statement. There is no need to quibble. 

A. I accept the figures. 

Q. (referring to his notes) Let us drop that for the moment, then, and take up another matter 
which we have already discussed at some length. Would you repeat, Dr. Seldon, your thoughts 
concerning the future of Trantor? 

A. I have said, and I say again, that Trantor will lie in ruins within the next three centuries. 

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? 

A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. 

Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth? 

A. I am. 

Q. On what basis? 

A. On the basis of the mathematics of psychohistory. 

Q. Can you prove that this mathematics is valid'? 

A. Only to another mathematician. 

Q. (with a smile) Your claim then is that your truth is of so esoteric a nature that it is beyond the 
understanding of a plain man. It seems to me that truth should be clearer than that, less 
mysterious, more open to the mind. 

A. It presents no difficulties to some minds. The physics of energy transfer, which we know as 
thermodynamics, has been clear and true through all the history of man since the mythical 
ages, yet there may be people present who would find it impossible to design a power engine. 
People of high intelligence, too. I doubt if the learned Commissioners- 

At this point, one of the Commissioners leaned toward the Advocate. His words were not heard 



but the hissing of the voice carried a certain asperity. The Advocate flushed and interrupted 
Seldon. 

Q. We are not here to listen to speeches, Dr. Seldon. Let us assume that you have made your 
point. Let me suggest to you that your predictions of disaster might be intended to destroy 
public confidence in the Imperial Government for purposes of your own. 

A. That is not so. 

Q. Let me suggest that you intend to claim that a period of time preceding the so-called ruin of 
Trantor will be filled with unrest of various types. 

A. That is correct. 

Q. And that by the mere prediction thereof, you hope to bring it about, and to have then an 
army of a hundred thousand available. 

A. In the first place, that is not so. And if it were, investigation will show you that barely ten 
thousand are men of military age, and none of these has training in arms. 

Q. Are you acting as an agent for another? 

A. I am not in the pay of any man, Mr. Advocate. 

Q. You are entirely disinterested? You are serving science? 

A. I am. 

Q. Then let us see how. Can the future be changed, Dr. Seldon? 

A. Obviously. This courtroom may explode in the next few hours, or it may not. If it did, the 
future would undoubtedly be changed in some minor respects. 

Q. You quibble, Dr. Seldon. Can the overall history of the human race be changed? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Easily? 

A. No. With great difficulty. 

Q. Why? 

A. The psychohistoric trend of a planet-full of people contains a huge inertia. To be changed it 
must be met with something possessing a similar inertia. Either as many people must be 
concerned, or if the number of people be relatively small, enormous time for change must be 
allowed. Do you understand? 

Q. I think I do. Trantor need not be ruined, if a great many people decide to act so that it will 
not. 


A. That is right. 



Q. As many as a hundred thousand people? 

A. No, sir. That is far too few. 

Q. You are sure? 

A. Consider that Trantor has a population of over forty billions. Consider further that the trend 
leading to ruin does not belong to Trantor alone but to the Empire as a whole and the Empire 
contains nearly a quintillion human beings. 

Q. I see. Then perhaps a hundred thousand people can change the trend, if they and their 
descendants labor for three hundred years. 

A. I'm afraid not. Three hundred years is too short a time. 

Q. Ah! In that case, Dr. Seldon, we are left with this deduction to be made from your 
statements. You have gathered one hundred thousand people within the confines of your 
project. These are insufficient to change the history of Trantor within three hundred years. In 
other words, they cannot prevent the destruction of Trantor no matter what they do. 

A. You are unfortunately correct. 

Q. And on the other hand, your hundred thousand are intended for no illegal purpose. 

A. Exactly. 

Q. (slowly and with satisfaction) In that case, Dr. Seldon- Now attend, sir, most carefully, for we 
want a considered answer. What is the purpose of your hundred thousand? 

The Advocate's voice had grown strident. He had sprung his trap; backed Seldon into a comer; 
driven him astutely from any possibility of answering. 

There was a rising buzz of conversation at that which swept the ranks of the peers in the 
audience and invaded even the row of Commissioners. They swayed toward one another in 
their scarlet and gold, only the Chief remaining uncorrupted. 

Hari Seldon remained unmoved. He waited for the babble to evaporate. 

A. To minimize the effects of that destruction. 

Q. And exactly what do you mean by that? 

A. The explanation is simple. The coming destruction of Trantor is not an event in itself, isolated 
in the scheme of human development. It will be the climax to an intricate drama which was 
begun centuries ago and which is accelerating in pace continuously. I refer, gentlemen, to the 
developing decline and fall of the Galactic Empire. 

The buzz now became a dull roar. The Advocate, unheeded, was yelling, "You are openly 
declaring that-" and stopped because the cries of "Treason" from the audience showed that the 
point had been made without any hammering. 

Slowly, the Chief Commissioner raised his gavel once and let it drop. The sound was that of a 



mellow gong. When the reverberations ceased, the gabble of the audience also did. The 
Advocate took a deep breath. 

Q. (theatrically) Do you realize, Dr. Seldon, that you are speaking of an Empire that has stood 
for twelve thousand years, through all the vicissitudes of the generations, and which has behind 
it the good wishes and love of a quadrillion human beings? 

A. I am aware both of the present status and the past history of the Empire. Without disrespect, 

I must claim a far better knowledge of it than any in this room. 

Q. And you predict its ruin? 

A. It is a prediction which is made by mathematics. I pass no moral judgements. Personally, I 
regret the prospect. Even if the Empire were admitted to be a bad thing (an admission I do not 
make), the state of anarchy which would follow its fall would be worse. It is that state of anarchy 
which my project is pledged to fight. The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, 
however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a 
freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity - a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I 
have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop. 

Q. Is it not obvious to anyone that the Empire is as strong as it ever was? 

A. The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However, Mr. 
Advocate, the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, 
has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of 
the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking. 

Q. (uncertainly) We are not here, Dr. Seldon, to lis— 

A. (firmly) The Empire will vanish and all its good with it. Its accumulated knowledge will decay 
and the order it has imposed will vanish. Interstellar wars will be endless; interstellar trade will 
decay; population will decline; worlds will lose touch with the main body of the Galaxy. -And so 
matters will remain. 

Q. (a small voice in the middle of a vast silence) Forever? 

A. Psychohistory, which can predict the fall, can make statements concerning the succeeding 
dark ages. The Empire, gentlemen, as has just been said, has stood twelve thousand years. 
The dark ages to come will endure not twelve, but thirty thousand years. A Second Empire will 
rise, but between it and our civilization will be one thousand generations of suffering humanity. 
We must fight that. 

Q. (recovering somewhat) You contradict yourself. You said earlier that you could not prevent 
the destruction of Trantor; hence, presumably, the fall; -the so-called fall of the Empire. 

A. I do not say now that we can prevent the fall. But it is not yet too late to shorten the 
interregnum which will follow. It is possible, gentlemen, to reduce the duration of anarchy to a 
single millennium, if my group is allowed to act now. We are at a delicate moment in history. 
The huge, onrushing mass of events must be deflected just a little, - just a little - It cannot be 
much, but it may be enough to remove twenty-nine thousand years of misery from human 



history. 

Q. How do you propose to do this? 

A. By saving the knowledge of the race. The sum of human knowing is beyond any one man; 
any thousand men. With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million 
pieces. Individuals will know much of exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know. They will 
be helpless and useless by themselves. The bits of lore, meaningless, will not be passed on. 
They will be lost through the generations. But, if we now prepare a giant summary of all 
knowledge, it will never be lost. Coming generations will build on it, and will not have to 
rediscover it for themselves. One millennium will do the work of thirty thousand. 

Q. All this 

A. All my project; my thirty thousand men with their wives and children, are devoting 
themselves to the preparation of an "Encyclopedia Galactica." They will not complete it in their 
lifetimes. I will not even live to see it fairly begun. But by the time Trantor falls, it will be 
complete and copies will exist in every major library in the Galaxy. 

The Chief Commissioner's gavel rose and fell. Hari Seldon left the stand and quietly took his 
seat next to Gaal. 

He smiled and said, "How did you like the show?" 

Gaal said, "You stole it. But what will happen now?" 

"They'll adjourn the trial and try to come to a private agreement with me." 

"How do you know?" 

Seldon said, "I'll be honest. I don't know. It depends on the Chief Commissioner. I have studied 
him for years. I have tried to analyze his workings, but you know how risky it is to introduce the 
vagaries of an individual in the psychohistoric equations. Yet I have hopes." 


7 . 

Avakim approached, nodded to Gaal, leaned over to whisper to Seldon. The cry of adjournment 
rang out, and guards separated them. Gaal was led away. 

The next day's hearings were entirely different. Hari Seldon and Gaal Dornick were alone with 
the Commission. They were seated at a table together, with scarcely a separation between the 
five judges and the two accused. They were even offered cigars from a box of iridescent plastic 
which had the appearance of water, endlessly flowing. The eyes were fooled into seeing the 
motion although the fingers reported it to be hard and dry. 

Seldon accepted one; Gaal refused. 

Seldon said, "My lawyer is not present." 

A Commissioner replied, "This is no longer a trial, Dr. Seldon. We are here to discuss the safety 



of the State. 


Linge Chen said, "I will speak," and the other Commissioners sat back in their chairs, prepared 
to listen. A silence formed about Chen into which he might drop his words. 

Gaal held his breath. Chen, lean and hard, older in looks than in fact, was the actual Emperor 
of all the Galaxy. The child who bore the title itself was only a symbol manufactured by Chen, 
and not the first such, either. 

Chen said, "Dr. Seldon, you disturb the peace of the Emperor's realm. None of the quadrillions 
living now among all the stars of the Galaxy will be living a century from now. Why, then, should 
we concern ourselves with events of three centuries distance?" 

"I shall not be alive half a decade hence," said Seldon, and yet it is of overpowering concern to 
me. Call it idealism. Call it an identification of myself with that mystical generalization to which 
we refer by the term, 'humanity.'" 

"I do not wish to take the trouble to understand mysticism. Can you tell me why I may not rid 
myself of you, and of an uncomfortable and unnecessary three-century future which I will never 
see by having you executed tonight?" 

"A week ago," said Seldon, lightly, "you might have done so and perhaps retained a one in ten 
probability of yourself remaining alive at year's end. Today, the one in ten probability is scarcely 
one in ten thousand." 

There were expired breaths in the gathering and uneasy stirrings. Gaal felt the short hairs 
prickle on the back of his neck. Chen's upper eyelids dropped a little. 

"How so?" he said. 

"The fall of Trantor," said Seldon, "cannot be stopped by any conceivable effort. It can be 
hastened easily, however. The tale of my interrupted trial will spread through the Galaxy. 
Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no 
promise to them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that 
political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that 
only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men 
will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the 
decay of the worlds. Have me killed and Trantor will fall not within three centuries but within fifty 
years and you, yourself, within a single year." 

Chen said, "These are words to frighten children, and yet your death is not the only answer 
which will satisfy us." 

He lifted his slender hand from the papers on which it rested, so that only two fingers touched 
lightly upon the topmost sheet. 

"Tell me," he said, "will your only activity be that of preparing this encyclopedia you speak of?" 
"It will." 

"And need that be done on Trantor?" 



"Trantor, my lord, possesses the Imperial Library, as well as the scholarly resources of the 
University of Trantor." 

"And yet if you were located elsewhere- , let us say upon a planet where the hurry and 
distractions of a metropolis will not interfere with scholastic musings; where your men may 
devote themselves entirely and single-mindedly to their work; -might not that have 
advantages?" 

"Minor ones, perhaps." 

"Such a world had been chosen, then. You may work, doctor, at your leisure, with your hundred 
thousand about you. The Galaxy will know that you are working and fighting the Fall. They will 
even be told that you will prevent the Fall." Fie smiled, "Since I do not believe in so many things, 
it is not difficult for me to disbelieve in the Fall as well, so that I am entirely convinced I will be 
telling the truth to the people. And meanwhile, doctor, you will not trouble Trantor and there will 
be no disturbance of the Emperor's peace. 

"The alternative is death for yourself and for as many of your followers as will seem necessary. 
Your earlier threats I disregard. The opportunity for choosing between death and exile is given 
you over a time period stretching from this moment to one five minutes hence." 

"Which is the world chosen, my lord?" said Seldon. 

"It is called, I believe, Terminus," said Chen. Negligently, he turned the papers upon his desk 
with his fingertips so that they faced Seldon. "It is uninhabited, but quite habitable, and can be 
molded to suit the necessities of scholars. It is somewhat secluded-" 

Seldon interrupted, "It is at the edge of the Galaxy, sir." 

"As I have said, somewhat secluded. It will suit your needs for concentration. Come, you have 
two minutes left." 

Seldon said, "We will need time to arrange such a trip. There are twenty thousand families 
involved." 

"You will be given time." 

Seldon thought a moment, and the last minute began to die. Fie said, "I accept exile." 

Gaal's heart skipped a beat at the words. For the most part, he was filled with a tremendous joy 
for who would not be, to escape death. Yet in all his vast relief, he found space for a little regret 
that Seldon had been defeated. 


8 . 

For a long while, they sat silently as the taxi whined through the hundreds of miles of worm-like 
tunnels toward the University. And then Gaal stirred. Fie said: 

"Was what you told the Commissioner true? Would your execution have really hastened the 



Fall? 


Seldon said, "I never lie about psychohistoric findings. Nor would it have availed me in this 
case. Chen knew I spoke the truth. He is a very clever politician and politicians by the very 
nature of their work must have an instinctive feeling for the truths of psychohistory." 

"Then need you have accepted exile," Gaal wondered, but Seldon did not answer. 

When they burst out upon the University grounds, Gaal's muscles took action of their own; or 
rather, inaction. He had to be carried, almost, out of the taxi. 

All the University was a blaze of light. Gaal had almost forgotten that a sun could exist. 

The University structures lacked the hard steel-gray of the rest of Trantor. They were silvery, 
rather. The metallic luster was almost ivory in color. 

Seldon said, "Soldiers, it seems." 

"What?" Gaal brought his eyes to the prosaic ground and found a sentinel ahead of them. 

They stopped before him, and a soft-spoken captain materialized from a near-by doorway. 

He said, "Dr. Seldon?" 

"Yes." 

"We have been waiting for you. You and your men will be under martial law henceforth. I have 
been instructed to inform you that six months will be allowed you for preparations to leave for 
Terminus." 

"Six months!" began Gaal, but Seldon's fingers were upon his elbow with gentle pressure. 
"These are my instructions," repeated the captain. 

He was gone, and Gaal turned to Seldon, "Why, what can be done in six months? This is but 
slower murder." 

"Quietly. Quietly. Let us reach my office." 

It was not a large office, but it was quite spy-proof and quite undetectably so. Spy-beams 
trained upon it received neither a suspicious silence nor an even more suspicious static. They 
received, rather, a conversation constructed at random out of a vast stock of innocuous 
phrases in various tones and voices. 

"Now," said Seldon, at his ease, "six months will be enough." 

"I don't see how." 

"Because, my boy, in a plan such as ours, the actions of others are bent to our needs. Have I 
not said to you already that Chen's temperamental makeup has been subjected to greater 
scrutiny than that of any other single man in history. The trial was not allowed to begin until the 
time and circumstances were fight for the ending of our own choosing." 



"But could you have arranged-" 

"-to be exiled to Terminus? Why not?" He put his fingers on a certain spot on his desk and a 
small section of the wall behind him slid aside. Only his own fingers could have done so, since 
only his particular print-pattern could have activated the scanner beneath. 

"You will find several microfilms inside," said Seldon. "Take the one marked with the letter, T." 

Gaal did so and waited while Seldon fixed it within the projector and handed the young man a 
pair of eyepieces. Gaal adjusted them, and watched the film unroll before his eyes. 

He said, "But then-" 

Seldon said, "What surprises you?" 

"Have you been preparing to leave for two years?" 

"Two and a half. Of course, we could not be certain that it would be Terminus he would choose, 
but we hoped it might be and we acted upon that assumption-" 

"But why, Dr. Seldon? If you arranged the exile, why? Could not events be far better controlled 
here on Trantor?" 

"Why, there are some reasons. Working on Terminus, we will have Imperial support without 
ever rousing fears that we would endanger Imperial safety." 

Gaal said, "But you aroused those fears only to force exile. I still do not understand." 

"Twenty thousand families would not travel to the end of the Galaxy of their own will perhaps." 

"But why should they be forced there?" Gaal paused, "May I not know?" 

Seldon said, "Not yet. It is enough for the moment that you know that a scientific refuge will be 
established on Terminus. And another will be established at the other end of the Galaxy, let us 
say," and he smiled, "at Star's End. And as for the rest, I will die soon, and you will see more 
than I. -No, no. Spare me your shock and good wishes. My doctors tell me that I cannot live 
longer than a year or two. But then, I have accomplished in life what I have intended and under 
what circumstances may one better die." 

"And after you die, sir?" 

"Why, there will be successors - perhaps even yourself. And these successors will be able to 
apply the final touch in the scheme and instigate the revolt on Anacreon at the right time and in 
the right manner. Thereafter, events may roll unheeded." 

"I do not understand." 

"You will." Seldon's lined face grew peaceful and tired, both at once, "Most will leave for 
Terminus, but some will stay. It will be easy to arrange. -But as for me," and he concluded in a 
whisper, so that Gaal could scarcely hear him, "I am finished." 



PART II 

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS 

i. 

TERMINUS-... Its location (see map) was an odd one for the role It was called upon to play In 
Galactic history, and yet as many writers have never tired of pointing out, an Inevitable one. 
Located on the very fringe of the Galactic spiral, an only planet of an Isolated sun, poor In 
resources and negligible In economic value, it was never settled In the five centuries after Its 
discovery, until the landing of the Encyclopedists.... 

It was inevitable that as a new generation grew, Terminus would become something more than 
an appendage of the psychohistorians of Trantor. With the Anacreonian revolt and the rise to 
power of Salvor Hardin, first of the great line of... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

Lewis Pirenne was busily engaged at his desk in the one well-lit comer of the room. Work had 
to be co-ordinated. Effort had to be organized. Threads had to be woven into a pattern. 

Fifty years now; fifty years to establish themselves and set up Encyclopedia Foundation 
Number One into a smoothly working unit. Fifty years to gather the raw material. Fifty years to 
prepare. 

It had been done. Five more years would see the publication of the first volume of the most 
monumental work the Galaxy had ever conceived. And then at ten-year intervals - regularly - 
like clockwork - volume after volume. And with them there would be supplements; special 
articles on events of current interest, until— 

Pirenne stirred uneasily, as the muted buzzer upon his desk muttered peevishly. Fie had almost 
forgotten the appointment. Fie shoved the door release and out of an abstracted comer of one 
eye saw the door open and the broad figure of Salvor FHardin enter. Pirenne did not look up. 

Hardin smiled to himself. He was in a hurry, but he knew better than to take offense at 
Pirenne's cavalier treatment of anything or anyone that disturbed him at his work. He buried 
himself in the chair on the other side of the desk and waited. 

Pirenne's stylus made the faintest scraping sound as it raced across paper. Otherwise, neither 
motion nor sound. And then Hardin withdrew a two-credit coin from his vest pocket. He flipped 
it and its stainless-steel surface caught flitters of light as it tumbled through the air. He caught it 
and-flipped it again, watching the flashing reflections lazily. Stainless steel made good medium 
of exchange on a planet where all metal had to be imported. 

Pirenne looked up and blinked. "Stop that!" he said querulously. 

"Eh?" 



"That infernal coin tossing. Stop it." 

"Oh." Hardin pocketed the metal disk. "Tell me when you're ready, will you? I promised to be 
back at the City Council meeting before the new aqueduct project is put to a vote." 

Pirenne sighed and shoved himself away from the desk. "I'm ready. But I hope you aren't going 
to bother me with city affairs. Take care of that yourself, please. The Encyclopedia takes up all 
my time." 

"Have you heard the news?" questioned Hardin, phlegmatically. 

"What news?" 

"The news that the Terminus City ultrawave set received two hours ago. The Royal Governor of 
the Prefect of Anacreon has assumed the title of king." 

"Well? What of it?" 

"It means," responded Hardin, "that we're cut off from the inner regions of the Empire. We've 
been expecting it but that doesn't make it any more comfortable. Anacreon stands square 
across what was our last remaining trade route to Santanni and to Trantor and to Vega itself. 
Where is our metal to come from? We haven't managed to get a steel or aluminum shipment 
through in six months and now we won't be able to get any at all, except by grace of the King of 
Anacreon." 

Pirenne tch-tched impatiently. "Get them through him, then." 

"But can we? Listen, Pirenne, according to the charter which established this Foundation, the 
Board of Trustees of the Encyclopedia Committee has been given full administrative powers. I, 
as Mayor of Terminus City, have just enough power to blow my own nose and perhaps to 
sneeze if you countersign an order giving me permission. It's up to you and your Board then. 

I'm asking you in the name of the City, whose prosperity depends upon uninterrupted 
commerce with the Galaxy, to call an emergency meeting-" 

"Stop! A campaign speech is out of order. Now, Hardin, the Board of Trustees has not barred 
the establishment of a municipal government on Terminus. We understand one to be 
necessary because of the increase in population since the Foundation was established fifty 
years ago, and because of the increasing number of people involved in non-Encyclopedia 
affairs. But that does not mean that the first and only aim of the Foundation is no longer to 
publish the definitive Encyclopedia of all human knowledge. We are a State-supported, 
scientific institution, Hardin. We cannot - must not -will not interfere in local politics." 

"Local politics! By the Emperor's left toe, Pirenne, this is a matter of life and death. The planet, 
Terminus, by itself cannot support a mechanized civilization. It lacks metals. You know that. It 
hasn't a trace of iron, copper, or aluminum in the surface rocks, and precious little of anything 
else. What do you think will happen to the Encyclopedia if this watchmacallum King of 
Anacreon clamps down on us?" 

"On us? Are you forgetting that we are under the direct control of the Emperor himself? We are 
not part of the Prefect of Anacreon or of any other prefect. Memorize that! We are part of the 



Emperor's personal domain, and no one touches us. The Empire can protect its own." 

"Then why didn't it prevent the Royal Governor of Anacreon from kicking over the traces? And 
only Anacreon? 

At least twenty of the outermost prefects of the Galaxy, the entire Periphery as a matter of fact, 
have begun steering things their own way. I tell you I feel damned uncertain of the Empire and 
its ability to protect us." 

"Hokum! Royal Governors, Kings - what's the difference? The Empire is always shot through 
with a certain amount of politics and with different men pulling this way and that. Governors 
have rebelled, and, for that matter, Emperors have been deposed, or assassinated before this. 
But what has that to do with the Empire itself? Forget it, Hardin. It's none of our business. We 
are first of all and last of all-scientists. And our concern is the Encyclopedia. 

Oh, yes, I'd almost forgotten. Hardin!" 

"Well?" 

"Do something about that paper of yours!" Pirenne's voice was angry. 

"The Terminus City Journal? It isn't mine; it's privately owned. What's it been doing?" 

"For weeks now it has been recommending that the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of 
the Foundation be made the occasion for public holidays and quite inappropriate celebrations." 

"And why not? The computoclock will open the Vault in three months. I would call this first 
opening a big occasion, wouldn't you?" 

"Not for silly pageantry, Hardin. The Vault and its opening concern the Board of Trustees alone. 
Anything of importance will be communicated to the people. That is final and please make it 
plain to the Journal." 

"I'm sorry, Pirenne, but the City Charter guarantees a certain minor matter known as freedom of 
the press." 

"It may. But the Board of Trustees does not. I am the Emperor's representative on Terminus, 
Hardin, and have full powers in this respect." 

Hardin's expression became that of a man counting to ten, mentally. He said, grimly: "in 
connection with your status as Emperor's representative, then, I have a final piece of news to 
give you." 

"About Anacreon?" Pirenne's lips tightened. He felt annoyed. 

"Yes. A special envoy will be sent to us from Anacreon. In two weeks." 

"An envoy? Here? From Anacreon?" Pirenne chewed that. "What for?" 

Hardin stood up, and shoved his chair back up against the desk. "I give you one guess." And 
he left - quite unceremoniously. 



2 . 


Anselm haut Rodric - "haut" itself signifying noble blood -Sub-prefect of Pluema and Envoy 
Extraordinary of his Highness of Anacreon-plus half a dozen other titleswas met by Salvor 
Hardin at the spaceport with all the imposing ritual of a state occasion. 

With a tight smile and a low bow, the sub-prefect had flipped his blaster from its holster and 
presented it to Hardin butt first. Hardin returned the compliment with, a blaster specifically 
borrowed for the occasion. Friendship and good will were thus established, and if Hardin noted 
the barest bulge at Haut Rodric's shoulder, he prudently said nothing. 

The ground car that received them then - preceded, flanked, and followed by the suitable cloud 
of minor functionaries - proceeded in a slow, ceremonious manner to Cyclopedia Square, 
cheered on its way by a properly enthusiastic crowd. 

Sub-prefect Anselm received the cheers with the complaisant indifference of a soldier and a 
nobleman. 

He said to Hardin, "And this city is all your world?" 

Hardin raised his voice to be heard above the clamor. "We are a young world, your eminence. 

In our short history we have had but few members of the higher nobility visiting our poor planet. 
Hence, our enthusiasm." 

It is certain that "higher nobility" did not recognize irony when he heard it. 

He said thoughtfully: "Founded fifty years ago. Hm-m-m! You have a great deal of unexploited 
land here, mayor. You have never considered dividing it into estates?" 

"There is no necessity as yet. We're extremely centralized; we have to be, because of the 
Encyclopedia. Someday, perhaps, when our population has grown-" 

"A strange world! You have no peasantry?" 

Hardin reflected that it didn't require a great deal of acumen to tell that his eminence was 
indulging in a bit of fairly clumsy pumping. He replied casually, "No - nor nobility." 

Haut Rodric's eyebrows lifted. "And your leader -the man I am to meet?" 

"You mean Dr. Pirenne? Yes! He is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees - and a personal 
representative of the Emperor." 

"Doctor? No other title? A scholar? And he rates above the civil authority?" 

"Why, certainly," replied Hardin, amiably. "We're all scholars more or less. After all, we're not so 
much a world as a scientific foundation - under the direct control of the Emperor." 

There was a faint emphasis upon the last phrase that seemed to disconcert the sub-prefect. He 
remained thoughtfully silent during the rest of the slow way to Cyclopedia Square. 



If Hardin found himself bored by the afternoon and evening that followed, he had at least the 
satisfaction of realizing that Pirenne and Haut Rodric - having met with loud and mutual 
protestations of esteem and regard - were detesting each other's company a good deal more. 

Haut Rodric had attended with glazed eye to Pirenne's lecture during the "inspection tour" of 
the Encyclopedia Building. With polite and vacant smile, he had listened to the latter's rapid 
patter as they passed through the vast storehouses of reference films and the numerous 
projection rooms. 

It was only after he had gone down level by level into and through the composing departments, 
editing departments, publishing departments, and filming departments that he made the first 
comprehensive statement. 

"This is all very interesting," he said, "but it seems a strange occupation for grown men. What 
good is it?" 

It was a remark, Hardin noted, for which Pirenne found no answer, though the expression of his 
face was most eloquent. 

The dinner that evening was much the mirror image of the events of that afternoon, for Haut 
Rodric monopolized the conversation by describing - in minute technical detail and with 
incredible zest - his own exploits as battalion head during the recent war between Anacreon 
and the neighboring newly proclaimed Kingdom of Smyrno. 

The details of the sub-prefect's account were not completed until dinner was over and one by 
one the minor officials had drifted away. The last bit of triumphant description of mangled 
spaceships came when he had accompanied Pirenne and Hardin onto the balcony and relaxed 
in the warm air of the summer evening. 

"And now," he said, with a heavy joviality, "to serious matters." 

"By all means," murmured Hardin, lighting a long cigar of Vegan tobacco - not many left, he 
reflected - and teetering his chair back on two legs. 

The Galaxy was high in the sky and its misty lens shape stretched lazily from horizon to 
horizon. The few stars here at the very edge of the universe were insignificant twinkles in 
comparison. 

"Of course," said the sub-prefect, "all the formal discussions - the paper signing and such dull 
technicalities, that is - will take place before the - What is it you call your Council?" 

"The Board of Trustees," replied Pirenne, coldly. 

"Queer name! Anyway, that's for tomorrow. We might as well clear away some of the 
underbrush, man to man, right now, though. Hey?" 

"And this means-" prodded Hardin. 

"Just this. There's been a certain change in the situation out here in the Periphery and the 
status of your planet has become a trifle uncertain. It would be very convenient if we succeeded 
in coming to an understanding as to how the matter stands. By the way, mayor, have you 



another one of those cigars?" 

Hardin started and produced one reluctantly. 

Anselm haut Rodric sniffed at it and emitted a clucking sound of pleasure. "Vegan tobacco! 
Where did you get it?" 

"We received some last shipment. There's hardly any left. Space knows when we'll get more - 
if ever." 

Pirenne scowled. He didn't smoke - and, for that matter, detested the odor. "Let me understand 
this, your eminence. Your mission is merely one of clarification?" 

Haut Rodric nodded through the smoke of his first lusty puffs. 

"In that case, it is soon over. The situation with respect to the Encyclopedia Foundation is what 
it always has been." 

"Ah! And what is it that it always has been?" 

"Just this: A State-supported scientific institution and part of the personal domain of his august 
majesty, the Emperor." 

The sub-prefect seemed unimpressed. He blew smoke rings. "That's a nice theory, Dr. Pirenne. 
I imagine you've got charters with the Imperial Seal upon it - but what's the actual situation? 
How do you stand with respect to Smyrno? You're not fifty parsecs from Smyrno's capital, you 
know. And what about Konom and Daribow?" 

Pirenne said: "We have nothing to do with any prefect. As part of the Emperor's-" 

"They're not prefects," reminded Haut Rodric; "they're kingdoms now." 

"Kingdoms then. We have nothing to do with them. As a scientific institution-" 

"Science be damned!" swore the other. "What the devil has that got to do with the fact that 
we're liable to see Terminus taken over by Smyrno at any time?" 

"And the Emperor? He would just sit by?" 

Haut Rodric calmed down and said: "Well, now, Dr. Pirenne, you respect the Emperor's 
property and so does Anacreon, but Smyrno might not. Remember, we've just signed a treaty 
with the Emperor - I'll present a copy to that Board of yours tomorrow - which places upon us 
the responsibility of maintaining order within the borders of the old Prefect of Anacreon on 
behalf of the Emperor. Our duty is clear, then, isn't it?" 

"Certainly. But Terminus is not part of the Prefect of Anacreon." 

"And Smyrno-" 

"Nor is it part of the Prefect of Smyrno. It's not part of any prefect." 

"Does Smyrno know that?" 



I don't care what it knows. 


"We do. We've just finished a war with her and she still holds two stellar systems that are ours. 
Terminus occupies an extremely strategic spot, between the two nations." 

Hardin felt weary. He broke in: "What is your proposition, your eminence?" 

The sub-prefect seemed quite ready to stop fencing in favor of more direct statements. He said 
briskly: "It seems perfectly obvious that, since Terminus cannot defend itself, Anacreon must 
take over the job for its own sake. You understand we have no desire to interfere with internal 
administration-" 

"Uh-huh," grunted Hardin dryly. 

"-but we believe that it would be best for all concerned to have Anacreon establish a military 
base upon the planet." 

"And that is all you would want - a military base in some of the vast unoccupied territory - and 
let it go at that?" 

"Well, of course, there would be the matter of supporting the protecting forces." 

Hardin's chair came down on all four, and his elbows went forward on his knees. "Now we're 
getting to the nub. Let's put it into language. Terminus is to be a protectorate and to pay 
tribute." 

"Not tribute. Taxes. We're protecting you. You pay for it." 

Pirenne banged his hand on the chair with sudden violence. "Let me speak, Hardin. Your 
eminence, I don't care a rusty half-credit coin for Anacreon, Smyrno, or all your local politics 
and petty wars. I tell you this is a State-supported tax-free institution." 

"State-supported? But we are the State, Dr. Pirenne, and we're not supporting." 

Pirenne rose angrily. "Your eminence, I am the direct representative of-" 

"-his august majesty, the Emperor," chorused Anselm haut Rodric sourly, "And I am the direct 
representative of the King of Anacreon. Anacreon is a lot nearer, Dr. Pirenne. " 

"Let's get back to business," urged Hardin. "How would you take these so-called taxes, your 
eminence? Would you take them in kind: wheat, potatoes, vegetables, cattle?" 

The sub-prefect stared. "What the devil? What do we need with those? We've got hefty 
surpluses. Gold, of course. Chromium or vanadium would be even better, incidentally, if you 
have it in quantity." 

Hardin laughed. "Quantity! We haven't even got iron in quantity. Gold! Here, take a look at our 
currency." He tossed a coin to the envoy. 

Haut Rodric bounced it and stared. "What is it? Steel?" 

"That's right." 



I don't understand. 


"Terminus is a planet practically without metals. We import it all. Consequently, we have no 
gold, and nothing to pay unless you want a few thousand bushels of potatoes." 

"Well - manufactured goods." 

"Without metal? What do we make our machines out of?" 

There was a pause and Pirenne tried again. "This whole discussion is wide of the point. 
Terminus is not a planet, but a scientific foundation preparing a great encyclopedia. Space, 
man, have you no respect for science?" 

"Encyclopedias don't win wars." Haut Rodric's brows furrowed. "A completely unproductive 
world, then - and practically unoccupied at that. Well, you might pay with land." 

"What do you mean?" asked Pirenne. 

"This world is just about empty and the unoccupied land is probably fertile. There are many of 
the nobility on Anacreon that would like an addition to their estates." 

"You can't propose any such-" 

"There's no necessity of looking so alarmed, Dr. Pirenne. There's plenty for all of us. If it comes 
to what it comes, and you co-operate, we could probably arrange it so that you lose nothing. 
Titles can be conferred and estates granted. You understand me, I think." 

Pirenne sneered, "Thanks!" 

And then Hardin said ingenuously: "Could Anacreon supply us with adequate quantities of 
plutonium for our nuclear-power plant? We've only a few years' supply left." 

There was a gasp from Pirenne and then a dead silence for minutes. When Haut Rodric spoke 
it was in a voice quite different from what it had been till then: 

"You have nuclear power?" 

"Certainly. What's unusual in that? I imagine nuclear power is fifty thousand years old now. 

Why shouldn't we have it? Except that it's a little difficult to get plutonium." 

"Yes ... Yes." The envoy paused and added uncomfortably: "Well, gentlemen, we'll pursue the 
subject tomorrow. You'll excuse me-" 

Pirenne looked after him and gritted through his teeth: "That insufferable, dull-witted donkey! 
That-" 

Hardin broke in: "Not at all. He's merely the product of his environment. He doesn't understand 
much except that 'I have a gun and you haven't.’" 

Pirenne whirled on him in exasperation. "What in space did you mean by the talk about military 
bases and tribute? Are you crazy?" 

"No. I merely gave him rope and let him talk. You'll notice that he managed to stumble out with 



Anacreon's real intentions - that is, the parceling up of Terminus into landed estates. Of 
course, I don't intend to let that happen." 

"You don't intend. You don't. And who are you? And may I ask what you meant by blowing off 
your mouth about our nuclear-power plant? Why, it's just the thing that would make us a military 
target." 

"Yes," grinned Hardin. "A military target to stay away from. Isn't it obvious why I brought the 
subject up? It happened to confirm a very strong suspicion I had had." 

"And that was what?" 

"That Anacreon no longer has a nuclear-power economy. If they had, our friend would 
undoubtedly have realized that plutonium, except in ancient tradition is not used in power 
plants. And therefore it follows that the rest of the Periphery no longer has nuclear power either. 
Certainly Smyrno hasn't, or Anacreon wouldn't have won most of the battles in their recent war. 
Interesting, wouldn't you say?" 

"Bah!" Pirenne left in fiendish humor, and Hardin smiled gently. 

He threw his cigar away and looked up at the outstretched Galaxy. "Back to oil and coal, are 
they?" he murmured - and what the rest of his thoughts were he kept to himself. 


3 . 

When Hardin denied owning the Journal, he was perhaps technically correct, but no more. 
Hardin had been the leading spirit in the drive to incorporate Terminus into an autonomous 
municipality-he had been elected its first mayor-so it was not surprising that, though not a 
single share of Journal stock was in his name, some sixty percent was controlled by him in 
more devious fashions. 

There were ways. 

Consequently, when Hardin began suggesting to Pirenne that he be allowed to attend meetings 
of the Board of Trustees, it was not quite coincidence that the Journal began a similar 
campaign. And the first mass meeting in the history of the Foundation was held, demanding 
representation of the City in the "national" government. 

And, eventually, Pirenne capitulated with ill grace. 

Hardin, as he sat at the foot of the table, speculated idly as to just what it was that made 
physical scientists such poor administrators. It might be merely that they were too used to 
inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people. 

In any case, there was Tomaz Sutt and Jord Fara on his left; Lundin Crast and Yate Fulham on 
his fight; with Pirenne, himself, presiding. He knew them all, of course, but they seemed to have 
put on an extra-special bit of pomposity for the occasion. 

Hardin had dozed through the initial formalities and then perked up when Pirenne sipped at the 



glass of water before him by way of preparation and said: 

"I find it very gratifying to be able to inform the Board that since our last meeting, I have 
received word that Lord Dorwin, Chancellor of the Empire, will arrive at Terminus in two weeks. 
It may be taken for granted that our relations with Anacreon will be smoothed out to our 
complete satisfaction as soon as the Emperor is informed of the situation. " 

He smiled and addressed Hardin across the length of the table. "Information to this effect has 
been given the Journal." 

Hardin snickered below his breath. It seemed evident that Pirenne's desire to strut this 
information before him had been one reason for his admission into the sacrosanctum. 

He said evenly: "Leaving vague expressions out of account, what do you expect Lord Dorwin to 
do?" 

Tomaz Sutt replied. He had a bad habit of addressing one in the third person when in his more 
stately moods. 

"It is quite evident," he observed, "that Mayor Hardin is a professional cynic. He can scarcely 
fail to realize that the Emperor would be most unlikely to allow his personal rights to be 
infringed." 

"Why? What would he do in case they were?" 

There was an annoyed stir. Pirenne said, "You are out of order," and, as an afterthought, "and 
are making what are near-treasonable statements, besides." 

"Am I to consider myself answered?" 

"Yes! If you have nothing further to say-" 

"Don't jump to conclusions. I'd like to ask a question. Besides this stroke of diplomacy - which 
may or may not prove to mean anything - has anything concrete been done to meet the 
Anacreonic menace?" 

Yate Fulham drew one hand along his ferocious red mustache. "You see a menace there, do 
you?" 

"Don't you?" 

"Scarcely"- this with indulgence. "The Emperor-" 

"Great space!" Hardin felt annoyed. "What is this? Every once in a while someone mentions 
'Emperor' or 'Empire' as if it were a magic word. The Emperor is thousands of parsecs away, 
and I doubt whether he gives a damn about us. And if he does, what can he do? What there 
was of the imperial navy in these regions is in the hands of the four kingdoms now and 
Anacreon has its share. Listen, we have to fight with guns, not with words. 

"Now, get this. We've had two months' grace so far, mainly because we've given Anacreon the 
idea that we've got nuclear weapons. Well, we all know that that's a little white lie. We've got 



nuclear power, but only for commercial uses, and darn little at that. They're going to find that 
out soon, and if you think they're going to enjoy being jollied along, you're mistaken." 

"My dear sir-" 

"Hold on: I'm not finished." Hardin was warming up. He liked this. "It's all very well to drag 
chancellors into this, but it would be much nicer to drag a few great big siege guns fitted for 
beautiful nuclear bombs into it. We've lost two months, gentlemen, and we may not have 
another two months to lose. What do you propose to do?" 

Said Lundin Crast, his long nose wrinkling angrily: "If you're proposing the militarization of the 
Foundation, I won't hear a word of it. It would mark our open entrance into the field of politics. 
We, Mr. Mayor, are a scientific foundation and nothing else." 

Added Sutt: "He does not realize, moreover, that building armaments would mean withdrawing 
men - valuable men - from the Encyclopedia. That cannot be done, come what may." 

"Very true," agreed Pirenne. "The Encyclopedia first - always." 

Hardin groaned in spirit. The Board seemed to suffer violently from Encyclopedia on the brain, 

He said icily: "Has it ever occurred to this Board that it is barely possible that Terminus may 
have interests other than the Encyclopedia?" 

Pirenne replied: "I do not conceive, Hardin, that the Foundation can have any interest other 
than the Encyclopedia." 

"I didn't say the Foundation; I said Terminus. I'm afraid you don't understand the situation. 
There's a good million of us here on Terminus, and not more than a hundred and fifty thousand 
are working directly on the Encyclopedia. To the rest of us, this is home. We were born here. 
We're living here. Compared with our farms and our homes and our factories, the Encyclopedia 
means little to us. We want them protected-" 

He was shouted down. 

"The Encyclopedia first," ground out Crast. "We have a mission to fulfill." 

"Mission, hell," shouted Hardin. "That might have been true fifty years ago. But this is a new 
generation." 

"That has nothing to do with it," replied Pirenne. "We are scientists." 

And Hardin leaped through the opening. "Are you, though? That's a nice hallucination, isn't it? 
Your bunch here is a perfect example of what's been wrong with the entire Galaxy for 
thousands of years. What kind of science is it to be stuck out here for centuries classifying the 
work of scientists of the last millennium? Have you ever thought of working onward, extending 
their knowledge and improving upon it? No! You're quite happy to stagnate. The whole Galaxy 
is, and has been for space knows how long. That's why the Periphery is revolting; that's why 
communications are breaking down; that's why petty wars are becoming eternal; that's why 
whole systems are losing nuclear power and going back to barbarous techniques of chemical 
power. 



If you ask me," he cried, "the Galactic Empire is dying!" 


He paused and dropped into his chair to catch his breath, paying no attention to the two or 
three that were attempting simultaneously to answer him. 

Crast got the floor. "I don't know what you're trying to gain by your hysterical statements, Mr. 
Mayor. Certainly, you are adding nothing constructive to the discussion. I move, Mr. Chairman, 
that the speaker's remarks be placed out of order and the discussion be resumed from the point 
where it was interrupted." 

Jord Fara bestirred himself for the first time. Up to this point Fara had taken no part in the 
argument even at its hottest. But now his ponderous voice, every bit as ponderous as his 
three-hundred-pound body, burst its bass way out. 

"Haven't we forgotten something, gentlemen?" 

"What?" asked Pirenne, peevishly. 

"That in a month we celebrate our fiftieth anniversary." Fara had a trick of uttering the most 
obvious platitudes with great profundity. 

"What of it?" 

"And on that anniversary," continued Fara, placidly, "Hari Seldon's Vault will open. Have you 
ever considered what might be in the Vault?" 

"I don't know. Routine matters. A stock Speech of congratulations, perhaps. I don't think any 
significance need be placed on the Vault - though the Journal'- and he glared at Hardin, who 
grinned back -"did try to make an issue of it. I put a stop to that." 

"Ah," said Fara, "but perhaps you are wrong. Doesn't it strike you" - he paused and put a finger 
to his round little nose -"that the Vault is opening at a very convenient time?" 

"Very inconvenient time, you mean," muttered Fulham. "We've got some other things to worry 
about." 

"Other things more important than a message from Hari Seldon? I think not." Fara was growing 
more pontifical than ever, and Hardin eyed him thoughtfully. What was he getting at? 

"In fact," said Fara, happily, "you all seem to forget that Seldon was the greatest psychologist of 
our time and that he was the founder of our Foundation. It seems reasonable to assume that he 
used his science to determine the probable course of the history of the immediate future. If he 
did, as seems likely, I repeat, he would certainly have managed to find a way to warn us of 
danger and, perhaps, to point out a solution. The Encyclopedia was very dear to his heart, you 
know." 

An aura of puzzled doubt prevailed. Pirenne hemmed. "Well, now, I don't know. Psychology is a 
great science, but-there are no psychologists among us at the moment, I believe. It seems to 
me we're on uncertain ground." 

Fara turned to Hardin. "Didn't you study psychology under Alurin?" 



Hardin answered, half in reverie: "Yes, I never completed my studies, though. I got tired of 
theory. I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next 
best thing - I went into politics. It's practically the same thing." 

"Well, what do you think of the Vault?" 

And Hardin replied cautiously, "I don't know." 

He did not say a word for the remainder of the meeting even though it got back to the subject of 
the Chancellor of the Empire. 

In fact, he didn't even listen. He'd been put on a new track and things were falling into 
place-just a little. Little angles were fitting together - one or two. 

And psychology was the key. He was sure of that. 

He was trying desperately to remember the psychological theory he had once learned - and 
from it he got one thing right at the start. 

A great psychologist such as Seldon could unravel human emotions and human reactions 
sufficiently to be able to predict broadly the historical sweep of the future. 

And what would that mean? 


4 . 

Lord Dorwin took snuff. He also had long hair, curled intricately and, quite obviously, artificially, 
to which were added a pair of fluffy, blond sideburns, which he fondled affectionately. Then, 
too, he spoke in overprecise statements and left out all the r's. 

At the moment, Hardin had no time to think of more of the reasons for the instant detestation in 
which he had held the noble chancellor. Oh, yes, the elegant gestures of one hand with which 
he accompanied his remarks and the studied condescension with which he accompanied even 
a simple affirmative. 

But, at any rate, the problem now was to locate him. He had disappeared with Pirenne half an 
hour before - passed clean out of sight, blast him. 

Hardin was quite sure that his own absence during the preliminary discussions would quite suit 
Pirenne. 

But Pirenne had been seen in this wing And on this floor. It was simply a matter of trying every 
door. Halfway down, he said, "Ah!" and stepped into the darkened room. The profile of Lord 
Dorwin's intricate hair-do was unmistakable against the lighted screen. 

Lord Dorwin looked up and said: "Ah, Hahdin. You ah looking foah us, no doubt?" He held out 
his snuffbox - overadorned and poor workmanship at that, noted Hardinand was politely 
refused whereat he helped himself to a pinch and smiled graciously. 



Pirenne scowled and Hardin met that with an expression of blank indifference. 

The only sound to break the short silence that followed was the clicking of the lid of Lord 
Dorwin's snuffbox. And then he put it away and said: 

"A gweat achievement, this Encyclopedia of yoahs, Hahdin. A feat, indeed, to rank with the 
most majestic accomplishments of all time." 

"Most of us think so, milord. It's an accomplishment not quite accomplished as yet, however." 

"Fwom the little I have seen of the efficiency of yoah Foundation, I have no feahs on that 
scoah." And he nodded to Pirenne, who responded with a delighted bow. 

Quite a love feast, thought Hardin. "I wasn't complaining about the lack of efficiency, milord, as 
much as of the definite excess of efficiency on the part of the Anacreonians - though in another 
and more destructive direction." 

"Ah, yes, Anacweon." A negligent wave of the hand. "I have just come from theah. Most 
bahbawous planet. It is thowoughly inconceivable that human beings could live heah in the 
Pewiphewy. The lack of the most elementawy wequiahments of a cultuahed gentleman; the 
absence of the most fundamental necessities foah comfoht and convenience - the uttah 
desuetude into which they-" 

Hardin interrupted dryly: "The Anacreonians, unfortunately, have all the elementary 
requirements for warfare and all the fundamental necessities for destruction." 

"Quite, quite." Lord Dorwin seemed annoyed, perhaps at being stopped midway in his 
sentence. "But we ahn't to discuss business now, y'know. Weally, I'm othahwise concuhned. 
Doctah Piwenne, ahn't you going to show me the second volume? Do, please." 

The lights clicked out and for the next half-hour Hardin might as well have been on Anacreon 
for all the attention they paid him. The book upon the screen made little sense to him, nor did 
he trouble to make the attempt to follow, but Lord Dorwin became quite humanly excited at 
times. Hardin noticed that during these moments of excitement the chancellor pronounced his 
r's. 

When the lights went on again, Lord Dorwin said: "Mahvelous. Twuly mahvelous. You ah not, 
by chance, intewested in ahchaeology, ah you, Hahdin?" 

"Eh?" Hardin shook himself out of an abstracted reverie. "No, milord, can't say I am. I'm a 
psychologist by original intention and a politician by final decision." 

"Ah! No doubt intewesting studies. 1 , myself, y'know" - he helped himself to a giant pinch of 
snuff -"dabble in ahchaeology." 

"Indeed?" 

"His lordship," interrupted Pirenne, "is most thoroughly acquainted with the field." 

"Well, p'haps I am, p'haps I am," said his lordship complacently. "I have done an awful amount 
of wuhk in the science. Extwemely well-read, in fact. I've gone thwough all of Jawdun, Obijasi, 



Kwomwill ... oh, all of them, y'know." 

"I've heard of them, of course," said Hardin, "but I've never read them." 

"You should some day, my deah fellow. It would amply repay you. Why, I cutainly considah it 
well wuhth the twip heah to the Pewiphewy to see this copy of Lameth. Would you believe it, 
my Libwawy totally lacks a copy. By the way, Doctah Piwenne, you have not fohgotten yoah 
pwomise to twansdevelop a copy foah me befoah I leave?" 

"Only too pleased." 

"Lameth, you must know," continued the chancellor, politically, "pwesents a new and most 
intwesting addition to my pwevious knowledge of the 'Owigin Question.'" 

"Which question?" asked Hardin. 

"The 'Owigin Question.' The place of the owigin of the human species, y'know. Suahly you must 
know that it is thought that owiginally the human wace occupied only one planetawy system." 

"Well, yes, I know that." 

"Of cohse, no one knows exactly which system it is - lost in the mists of antiquity. Theah ah 
theawies, howevah. Siwius, some say. Othahs insist on Alpha Centauwi, oah on Sol, oah on 61 
Cygni - all in the Siwius sectah, you see." 

"And what does Lameth say?" 

"Well, he goes off along a new twail completely. He twies to show that ahchaeological wemains 
on the thuhd planet of the Ahctuwian System show that humanity existed theah befoah theah 
wah any indications of space-twavel." 

"And that means it was humanity's birth planet?" 

"P'haps. I must wead it closely and weigh the evidence befoah I can say foah cuhtain. One 
must see just how weliable his obsuhvations ah." 

Hardin remained silent for a short while. Then he said, "When did Lameth write his book?" 

"Oh - I should say about eight hundwed yeahs ago. Of cohse, he has based it lahgely on the 
pwevious wuhk of Gleen." 

"Then why rely on him? Why not go to Arcturus and study the remains for yourself?" 

Lord Dorwin raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. "Why, whatevah foah, my 
deah fellow?" 

"To get the information firsthand, of course." 

"But wheah's the necessity? It seems an uncommonly woundabout and hopelessly 
wigmawolish method of getting anywheahs. Look heah, now, I've got the wuhks of all the old 
mastahs - the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I wigh them against each othah - balance the 
disagweements - analyze the conflicting statements - decide which is pwobably cowwect - 



and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least" - patronizingly -"as / see it. 
How insuffewably cwude it would be to go to Ahctuwus, oah to Sol, foah instance, and blundah 
about, when the old mastahs have covahed the gwound so much moah effectually than we 
could possibly hope to do." 

Hardin murmured politely, "I see." 

"Come, milord," said Pirenne, "think we had better be returning." 

"Ah, yes. P'haps we had." 

As they left the room, Hardin said suddenly, "Milord, may I ask a question?" 

Lord Dorwin smiled blandly and emphasized his answer with a gracious flutter of the hand. 
"Cuhtainly, my deah fellow. Only too happy to be of suhvice. If I can help you in any way fwom 
my pooah stoah of knowledge-" 

"It isn't exactly about archaeology, milord." 

"No?" 

"No. It's this: Last year we received news here in Terminus about the meltdown of a power 
plant on Planet V of Gamma Andromeda. We got the barest outline of the accident - no details 
at all. I wonder if you could tell me exactly what happened." 

Pirenne's mouth twisted. "I wonder you annoy his lordship with questions on totally irrelevant 
subjects." 

"Not at all, Doctah Piwenne," interceded the chancellor. "It is quite all wight. Theah isn't much to 
say concuhning it in any case. The powah plant did undergo meltdown and it was quite a 
catastwophe, y'know. I believe wadiatsen damage. Weally, the govuhnment is sewiously 
considewing placing seveah westwictions upon the indiscwiminate use of nucleah powah - 
though that is not a thing for genewal publication, y'know." 

"I understand," said Hardin. "But what was wrong with the plant?" 

"Well, weally," replied Lord Dorwin indifferently, "who knows? It had bwoken down some yeahs 
pweviously and it is thought that the weplacements and wepaiah wuhk wuh most infewiah. It is 
so difficult these days to find men who weally undahstand the moah technical details of ouah 
powah systems." And he took a sorrowful pinch of snuff. 

"You realize," said Hardin, "that the independent kingdoms of the Periphery had lost nuclear 
power altogether?" 

"Have they? I'm not at all suhpwised. Bahbawous planets- Oh, but my deah fellow, don't call 
them independent. They ahn't, y'know. The tweaties we've made with them ah pwoof positive of 
that. They acknowledge the soveweignty of the Empewah. They'd have to, of cohse, oah we 
wouldn't tweat with them." 


That may be so, but they have considerable freedom of action. 



"Yes, I suppose so. Considewable. But that scahcely mattahs. The Empiah is fah bettah off, 
with the Pewiphewy thwown upon its own wesoahces - as it is, moah oah less. They ahn't any 
good to us, y'know. Most bahbawous planets. Scahcely civilized." 

"They were civilized in the past. Anacreon was one of the richest of the outlying provinces. I 
understand it compared favorably with Vega itself." 

"Oh, but, Hahdin, that was centuwies ago. You can scahcely dwaw conclusion fwom that. 
Things wah diffewent in the old gweat days. We ahn't the men we used to be, y'know. But, 
Hahdin, come, you ah a most puhsistent chap. 

I've told you I simply won't discuss business today. Doctah Piwenne did pwepayah me foah 
you. He told me you would twy to badgah me, but I'm fah too old a hand foah that. Leave it foah 
next day. And that was that. 


5 . 

This was the second meeting of the Board that Hardin had attended, if one were to exclude the 
informal talks the Board members had had with the now-departed Lord Dorwin. Yet the mayor 
had a perfectly definite idea that at least one other, and possibly two or three, had been held, to 
which he had somehow never received an invitation. 

Nor, it seemed to him, would he have received notification of this one had it not been for the 
ultimatum. 

At least, it amounted to an ultimatum, though a superficial reading of the visigraphed document 
would lead one to suppose that it was a friendly interchange of greetings between two 
potentates. 

Hardin fingered it gingerly. It started off floridly with a salutation from "His Puissant Majesty, the 
King of Anacreon, to his friend and brother, Dr. Lewis Pirenne, Chairman of the Board of 
Trustees, of the Encyclopedia Foundation Number One," and it ended even more lavishly with 
a gigantic, multicolored seal of the most involved symbolism. 

But it was an ultimatum just the same. 

Hardin said: "It turned out that we didn't have much time after all - only three months. But little 
as it was, we threw it away unused. This thing here gives us a week. What do we do now?" 

Pirenne frowned worriedly. "There must be a loophole. It is absolutely unbelievable that they 
would push matters to extremities in the face of what Lord Dorwin has assured us regarding the 
attitude of the Emperor and the Empire." 

Hardin perked up. "I see. You have informed the King of Anacreon of this alleged attitude?" 

"I did - after having placed the proposal to the Board for a vote and having received unanimous 
consent." 


And when did this vote take place? 



Pirenne climbed onto his dignity. "I do not believe I am answerable to you in any way, Mayor 
Hardin." 


"All right. I'm not that vitally interested. It's just my opinion that it was your diplomatic 
transmission of Lord Dorwin's valuable contribution to the situation"- he lifted the comer of his 
mouth in a sour half-smile -"that was the direct cause of this friendly little note. They might 
have delayed longer otherwise - though I don't think the additional time would have helped 
Terminus any, considering the attitude of the Board." 

Said Yate Fulham: "And just how do you arrive at that remarkable conclusion, Mr. Mayor?" 

"In a rather simple way. It merely required the use of that much-neglected commodity - 
common sense. You see, there is a branch of human knowledge known as symbolic logic, 
which can be used to prune away all sorts of clogging deadwood that clutters up human 
language." 

"What about it?" said Fulham. 

"I applied it. Among other things, I applied it to this document here. I didn't really need to for 
myself because I knew what it was all about, but I think I can explain it more easily to five 
physical scientists by symbols rather than by words." 

Hardin removed a few sheets of paper from the pad under his arm and spread them out. "I 
didn't do this myself, by the way," he said. "Muller Hoik of the Division of Logic has his name 
signed to the analyses, as you can see." 

Pirenne leaned over the table to get a better view and Hardin continued: "The message from 
Anacreon was a simple problem, naturally, for the men who wrote it were men of action rather 
than men of words. It boils down easily and straightforwardly to the unqualified statement, when 
in symbols is what you see, and which in words, roughly translated, is, 'You give us what we 
want in a week, or we take it by force.'" 

There was silence as the five members of the Board ran down the line of symbols, and then 
Pirenne sat down and coughed uneasily. 

Hardin said, "No loophole, is there, Dr. Pirenne?" 

"Doesn't seem to be." 

"All right." Hardin replaced the sheets. "Before you now you see a copy of the treaty between 
the Empire and Anacreon - a treaty, incidentally, which is signed on the Emperor's behalf by 
the same Lord Dorwin who was here last week - and with it a symbolic analysis." 

The treaty ran through five pages of fine print and the analysis was scrawled out in just under 
half a page. 

"As you see, gentlemen, something like ninety percent of the treaty boiled right out of the 
analysis as being meaningless, and what we end up with can be described in the following 
interesting manner: 

"Obligations of Anacreon to the Empire: None! 



Powers of the Empire over Anacreon: None!" 


Again the five followed the reasoning anxiously, checking carefully back to the treaty, and when 
they were finished, Pirenne said in a worried fashion, "That seems to be correct." 

"You admit, then, that the treaty is nothing but a declaration of total independence on the part of 
Anacreon and a recognition of that status by the Empire?" 

"It seems so." 

"And do you suppose that Anacreon doesn't realize that, and is not anxious to emphasize the 
position of independence - so that it would naturally tend to resent any appearance of threats 
from the Empire? Particularly when it is evident that the Empire is powerless to fulfill any such 
threats, or it would never have allowed independence." 

"But then," interposed Sutt, "how would Mayor Hardin account for Lord Dorwin's assurances of 
Empire support? They seemed He shrugged. "Well, they seemed satisfactory." 

Hardin threw himself back in the chair. "You know, that's the most interesting part of the whole 
business. I'll admit I had thought his Lordship a most consummate donkey when I first met him 
- but it turned out that he was actually an accomplished diplomat and a most clever man. I took 
the liberty of recording all his statements." 

There was a flurry, and Pirenne opened his mouth in horror. 

"What of it?" demanded Hardin. "I realize it was a gross breach of hospitality and a thing no 
so-called gentleman would do. Also, that if his lordship had caught on, things might have been 
unpleasant; but he didn't, and I have the record, and that's that. I took that record, had it copied 
out and sent that to Hoik for analysis, also." 

Lundin Crast said, "And where is the analysis?" 

"That," replied Hardin, "is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three 
by all odds. When Hoik, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless 
statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he 
found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out." 

"Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so 
you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire." 

Hardin might have placed an actively working stench bomb on the table and created no more 
confusion than existed after his last statement. He waited, with weary patience, for it to die 
down. 

"So," he concluded, "when you sent threats - and that's what they were - concerning Empire 
action to Anacreon, you merely irritated a monarch who knew better. Naturally, his ego would 
demand immediate action, and the ultimatum is the result-which brings me to my original 
statement. We have one week left and what do we do now?" 

"It seems," said Sutt, "that we have no choice but to allow Anacreon to establish military bases 



on Terminus. 


"I agree with you there," replied Hardin, "but what do we do toward kicking them off again at the 
first opportunity?" 

Yate Fulham's mustache twitched. "That sounds as if you have made up your mind that 
violence must be used against them." 

"Violence," came the retort, "is the last refuge of the incompetent. But I certainly don't intend to 
lay down the welcome mat and brush off the best furniture for their use." 

"I still don't like the way you put that," insisted Fulham. "It is a dangerous attitude; the more 
dangerous because we have noticed lately that a sizable section of the populace seems to 
respond to all your suggestions just so. I might as well tell you, Mayor Hardin, that the board is 
not quite blind to your recent activities." 

He paused and there was general agreement. Hardin shrugged. 

Fulham went on: "If you were to inflame the City into an act of violence, you would achieve 
elaborate suicide - and we don't intend to allow that. Our policy has but one cardinal principle, 
and that is the Encyclopedia. Whatever we decide to do or not to do will be so decided because 
it will be the measure required to keep that Encyclopedia safe." 

"Then," said Hardin, "you come to the conclusion that we must continue our intensive campaign 
of doing nothing." 

Pirenne said bitterly: "You have yourself demonstrated that the Empire cannot help us; though 
how and why it can be so, I don't understand. If compromise is necessary-" 

Hardin had the nightmarelike sensation of running at top speed and getting nowhere. "There is 
no compromise! Don't you realize that this bosh about military bases is a particularly inferior 
grade of drivel? Haut Rodric told us what Anacreon was after - outright annexation and 
imposition of its own feudal system of landed estates and peasant-aristocracy economy upon 
us. What is left of our bluff of nuclear power may force them to move slowly, but they will move 
nonetheless." 

He had risen indignantly, and the rest rose with him except for Jord Fara. 

And then Jord Fara spoke. "Everyone will please sit down. We've gone quite far enough, I 
think. Come, there's no use looking so furious, Mayor Hardin; none of us have been committing 
treason." 

"You'll have to convince me of that!" 

Fara smiled gently. "You know you don't mean that. Let me speak!" 


His little shrewd eyes were half closed, and the perspiration gleamed on the smooth expanse of 
his chin. "There seems no point in concealing that the Board has come to the decision that the 
real solution to the Anacreonian problem lies in what is to be revealed to us when the Vault 



opens six days from now. 


"Is that your contribution to the matter?" 

"Yes." 

"We are to do nothing, is that fight, except to wait in quiet serenity and utter faith for the deus ex 
machina to pop out of the Vault?" 

"Stripped of your emotional phraseology, that's the idea." 

"Such unsubtle escapism! Really, Dr. Fara, such folly smacks of genius. A lesser mind would 
be incapable of it." 

Fara smiled indulgently. "Your taste in epigrams is amusing, Hardin, but out of place. As a 
matter of fact, I think you remember my line of argument concerning the Vault about three 
weeks ago." 

"Yes, I remember it. I don't deny that it was anything but a stupid idea from the standpoint of 
deductive logic alone. You said - stop me when I make a mistake - that Hari Seldon was the 
greatest psychologist in the System; that, hence, he could foresee the right and uncomfortable 
spot we're in now; that, hence, he established the Vault as a method of telling us the way out." 

"You've got the essence of the idea." 

"Would it surprise you to hear that I've given considerable thought to the matter these last 
weeks?" 

"Very flattering. With what result?" 

"With the result that pure deduction is found wanting. Again what is needed is a little sprinkling 
of common sense." 

"For instance?" 

"For instance, if he foresaw the Anacreonian mess, why not have placed us on some other 
planet nearer the Galactic centers? It's well known that Seldon maneuvered the Commissioners 
on Trantor into ordering the Foundation established on Terminus. But why should he have done 
so? Why put us out here at all if he could see in advance the break in communication lines, our 
isolation from the Galaxy, the threat of our neighbors - and our helplessness because of the 
lack of metals on Terminus? That above all! Or if he foresaw all this, why not have warned the 
original settlers in advance that they might have had time to prepare, rather than wait, as he is 
doing, until one foot is over the cliff, before doing so? 

"And don't forget this. Even though he could foresee the problem then, we can see it equally 
well now. Therefore, if he could foresee the solution then, we should be able to see it now. After 
all, Seldon was not a magician. There are no trick methods of escaping from a dilemma that he 
can see and we can't." 



But, Hardin," reminded Fara, "we can't! 


"But you haven't tried. You haven't tried once. First, you refused to admit that there was a 
menace at all! Then you reposed an absolutely blind faith in the Emperor! Now you've shifted it 
to Hari Seldon. Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past - never on 
yourselves." 

His fists balled spasmodically. "It amounts to a diseased attitude - a conditioned reflex that 
shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. 
There seems no doubt ever in your minds that the Emperor is more powerful than you are, or 
Hari Seldon wiser. And that's wrong, don't you see?" 

For some reason, no one cared to answer him. 

Hardin continued: "It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of 
scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the 
books on the subject - written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to 
solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and 
made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that?" 

Again the note of near-pleading in his voice. Again no answer. 

He went on: "And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad. We sit here, 
considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science, is the 
classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're 
receding and forgetting, don't you see? Here in the Periphery they've lost nuclear power. In 
Gamma Andromeda, a power plant has undergone meltdown because of poor repairs, and the 
Chancellor of the Empire complains that nuclear technicians are scarce. And the solution? To 
train new ones? Never! Instead they're to restrict nuclear power." 

And for the third time: "Don't you see? It's Galaxywide. It's a worship of the past. It's a 
deterioration - a stagnation!" 

He stared from one to the other and they gazed fixedly at him. 

Fara was the first to recover. "Well, mystical philosophy isn't going to help us here. Let us be 
concrete. Do you deny that Hari Seldon could easily have worked out historical trends of the 
future by simple psychological technique?" 

"No, of course not," cried Hardin. "But we can't rely on him for a solution. At best, he might 
indicate the problem, but if ever there is to be a solution, we must work it out ourselves. He 
can't do it for us." 

Fulham spoke suddenly. "What do you mean - 'indicate the problem'? We know the problem." 

Hardin whirled on him. "You think you do? You think Anacreon is all Hari Seldon is likely to be 
worried about. I disagree! I tell you, gentlemen, that as yet none of you has the faintest 
conception of what is really going on." 

"And you do?" questioned Pirenne, hostilely. 



"I think so!" Hardin jumped up and pushed his chair away. His eyes were cold and hard. "If 
there's one thing that's definite, it is that there's something smelly about the whole situation; 
something that is bigger than anything we've talked about yet. Just ask yourself this question: 
Why was it that among the original population of the Foundation not one first-class psychologist 
was included, except Bor Alurin? And he carefully refrained from training his pupils in more 
than the fundamentals." 

A short silence and Fara said: "All right. Why?" 

"Perhaps because a psychologist might have caught on to what this was all about - and too 
soon to suit Hari Seldon. As it is, we've been stumbling about, getting misty glimpses of the 
truth and no more. And that is what Hari Seldon wanted." 

He laughed harshly. "Good day, gentlemen!" 

He stalked out of the room. 


6 . 

Mayor Hardin chewed at the end of his cigar. It had gone out but he was past noticing that. He 
hadn't slept the night before and he had a good idea that he wouldn't sleep this coming night. 
His eyes showed it. 

He said wearily, "And that covers it?" 

"I think so." Yohan Lee put a hand to his chin. "How does it sound?" 

"Not too bad. It's got to be done, you understand, with impudence. That is, there is to be no 
hesitation; no time to allow them to grasp the situation. Once we are in a position to give 
orders, why, give them as though you were born to do so, and they'll obey out of habit. That's 
the essence of a coup." 

"If the Board remains irresolute for even 

"The Board? Count them out. After tomorrow, their importance as a factor in Terminus affairs 
won't matter a rusty half-credit." 

Lee nodded slowly. "Yet it is strange that they've done nothing to stop us so far. You say they 
weren't entirely in the dark." 

"Fara stumbles at the edges of the problem. Sometimes he makes me nervous. And Pirenne's 
been suspicious of me since I was elected. But, you see, they never had the capacity of really 
understanding what was up. Their whole training has been authoritarian. They are sure that the 
Emperor, just because he is the Emperor, is all-powerful. And they are sure that the Board of 
Trustees, simply because it is the Board of Trustees acting in the name of the Emperor, cannot 
be in a position where it does not give the orders. That incapacity to recognize the possibility of 
revolt is our best ally." 

He heaved out of his chair and went to the water cooler. "They're not bad fellows, Lee, when 



they stick to their Encyclopedia - and we'll see that that's where they stick in the future. They're 
hopelessly incompetent when it comes to ruling Terminus. Go away now and start things 
rolling. I want to be alone." 

He sat down on the comer of his desk and stared at the cup of water. 

Space! If only he were as confident as he pretended! The Anacreonians were landing in two 
days and what had he to go on but a set of notions and half-guesses as to what Had Seldon 
had been driving at these past fifty years? He wasn't even a real, honest-to-goodness 
psychologist - just a tumbler with a little training trying to outguess the greatest mind of the 
age. 

If Fara were fight; if Anacreon were all the problem Hari Seldon had foreseen; if the 
Encyclopedia were all he was interested in preserving - then what price coup d'etat? 

He shrugged and drank his water. 


7 . 

The Vault was furnished with considerably more than six chairs, as though a larger company 
had been expected. Hardin noted that thoughtfully and seated himself wearily in a comer just 
as far from the other five as possible. 

The Board members did not seem to object to that arrangement. They spoke among 
themselves in whispers, which fell off into sibilant monosyllables, and then into nothing at all. Of 
them all, only Jord Fara seemed even reasonably calm. He had produced a watch and was 
staring at it somberly. 

Hardin glanced at his own watch and then at the glass cubicle - absolutely empty - that 
dominated half the room. It was the only unusual feature of the room, for aside from that there 
was no indication that somewhere a computer was splitting off instants of time toward that 
precise moment when a muon stream would flow, a connection be made and- 

The lights went dim! 

They didn't go out, but merely yellowed and sank with a suddenness that made Hardin jump. 

He had lifted his eyes to the ceiling lights in startled fashion, and when he brought them down 
the glass cubicle was no longer empty. 

A figure occupied it , a figure in a wheel chair! 

It said nothing for a few moments, but it closed the book upon its lap and fingered it idly. And 
then it smiled, and the face seemed all alive. 

It said, "I am Hari Seldon." The voice was old and soft. 

Hardin almost rose to acknowledge the introduction and stopped himself in the act. 

The voice continued conversationally: "As you see, I am confined to this chair and cannot rise 



to greet you. Your grandparents left for Terminus a few months back in my time and since then 
I have suffered a rather inconvenient paralysis. I can't see you, you know, so I can't greet you 
properly. I don't even know how many of you there are, so all this must be conducted 
informally. If any of you are standing, please sit down; and if you care to smoke, I wouldn't 
mind." There was a light chuckle. "Why should I? I'm not really here." 

Hardin fumbled for a cigar almost automatically, but thought better of it. 

Hari Seldon put away his book - as if laying it upon a desk at his side - and when his fingers let 
go, it disappeared. 

He said: "It is fifty years now since this Foundation was established - fifty years in which the 
members of the Foundation have been ignorant of what it was they were working toward. It was 
necessary that they be ignorant, but now the necessity is gone. 

"The Encyclopedia Foundation, to begin with, is a fraud, and always has been!" 

There was a sound of a scramble behind Hardin and one or two muffled exclamations, but he 
did not turn around. 

Hari Seldon was, of course, undisturbed. He went on: "It is a fraud in the sense that neither I 
nor my colleagues care at all whether a single volume of the Encyclopedia is ever published. It 
has served its purpose, since by it we extracted an imperial charter from the Emperor, by it we 
attracted the hundred thousand humans necessary for our scheme, and by it we managed to 
keep them preoccupied while events shaped themselves, until it was too late for any of them to 
draw back. 

"In the fifty years that you have worked on this fraudulent project - there is no use in softening 
phrases - your retreat has been cut off, and you have now no choice but to proceed on the 
infinitely more important project that was, and is, our real plan. 

"To that end we have placed you on such a planet and at such a time that in fifty years you 
were maneuvered to the point where you no longer have freedom of action. From now on, and 
into the centuries, the path you must take is inevitable. You will be faced with a series of crises, 
as you are now faced with the first, and in each case your freedom of action will become 
similarly circumscribed so that you will be forced along one, and only one, path. 

"It is that path which our psychology has worked out - and for a reason. 

"For centuries Galactic civilization has stagnated and declined, though only a few ever realized 
that. But now, at last, the Periphery is breaking away and the political unity of the Empire is 
shattered. Somewhere in the fifty years just past is where the historians of the future will place 
an arbitrary line and say: 'This marks the Fall of the Galactic Empire.' 

"And they will be right, though scarcely any will recognize that Fall for additional centuries. 

"And after the Fall will come inevitable barbarism, a period which, our psychohistory tells us, 
should, under ordinary circumstances, last for thirty thousand years. We cannot stop the Fall. 
We do not wish to; for Imperial culture has lost whatever virility and worth it once had. But we 
can shorten the period of Barbarism that must follow - down to a single thousand of years. 



"The ins and outs of that shortening, we cannot tell you; just as we could not tell you the truth 
about the Foundation fifty years ago. Were you to discover those ins and outs, our plan might 
fail; as it would have, had you penetrated the fraud of the Encyclopedia earlier; for then, by 
knowledge, your freedom of action would be expanded and the number of additional variables 
introduced would become greater than our psychology could handle. 

"But you won't, for there are no psychologists on Terminus, and never were, but for Alurin - 
and he was one of us. 

"But this I can tell you: Terminus and its companion Foundation at the other end of the Galaxy 
are the seeds of the Renascence and the future founders of the Second Galactic Empire. And it 
is the present crisis that is starting Terminus off to that climax. 

"This, by the way, is a rather straightforward crisis, much simpler than many of those that are 
ahead. To reduce it to its fundamentals, it is this: You are a planet suddenly cut off from the 
still-civilized centers of the Galaxy, and threatened by your stronger neighbors. You are a small 
world of scientists surrounded by vast and rapidly expanding reaches of barbarism. You are an 
island of nuclear power in a growing ocean of more primitive energy; but are helpless despite 
that, because of your lack of metals. 

"You see, then, that you are faced by hard necessity, and that action is forced on you. The 
nature of that action - that is, the solution to your dilemma - is, of course, obvious!" 

The image of Hari Seldon reached into open air and the book once more appeared in his hand. 
Fie opened it and said: 

"But whatever devious course your future history may take, impress it always upon your 
descendants that the path has been marked out, and that at its end is new and greater Empire!" 

And as his eyes bent to his book, he flicked into nothingness, and the lights brightened once 
more. 

Hardin looked up to see Pirenne facing him, eyes tragic and lips trembling. 

The chairman's voice was firm but toneless. "You were right, it seems. If you will see us tonight 
at six, the Board will consult with you as to the next move." 

They shook his hand, each one, and left, and Hardin smiled to himself. They were 
fundamentally sound at that; for they were scientists enough to admit that they were wrong - 
but for them, it was too late. 

Fie looked at his watch. By this time, it was all over. Lee's men were in control and the Board 
was giving orders no longer. 

The Anacreonians were landing their first spaceships tomorrow, but that was all right, too. In six 
months, they would be giving orders no longer. 

In fact, as Hari Seldon had said, and as Salvor Hardin had guessed since the day that Anselm 
haut Rodric had first revealed to him Anacreon's lack of nuclear power - the solution to this first 
crisis was obvious. 



Obvious as all hell! 


PART III 

THE MAYORS 

i. 

THE FOUR KINGDOMS - The name given to those portions of the Province of Anacreon which 
broke away from the First Empire in the early years of the Foundational Era to form 
independent and short-lived kingdoms. The largest and most powerful of these was Anacreon 
itself which in area... 

... Undoubtedly the most interesting aspect of the history of the Four Kingdoms involves the 
strange society forced temporarily upon it during the administration of Salvor Hardin.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

A deputation! 

That Salvor Hardin had seen it coming made it none the more pleasant. On the contrary, he 
found anticipation distinctly annoying. 

Yohan Lee advocated extreme measures. "I don't see, Hardin," he said, "that we need waste 
any time. They can't do anything till next election - legally, anyway - and that gives us a year. 
Give them the brush-off." 

Hardin pursed his lips. "Lee, you'll never learn. In the forty years I've known you, you've never 
once learned the gentle art of sneaking up from behind." 

"It's not my way of fighting," grumbled Lee. 

"Yes, I know that. I suppose that's why you're the one man I trust." He paused and reached for 
a cigar. "We've come a long way, Lee, since we engineered our coup against the 
Encyclopedists way back. I'm getting old. Sixty-two. Do you ever think how fast those thirty 
years went?" 

Lee snorted. "I don't feel old, and I'm sixty-six." 

"Yes, but I haven't your digestion." Hardin sucked lazily at his cigar. He had long since stopped 
wishing for the mild Vegan tobacco of his youth. Those days when the planet, Terminus, had 
trafficked with every part of the Galactic Empire belonged in the limbo to which all Good Old 
Days go. Toward the same limbo where the Galactic Empire was heading. He wondered who 
the new emperor was - or if there was a new emperor at all - or any Empire. Space! For thirty 
years now, since the breakup of communications here at the edge of the Galaxy, the whole 
universe of Terminus had consisted of itself and the four surrounding kingdoms. 




How the mighty had fallen! Kingdoms ! They were prefects in the old days, all part of the same 
province, which in turn had been part of a sector, which in turn had been part of a quadrant, 
which in turn had been part of the allembracing Galactic Empire. And now that the Empire had 
lost control over the farther reaches of the Galaxy, these little splinter groups of planets became 
kingdoms - with comic-opera kings and nobles, and petty, meaningless wars, and a life that 
went on pathetically among the ruins. 

A civilization falling. Nuclear power forgotten. Science fading to mythology - until the 
Foundation had stepped in. The Foundation that Hari Seldon had established for just that 
purpose here on Terminus. 

Lee was at the window and his voice broke in on Hardin's reverie. "They've come," he said, "in 
a late-model ground car, the young pups." He took a few uncertain steps toward the door and 
then looked at Hardin. 

Hardin smiled, and waved him back. "I've given orders to have them brought up here." 

"Here! What for? You're making them too important." 

"Why go through all the ceremonies of an official mayor's audience? I'm getting too old for red 
tape. Besides which, flattery is useful when dealing with youngsters - particularly when it 
doesn't commit you to anything." He winked. "Sit down, Lee, and give me your moral backing. 

I'll need it with this young Sermak." 

"That fellow, Sermak," said Lee, heavily, "is dangerous. He's got a following, Hardin, so don't 
underestimate him." 

"Have I ever underestimated anybody?" 

"Well, then, arrest him. You can accuse him of something or other afterward." 

Hardin ignored that last bit of advice. "There they are, Lee." In response to the signal, he 
stepped on the pedal beneath his desk, and the door slid aside. 

They filed in, the four that composed the deputation, and Hardin waved them gently to the 
armchairs that faced his desk in a semicircle. They bowed and waited for the mayor to speak 
first. 

Hardin flicked open the curiously carved silver lid of the cigar box that had once belonged to 
Jord Fara of the old Board of Trustees in the long-dead days of the Encyclopedists. It was a 
genuine Empire product from Santanni, though the cigars it now contained were home-grown. 
One by one, with grave solemnity, the four of the deputation accepted cigars and lit up in 
ritualistic fashion. 

Sef Sermak was second from the right, the youngest of the young group - and the most 
interesting with his bristly yellow mustache trimmed precisely, and his sunken eyes of uncertain 
color. The other three Hardin dismissed almost immediately; they were rank and file on the face 
of them. It was on Sermak that he concentrated, the Sermak who had already, in his first term 
in the City Council, turned that sedate body topsy-turvy more than once, and it was to Sermak 
that he said: 



"I've been particularly anxious to see you, Councilman, ever since your very excellent speech 
last month. Your attack on the foreign policy of this government was a most capable one." 

Sermak's eyes smoldered. "Your interest honors me. The attack may or may not have been 
capable, but it was certainly justified." 

"Perhaps! Your opinions are yours, of course. Still you are rather young." 

Dryly. "It is a fault that most people are guilty of at some period of their life. You became mayor 
of the city when you were two years younger than I am now." 

Hardin smiled to himself. The yearling was a cool customer. He said, "I take it now that you 
have come to see me concerning this same foreign policy that annoys you so greatly in the 
Council Chamber. Are you speaking for your three colleagues, or must I listen to each of you 
separately?" There were quick mutual glances among the four young men, a slight flickering of 
eyelids. 

Sermak said grimly, "I speak for the people of Terminus - a people who are not now truly 
represented in the rubberstamp body they call the Council." 

"I see. Go ahead, then!" 

"It comes to this, Mr. Mayor. We are dissatisfied-" 

"By 'we' you mean 'the people,' don't you?" 

Sermak stared hostilely, sensing a trap, and replied coldly, "I believe that my views reflect those 
of the majority of the voters of Terminus. Does that suit you?" 

"Well, a statement like that is all the better for proof, but go on, anyway. You are dissatisfied." 

"Yes, dissatisfied with the policy which for thirty years had been stripping Terminus defenseless 
against the inevitable attack from outside." 

"I see. And therefore? Go on, go on." 

"It's nice of you to anticipate. And therefore we are forming a new political party; one that will 
stand for the immediate needs of Terminus and not for a mystic 'manifest destiny' of future 
Empire. We are going to throw you and your lick-spittle clique of appeasers out of City Hall-and 
that soon." 

"Unless? There's always an 'unless,' you know." 

"Not much of one in this case: Unless you resign now. I'm not asking you to change your 
policies - I wouldn't trust you that far. Your promises are worth nothing. An outright resignation 
is all we'll take." 

"I see." Hardin crossed his legs and teetered his chair back on two legs. "That's your ultimatum. 
Nice of you to give me warning. But, you see, I rather think I'll ignore it." 

"Don't think it was a warning, Mr. Mayor. It was an announcement of principles and of action. 
The new party has already been formed, and it will begin its official activities tomorrow. There is 



neither room nor desire for compromise, and, frankly, it was only our recognition of your 
services to the City that induced us to offer the easy way out. I didn't think you'd take it, but my 
conscience is clear. 

The next election will be a more forcible and quite irresistible reminder that resignation is 
necessary." 

He rose and motioned the rest up. 

Hardin lifted his arm. "Hold on! Sit down!" 

Sef Sermak seated himself once more with just a shade too much alacrity and Hardin smiled 
behind a straight face. In spite of his words, he was waiting for an offer. 

Hardin said, "In exactly what way do you want our foreign policy changed? Do you want us to 
attack the Four Kingdoms, now, at once, and all four simultaneously?" 

"I make no such suggestion, Mr. Mayor. It is our simple proposition that all appeasement cease 
immediately. Throughout your administration, you have carried out a policy of scientific aid to 
the Kingdoms. You have given them nuclear power. You have helped rebuild power plants on 
their territories. You have established medical clinics, chemical laboratories and factories." 

"Well? And your objection?" 

"You have done this in order to keep them from attacking us. With these as bribes, you have 
been playing the fool in a colossal game of blackmail, in which you have allowed Terminus to 
be sucked dry - with the result that now we are at the mercy of these barbarians." 

"In what way?" 

"Because you have given them power, given them weapons, actually serviced the ships of their 
navies, they are infinitely stronger than they were three decades ago. Their demands are 
increasing, and with their new weapons, they will eventually satisfy all their demands at once by 
violent annexation of Terminus. Isn't that the way blackmail usually ends?" 

"And your remedy?" 

"Stop the bribes immediately and while you can. Spend your effort in strengthening Terminus 
itself - and attack first!" 

Hardin watched the young fellow's little blond mustache with an almost morbid interest. Sermak 
felt sure of himself or he wouldn't talk so much. There was no doubt that his remarks were the 
reflection of a pretty huge segment of the population, pretty huge. 


His voice did not betray the slightly perturbed current of his thoughts. If was almost negligent. 
"Are you finished?" 

"For the moment." 

"Well, then, do you notice the framed statement I have on the wall behind me? Read it, if you 



will! 


Sermak's lips twitched. "It says: 'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.' That's an old 
man's doctrine, Mr. Mayor." 

"I applied it as a young man, Mr. Councilman - and successfully. You were busily being born 
when it happened, but perhaps you may have read something of it in school." 

He eyed Sermak closely and continued in measured tones, "When Hari Seldon established the 
Foundation here, it was for the ostensible purpose of producing a great Encyclopedia, and for 
fifty years we followed that will-of-the-wisp, before discovering what he was really after. By that 
time, it was almost too late. When communications with the central regions of the old Empire 
broke down, we found ourselves a world of scientists concentrated in a single city, possessing 
no industries, and surrounded by newly created kingdoms, hostile and largely barbarous. We 
were a tiny island of nuclear power in this ocean of barbarism, and an infinitely valuable prize. 

"Anacreon, then as now, the most powerful of the Four Kingdoms, demanded and later actually 
established a military base upon Terminus, and the then rulers of the City, the Encyclopedists, 
knew very well that this was only a preliminary to taking over the entire planet. That is how 
matters stood when I ... uh ... assumed actual government. What would you have done?" 

Sermak shrugged his shoulders. "That's an academic question. Of course, I know what you 
did." 

"I'll repeat it, anyway. Perhaps you don't get the point. The temptation was great to muster what 
force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to 
self-respect - but, nearly invariably, the stupidest. You would have done it; you and your talk of 
'attack first.' What I did, instead, was to visit the three other kingdoms, one by one; point out to 
each that to allow the secret of nuclear power to fall into the hands of Anacreon was the 
quickest way of cutting their own throats; and suggest gently that they do the obvious thing. 

That was all. One month after the Anacreonian force had landed on Terminus, their king 
received a joint ultimatum from his three neighbors. In seven days, the last Anacreonian was off 
Terminus. 

Now tell me, where was the need for violence?" 

The young councilman regarded his cigar stub thoughtfully and tossed it into the incinerator 
chute. "I fail to see the analogy. Insulin will bring a diabetic to normal without the faintest need 
of a knife, but appendicitis needs an operation. You can't help that. When other courses have 
failed, what is left but, as you put it, the last refuge? It's your fault that we're driven to it." 

"I? Oh, yes, again my policy of appeasement. You still seem to lack grasp of the fundamental 
necessities of our position. Our problem wasn't over with the departure of the Anacreonians. 
They had just begun. The Four Kingdoms were more our enemies than ever, for each wanted 
nuclear power-and each was kept off our throats only for fear of the other three. We are 
balanced on the point of a very sharp sword, and the slightest sway in any direction - If, for 
instance, one kingdom becomes too strong; or if two form a coalition - You understand?" 

"Certainly. That was the time to begin all-out preparations for war." 



"On the contrary. That was the time to begin all-out prevention of war. I played them one 
against the other. I helped each in turn. I offered them science, trade, education, scientific 
medicine. I made Terminus of more value to them as a flourishing world than as a military prize. 
It worked for thirty years." 

"Yes, but you were forced to surround these scientific gifts with the most outrageous mummery. 
You've made half religion, half balderdash out of it. You've erected a hierarchy of priests and 
complicated, meaningless ritual." 

Hardin frowned. "What of that? I don't see that it has anything to do with the argument at all. I 
started that way at first because the barbarians looked upon our science as a sort of magical 
sorcery, and it was easiest to get them to accept it on that basis. The priesthood built itself and 
if we help it along we are only following the line of least resistance. It is a minor matter." 

"But these priests are in charge of the power plants. That is not a minor matter." 

"True, but we have trained them. Their knowledge of their tools is purely empirical; and they 
have a firm belief in the mummery that surrounds them." 

"And if one pierces through the mummery, and has the genius to brush aside empiricism, what 
is to prevent him from learning actual techniques, and selling out to the most satisfactory 
bidder? What price our value to the kingdoms, then?" 

"Little chance of that, Sermak. You are being superficial. The best men on the planets of the 
kingdoms are sent here to the Foundation each year and educated into the priesthood. And the 
best of these remain here as research students. If you think that those who are left, with 
practically no knowledge of the elements of science, or worse, still, with the distorted 
knowledge the priests receive, can penetrate at a bound to nuclear power, to electronics, to the 
theory of the hyperwarp - you have a very romantic and very foolish idea of science. It takes 
lifetimes of training and an excellent brain to get that far." 

Yohan Lee had risen abruptly during the foregoing speech and left the room. He had returned 
now and when Hardin finished speaking, he bent to his superior's ear. A whisper was 
exchanged and then a leaden cylinder. Then, with one short hostile look at the deputation, Lee 
resumed his chair. 

Hardin turned the cylinder end for end in his hands, watching the deputation through his lashes. 
And then he opened it with a hard, sudden twist and only Sermak had the sense not to throw a 
rapid look at the rolled paper that fell out. 

"In short, gentlemen," he said, "the Government is of the opinion that it knows what it is doing." 

He read as he spoke. There were the lines of intricate, meaningless code that covered the 
page and the three penciled words scrawled in one comer that carried the message. He took it 
in at a glance and tossed it casually into the incinerator shaft. 

"That," Hardin then said, "ends the interview, I'm afraid. Glad to have met you all. Thank you for 
coming." He shook hands with each in perfunctory fashion, and they filed out. 

Hardin had almost gotten out of the habit of laughing, but after Sermak and his three silent 



partners were well out of earshot, he indulged in a dry chuckle and bent an amused look on 
Lee. 

"How did you like that battle of bluffs, Lee?" 

Lee snorted grumpily. "I'm not sure that he was bluffing. Treat him with kid gloves and he's 
quite liable to win the next election, just as he says." 

"Oh, quite likely, quite likely - if nothing happens first." 

"Make sure they don't happen in the wrong direction this time, Hardin. I tell you this Sermak has 
a following. What if he doesn't wait till the next election? There was a time when you and I put 
things through violently, in spite of your slogan about what violence is." 

Hardin cocked an eyebrow. "You are pessimistic today, Lee. And singularly contrary, too, or 
you wouldn't speak of violence. Our own little putsch was carried through without loss of life, 
you remember. It was a necessary measure put through at the proper moment, and went over 
smoothly, painlessly, and all but effortlessly. As for Sermak, he's up against a different 
proposition. You and I, Lee, aren't the Encyclopedists. We stand prepared. Order your men 
onto these youngsters in a nice way, old fellow. Don't let them know they're being watched - 
but eyes open, you understand." 

Lee laughed in sour amusement. "I'd be a fine one to wait for your orders, wouldn't I, Hardin? 
Sermak and his men have been under surveillance for a month now." 

The mayor chuckled. "Got in first, did you? All right. By the way," he observed, and added 
softly, "Ambassador Verisof is returning to Terminus. Temporarily, I hope." 

There was a short silence, faintly horrified, and then Lee said, "Was that the message? Are 
things breaking already?" 

"Don't know. I can't tell till I hear what Verisof has to say. They may be, though. After all, they 
have to before election. But what are you looking so dead about?" 

"Because I don't know how it's going to turn out. You're too deep, Hardin, and you're playing 
the game too close to your chest." 

"Even you?" murmured Hardin. And aloud, "Does that mean you're going to join Sermak's new 
party?" 

Lee smiled against his will. "All right. You win. How about lunch now?" 


2 . 

There are many epigrams attributed to Hardin - a confirmed epigrammatist - a good many of 
which are probably apocryphal. Nevertheless, it is reported that on a certain occasion, he said: 

"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety." 

Poly Verisof had had occasion to act on that advice more than once for he was now in the 



fourteenth year of his double status on Anacreon - a double status the upkeep of which 
reminded him often and unpleasantly of a dance performed barefoot on hot metal. 

To the people of Anacreon he was high priest, representative of that Foundation which, to 
those "barbarians," was the acme of mystery and the physical center of this religion they had 
created - with Hardin's help - in the last three decades. As such, he received a homage that 
had become horribly wearying, for from his soul he despised the ritual of which he was the 
center. 

But to the King of Anacreon - the old one that had been, and the young grandson that was now 
on the throne - he was simply the ambassador of a power at once feared and coveted. 

On the whole, it was an uncomfortable job, and his first trip to the Foundation in three years, 
despite the disturbing incident that had made it necessary, was something in the nature of a 
holiday. 

And since it was not the first time he had had to travel in absolute secrecy, he again made use 
of Hardin's epigram on the uses of the obvious. 

He changed into his civilian clothes - a holiday in itself - and boarded a passenger liner to the 
Foundation, second class. Once at Terminus, he threaded his way through the crowd at the 
spaceport and called up City Hall at a public visiphone. 

He said, "My name is Jan Smite. I have an appointment with the mayor this afternoon." 

The dead-voiced but efficient young lady at the other end made a second connection and 
exchanged a few rapid words, then said to Verisof in dry, mechanical tone, "Mayor Hardin will 
see you in half an hour, sir," and the screen went blank. 

Whereupon the ambassador to Anacreon bought the latest edition of the Terminus City Journal, 
sauntered casually to City Hall Park and, sitting, down on the first empty bench he came to, 
read the editorial page, sport section and comic sheet while waiting. At the end of half an hour, 
he tucked the paper under his arm, entered City Hall and presented himself in the anteroom. 

In doing all this he remained safely and thoroughly unrecognized, for since he was so entirely 
obvious, no one gave him a second look. 

Hardin looked up at him and grinned. "Have a cigar! How was the trip?" 

Verisof helped himself. "Interesting. There was a priest in the next cabin on his way here to 
take a special course in the preparation of radioactive synthetics - for the treatment of cancer, 
you know 

"Surely, he didn't call it radioactive synthetics, now?" 

"I guess not! It was the Holy Food to him." 

The mayor smiled. "Go on." 

"He inveigled me into a theological discussion and did his level best to elevate me out of sordid 
materialism." 



"And never recognized his own high priest?" 

"Without my crimson robe? Besides, he was a Smyrnian. It was an interesting experience, 
though. It is remarkable, Hardin, how the religion of science has grabbed hold. I've written an 
essay on the subject - entirely for my own amusement; it wouldn't do to have it published. 
Treating the problem sociologically, it would seem that when the old Empire began to rot at the 
fringes, it could be considered that science, as science, had failed the outer worlds. To be 
reaccepted it would have to present itself in another guise and it has done just that. It works out 
beautifully." 

"Interesting!" The mayor placed his arms around his neck and said suddenly, "Start talking 
about the situation at Anacreon!" 

The ambassador frowned and withdrew the cigar from his mouth. He looked at it distastefully 
and put it down. "Well, it's pretty bad." 

"You wouldn't be here, otherwise." 

"Scarcely. Here's the position. The key man at Anacreon is the Prince Regent, Wienis. He's 
King Lepold's uncle." 

"I know. But Lepold is coming of age next year, isn't he? I believe he'll be sixteen in February." 

"Yes." Pause, and then a wry addition. "If he lives. The king's father died under suspicious 
circumstances. A needle bullet through the chest during a hunt. It was called an accident." 


"Hmph. I seem to remember Wienis the time I was on Anacreon, when we kicked them off 
Terminus. It was before your time. Let's see now. If I remember, he was a dark young fellow, 
black hair and a squint in his right eye. He had a funny hook in his nose." 

"Same fellow. The hook and the squint are still there, but his hair's gray now. He plays the 
game dirty. Luckily, he's the most egregious fool on the planet. Fancies himself as a shrewd 
devil, too, which mades his folly the more transparent." 

"That's usually the way." 

"His notion of cracking an egg is to shoot a nuclear blast at it. Witness the tax on Temple 
property he tried to impose just after the old king died two years ago. Remember?" 

Hardin nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. "The priests raised a howl." 

"They raised one you could hear way out to Lucreza. He's shown more caution in dealing with 
the priesthood since, but he still manages to do things the hard way. In a way, it's unfortunate 
for us; he has unlimited self-confidence." 

"Probably an over-compensated inferiority complex. Younger sons of royalty get that way, you 
know." 


But it amounts to the same thing. He's foaming at the mouth with eagerness to attack the 



Foundation. He scarcely troubles to conceal it. And he's in a position to do it, too, from the 
standpoint of armament. The old king built up a magnificent navy, and Wienis hasn't been 
sleeping the last two years. In fact, the tax on Temple property was originally intended for 
further armament, and when that fell through he increased the income tax twice." 

"Any grumbling at that?" 

"None of serious importance. Obedience to appointed authority was the text of every sermon in 
the kingdom for weeks. Not that Wienis showed any gratitude." 

"All right. I've got the background. Now what's happened?" 

"Two weeks ago an Anacreonian merchant ship came across a derelict battle cruiser of the old 
Imperial Navy. It must have been drifting in space for at least three centuries." 

Interest flickered in Hardin's eyes. He sat up. "Yes, I've heard of that. The Board of Navigation 
has sent me a petition asking me to obtain the ship for purposes of study. It is in good 
condition, I understand." 

"In entirely too good condition," responded Verisof, dryly. "When Wienis received your 
suggestion last week that he turn the ship over to the Foundation, he almost had convulsions." 

"He hasn't answered yet." 

"He won't - except with guns, or so he thinks. You see, he came to me on the day I left 
Anacreon and requested that the Foundation put this battle cruiser into fighting order and turn it 
over to the Anacreonian navy. He had the infernal gall to say that your note of last week 
indicated a plan of the Foundation's to attack Anacreon. He said that refusal to repair the battle 
cruiser would confirm his suspicions; and indicated that measures for the self-defense of 
Anacreon would be forced upon him. Those are his words. Forced upon him! And that's why I'm 
here." 

Hardin laughed gently. 

Verisof smiled and continued, "Of course, he expects a refusal, and it would be a perfect 
excuse - in his eyes - for immediate attack." 

"I see that, Verisof. Well, we have at least six months to spare, so have the ship fixed up and 
present it with my compliments. Have it renamed the Wienis as a mark of our esteem and 
affection." 

He laughed again. 

And again Verisof responded with the faintest trace of a smile, "I suppose it's the logical step, 
Hardin - but I'm worried." 

"What about?" 

"It's a ship! They could build in those days. Its cubic capacity is half again that of the entire 
Anacreonian navy. It's got nuclear blasts capable of blowing up a planet, and a shield that could 
take a Q-beam without working up radiation. Too much of a good thing, Hardin 



"Superficial, Verisof, superficial. You and I both know that the armament he now has could 
defeat Terminus handily, long before we could repair the cruiser for our own use. What does it 
matter, then, if we give him the cruiser as well? You know it won't ever come to actual war." 

"I suppose so. Yes." The ambassador looked up. "But Hardin 

"Well? Why do you stop? Go ahead." 

"Look. This isn't my province. But I've been reading the paper." He placed the Journal on the 
desk and indicated the front page. "What's this all about?" 

Hardin dropped a casual glance. "'A group of Councilmen are forming a new political party.'" 

"That's what it says." Verisof fidgeted. "I know you're in better touch with internal matters than I 
am, but they're attacking you with everything short of physical violence. How strong are they?" 

"Damned strong. They'll probably control the Council after next election." 

"Not before?" Verisof looked at the mayor obliquely. "There are ways of gaining control besides 
elections." 

"Do you take me for Wienis?" 

"No. But repairing the ship will take months and an attack after that is certain. Our yielding will 
be taken as a sign of appalling weakness and the addition of the Imperial Cruiser will just about 
double the strength of Wienis' navy. He'll attack as sure as I'm a high priest. Why take 
chances? Do one of two things. Either reveal the plan of campaign to the Council, or force the 
issue with Anacreon now!" 

Hardin frowned. "Force the issue now? Before the crisis comes? It's the one thing I mustn't do. 
There's Hari Seldon and the Plan, you know." 

Verisof hesitated, then muttered, "You're absolutely sure, then, that there is a Plan?" 

"There can scarcely be any doubt," came the stiff reply. "I was present at the opening of the 
Time Vault and Seldon's recording revealed it then." 

"I didn't mean that, Hardin. I just don't see how it could be possible to chart history for a 
thousand years ahead. Maybe Seldon overestimated himself." He shriveled a bit at Hardin's 
ironical smile, and added, "Well, I'm no psychologist," 

"Exactly. None of us are. But I did receive some elementary training in my youth - enough to 
know what psychology is capable of, even if I can't exploit its capabilities myself. There's no 
doubt but that Seldon did exactly what he claims to have done. The Foundation, as he says, 
was established as a scientific refuge - the means by which the science and culture of the 
dying Empire was to be preserved through the centuries of barbarism that have begun, to be 
rekindled in the end into a second Empire." 

Verisof nodded, a trifle doubtfully. "Everyone knows that's the way things are supposed to go. 



But can we afford to take chances? Can we risk the present for the sake of a nebulous future?" 

"We must - because the future isn't nebulous. It's been calculated out by Seldon and charted. 
Each successive crisis in our history is mapped and each depends in a measure on the 
successful conclusion of the ones previous. This is only the second crisis and Space knows 
what effect even a trifling deviation would have in the end." 

"That's rather empty speculation." 

"No! Hari Seldon said in the Time Vault, that at each crisis our freedom of action would become 
circumscribed to the point where only one course of action was possible." 

"So as to keep us on the straight and narrow?" 

"So as to keep us from deviating, yes. But, conversely, as long as more than one course of 
action is possible, the crisis has not been reached. We must let things drift so long as we 
possibly can, and by space, that's what I intend doing." 

Verisof didn't answer. He chewed his lower lip in a grudging silence. It had only been the year 
before that Hardin had first discussed the problem with him - the real problem; the problem of 
countering Anacreon's hostile preparations. And then only because he, Verisof, had balked at 
further appeasement. 

Hardin seemed to follow his ambassador's thoughts. "I would much rather never to have told 
you anything about this." 

"What makes you say that?" cried Verisof, in surprise. 

"Because there are six people now - you and I, the other three ambassadors and Yohan Lee - 
who have a fair notion of what's ahead; and I'm damned afraid that it was Seldon's idea to have 
no one know." 

"Why so?" 

"Because even Seldon's advanced psychology was limited. It could not handle too many 
independent variables. He couldn't work with individuals over any length of time; any more than 
you could apply kinetic theory of gases to single molecules. He worked with mobs, populations 
of whole planets, and only blind mobs who do not possess foreknowledge of the results of their 
own actions." 

"That's not plain." 

"I can't help it. I'm not psychologist enough to explain it scientifically. But this you know. There 
are no trained psychologists on Terminus and no mathematical texts on the science. It is plain 
that he wanted no one on Terminus capable of working out the future in advance. Seldon 
wanted us to proceed blindly - and therefore correctly - according to the law of mob 
psychology. As I once told you, I never knew where we were heading when I first drove out the 
Anacreonians. My idea had been to maintain balance of power, no more than that. It was only 
afterward that I thought I saw a pattern in events; but I've done my level best not to act on that 
knowledge. Interference due to foresight would have knocked the Plan out of kilter." 



Verisof nodded thoughtfully. "I've heard arguments almost as complicated in the Temples back 
on Anacreon. How do you expect to spot the fight moment of action?" 

"It's spotted already. You admit that once we repair the battle cruiser nothing will stop Wienis 
from attacking us. There will no longer be any alternative in that respect." 

"Yes 

"All right. That accounts for the external aspect. Meanwhile, you'll further admit that the next 
election will see a new and hostile Council that will force action against Anacreon. There is no 
alternative there." 

"Yes." 

"And as soon as all the alternatives disappear, the crisis has come. Just the same - I get 
worried." 

He paused, and Verisof waited. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Hardin continued, "I've got the idea 
-just a notion - that the external and internal pressures were planned to come to a head 
simultaneously. As it is, there's a few months difference. Wienis will probably attack before 
spring, and elections are still a year off." 

"That doesn't sound important." 

"I don't know. It may be due merely to unavoidable errors of calculation, or it might be due to 
the fact that I knew too much. I tried never to let my foresight influence my action, but how can I 
tell? And what effect will the discrepancy have? Anyway," he looked up, "there's one thing I've 
decided." 

"And what's that?" 

"When the crisis does begin to break, I'm going to Anacreon. I want to be on the spot ... Oh, 
that's enough, Verisof. It's getting late. Let's go out and make a night of it. I want some 
relaxation." 


"Then get it right here,' said Verisof. "I don't want to be recognized, or you know what this new 
party your precious Councilmen are forming would say. Call for the brandy." 

And Hardin did - but not for too much. 


3 . 

In the ancient days when the Galactic Empire had embraced the Galaxy, and Anacreon had 
been the richest of the prefects of the Periphery, more than one emperor had visited the 
Viceregal Palace in state. And not one had left without at least one effort to pit his skill with air 
speedster and needle gun against the feathered flying fortress they call the Nyakbird. 

The fame of Anacreon had withered to nothing with the decay of the times. The Viceregal 



Palace was a drafty mass of ruins except for the wing that Foundation workmen had restored. 
And no Emperor had been seen in Anacreon for two hundred years. 

But Nyak hunting was still the royal sport and a good eye with the needle gun still the first 
requirement of Anacreon's kings. 

Lepold I, King of Anacreon and - as was invariably, but untruthfully added - Lord of the Outer 
Dominions, though not yet sixteen had already proved his skill many times over. He had 
brought down his first Nyak when scarcely thirteen; had brought down his tenth the week after 
his accession to the throne; and was returning now from his forty-sixth. 

"Fifty before I come of age," he had exulted. "Who'll take the wager?" 

But Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning. 
So no one did, and the king left to change his clothes in high spirits. 

"Lepold!" 

The king stopped mid-step at the one voice that could cause him to do so. He turned sulkily. 
Wienis stood upon the threshold of his chambers and beetled at his young nephew. 

"Send them away," he motioned impatiently. "Get rid of them." 

The king nodded curtly and the two chamberlains bowed and backed down the stairs. Lepold 
entered his uncle's room. 

Wienis stared at the king's hunting suit morosely. "You'll have more important things to tend to 
than Nyak hunting soon enough." 

He turned his back and stumped to his desk. Since he had grown too old for the rush of air, the 
perilous dive within wing-beat of the Nyak, the roll and climb of the speedster at the motion of a 
foot, he had soured upon the whole sport. 

Lepold appreciated his uncle's sour-grapes attitude and it was not without malice that he began 
enthusiastically, "But you should have been with us today, uncle. We flushed one in the wilds of 
Sarnia that was a monster. And game as they come. We had it out for two hours over at least 
seventy square miles of ground. And then I got to Sunwards - he was motioning graphically, as 
though he were once more in his speedster -"and dived torque-wise. Caught him on the rise 
just under the left wing at quarters. It maddened him and he canted athwart. I took his dare and 
veered a-left, waiting for the plummet. Sure enough, down he came. He was within wing-beat 
before I moved and then 

"Lepold!" 

"Well!- I got him." 

"I'm sure you did. Now will you attend?" 

The king shrugged and gravitated to the end table where he nibbled at a Lera nut in quite an 
unregal sulk. He did not dare to meet his uncle's eyes. 



Wienis said, by way of preamble, "I've been to the ship today." 

"What ship?" 

"There is only one ship. The ship. The one the Foundation is repairing for the navy. The old 
Imperial cruiser. Do I make myself sufficiently plain?" 

"That one? You see, I told you the Foundation would repair it if we asked them to. It's all 
poppycock, you know, that story of yours about their wanting to attack us. Because if they did, 
why would they fix the ship? It doesn't make sense, you know." 

"Lepold, you're a fool!" 

The king, who had just discarded the shell of the Lera nut and was lifting another to his lips, 
flushed. 

"Well now, look here," he said, with anger that scarcely rose above peevishness, "I don't think 
you ought to call me that. You forget yourself. I'll be of age in two months, you know." 

"Yes, and you're in a fine position to assume regal responsibilities. If you spent half the time on 
public affairs that you do on Nyak hunting, I'd resign the regency directly with a clear 
conscience." 

"I don't care. That has nothing to do with the case, you know. The fact is that even if you are 
the regent and my uncle, I'm still king and you're still my subject. You oughtn't to call me a fool 
and you oughtn't to sit in my presence, anyway. You haven't asked my permission. I think you 
ought to be careful, or I might do something about it pretty soon." 

Wienis' gaze was cold. "May I refer to you as 'your majesty'?" 

"Yes." 

"Very well! You are a fool, your majesty!" 

His dark eyes blazed from beneath his grizzled brows and the young king sat down slowly. For 
a moment, there was sardonic satisfaction in the regent's face, but it faded quickly. His thick 
lips parted in a smile and one hand fell upon the king's shoulder. 

"Never mind, Lepold. I should not have spoken harshly to you. It is difficult sometimes to 
behave with true propriety when the pressure of events is such as - You understand?" But if 
the words were conciliatory, there was something in his eyes that had not softened. 

Lepold said uncertainly, "Yes. Affairs of State are deuced difficult, you know." He wondered, not 
without apprehension, whether he were not in for a dull siege of meaningless details on the 
year's trade with Smyrno and the long, wrangling dispute over the sparsely settled worlds on 
the Red Corridor. 

Wienis was speaking again. "My boy, I had thought to speak of this to you earlier, and perhaps 
I should have, but I know that your youthful spirits are impatient of the dry detail of statecraft." 

Lepold nodded. "Well, that's all right-" 



His uncle broke in firmly and continued, "However, you will come of age in two months. 
Moreover, in the difficult times that are coming, you will have to take a full and active part. You 
will be king henceforward, Lepold." 

Again Lepold nodded, but his expression was quite blank. 

"There will be war, Lepold." 

"War! But there's been truce with Smyrno-" 

"Not Smyrno. The Foundation itself." 

"But, uncle, they've agreed to repair the ship. You said-" 

His voice choked off at the twist of his uncle's lip. 

"Lepold" - some of the friendliness had gone -"we are to talk man to man. There is to be war 
with the Foundation, whether the ship is repaired or not; all the sooner, in fact, since it is being 
repaired. The Foundation is the source of power and might. All the greatness of Anacreon; all 
its ships and its cities and its people and its commerce depend on the dribbles and leavings of 
power that the Foundation have given us grudgingly. I remember the time - I, myself - when 
the cities of Anacreon were warmed by the burning of coal and oil. But never mind that; you 
would have no conception of it." 

"It seems," suggested the king timidly, "that we ought to be grateful-" 

"Grateful?" roared Wienis. "Grateful that they begrudge us the merest dregs, while keeping 
space knows what for themselves - and keeping it with what purpose in mind? Why, only that 
they may some day rule the Galaxy." 

His hand came down on his nephew's knee, and his eyes narrowed. "Lepold, you are king of 
Anacreon. Your children and your children's children may be kings of the universe - if you have 
the power that the Foundation is keeping from us!" 

"There's something in that." Lepold's eyes gained a sparkle and his back straightened. "After 
all, what right have they to keep it to themselves? Not fair, you know. Anacreon counts for 
something, too." 

"You see, you're beginning to understand. And now, my boy, what if Smyrno decides to attack 
the Foundation for its own part and thus gains all that power? How long do you suppose we 
could escape becoming a vassal power? How long would you hold your throne?" 

Lepold grew excited. "Space, yes. You're absolutely right, you know. We must strike first. It's 
simply self-defense." 

Wienis' smile broadened slightly. "Furthermore, once, at the very beginning of the reign of your 
grandfather, Anacreon actually established a military base on the Foundation's planet, 

Terminus - a base vitally needed for national defense. We were forced to abandon that base 
as a result of the machinations of the leader of that Foundation, a sly cur, a scholar, with not a 
drop of noble blood in his veins. You understand, Lepold? Your grandfather was humiliated by 
this commoner. I remember him! He was scarcely older than myself when he came to 



Anacreon with his devil's smile and devil's brain - and the power of the other three kingdoms 
behind him, combined in cowardly union against the greatness of Anacreon." 

Lepold flushed and the sparkle in his eyes blazed. "By Seldon, if I had been my grandfather, I 
would have fought even so." 

"No, Lepold. We decided to wait - to wipe out the insult at a fitter time. It had been your father's 
hope, before his untimely death, that he might be the one to - Well, well!" Wienis turned away 
for a moment. Then, as if stifling emotion, "He was my brother. And yet, if his son were-" 

"Yes, uncle, I'll not fail him. I have decided. It seems only proper that Anacreon wipe out this 
nest of troublemakers, and that immediately." 

"No, not immediately. First, we must wait for the repairs of the battle cruiser to be completed. 
The mere fact that they are willing to undertake these repairs proves that they fear us. The 
fools attempt to placate us, but we are not to be turned from our path, are we?" 

And Lepold's fist slammed against his cupped palm. 

"Not while I am king in Anacreon." 

Wienis' lip twitched sardonically. "Besides which we must wait for Salvor Hardin to arrive." 

"Salvor Hardin!" The king grew suddenly round-eyed, and the youthful contour of his beardless 
face lost the almost hard lines into which they had been compressed. 

"Yes, Lepold, the leader of the Foundation himself is coming to Anacreon on your birthday - 
probably to soothe us with buttered words. But it won't help him." 

"Salvor Hardin!" It was the merest murmur. 

Wienis frowned. "Are you afraid of the name? It is the same Salvor Hardin, who on his previous 
visit, ground our noses into the dust. You're not forgetting that deadly insult to the royal house? 
And from a commoner. The dregs of the gutter." 

"No. I guess not. No, I won't. I won't! We'll pay him back - but.. .but - I'm afraid - a little." 

The regent rose. "Afraid? Of what? Of what, you young-" He choked off. 

"It would be. ..uh.. .sort of blasphemous, you know, to attack the Foundation. I mean-" He 
paused. 

"Go on." 

Lepold said confusedly, "I mean, if there were really a Galactic Spirit, he...uh...it mightn't like it. 
Don't you think? 

"No, I don't," was the hard answer. Wienis sat down again and his lips twisted in a queer smile. 
"And so you 

really bother your head a great deal over the Galactic Spirit, do you? That's what comes of 
letting you run wild. You've been listening to Verisof quite a bit, I take it." 



He's explained a great deal-' 
About the Galactic Spirit?" 


"Yes." 

"Why, you unweaned cub, he believes in that mummery a good deal less than I do, and I don't 
believe in it at all. How many times have you been told that all this talk is nonsense?" 

"Well, I know that. But Verisof says-" 

"Pay no heed to Verisof. It's nonsense." 

There was a short, rebellious silence, and then Lepold said, "Everyone believes it just the 
same. I mean all this talk about the Prophet Hari Seldon and how he appointed the Foundation 
to carry on his commandments that there might some day be a return of the Galactic Paradise: 
and how anyone who disobeys his commandments will be destroyed for eternity. They believe 
it. I've presided at festivals, and I'm sure they do." 

"Yes, they do ; but we don't. And you may be thankful it's so, for according to this foolishness, 
you are king by divine right - and are semi-divine yourself. Very handy. It eliminates all 
possibilities of revolts and insures absolute obedience in everything. And that is why, Lepold, 
you must take an active part in ordering the war against the Foundation. I am only regent, and 
quite human. You are king, and more than half a god - to them." 

"But I suppose I'm not really," said the king reflectively. 

"No, not really," came the sardonic response, "but you are to everyone but the people of the 
Foundation. Get that? To everyone but those of the Foundation. Once they are removed there 
will be no one to deny you the godhead. Think of that!" 

"And after that we will ourselves be able to operate the power boxes of the temples and the 
ships that fly without men and the holy food that cures cancer and all the rest? Verisof said only 
those blessed with the Galactic Spirit could-" 

"Yes, Verisof said! Verisof, next to Salvor Hardin, is your greatest enemy. Stay with me, Lepold, 
and don't worry about them. Together we will recreate an empire-not just the kingdom of 
Anacreon-but one comprising every one of the billions of suns of the Empire. Is that better than 
a wordy 'Galactic Paradise'?" 

"Ye-es." 

"Can Verisof promise more?" 

"No." 

"Very well." His voice became peremptory. "I suppose we may consider the matter settled." He 
waited for no answer. "Get along. I'll be down later. And just one thing, Lepold." 

The young king turned on the threshold. 



Wienis was smiling with all but his eyes. "Be careful on these Nyak hunts, my boy. Since the 
unfortunate accident to your father, I have had the strangest presentiments concerning you, at 
times. In the confusion, with needle guns thickening the air with darts, one can never tell. You 
will be careful, I hope. And you'll do as I say about the Foundation, won't you?" 

Lepold's eyes widened and dropped away from those of his uncle. "Yes - certainly." 

"Good!" He stared after his departing nephew, expressionlessly, and returned to his desk. 

And Lepold's thoughts as he left were somber and not unfearful. Perhaps it would be best to 
defeat the Foundation and gain the power Wienis spoke of. But afterward, when the war was 
over and he was secure on his throne- He became acutely conscious of the fact that Wienis 
and his two arrogant sons were at present next in line to the throne. 

But he was king. And kings could order people executed. 

Even uncles and cousins. 


4 . 

Next to Sermak himself, Lewis Bort was the most active in rallying those dissident elements 
which had fused into the now-vociferous Action Party. Yet he had not been one of the 
deputation that had called on Salvor Hardin almost half a year previously. That this was so was 
not due to any lack of recognition of his efforts; quite the contrary. He was absent for the very 
good reason that he was on Anacreon's capital world at the time. 

He visited it as a private citizen. He saw no official and he did nothing of importance. He merely 
watched the obscure comers of the busy planet and poked his stubby nose into dusty crannies. 

He arrived home toward the end of a short winter day that had started with clouds and was 
finishing with snow and within an hour was seated at the octagonal table in Sermak's home. 

His first words were not calculated to improve the atmosphere of a gathering already 
considerably depressed by the deepening snow-filled twilight outside.. 

"I'm afraid," he said, "that our position is what is usually termed, in melodramatic phraseology, a 
'Lost Cause.'" 

"You think so?" said Sermak, gloomily. 

"It's gone past thought, Sermak. There's no room for any other opinion." 

"Armaments-" began Dokor Walto, somewhat officiously, but Bort broke in at once. 

"Forget that. That's an old story." His eyes traveled round the circle. "I'm referring to the people. 

I admit that it was my idea originally that we attempt to foster a palace rebellion of some sort to 
install as king someone more favorable to the Foundation. It was a good idea. It still is. The 
only trifling flaw about it is that it is impossible. The great Salvor Hardin saw to that." 



Sermak said sourly, "If you'd give us the details, Bort-" 

"Details! There aren't any! It isn't as simple as that. It's the whole damned situation on 
Anacreon. It's this religion the Foundation has established. It works!" 

"Well!" 

"You've got to see it work to appreciate it. All you see here is that we have a large school 
devoted to the training of priests, and that occasionally a special show is put on in some 
obscure comer of the city for the benefit of pilgrims and that's all. The whole business hardly 
affects us as a general thing. But on Anacreon-" 

Lem Tarki smoothed his prim little Vandyke with one finger, and cleared his throat. "What kind 
of religion is it? Hardin's always said that it was just a fluffy flummery to get them to accept our 
science without question. You remember, Sermak, he told us that day-" 

"Hardin's explanations," reminded Sermak, "don't often mean much at face value. But what kind 
of a religion is it, Bort?" 

Bort considered. "Ethically, it's fine. It scarcely varies from the various philosophies of the old 
Empire. High moral standards and all that. There's nothing to complain about from that 
viewpoint. Religion is one of the great civilizing influences of history and in that respect, it's 
fulfilling-" 

"We know that," interrupted Sermak, impatiently. "Get to the point." 

"Here it is." Bort was a trifle disconcerted, but didn't show it. "The religion - which the 
Foundation has fostered and encouraged, mind you - is built on on strictly authoritarian lines. 
The priesthood has sole control of the instruments of science we have given Anacreon, but 
they've learned to handle these tools only empirically. They believe in this religion entirely, and 
in the ... uh ... spiritual value of the power they handle. For instance, two months ago some fool 
tampered with the power plant in the Thessalekian Temple - one of the large ones. He 
contaminated the city, of course. It was considered divine vengeance by everyone, including 
the priests." 

"I remember. The papers had some garbled version of the story at the time. I don't see what 
you're driving at." 

"Then, listen," said Bort, stiffly. "The priesthood forms a hierarchy at the apex of which is the 
king, who is regarded as a sort of minor god. He's an absolute monarch by divine right, and the 
people believe it, thoroughly, and the priests, too. You can't overthrow a king like that. Now do 
you get the point?" 

"Hold on," said Walto, at this point. "What did you mean when you said Hardin's done all this? 
How does he come in?" 

Bort glanced at his questioner bitterly. "The Foundation has fostered this delusion assiduously. 
We've put all our scientific backing behind the hoax. There isn't a festival at which the king does 
not preside surrounded by a radioactive aura shining forth all over his body and raising itself 
like a coronet above his head. Anyone touching him is severely burned. He can move from 



place to place through the air at crucial moments, supposedly by inspiration of divine spirit. He 
fills the temple with a pearly, internal light at a gesture. There is no end to these quite simple 
tricks that we perform for his benefit; but even the priests believe them, while working them 
personally." 

"Bad!" said Sermak, biting his lip. 

"I could cry - like the fountain in City Hall Park," said Bort, earnestly, "when I think of the 
chance we muffed. Take the situation thirty years ago, when Hardin saved the Foundation from 
Anacreon - At that time, the Anacreonian people had no real conception of the fact that the 
Empire was running down. They had been more or less running their own affairs since the 
Zeonian revolt, but even after communications broke down and Lepold's pirate of a grandfather 
made himself king, they never quite realized the Empire had gone kaput. 

"If the Emperor had had the nerve to try, he could have taken over again with two cruisers and 
with the help of the internal revolt that would have certainly sprung to life. And we we could 
have done the same; but no, Hardin established monarch worship. Personally, I don't 
understand it. Why? Why? Why?" 

"What," demanded Jaim Orsy, suddenly, "does Verisof do? There was a day when he was an 
advanced Actionist. What's he doing there? Is he blind, too?" 

"I don't know," said Bort, curtly. "He's high priest to them. As far as I know, he does nothing but 
act as adviser to the priesthood on technical details. Figurehead, blast him, figurehead!" 

There was silence all round and all eyes turned to Sermak. The young party leader was biting a 
fingernail nervously, and then said loudly, "No good. It's fishy!" 

He looked around him, and added more energetically, "Is Hardin then such a fool?" 

"Seems to be," shrugged Bort. 

"Never! There's something wrong. To cut our own throats so thoroughly and so hopelessly 
would require colossal stupidity. More than Hardin could possibly have even if he were a fool, 
which I deny. On the one hand, to establish a religion that would wipe out all chance of internal 
troubles. On the other hand, to arm Anacreon with all weapons of warfare. I don't see it." 

"The matter is a little obscure, I admit," said Bort, "but the facts are there. What else can we 
think?" 

Walto said, jerkily, "Outright treason. He's in their pay." 

But Sermak shook his head impatiently. "I don't see that, either. The whole affair is as insane 
and meaningless - Tell me, Bort, have you heard anything about a battle cruiser that the 
Foundation is supposed to have put into shape for use in the Anacreon navy?" 

"Battle cruiser?" 

"An old Imperial cruiser-" 

"No, I haven't. But that doesn't mean much. The navy yards are religious sanctuaries 



completely inviolate on the part of the lay public. No one ever hears anything about the fleet. 

"Well, rumors have leaked out. Some of the Party have brought the matter up in Council. 
Hardin never denied it, you know. His spokesmen denounced rumor mongers and let it go at 
that. It might have significance." 

"It's of a piece with the rest," said Bort. "if true, it's absolutely crazy. But it wouldn't be worse 
than the rest." 

"I suppose," said Orsy, "Hardin hasn't any secret weapon waiting. That might-" 

"Yes," said Sermak, viciously, "a huge jack-in-the-box that will jump out at the psychological 
moment and scare old Wienis into fits. The Foundation may as well blow itself out of existence 
and save itself the agony of suspense if it has to depend on any secret weapon." 

"Well," said Orsy, changing the subject hurriedly, "the question comes down to this: How much 
time have we left? Eli, Bort?" 

"All fight. It is the question. But don't look at me; I don't know. The Anacreonian press never 
mentions the Foundation at all. Right now, it's full of the approaching celebrations and nothing 
else. Lepold is coming of age next week, you know." 

"We have months then." Walto smiled for the first time that evening. "That gives us time-" 

"That gives us time, my foot," ground out Bort, impatiently. "The king's a god, I tell you. Do you 
suppose he has to carry on a campaign of propaganda to get his people into fighting spirit? Do 
you suppose he has to accuse us of aggression and pull out all stops on cheap emotionalism? 
When the time comes to strike, Lepold gives the order and the people fight. Just like that. 
That’s the damnedness of the system. You don’t question a god. He may give the order 
tomorrow for all I know; and you can wrap tobacco round that and smoke it." 


Everyone tried to talk at once and Sermak was slamming the table for silence, when the front 
door opened and Levi Norast stamped in. He bounded up the stairs, overcoat on, trailing snow. 


"Look at that!" he cried, tossing a cold, snow-speckled newspaper onto the table. "The 
visicasters are full of it, too." 


The newspaper was unfolded and five heads bent over it. 


Sermak said, in a hushed voice, "Great Space, he’s going to Anacreon! Going to Anacreon!" 


It is treason," squeaked Tarki, in sudden excitement. "I’ll be damned if Walto isn’t right. He’s 



sold us out and now he’s going there to collect his wage. 


Sermak had risen. "We’ve no choice now. I’m going to ask the Council tomorrow that Hardin be 
impeached. And if that fails-" 


5. 

The snow had ceased, but it caked the ground deeply now and the sleek ground car advanced 
through the deserted streets with lumbering effort. The murky gray light of incipient dawn was 
cold not only in the poetical sense but also in a very literal way - and even in the then turbulent 
state of the Foundation's politics, no one, whether Actionist or pro-Hardin found his spirits 
sufficiently ardent to begin street activity that early. 

Yohan Lee did not like that and his grumblings grew audible. "It's going to look bad, Hardin. 
They're going to say you sneaked away." 

"Let them say it if they wish. I've got to get to Anacreon and I want to do it without trouble. Now 
that's enough, Lee." 

Hardin leaned back into the cushioned seat and shivered slightly. It wasn't cold inside the 
well-heated car, but there was something frigid about a snow-covered world, even through 
glass, that annoyed him. 

He said, reflectively, "Some day when we get around to it we ought to weather-condition 
Terminus. It could be done." 

"I," replied Lee, "would like to see a few other things done first. For instance, what about 
weather-conditioning Sermak? A nice, dry cell fitted for twenty-five centigrade all year round 
would be just fight." 

"And then I'd really need bodyguards," said Hardin, "and not just those two," He indicated two 
of Lee's bully-boys sitting up front with the driver, hard eyes on the empty streets, ready hands 
at their atom blasts. "You evidently want to stir up civil war." 

"I do? There are other sticks in the fire and it won't require much stirring, I can tell you." He 
counted off on blunt fingers, "One: Sermak raised hell yesterday in the City Council and called 
for an impeachment." 

"He had a perfect right to do so," responded Hardin, coolly. "Besides which, his motion was 
defeated 206 to 184." 

"Certainly. A majority of twenty-two when we had counted on sixty as a minimum. Don't deny it; 
you know you did." 


It was close," admitted Hardin. 



"All right. And two; after the vote, the fifty-nine members of the Actionist Party reared upon their 
hind legs and stamped out of the Council Chambers." 

Hardin was silent, and Lee continued, "And three: Before leaving, Sermak howled that you 
were a traitor, that you were going to Anacreon to collect your payment, that the Chamber 
majority in refusing to vote impeachment had participated in the treason, and that the name of 
their party was not 'Actionist' for nothing. What does that sound like?" 

"Trouble, I suppose." 

"And now you're chasing off at daybreak, like a criminal. You ought to face them, Hardin - and 
if you have to, declare martial law, by space!" 

"Violence is the last refuge-" 

"-Of the incompetent. Bah!" 

"All right. We'll see. Now listen to me carefully, Lee. Thirty years ago, the Time Vault opened, 
and on the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Foundation, there appeared a Hari Seldon 
recording to give us our first idea of what was really going on." 

"I remember," Lee nodded reminiscently, with a half smile. "It was the day we took over the 
government." 

"That's right. It was the time of our first major crisis. This is our second-and three weeks from 
today will be the eightieth anniversary of the beginning of the Foundation. Does that strike you 
as in any way significant?" 

"You mean he's coming again?" 

"I'm not finished. Seldon never said anything about returning, you understand, but that's of a 
piece with his whole plan. He's always done his best to keep all foreknowledge from us. Nor is 
there any way of telling whether the computer is set for further openings short of dismantling 
the Vault - and it's probably set to destroy itself if we were to try that. I've been there every 
anniversary since the first appearance, just on the chance. He's never shown up, but this is the 
first time since then that there's really been a crisis." 

"Then he'll come." 

"Maybe. I don't know. However, this is the point. At today's session of the Council, just after you 
announce that I have left for Anacreon, you will further announce, officially, that on March 14th 
next, there will be another Hari Seldon recording, containing a message of the utmost 
importance regarding the recent successfully concluded crisis. That's very important, Lee. Don't 
add anything more no matter how many questions are asked." 

Lee stared. "Will they believe it?" 

"That doesn't matter. It will confuse them, which is all I want. Between wondering whether it is 
true and what I mean by it if it isn't - they'll decide to postpone action till after March 1 4th. I'll be 
back considerably before then." 



Lee looked uncertain. "But that 'successfully concluded.' That's bull!" 

"Highly confusing bull. Here's the airport!" 

The waiting spaceship bulked somberly in the dimness. Hardin stamped through the snow 
toward it and at the open air lock turned about with outstretched hand. 

"Good-by, Lee. I hate to leave you in the frying pan like this, but there's not another I can trust. 
Now please keep out of the fire." 

"Don't worry. The frying pan is hot enough. I'll follow orders." He stepped back, and the air lock 
closed. 


6 . 


Salvor Hardin did not travel to the planet Anacreon - from which planet the kingdom derived its 
name - immediately. It was only on the day before the coronation that he arrived, after having 
made flying visits to eight of the larger stellar systems of the kingdom, stopping only long, 
enough to confer with the local representatives of the Foundation. 

The trip left him with an oppressive realization of the vastness of the kingdom. It was a little 
splinter, an insignificant fly speck compared to the inconceivable reaches of the Galactic 
Empire of which it had once formed so distinguished a part; but to one whose habits of thought 
had been built around a single planet, and a sparsely settled one at that, Anacreon's size in 
area and population was staggering. 

Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar 
systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen 
billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire's heyday was rising rapidly with the 
increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation. 

And it was only now that Hardin found himself floored by the magnitude of that task. Even in 
thirty years, only the capital world had been powered. The outer provinces still possessed 
immense stretches where nuclear power had not yet been re-introduced. Even the progress 
that had been made might have been impossible had it not been for the still workable relics left 
over by the ebbing tide of Empire. 

When Hardin did arrive at the capital world, it was to find all normal business at an absolute 
standstill. In the outer provinces there had been and still were celebrations; but here on the 
planet Anacreon, not a person but took feverish part in the hectic religious pageantry that 
heralded the coming-of-age of their god-king, Lepold. 

Hardin had been able to snatch only half an hour from a haggard and harried Verisof before his 
ambassador was forced to rush off to supervise still another temple festival. But the half-hour 
was a most profitable one, and Hardin prepared himself for the night's fireworks well satisfied. 

In all, he acted as an observer, for he had no stomach for the religious tasks he would 



undoubtedly have had to undertake if his identity became known. So, when the palace's 
ballroom filled itself with a glittering horde of the kingdom's very highest and most exalted 
nobility, he found himself hugging the wall, little noticed or totally ignored. 

He had been introduced to Lepold as one of a long line of introducees, and from a safe 
distance, for the king stood apart in lonely and impressive grandeur, surrounded by his deadly 
blaze of radioactive aura. And in less than an hour this same king would take his seat upon the 
massive throne of rhodium-iridium alloy with jewel-set gold chasings, and then, throne and all 
would rise maestically into the air, skim the ground slowly to hover before the great window 
from which the great crowds of common folk could see their king and shout themselves into 
near apoplexy. The throne would not have been so massive, of course, if it had not had a 
shielded nuclear motor built into it. 

It was past eleven. Hardin fidgeted and stood on his toes to better his view. He resisted an 
impulse to stand on a chair. And then he saw Wienis threading through the crowd toward him 
and he relaxed. 

Wienis' progress was slow. At almost every step, he had to pass a kindly sentence with some 
revered noble whose grandfather had helped Lepold's grandfather brigandize the kingdom and 
had received a dukedom therefor. 

And then he disentangled himself from the last uniformed peer and reached Hardin. His smile 
crooked itself into a smirk and his black eyes peered from under grizzled brows with glints of 
satisfaction in them. 

"My dear Hardin," he said, in a low voice, "you must expect to be bored, when you refuse to 
announce your identity." 

"I am not bored, your highness. This is all extremely interesting. We have no comparable 
spectacles on Terminus, you know." 

"No doubt. But would you care to step into my private chambers, where we can speak at 
greater length and with considerably more privacy?" 

"Certainly." 

With arms linked, the two ascended the staircase, and more than one dowager duchess stared 
after them in surprise and wondered at the identity of this insignificantly dressed and 
uninteresting-looking stranger on whom such signal honor was being conferred by the prince 
regent. 

In Wienis' chambers, Hardin relaxed in perfect comfort and accepted with a murmur of gratitude 
the glass of liquor that had been poured out by the regent's own hand. 

"Locris wine, Hardin," said Wienis, "from the royal cellars. The real thing - two centuries in age. 
It was laid down ten years before the Zeonian Rebellion." 

"A really royal drink," agreed Hardin, politely. "To Lepold I, King of Anacreon." 

They drank, and Wienis added blandly, at the pause, "And soon to be Emperor of the 



Periphery, and further, who knows? The Galaxy may some day be reunited." 

"Undoubtedly. By Anacreon?" 

"Why not? With the help of the Foundation, our scientific superiority over the rest of the 
Periphery would be undisputable." 

Hardin set his empty glass down and said, "Well, yes, except that, of course, the Foundation is 
bound to help any nation that requests scientific aid of it. Due to the high idealism of our 
government and the great moral purpose of our founder, Hari Seldon, we are unable to play 
favorites. That can't be helped, your highness." 

Wienis' smile broadened. "The Galactic Spirit, to use the popular cant, helps those who help 
themselves. I quite understand that, left to itself, the Foundation would never cooperate." 

"I wouldn't say that. We repaired the Imperial cruiser for you, though my board of navigation 
wished it for themselves for research purposes." 

The regent repeated the last words ironically. "Research purposes! Yes! Yet you would not 
have repaired it, had I not threatened war." 

Hardin made a deprecatory gesture. "I don't know." 

"I do. And that threat always stood." 

"And still stands now?" 

"Now it is rather too late to speak of threats." Wienis had cast a rapid glance at the clock on his 
desk. "Look here, Hardin, you were on Anacreon once before. You were young then; we were 
both young. But even then we had entirely different ways of looking at things. You're what they 
call a man of peace, aren't you?" 

"I suppose I am. At least, I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There 
are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct." 

"Yes. I've heard of your famous remark: 'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.' And 
yet" - the regent scratched one ear gently in affected abstraction -"I wouldn't call myself 
exactly incompetent." 

Hardin nodded politely and said nothing. 

"And in spite of that," Wienis continued, "I have always believed in direct action. I have believed 
in carving a straight path to my objective and following that path. I have accomplished much 
that way, and fully expect to accomplish still more." 

"I know," interrupted Hardin. "I believe you are carving a path such as you describe for yourself 
and your children that leads directly to the throne, considering the late unfortunate death of the 
king's father - your elder brother and the king's own precarious state of health. He is in a 
precarious state of health, is he not?" 

Wienis frowned at the shot, and his voice grew harder. "You might find it advisable, Hardin, to 
avoid certain subjects. You may consider yourself privileged as mayor of Terminus to make ... 



uh ... injudicious remarks, but if you do, please disabuse yourself of the notion. I am not one to 
be frightened at words. It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced 
boldly, and I have never turned my back upon one yet." 

"I don't doubt that. What particular difficulty are you refusing to turn your back upon at the 
present moment?" 

"The difficulty, Hardin, of persuading the Foundation to co-operate. Your policy of peace, you 
see, has led you into making several very serious mistakes, simply because you 
underestimated the boldness of your adversary. Not everyone is as afraid of direct action as 
you are." 

"For instance?" suggested Hardin. 

"For instance, you came to Anacreon alone and accompanied me to my chambers alone." 
Hardin looked about him. "And what is wrong with that?" 

"Nothing," said the regent, "except that outside this room are five police guards, well armed and 
ready to shoot. I don't think you can leave, Hardin." 

The mayor's eyebrows lifted, "I have no immediate desire to leave. Do you then fear me so 
much?" 

"I don't fear you at all. But this may serve to impress you with my determination. Shall we call it 
a gesture?" 

"Call it what you please," said Hardin, indifferently. "I shall not discommode myself over the 
incident, whatever you choose to call it." 

"I'm sure that attitude will change with time. But you have made another error, Hardin, a more 
serious one. It seems that the planet Terminus is almost wholly undefended." 

"Naturally. What have we to fear? We threaten no one's interest and serve all alike." 

"And while remaining helpless," Wienis went on, "you kindly helped us to arm ourselves, aiding 
us particularly in the development of a navy of our own, a great navy. In fact, a navy which, 
since your donation of the Imperial cruiser, is quite irresistible." 

"Your highness, you are wasting time." Hardin made as if to rise from his seat. "If you mean to 
declare war, and are informing me of the fact, you will allow me to communicate with my 
government at once." 

"Sit down, Hardin. I am not declaring war, and you are not communicating with your 
government at all. When the war is fought - not declared, Hardin, fought - the Foundation will 
be informed of it in due time by the nuclear blasts of the Anacreonian navy under the lead of my 
own son upon the flagship, Wienis, once a cruiser of the Imperial navy." 

Hardin frowned. "When will all this happen?" 

"If you're really interested, the ships of the fleet left Anacreon exactly fifty minutes ago, at 



eleven, and the first shot will be fired as soon as they sight Terminus, which should be at noon 
tomorrow. You may consider yourself a prisoner of war." 

"That's exactly what I do consider myself, your highness," said Hardin, still frowning. "But I'm 
disappointed." 

Wienis chuckled contemptuously. "Is that all?" 

"Yes. I had thought that the moment of coronation - midnight, you know - would be the logical 
time to set the fleet in motion. Evidently, you wanted to start the war while you were still regent. 
It would have been more dramatic the other way." 

The regent stared. "What in Space are you talking about?" 

"Don't you understand?" said Hardin, softly. "I had set my counterstroke for midnight." 

Wienis started from his chair. "You are not bluffing me. There is no counterstroke. If you are 
counting on the support of the other kingdoms, forget it. Their navies, combined, are no match 
for ours." 

"I know that. I don't intend firing a shot. It is simply that the word went out a week ago that at 
midnight tonight, the planet Anacreon goes under the interdict." 

"The interdict?" 

"Yes. If you don't understand, I might explain that every priest in Anacreon is going on strike, 
unless I countermand the order. But I can't while I'm being held incommunicado; nor do I wish 
to even if I weren't!" He leaned forward and added, with sudden animation, "Do you realize, 
your highness, that an attack on the Foundation is nothing short of sacrilege of the highest 
order?" 

Wienis was groping visibly for self-control. "Give me none of that, Hardin. Save it for the mob." 

"My dear Wienis, whoever do you think I am saving it for? I imagine that for the last half hour 
every temple on Anacreon has been the center of a mob listening to a priest exhorting them 
upon that very subject. There's not a man or woman on Anacreon that doesn't know that their 
government has launched a vicious, unprovoked attack upon the center of their religion. But it 
lacks only four minutes of midnight now. You'd better go down to the ballroom to watch events. 
I'll be safe here with five guards outside the door." He leaned back in his chair, helped himself 
to another glass of Locris wine, and gazed at the ceiling with perfect indifference. 

Wienis suddenly furious, rushed out of the room. 

A hush had fallen over the elite in the ballroom, as a broad path was cleared for the throne. 
Lepold sat on it now, hands solidly on its arms, head high, face frozen. The huge chandeliers 
had dimmed and in the diffused multi-colored light from the tiny nucleo-bulbs that bespangled 
the vaulted ceiling, the royal aura shone out bravely, lifting high above his head to form a 
blazing coronet. 

Wienis paused on the stairway. No one saw him; all eyes were on the throne. He clenched his 
fists and remained where he was; Hardin would not bluff him into action. 



And then the throne stiffed. Noiselessly, it lifted upward - and drifted. Off the dais, slowly down 
the steps, and then horizontally, five centimetres off the floor, it worked itself toward the huge, 
open window. 

At the sound of the deep-toned bell that signified midnight, it stopped before the window - and 
the king's aura died. 

For a frozen split second, the king did not move, face twisted in surprise, without an aura, 
merely human; and then the throne wobbled and dropped to the floor with a crashing thump, 
just as every light in the palace went out. 

Through the shrieking din and confusion, Wienis' bull voice sounded. "Get the flares! Get the 
flares!" 

He buffeted right and left through the crowd and forced his way to the door. From without, 
palace guards had streamed into the darkness. 

Somehow the flares were brought back to the ballroom; flares that were to have been used in 
the gigantic torchlight procession through the streets of the city after the coronation. 

Back to the ballroom guardsmen swarmed with torches - blue, green, and red; where the 
strange light lit up frightened, confused faces. 

"There is no harm done," shouted Wienis. "Keep your places. Power will return in a moment." 
He turned to the captain of the guard who stood stiffly at attention. "What is it, Captain?" 

"Your highness," was the instant response, "the palace is surrounded by the people of the city." 
"What do they want?" snarled Wienis. 

"A priest is at the head. He has been identified as High Priest Poly Verisof. He demands the 
immediate release of Mayor Salvor Hardin and cessation of the war against the Foundation." 
The report was made in the expressionless tones of an officer, but his eyes shifted uneasily. 

Wienis cried, "if any of the rabble attempt to pass the palace gates, blast them out of existence. 
For the moment, nothing more. Let them howl! There will be an accounting tomorrow." 

The torches had been distributed now, and the ballroom was again alight. Wienis rushed to the 
throne, still standing by the window, and dragged the stricken, wax-faced Lepold to his feet. 

"Come with me." He cast one look out of the window. The city was pitch-black. From below 
there were the hoarse confused cries of the mob. Only toward the fight, where the Argolid 
Temple stood was there illumination. He swore angrily, and dragged the king away. 

Wienis burst into his chambers, the five guardsmen at his heels. Lepold followed, wide-eyed, 
scared speechless. 

"Hardin," said Wienis, huskily, "you are playing with forces too great for you." 

The mayor ignored the speaker. In the pearly light of the pocket nucleo-bulb at his side, he 



remained quietly seated, a slightly ironic smile on his face. 

"Good morning, your majesty," he said to Lepold. "I congratulate you on your coronation." 
"Hardin," cried Wienis again, "order your priests back to their jobs." 

Hardin looked up coolly. "Order them yourself, Wienis, and see who is playing with forces too 
great for whom. Right now, there's not a wheel turning in Anacreon. There's not a light burning, 
except in the temples. There's not a drop of water running, except in the temples. On the wintry 
half of the planet, there's not a calorie of heat, except in the temples. The hospitals are taking in 
no more patients. The power plants have shut down. All ships are grounded. If you don't like it, 
Wienis, you can order the priests back to their jobs. I don't wish to." 

"By Space, Hardin, I will. If it's to be a showdown, so be it. We'll see if your priests can 
withstand the army. Tonight, every temple on the planet will be put under army supervision." 

"Very good, but how are you going to give the orders? Every line of communication on the 
planet is shut down. You'll find that neither wave nor hyperwave will work. In fact, the only 
communicator of the planet that will work - outside of the temples, of course - is the televisor 
right here in this room, and I've fitted it only for reception." 

Wienis struggled vainly for breath, and Hardin continued, "If you wish you can order your army 
into the Argolid Temple just outside the palace and then use the ultrawave sets there to contact 
other portions of the planet. But if you do that, I'm afraid the army contigent will be cut to pieces 
by the mob, and then what will protect your palace, Wienis? And your lives, Wienis?" 

Wienis said thickly, "We can hold out, devil. We'll last the day. Let the mob howl and let the 
power die, but we'll hold out. And when the news comes back that the Foundation has been 
taken, your precious mob will find upon what vacuum their religion has been built, and they'll 
desert your priests and turn against them. I give you until noon tomorrow, Hardin, because you 
can stop the power on Anacreon but you can't stop my fleet. " His voice croaked exultantly. 
"They're on their way, Hardin, with the great cruiser you yourself ordered repaired, at the head." 

Hardin replied lightly. "Yes, the cruiser I myself ordered repaired - but in my own way. Tell me, 
Wienis, have you ever heard of a hyperwave relay? No, I see you haven't. Well, in about two 
minutes you'll find out what one can do." 

The televisor flashed to life as he spoke, and he amended, "No, in two seconds. Sit down, 
Wienis. and listen." 


7 . 

Theo Aporat was one of the very highest ranking priests of Anacreon. From the standpoint of 
precedence alone, he deserved his appointment as head priest- attendant upon the flagship 
Wienis. 


But it was not only rank or precedence. He knew the ship. He had worked directly under the 
holy men from the Foundation itself in repairing the ship. He had gone over the motors under 



their orders. He had rewired the 'visors; revamped the communications system; replated the 
punctured hull; reinforced the beams. He had even been permitted to help while the wise men 
of the Foundation had installed a device so holy it had never been placed in any previous ship, 
but had been reserved only for this magnificent colossus of a vessel - a hyperwave relay. 

It was no wonder that he felt heartsick over the purposes to which the glorious ship was 
perverted. He had never wanted to believe what Verisof had told him - that the ship was to be 
used for appalling wickedness; that its guns were to be turned on the great Foundation. Turned 
on that Foundation, where he had been trained as a youth, from which all blessedness was 
derived. 

Yet he could not doubt now, after what the admiral had told him. 

How could the king, divinely blessed, allow this abominable act? Or was it the king? Was it not, 
perhaps, an action of the accursed regent, Wienis, without the knowledge of the king at all. And 
it was the son of this same Wienis that was the admiral who five minutes before had told him: 

"Attend to your souls and your blessings, priest. I will attend to my ship." 

Aporat smiled crookedly. He would attend to his souls and his blessings - and also to his 
cursings; and Prince Lefkin would whine soon enough. 

He had entered the general communications room now. His. acolyte preceded him and the two 
officers in charge made no move to interfere. The head priest-attendant had the right of free 
entry anywhere on the ship. 

"Close the door," Aporat ordered, and looked at the chronometer. It lacked Five minutes of 
twelve. He had timed it well. 

With quick practiced motions, he moved the little levers that opened all communications, so that 
every part of the two-mile-long ship was within reach of his voice and his image. 

"Soldiers of the royal flagship Wienis, attend! It is your priest-attendant that speaks!" The sound 
of his voice reverberated, he knew, from the stem atom blast in the extreme rear to the 
navigation tables in the prow. 

"Your ship," he cried, "is engaged in sacrilege. Without your knowledge, it is performing such 
an act as will doom the soul of every man among you to the eternal frigidity of space! Listen! It 
is the intention of your commander to take this ship to the Foundation and there to bombard 
that source of all blessings into submission to his sinful will. And since that is his intention, I, in 
the name of the Galactic Spirit, remove him from his command, for there is no command where 
the blessing of the Galactic Spirit has been withdrawn. The divine king himself may not 
maintain his kingship without the consent of the Spirit." 

His voice took on a deeper tone, while the acolyte listened with veneration and the two soldiers 
with mounting fear. "And because this ship is upon such a devil's errand, the blessing of the 
Spirit is removed from it as well." 

He lifted his arms solemnly, and before a thousand televisors throughout the ship, soldiers 
cowered, as the stately image of their priest-attendant spoke: 



"In the name of the Galactic Spirit and of his prophet, Hari Seldon, and of his interpreters, the 
holy men of the Foundation, I curse this ship. Let the televisors of this ship, which are its eyes, 
become blind. Let its grapples, which are its arms, be paralyzed. Let the nuclear blasts, which 
are its fists, lose their function. Let the motors, which are its heart, cease to beat. Let the 
communications, which are its voice, become dumb. Let its ventilations, which are its breath, 
fade. Let its lights, which are its soul, shrivel into nothing. In the name of the Galactic Spirit, I so 
curse this ship." 

And with his last word, at the stroke of midnight, a hand, light-years distant in the Argolid 
Temple, opened an ultrawave relay, which at the instantaneous speed of the ultrawave, opened 
another on the flagship Wienis. 

And the ship died! 

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works, and that such curses as 
that of Aporat's are really deadly. 

Aporat saw the darkness close down on the ship and heard the sudden ceasing of the soft, 
distant purring of the hyperatomic motors. Fie exulted and from the pocket of his long robe 
withdrew a self-powered nucleo-bulb that filled the room with pearly light. 

Fie looked down at the two soldiers who, brave men though they undoubtedly were, writhed on 
their knees in the last extremity of mortal terror. "Save our souls, your reverence. We are poor 
men, ignorant of the crimes of our leaders," one whimpered. 

"Follow," said Aporat, sternly. "Your soul is not yet lost." 

The ship was a turmoil of darkness in which fear was so thick and palpable, it was all but a 
miasmic smell. Soldiers crowded close wherever Aporat and his circle of light passed, striving 
to touch the hem of his robe, pleading for the tiniest scrap of mercy. 

And always his answer was, "Follow me!" 

Fie found Prince Lefkin, groping his way through the officers' quarters, cursing loudly for lights. 
The admiral stared at the priest-attendant with hating eyes. 

"There you are!" Lefkin inherited his blue eyes from his mother, but there was that about the 
hook in his nose and the squint in his eye that marked him as the son of Wienis. "What is the 
meaning of your treasonable actions? Return the power to the ship. I am commander here." 

"No longer," said Aporat, somberly. 

Lefkin looked about wildly. "Seize that man. Arrest him, or by Space, I will send every man 
within reach of my voice out the air lock in the nude." Fie paused, and then shrieked, "It is your 
admiral that orders. Arrest him." 

Then, as he lost his head entirely, "Are you allowing yourselves to be fooled by this 
mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and 
moonbeams? This man is an imposter and the Galactic Spirit he speaks of a fraud of the 
imagination devised to-" 



Aporat interrupted furiously. "Seize the blasphemer. You listen to him at the peril of your souls." 
And promptly, the noble admiral went down under the clutching hands of a score of soldiers. 
"Take him with you and follow me." 

Aporat turned, and with Lefkin dragged along after him, and the corridors behind black with 
soldiery, he returned to the communications room. There, he ordered the ex-commander before 
the one televisor that worked. 

"Order the rest of the fleet to cease course and to prepare for the return to Anacreon." 

The disheveled Lefkin, bleeding, beaten, and half stunned, did so. 

"And now," continued Aporat, grimly, "we are in contact with Anacreon on the hyperwave beam. 
Speak as I order you." 

Lefkin made a gesture of negation, and the mob in the room and the others crowding the 
corridor beyond, growled fearfully. 

"Speak!" said Aporat. "Begin: The Anacreonian navy-" 

Lefkin began. 


8 . 

There was absolute silence in Wienis' chambers when the image of Prince Lefkin appeared at 
the televisor. There had been one startled gasp from the regent at the haggard face and 
shredded uniform of his son, and then he collapsed into a chair, face contorted with surprise 
and apprehension. 

Hardin listened stolidly, hands clasped lightly in his lap, while the just-crowned King Lepold sat 
shriveled in the most shadowy comer, biting spasmodically at his goldbraided sleeve. Even the 
soldiers had lost the emotionless stare that is the prerogative of the military, and, from where 
they lined up against the door, nuclear blasts ready, peered furtively at the figure upon the 
televisor. 

Lefkin spoke, reluctantly, with a tired voice that paused at intervals as though he were being 
prompted-and not gently: 

"The Anacreonian navy ... aware of the nature of its mission ... and refusing to be a party ... to 
abominable sacrilage ... is returning to Anacreon ... with the following ultimatum issued ... to 
those blaspheming sinners ... who would dare to use profane force ... against the Foundation ... 
source of all blessings ... and against the Galactic Spirit. Cease at once all war against ... the 
true faith . . . and guarantee in a manner suiting us of the navy ... as represented by our ... 
priest-attendant, Theo Aporat ... that such war will never in the future ... be resumed, and that"- 
here a long pause, and then continuing -"and that the one-time prince regent, Wienis ... be 
imprisoned ... and tried before an ecclesiastical court ... for his crimes. Otherwise the royal navy 
... upon returning to Anacreon ... will blast the palace to the ground ... and take whatever other 



measures ... are 


necessary ... to destroy the nest of sinners ... and the den of destroyers ... of men's souls that 
now prevail." 

The voice ended with half a sob and the screen went blank. 

Hardin's fingers passed rapidly over the nucleo-bulb and its light faded until in the dimness, the 
hitherto regent, the king, and the soldiers were hazy-edged shadows; and for the first time it 
could be seen that an aura encompassed Hardin. 

It was not the blazing light that was the prerogative of kings, but one less spectacular, less 
impressive, and yet one more effective in its own way, and more useful. 

Hardin's voice was softly ironic as he addressed the same Wienis who had one hour earlier 
declared him a prisoner of war and Terminus on the point of destruction, and who now was a 
huddled shadow, broken and silent. 

"There is an old fable," said Hardin, "as old perhaps as humanity, for the oldest records 
containing it are merely copies of other records still older, that might interest you. It runs as 
follows: 

"A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. 
Being driven to desperation, it occured to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached 
a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. 
The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new 
partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man's disposal. The horse 
was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, 
hunted down the wolf, and killed him. 

"The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: 'Now that our enemy is dead, 
remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.' 

"Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, 'Never!' and applied the spurs with a will." 
Silence still. The shadow that was Wienis did not stir. 

Hardin continued quietly, "You see the analogy, I hope. In their anxiety to cement forever 
domination over their own people, the kings of the Four Kingdoms accepted the religion of 
science that made them divine; and that same religion of science was their bridle and saddle, 
for it placed the life blood of nuclear power in the hands of the priesthoodwho took their orders 
from us, be it noted, and not from you. You killed the wolf, but could not get rid of the m-" 

Wienis sprang to his feet and in the shadows, his eyes were maddened hollows. His voice was 
thick, incoherent. "And yet I'll get you. You won't escape. You'll rot. Let them blow us up. Let 
them blow everything up. You'll rot! I'll get you! 

"Soldiers!" he thundered, hysterically. "Shoot me down that devil. Blast him! Blast him!" 

Hardin turned about in his chair to face the soldiers and smiled. One aimed his nuclear blast 
and then lowered it. The others never budged. Salvor Hardin, mayor of Terminus, surrounded 



by that soft aura, smiling so confidently, and before whom all the power of Anacreon had 
crumbled to powder was too much for them, despite the orders of the shrieking maniac just 
beyond. 

Wienis shouted incoherently and staggered to the nearest soldier. Wildly, he wrested the 
nuclear blast from the man's hand-aimed it at Hardin, who didn't stir, shoved the lever and held 
it contacted. 

The pale continous beam impinged upon the force-field that surrounded the mayor of Terminus 
and was sucked harmlessly to neutralization. Wienis pressed harder and laughed tearingly. 

Hardin still smiled and his force-field aura scarcely brightened as it absorbed the energies of 
the nuclear blast. From his comer Lepold covered his eyes and moaned. 

And, with a yell of despair, Wienis changed his aim and shot again - and toppled to the floor 
with his head blown into nothingness. 

Hardin winced at the sight and muttered, "A man of 'direct action' to the end. The last refuge!" 


9 . 

The Time Vault was filled; filled far beyond the available seating capacity, and men lined the 
back of the room, three deep. 

Salvor Hardin compared this large company with the few men attending the first appearance of 
Hari Seldon, thirty years earlier. There had only been six, then; the five old Encyclopedists - all 
dead now - and himself, the young figurehead of a mayor. It had been on that day, that he, with 
Yohan Lee's assistance had removed the "figurehead" stigma from his office. 

It was quite different now; different in every respect. Every man of the City Council was 
awaiting Seldon's appearance. He, himself, was still mayor, but all-powerful now; and since the 
utter rout of Anacreon, all-popular. When he had returned from Anacreon with the news of the 
death of Wienis, and the new treaty signed with the trembling Lepold, he was greeted with a 
vote of confidence of shrieking unanimity. When this was followed in rapid order, by similar 
treaties signed with each of the other three kingdoms - treaties that gave the Foundation 
powers such as would forever prevent any attempts at attack similar to that of Anacreon's - 
torchlight processions had been held in every city street of Terminus. Not even Hari Seldon's 
name had been more loudly cheered. 

Hardin's lips twitched. Such popularity had been his after the first crisis also. 

Across the room, Sef Sermak and Lewis Bort were engaged in animated discussion, and recent 
events seemed to have put them out not at all. They had joined in the vote of confidence; made 
speeches in which they publicly admitted that they had been in the wrong, apologized 
handsomely for the use of certain phrases in earlier debates, excused themselves delicately by 
declaring they had merely followed the dictates of their judgement and their conscience - and 
immediately launched a new Actionist campaign. 



Yohan Lee touched Hardin's sleeve and pointed significantly to his watch. 

Hardin looked up. "Hello there, Lee. Are you still sour? What's wrong now?" 

"He's due in five minutes, isn't he?" 

"I presume so. He appeared at noon last time." 

"What if he doesn't?" 

"Are you going to wear me down with your worries all your life? If he doesn't, he won't." 

Lee frowned and shook his head slowly. "If this thing flops, we're in another mess. Without 
Seldon's backing for what we've done, Sermak will be free to start all over. He wants outright 
annexation of the Four Kingdoms, and immediate expansion of the Foundation - by force, if 
necessary. He's begun his campaign, already." 

"I know. A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself. And you, Lee, have got to 
worry even if you must kill yourself to invent something to worry about." 

Lee would have answered, but he lost his breath at just that moment - as the lights yellowed 
and went dim. He raised his arm to point to the glass cubicle that dominated half the room and 
then collapsed into a chair with a windy sigh. 

Hardin himself straightened at the sight of the figure that now filled the cubicle - a figure in a 
wheel chair! He alone, of all those present could remember the day, decades ago, when that 
figure had appeared first. He had been young then, and the figure old. Since then, the figure 
had not aged a day, but he himself had in turn grown old. 

The figure stared straight ahead, hands fingering a book in its lap. 

It said, "I am Hari Seldon!" The voice was old and soft. 

There was a breathless silence in the room and Hari Seldon continued conversationally, "This 
is the second time I've been here. Of course, I don't know if any of you were here the first time. 
In fact, I have no way of telling, by sense perception, that there is anyone here at all, but that 
doesn't matter. If the second crisis has been overcome safely, you are bound to be here; there 
is no way out. If you are not here, then the second crisis has been too much for you." 

He smiled engagingly. "I doubt that, however, for my figures show a ninety-eight point four 
percent probability there is to be no significant deviation from the Plan in the first eighty years. 

"According to our calculations, you have now reached domination of the barbarian kingdoms 
immediately surrounding the Foundation. Just as in the first crisis you held them off by use of 
the Balance of Power, so in the second, you gained mastery by use of the Spiritual Power as 
against the Temporal. 

"However, I might warn you here against overconfidence. It is not my way to grant you any 
foreknowledge in these recordings, but it would be safe to indicate that what you have now 
achieved is merely a new balance-though one in which your position is considerably better. The 
Spiritual Power, while sufficient to ward off attacks of the Temporal is not sufficient to attack in 



turn. Because of the invariable growth of the counteracting force known as Regionalism, or 
Nationalism, the Spiritual Power cannot prevail. I am telling you nothing new, I'm sure. 

"You must pardon me, by the way, for speaking to you in this vague way. The terms I use are at 
best mere approximations, but none of you is qualified to understand the true symbology of 
psychohistory, and so I must do the best I can. 

"In this case, the Foundation is only at the start of the path that leads to the Second Galactic 
Empire. The neighboring kingdoms, in manpower and resources are still overwhelmingly 
powerful as compared to yourselves. Outside them lies the vast tangled jungle of barbarism 
that extends around the entire breadth of the Galaxy. Within that rim there is still what is left of 
the Galactic Empire - and that, weakened and decaying though it is, is still incomparably 
mighty." 

At this point, Hari Seldon lifted his book and opened it. His face grew solemn. "And never forget 
there was another Foundation established eighty years ago; a Foundation at the other end of 
the Galaxy, at Star's End. They will always be there for consideration. Gentlemen, nine hundred 
and twenty years of the Plan stretch ahead of you. The problem is yours!" 

He dropped his eyes to his book and flicked out of existence, while the lights brightened to 
fullness. In the babble that followed, Lee leaned over to Hardin's ear. "He didn't say when he'd 
be back." 

Hardin replied, "I know - but I trust he won't return until you and I are safely and cozily dead!" 


PART IV 

THE TRADERS 

i. 

TRADERS-... and constantly in advance of the political hegemony of the Foundation were the 
Traders, reaching out tenuous fingerholds through the tremendous distances of the Periphery. 
Months or years might pass between landings on Terminus; their ships were often nothing 
more than patchquilts of home-made repairs and improvisations; their honesty was none of the 
highest; their daring... 

Through it all they forged an empire more enduring than the pseudo-religious despotism of the 
Four Kingdoms... 


Tales without end are told of these massive, lonely figures who bore half-seriously, 
half-mockingly a motto adopted from one of Salvor Hardin's epigrams, "Never let your sense of 




morals prevent you from doing what is right!" It is difficult now to tell which tales are real and 
which apocryphal. There are none probably that have not suffered some exaggeration.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

Limmar Ponyets was completely a-lather when the call reached his receiver - which proves 
that the old bromide about telemessages and the shower holds true even in the dark, hard 
space of the Galactic Periphery. 

Luckily that part of a free-lance trade ship which is not given over to miscellaneous 
merchandise is extremely snug. So much so, that the shower, hot water included, is located in 
a two-by-four cubby, ten feet from the control panels. Ponyets heard the staccato rattle of the 
receiver quite plainly. 

Dripping suds and a growl, he stepped out to adjust the vocal, and three hours later a second 
trade ship was alongside, and a grinning youngster entered through the air tube between the 
ships. 

Ponyets rattled his best chair forward and perched himself on the pilot-swivel. 

"What've you been doing, Gorm?" he asked, darkly. "Chasing me all the way from the 
Foundation?" 

Les Gorm broke out a cigarette, and shook his head definitely, "Me? Not a chance. I'm just a 
sucker who happened to land on Glyptal IV the day after the mail. So they sent me out after 
you with this." 

The tiny, gleaming sphere changed hands, and Gorm added, "It's confidential. Super-secret. 
Can't be trusted to the sub-ether and all that. Or so I gather. At least, it's a Personal Capsule, 
and won't open for anyone but you." 

Ponyets regarded the capsule distastefully, "I can see that. And I never knew one of these to 
hold good news, either." 

It opened in his hand and the thin, transparent tape unrolled stiffly. His eyes swept the 
message quickly, for when the last of the tape had emerged, the first was already brown and 
crinkled. In a minute and a half it had turned black and, molecule by molecule, fallen apart. 

Ponyets grunted hollowly, "Oh, Galaxy f 

Les Gorm said quietly, "Can I help somehow? Or is it too secret?" 

"It will bear telling, since you're of the Guild. I've got to go to Askone." 

"That place? How come?" 

"They've imprisoned a trader. But keep it to yourself." 

Gorm's expression jolted into anger, "Imprisoned! That's against the Convention." 

"So is the interference with local politics." 



"Oh! Is that what he did?" Gorm meditated. "Who's the trader'? Anyone I know?" 

"No!" said Ponyets sharply, and Gorm accepted the implication and asked no further questions. 

Ponyets was up and staring darkly out the visiplate. He mumbled strong expressions at that 
part of the misty lens-form that was the body of the Galaxy, then said loudly, "Damnedest 
mess! I'm way behind quota." 

Light broke on Gorm's intellect, "Hey, friend, Askone is a closed area." 

"That's right. You can't sell as much as a penknife on Askone. They won't buy nuclear gadgets 
of any sort. With my quota dead on its feet, it's murder to go there." 

"Can't get out of it?" 

Ponyets shook his head absently, A know the fellow involved. Can't walk out on a friend. What 
of it? I am in the hands of the Galactic Spirit and walk cheerfully in the way he points out." 

Gorm said blankly, "Huh?" 

Ponyets looked at him, and laughed shortly, "I forgot. You never read the 'Bood of the Spirit,' 
did you?" 

"Never heard of it," said Gorm, curtly. 

"Well, you would if you'd had a religious training." 

"Religious training? For the priesthood?" Gorm was profoundly shocked. 

"Afraid so. It's my dark shame and secret. I was too much for the Reverend Fathers, though, 
They expelled me, for reasons sufficient to promote me to a secular education under the 
Foundation. Well, look, I'd better push off. How's your quota this year?" 

Gorm crushed out his cigarette and adjusted his cap, "I've got my last cargo going now. I'll 
make it." 

"Lucky fellow," gloomed Ponyets, and for many minutes after Les Gorm left, he sat in 
motionless reverie. 

So Eskel Gorov was on Askone - and in prison as well! 

That was bad! In fact, considerably worse than it might appear. It was one thing to tell a curious 
youngster a diluted version of the business to throw him off and send him about his own. It was 
a thing of a different sort to face the truth. 

For Limmar Ponyets was one of the few people who happened to know that Master Trader 
Eskel Gorov was not a trader at all; but that entirely different thing, an agent of the Foundation! 


2 . 

Two weeks gone! Two weeks wasted. 



One week to reach Askone, at the extreme borders of which the vigilant warships speared out 
to meet him in converging numbers. Whatever their detection system was, it worked - and well. 


They sidled him in slowly, without a signal, maintaining their cold distance, and pointing him 
harshly towards the central sun of Askone. 

Ponyets could have handled them at a pinch. Those ships were holdovers from the 
dead-and-gone Galactic Empire - but they were sports cruisers, not warships; and without 
nuclear weapons, they were so many picturesque and impotent ellipsoids. But Eskel Gorov was 
a prisoner in their hands, and Gorov was not a hostage to lose. The Askonians must know that. 

And then another week - a week to wind a weary way through the clouds of minor officials that 
formed the buffer between the Grand Master and the outer world. Each little sub-secretary 
required soothing and conciliation. Each required careful and nauseating milking for the 
flourishing signature that was the pathway to the next official one higher up. 

For the first time, Ponyets found his trader's identification papers useless. 

I Now, at last, the Grand Master was on the other side of the Guard-flanked gilded door - and 
two weeks had gone. 

Gorov was still a prisoner and Ponyets' cargo rotted useless in the holds of his ship. 

The Grand Master was a small man; a small man with a balding head and very wrinkled face, 
whose body seemed weighed down to motionlessness by the huge, glossy fur collar about his 
neck. 

His fingers moved on either side, and the line of armed men backed away to for a passage, 
along which Ponyets strode to the foot of the Chair of State. 

"Don't speak," snapped the Grand Master, and Ponyets' opening lips closed tightly. 

"That's right," the Askonian ruler relaxed visibly, "I can't endure useless chatter. You cannot 
threaten and I won't abide flattery. Nor is there room for injured complaints. I have lost count of 
the times you wanderers have been warned that your devil's machines are not wanted 
anywhere in Askone." 

"Sir," said Ponyets, quietly, "there is no attempt to justify the trader in question. It is not the 
policy of traders to intrude where they are not wanted. But the Galaxy is great, and it has 
happened before that a boundary has been trespassed unwittingly. It was a deplorable 
mistake." 

"Deplorable, certainly," squeaked the Grand Master. "But mistake? Your people on Glyptal IV 
have been bombarding me with pleas for negotiation since two hours after the sacrilegious 
wretch was seized. I have been warned by them of your own coming many times over. It seems 
a well-organized rescue campaign. Much seems to have been anticipated - a little too much for 



mistakes, deplorable or otherwise." 

The Askonian's black eyes were scornful. He raced on, "And are you traders, flitting from world 
to world like mad little butterflies, so mad in your own right that you can land on Askone's 
largest world, in the center of its system, and consider it an unwitting boundary mixup? Come, 
surely not." 

Ponyets winced without showing it. He said, doggedly, "If the attempt to trade was deliberate, 
your Veneration, it was most injudicious and contrary to the strictest regulations of our Guild." 

"Injudicious, yes," said the Askonian, curtly. "So much so, that your comrade is likely to lose life 
in payment." 

Ponyets' stomach knotted. There was no irresolution there. He said, "Death, your Veneration, is 
so absolute and irrevocable a phenomenon that certainly there must be some alternative." 

There was a pause before the guarded answer came, "I have heard that the Foundation is 
rich." 

"Rich? Certainly. But our riches are that which you refuse to take. Our nuclear goods are 
worth-" 

"Your goods are worthless in that they lack the ancestral blessing. Your goods are wicked and 
accursed in that they lie under the ancestral interdict." The sentences were intoned; the 
recitation of a formula. 

The Grand Master's eyelids dropped, and he said with meaning, "You have nothing else of 
value?" 

The meaning was lost on the trader, "I don't understand. What is it you want?" 

The Askonian's hands spread apart, "You ask me to trade places with you, and make known to 
you my wants. I think not. Your colleague, it seems, must suffer the punishment set for 
sacrilege by the Askonian code. Death by gas. We are a just people. The poorest peasant, in 
like case, would suffer no more. I, myself, would suffer no less." 

Ponyets mumbled hopelessly, "Your Veneration, would it be permitted that I speak to the 
prisoner?" 

"Askonian law," said the Grand Master coldly, "allows no communication with a condemned 
man." 

Mentally, Ponyets held his breath, "Your Veneration, I ask you to be merciful towards a man's 
soul, in the hour when his body stands forfeit. He has been separated from spiritual consolation 
in all the time that his life has been in danger. Even now, he faces the prospect of going 
unprepared to the bosom of the Spirit that rules all." 

The Grand Master said slowly and suspiciously, "You are a Tender of the Soul?" 

Ponyets dropped a humble head, "I have been so trained. In the empty expanses of space, the 
wandering traders need men like myself to care for the spiritual side of a life so given over to 



commerce and worldly pursuits." 

The Askonian ruler sucked thoughtfully at his lower lip. "Every man should prepare his soul for 
his journey to his ancestral spirits. Yet I had never thought you traders to be believers." 


3 . 

Eskel Gorov stirred on his couch and opened one eye as Limmar Ponyets entered the heavily 
reinforced door. It boomed shut behind him. Gorov sputtered and came to his feet. 

"Ponyets! They sent you?" 

"Pure chance," said Ponyets, bitterly, "or the work of my own personal malevolent demon. Item 
one, you get into a mess on Askone. Item two, my sales route, as known to the Board of Trade, 
carries me within fifty parsecs of the system at just the time of item one. Item three, we've 
worked together before and the Board knows it. Isn't that a sweet, inevitable set-up? The 
answer just pops out of a slot." 

"Be careful," said Gorov, tautly. "There'll be someone listening. Are you wearing a Field 
Distorter?" 

Ponyets indicated the ornamented bracelet that hugged his wrist and Gorov relaxed. 

Ponyets looked about him. The cell was bare, but large. It was well-lit and it lacked offensive 
odors. He said, "Not bad. They're treating you with kid gloves." 

Gorov brushed the remark aside, "Listen, how did you get down here? I've been in strict solitary 
for almost two weeks." 

"Ever since I came, huh? Well, it seems the old bird who's boss here has his weak points. He 
leans toward pious speeches, so I took a chance that worked. I'm here in the capacity of your 
spiritual adviser. There's something about a pious man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your 
throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and 
problematical soul. It's just a piece of empirical psychology. A trader has to know a little of 
everything." 

Gorov's smile was sardonic, "And you've been to theological school as well. You're all right, 
Ponyets. I'm glad they sent you. But the Grand Master doesn't love my soul exclusively. Has he 
mentioned a ransom?" 

The trader's eyes narrowed, "He hinted - barely. And he also threatened death by gas. I played 
safe, and dodged; it might easily have been a trap. So it's extortion, is it? What is it he wants?" 

"Gold." 

"Gold!" Ponyets frowned. "The metal itself? What for?" 

"It's their medium of exchange." 

"Is it? And where do I get gold from?" 



"Wherever you can. Listen to me; this is important. Nothing will happen to me as long as the 
Grand Master has the scent of gold in his nose. Promise it to him; as much as he asks for. 
Then go back to the Foundation, if necessary, to get it. When I'm free, we'll be escorted out of 
the system, and then we part company." 

Ponyets stared disapprovingly, "And then you'll come back and try again." 

"It's my assignment to sell nucleics to Askone." 

"They'll get you before you've gone a parsec in space. You know that, I suppose." 

"I don't," said Gorov. "And if I did, it wouldn't affect things." 

"They'll kill you the second time." 

Gorov shrugged. 

Ponyets said quietly, "If I'm going to negotiate with the Grand Master again, I want to know the 
whole story. So far, I've been working it too blind. As it was, the few mild remarks I did make 
almost threw his Veneration into fits." 

"It's simple enough," said Gorov. "The only way we can increase the security of the Foundation 
here in the Periphery is to form a religion-controlled commercial empire. We're still too weak to 
be able to force political control. It's all we can do to hold the Four Kingdoms." 

Ponyets was nodding. "This I realize. And any system that doesn't accept nuclear gadgets can 
never be placed under our religious control-" 

"And can therefore become a focal point for independence and hostility. Yes." 

"All right, then," said Ponyets, "so much for theory. Now what exactly prevents the sale. 
Religion? The Grand Master implied as much." 

"It's a form of ancestor worship. Their traditions tell of an evil past from which they were saved 
by the simple and virtuous heroes of the past generations. It amounts to a distortion of the 
anarchic period a century ago, when the imperial troops were driven out and an independent 
government was set up. Advanced science and nuclear power in particular became identified 
with the old imperial regime they remember with horror." 

"That so? But they have nice little ships which spotted me very handily two parsecs away. That 
smells of nucleics to me." 

Gorov shrugged. "Those ships are holdovers of the Empire, no doubt. Probably with nuclear 
drive. What they have, they keep. The point is that they will not innovate and their internal 
economy is entirely non-nuclear. That is what we must change." 

"Flow were you going to do it?" 

"By breaking the resistance at one point. To put it simply, if I could sell a penknife with a 
force-field blade to a nobleman, it would be to his interest to force laws that would allow him to 
use it. Put that baldly, it sounds silly, but it is sound, psychologically. To make strategic sales, 



at strategic points, would be to create a pro-nucleics faction at court." 

"And they send you for that purpose, while I'm only here to ransom you and leave, while you 
keep on trying? Isn't that sort of tail-backward?" 

"In what way?" said Gorov, guardedly. 

"Listen," Ponyets was suddenly exasperated, "you're a diplomat, not a trader, and calling you a 
trader won't make you one. This case is for one who's made a business of selling - and I'm 
here with a full cargo stinking into uselessness, and a quota that won't ever be met, it looks 
like." 

"You mean you're going to risk your life on something that isn't your business?" Gorov smiled 
thinly. 

Ponyets said, "You mean that this is a matter of patriotism and traders aren't patriotic?" 
"Notoriously not. Pioneers never are." 

"All right. I'll grant that. I don't scoot about space to save the Foundation or anything like that. 
But I'm out to make money, and this is my chance. If it helps the Foundation at the same time, 
all the better. And I've risked my life on slimmer chances." 

Ponyets rose, and Gorov rose with him, "What are you going to do?" 

The trader smiled, "Gorov, I don't know - not yet. But if the crux of the matter is to make a sale, 
then I'm your man. I'm not a boaster as a general thing, but there's one thing I'll always back 
up. I've never ended up below quota yet." 

The door to the cell opened almost instantly when he knocked, and two guards fell in on either 
side. 


4 . 

"A show!" said the Grand Master, grimly. Fie settled himself well into his furs, and one thin hand 
grasped the iron cudgel he used as a cane. 

"And gold, your Veneration." 

"Anc/ gold," agreed the Grand Master, carelessly. 

Ponyets set the box down and opened it with as fine an appearance of confidence as he could 
manage. Fie felt alone in the face of universal hostility; the way he had felt out in space his first 
year. The semicircle of bearded councilors who faced him down, stared unpleasantly. Among 
them was Pherl, the thin-faced favorite who sat next to the Grand Master in stiff hostility. 
Ponyets had met him once already and marked him immediately as prime enemy, and, as a 
consequence, prime victim. 

Outside the hall, a small army awaited events. Ponyets was effectively isolated from his ship; 
he lacked any weapon, but his attempted bribe; and Gorov was still a hostage. 



He made the final adjustments on the clumsy monstrosity that had cost him a week of 
ingenuity, and prayed once again that the lead-lined quartz would stand the strain. 

"What is it?" asked the Grand Master. 

"This," said Ponyets, stepping back, "is a small device I have constructed myself." 

"That is obvious, but it is not the information I want. Is it one of the black-magic abominations of 
your world?" 

"It is nuclear in nature, admitted Ponyets, gravely, "but none of you need touch it, or have 
anything to do with it. It is for myself alone, and if it contains abominations, I take the foulness 
of it upon myself." 

The Grand Master had raised his iron cane at the machine in a threatening gesture and his lips 
moved rapidly and silently in a purifying invocation. The thin-faced councilor at his right leaned 
towards him and his straggled red mustache approached the Grand Master's ear. The ancient 
Askonian petulantly shrugged himself free. 

"And what is the connection of your instrument of evil and the gold that may save your 
countryman's life?" 

"With this machine," began Ponyets, as his hand dropped softly onto the central chamber and 
caressed its hard, round flanks, "I can turn the iron you discard into gold of the finest quality. It 
is the only device known to man that will take iron - the ugly iron, your Veneration, that props 
up the chair you sit in and the walls of this building - and change it to shining, heavy, yellow 
gold." 

Ponyets felt himself botching it. His usual sales talk was smooth, facile and plausible; but this 
limped like a shot-up space wagon. But it was the content, not the form, that interested the 
Grand Master. 

"So? Transmutation? Men have been fools who have claimed the ability. They have paid for 
their prying sacrilege." 

"Had they succeeded?" 

"No." The Grand Master seemed coldly amused. "Success at producing gold would have been 
a crime that carried its own antidote. It is the attempt plus the failure that is fatal. Here, what 
can you do with my staff?" He pounded the floor with it. 

"Your Veneration will excuse me. My device is a small model, prepared by myself, and your 
staff is too long." 

The Grand Master's small shining eye wandered and stopped, "Randel, your buckles. Come, 
man, they shall be replaced double if need be." 

The buckles passed down the line, hand to hand. The Grand Master weighed them 
thoughtfully. 


Here," he said, and threw them to the floor. 



Ponyets picked them up. He tugged hard before the cylinder opened, and his eyes blinked and 
squinted with effort as he centered the buckles carefully on the anode screen. Later, it would be 
easier but there must be no failures the first time. 

The homemade transmuter crackled malevolently for ten minutes while the odor of ozone 
became faintly present. The Askonians backed away, muttering, and again Pherl whispered 
urgently into his ruler's ear. The Grand Master's expression was stony. He did not budge. 

And the buckles were gold. 

Ponyets held them out to the Grand Master with a murmured, "Your Veneration!" but the old 
man hesitated, then gestured them away. His stare lingered upon the transmuter. 

Ponyets said rapidly, "Gentlemen, this is pure gold. Gold through and through. You may subject 
it to every known physical and chemical test, if you wish to prove the point. It cannot be 
identified from naturally-occurring gold in any way. Any iron can be so treated. Rust will not 
interfere, not will a moderate amount of alloying metals-" 

But Ponyets spoke only to fill a vacuum. He let the buckles remain in his outstretched hand, 
and it was the gold that argued for him. 

The Grand Master stretched out a slow hand at last, and the thin-faced Pherl was roused to 
open speech. "Your Veneration, the gold is from a poisoned source." 

And Ponyets countered, "A rose can grow from the mud, your Veneration. In your dealings with 
your neighbors, you buy material of all imaginable variety, without inquiring as to where they 
get it, whether from an orthodox machine blessed by your benign ancestors or from some 
space-spawned outrage. Come, I don't offer the machine. I offer the gold." 

"Your Veneration," said Pherl, "you are not responsible for the sins of foreigners who work 
neither with your consent nor knowledge. But to accept this strange pseudo-gold made sinfully 
from iron in your presence and with your consent is an affront to the living spirits of our holy 
ancestors." 

"Yet gold is gold," said the Grand Master, doubtfully, "and is but an exchange for the heathen 
person of a convicted felon. Pherl, you are too critical." But he withdrew his hand. 

Ponyets said, "You are wisdom, itself, your Veneration. Consider - to give up a heathen is to 
lose nothing for your ancestors, whereas with the gold you get in exchange you can ornament 
the shrines of their holy spirits. And surely, were gold evil in itself, if such, a thing could be, the 
evil would depart of necessity once the metal were put to such pious use." 

"Now by the bones of my grandfather," said the Grand Master with surprising vehemence. His 
lips separated in a shrill laugh, "Pherl, what do you say of this young man? The statement is 
valid. It is as valid as the words of my ancestors." 

Pherl said gloomily, "So it would seem. Grant that the validity does not turn out to be a device 
of the Malignant Spirit." 

"I'll make it even better," said Ponyets, suddenly. "Hold the gold in hostage. Place it on the 



altars of your ancestors as an offering and hold me for thirty days. If at the end of that time, 
there is no evidence of displeasure - if no disasters occur - surely, it would be proof that the 
offering was accepted. What more can be offered?" 

And when the Grand Master rose to his feet to search out disapproval, not a man in the council 
failed to signal his agreement. Even Pherl chewed the ragged end of his mustache and nodded 
curtly. 

Ponyets smiled and meditated on the uses of a religious education. 


5 . 

Another week rubbed away before the meeting with Pherl was arranged. Ponyets felt the 
tension, but he was used to the feeling of physical helplessness now. He had left city limits 
under guard. He was in Pherl's suburban villa under guard. There was nothing to do but accept 
it without even looking over his shoulder. 

Pherl was taller and younger outside the circle of Elders. In nonformal costume, he seemed no 
Elder at all. 

He said abruptly, "You're a peculiar man." His close-set eyes seemed to quiver. "You've done 
nothing this last week, and particularly these last two hours, but imply that I need gold. It seems 
useless labor, for who does not? Why not advance one step?" 

"It is not simply gold," said Ponyets, discreetly. "Not simply gold. Not merely a coin or two. It is 
rather all that lies behind gold." 

"Now what can lie behind gold?" prodded Pherl, with a down-curved smile. "Certainly this is not 
the preliminary of another clumsy demonstration." 

"Clumsy?" Ponyets frowned slightly. 

"Oh, definitely." Pherl folded his hands and nudged them gently with his chin. "I don't criticize 
you. The clumsiness was on purpose, I am sure. I might have warned his Veneration of that, 
had I been certain of the motive. Now had I been you, I would have produced the gold upon my 
ship, and offered it alone. The show you offered us and the antagonism you aroused would 
have been dispensed with." 

"True," Ponyets admitted, "but since I was myself, I accepted the antagonism for the sake of 
attracting your attention." 


"Is that it? Simply that?" Pherl made no effort to hide his contemptuous amusement. "And I 
imagine you suggested the thirty-day purification period that you might assure yourself time to 
turn the attraction into something a bit more substantial. But what if the gold turns out to be 
impure?" 

Ponyets allowed himself a dark humor in return, "When the judgement of that impurity depends 



upon those who are most interested in finding it pure?" 

Pherl lifted his eyes and stared narrowly at the trader. He seemed at once surprised and 
satisfied. 

"A sensible point. Now tell me why you wished to attract me." 

"This I will do. In the short time I have been here, I have observed useful facts that concern you 
and interest me. For instance, you are young-very young for a member of the council, and even 
of a relatively young family." 

"You criticize my family?" 

"Not at all. Your ancestors are great and holy; all will admit that. But there are those that say 
you are not a member of one of the Five Tribes." 

Pherl leaned back, "With all respect to those involved," and he did not hide his venom, "the Five 
Tribes have impoverished loins and thin blood. Not fifty members of the Tribes are alive." 

"Yet there are those who say the nation would not be willing to see any man outside the Tribes 
as Grand Master. And so young and newly-advanced a favorite of the Grand Master is bound 
to make powerful enemies among the great ones of the State - it is said. His Veneration is 
aging and his protection will not last past his death, when it is an enemy of yours who will 
undoubtedly be the one to interpret the words of his Spirit." 

Pherl scowled, "For a foreigner you hear much. Such ears are made for cropping." 

"That may be decided later." 

"Let me anticipate." Pherl stirred impatiently in his seat. "You're going to offer me wealth and 
power in terms of those evil little machines you carry in your ship. Well?" 

"Suppose it so. What would be your objection? Simply your standard of good and evil?" 

Pherl shook his head. "Not at all. Look, my Outlander, your opinion of us in your heathen 
agnosticism is what it is - but I am not the entire slave of our mythology, though I may appear 
so. I am an educated man, sir, and, I hope, an enlightened one. The full depth of our religious 
customs, in the ritualistic rather than the ethical sense, is for the masses." 

"Your objection, then?" pressed Ponyets, gently. 

"Just that. The masses. I might be willing to deal with you, but your little machines must be 
used to be useful. How might riches come to me, if I had to use - what is it you sell?- well, a 
razor, for instance, only in the strictest, trembling secrecy. Even if my chin were more simply 
and more cleanly shaven, how would I become rich? And how would I avoid death by gas 
chamber or mob frightfulness if I were ever once caught using it?" 

Ponyets shrugged, "You are correct. I might point out that the remedy would be to educate your 
own people into the use of nucleics for their convenience and your own substantial profit. It 
would be a gigantic piece of work; I don't deny it; but the returns would be still more gigantic. 

Still that is your concern, and, at the moment, not mine at all. For I offer neither razor, knife, nor 



mechanical garbage disposer." 

"What do you offer?" 

"Gold itself. Directly. You may have the machine I demonstrated last week." 

And now Pherl stiffened and the skin on his forehead moved jerkily. "The transmuter?" 

"Exactly. Your supply of gold will equal your supply of iron. That, I imagine, is sufficient for all 
needs. Sufficient for the Grand Mastership itself, despite youth and enemies. And it is safe." 

"In what way?" 

"In that secrecy is the essence of its use; that same secrecy you described as the only safety 
with regard to nucleics. You may bury the transmuter in the deepest dungeon of the strongest 
fortress on your furthest estate, and it will still bring you instant wealth. It is the gold you buy, 
not the machine, and that gold bears no trace of its manufacture, for it cannot be told from the 
natural creation." 

"And who is to operate the machine?" 

"Yourself. Five minutes teaching is all you will require. I'll set it up for you wherever you wish." 
"And in return?" 

"Well," Ponyets grew cautious. "I ask a price and a handsome one. It is my living. Let us say,- 
for it its a valuable machine - the equivalent of a cubic foot of gold in wrought iron." 

Pherl laughed, and Ponyets grew red. "I point out, sir," he added, stiffly, "that you can get your 
price back in two hours." 

"True, and in one hour, you might be gone, and my machine might suddenly turn out to be 
useless. I'll need a guarantee." 

"You have my word." 

"A very good one," Pherl bowed sardonically, "but your presence would be an even better 
assurance. I'll give you my word to pay you one week after delivery in working order." 

"Impossible." 

"Impossible? When you've already incurred the death penalty very handily by even offering to 
sell me anything. The only alternative is my word that you'll get the gas chamber tomorrow 
otherwise." 

Ponyet's face was expressionless, but his eyes might have flickered. He said, "It is an unfair 
advantage. You will at least put your promise in writing?" 

"And also become liable for execution? No, sir!" Pherl smiled a broad satisfaction. "No, sir! Only 
one of us is a fool." 


The trader said in a small voice, "It is agreed, then. 



6 . 


Gorov was released on the thirtieth day, and five hundred pounds of the yellowest gold took his 
place. And with him was released the quarantined and untouched abomination that was his 
ship. 

Then, as on the journey into the Askonian system, so on the journey out, the cylinder of sleek 
little ships ushered them on their way. 

Ponyets watched the dimly sun-lit speck that was Gorov's ship while Gorov's voice pierced 
through to him, clear and thin on the tight, distortion-bounded ether-beam. 

He was saying, "But it isn't what's wanted, Ponyets. A transmuter won't do. Where did you get 
one, anyway?" 

"I didn't," Ponyets answer was patient. "I juiced it up out of a food irradiation chamber. It isn't 
any good, really. The power consumption is prohibitive on any large scale or the Foundation 
would use transmutation instead of chasing all over the Galaxy for heavy metals. It's one of the 
standard tricks every trader uses, except that I never saw an iron-to-gold one before. But it's 
impressive, and it works - very temporarily." 

"All right. But that particular trick is no good." 

"It got you out of a nasty spot." 

"That is very far from the point. Especially since I've got to go back, once we shake our 
solicitous escort." 

"Why?" 

"You yourself explained it to this politician of yours," Gorov's voice was on edge. "Your entire 
sales-point rested on the fact that the transmuter was a means to an end, but of no value in 
itself-, that he was buying the gold, not the machine. It was good psychology, since it worked, 
but-" 

"But?" Ponyets urged blandly and obtusely. 

The voice from the receiver grew shriller, "But we want to sell them a machine of value in itself, 
something they would want to use openly; something that would tend to force them out in favor 
of nuclear techniques as a matter of self-interest." 

"I understand all that," said Ponyets, gently. "You once explained it. But look at what follows 
from my sale, will you? As long as that transmuter lasts, Pherl will coin gold; and it will last long 
enough to buy him the next election. The present Grand Master won't last long." 

"You count on gratitude?" asked Gorov, coldly. 

"No - on intelligent self-interest. The transmuter gets him an election; other mechanisms-" 

"No! No! Your premise is twisted. It's not the transmuter, he'll credit - it'll be the good, 



old-fashioned gold. That's what I'm trying to tell you." 

Ponyets grinned and shifted into a more comfortable position. All right. He'd baited the poor 
fellow sufficiently. Gorov was beginning to sound wild. 

The trader said, "Not so fast, Gorov. I haven't finished. There are other gadgets already 
involved." 

There was a short silence. Then, Gorov's voice sounded cautiously, "What other gadgets?" 
Ponyets gestured automatically and uselessly, "You see that escort?" 

"I do," said Gorov shortly. "Tell me about those gadgets." 

"I will, -if you'll listen. That's Pherl's private navy escorting us; a special honor to him from the 
Grand Master. He managed to squeeze that out." 

"So?" 

"And where do you think he's taking us? To his mining estates on the outskirts of Askone, that's 
where. Listen!" Ponyets was suddenly fiery, "I told you I was in this to make money, not to save 
worlds. All right. I sold that transmuter for nothing. Nothing except the risk of the gas chamber 
and that doesn't count towards the quota." 

"Get back to the mining estates, Ponyets. Where do they come in?" 

"With the profits. We're stacking up on tin, Gorov. Tin to fill every last cubic foot this old scow 
can scrape up, and then some more for yours. I'm going down with Pherl to collect, old man, 
and you're going to cover me from upstairs with every gun you've got - just in case Pherl isn't 
as sporting about the matter as he lets on to be. That tin's my profit." 

"For the transmuter?" 

"For my entire cargo of nucleics. At double price, plus a bonus." He shrugged, almost 
apologetically. "I admit I gouged him, but I've got to make quota, don't I?" 

Gorov was evidently lost. He said, weakly, "Do you mind explaining'?" 

"What's there to explain? It's obvious, Gorov. Look, the clever dog thought he had me in a 
foolproof trap, because his word was worth more than mine to the Grand Master. He took the 
transmuter. That was a capital crime in Askone. But at any time he could say that he had lured 
me on into a trap with the purest of patriotic motives, and denounce me as a seller of forbidden 
things." 

"That was obvious." 

"Sure, but word against simple word wasn't all there was to it. You see, Pherl had never heard 
nor conceived of a microfilm-recorder." 

Gorov laughed suddenly. 

"That's right," said Ponyets. "He had the upper hand. I was properly chastened. But when I set 



up the transmuter for him in my whipped-dog fashion, I incorporated the recorder into the 
device and removed it in the next day's overhaul. I had a perfect record of his sanctum 
sanctorum, his holy-of-holies, with he himself, poor Pherl, operating the transmuter for all the 
ergs it had and crowing over his first piece of gold as if it were an egg he had just laid." 

"You showed him the results?" 

"Two days later. The poor sap had never seen three-dimensional color-sound images in his life. 
He claims he isn't superstitious, but if I ever saw an adult look as scared as he did then, call me 
rookie. When I told him I had a recorder planted in the city square, set to go off at midday with a 
million fanatical Askonians to watch, and to tear him to pieces subsequently, he was gibbering 
at my knees in half a second. He was ready to make any deal I wanted." 

"Did you?" Gorov's voice was suppressing laughter. "I mean, have one planted in the city 
square." 

"No, but that didn't matter. He made the deal. He bought every gadget I had, and every one you 
had for as much tin as we could carry. At that moment, he believed me capable of anything. 

The agreement is in writing and you'll have a copy before I go down with him, just as another 
precaution." 

"But you've damaged his ego," said Gorov. "Will he use the gadgets?" 

"Why not? It's his only way of recouping his losses, and if he makes money out of it, he'll salve 
his pride. And he will be the next Grand Master - and the best man we could have in our favor." 

"Yes," said Gorov, "it was a good sale. Yet you've certainly got an uncomfortable sales 
technique. No wonder you were kicked out of a seminary. Have you no sense of morals?" 

"What are the odds?" said Ponyets, indifferently. "You know what Salvor Hardin said about a 
sense of morals." 


PART V 

THE MERCHANT PRINCES 


i. 

TRADERS-... With psychohistoric inevitability, economic control of the Foundation grew. The 
traders grew rich; and with riches came power.... 

It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader. It is never 
forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes.... 


ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 




Jorane Sutt put the tips of carefully-manicured fingers together and said, "It's something of a 
puzzle. In fact - and this is in the strictest of confidence - it may be another one of Hari 
Seldon's crises." 

The man opposite felt in the pocket of his short Smyrnian jacket for a cigarette. "Don't know 
about that, Sutt. As a general rule, politicians start shouting 'Seldon crisis' at every mayoralty 
campaign." 

Sutt smiled very faintly, "I'm not campaigning, Mallow. We're facing nuclear weapons, and we 
don't know where they're coming from." 

Hober Mallow of Smyrno, Master Trader, smoked quietly, almost indifferently. "Go on. If you 
have more to say, get it out." Mallow never made the mistake of being overpolite to a 
Foundation man. He might be an Outlander, but a man's a man for a’ that. 

Sutt indicated the trimensional star-map on the table. He adjusted the controls and a cluster of 
some half-dozen stellar systems blazed red. 

'That," he said quietly, "is the Korellian Republic." 

The trader nodded, "I've been there. Stinking rathole! I suppose you can call it a republic but it's 
always someone out of the Argo family that gets elected Commdor each time. And if you ever 
don't like it - things happen to you." He twisted his lip and repeated, "I've been there." 

"But you've come back, which hasn't always happened. Three trade ships, inviolate under the 
Conventions, have disappeared within the territory of the Republic in the last year. And those 
ships were armed with all the usual nuclear explosives and force-field defenses." 

"What was the last word heard from the ships?" 

"Routine reports. Nothing else." 

"What did Korell say?" 

Sutt's eyes gleamed sardonically, "There was no way of asking. The Foundation's greatest 
asset throughout the Periphery is its reputation of power. Do you think we can lose three ships 
and ask for them?" 

"Well, then, suppose you tell me what you want with me." 

Jorane Sutt did not waste his time in the luxury of annoyance. As secretary to the mayor, he 
had held off opposition councilmen, jobseekers, reformers, and crackpots who claimed to have 
solved in its entirety the course of future history as worked out by Hari Seldon. With training like 
that, it took a good deal to disturb him. 

He said methodically, "In a moment. You see, three ships lost in the same sector in the same 
year can't be accident, and nuclear power can be conquered only by more nuclear power. The 
question automatically arises: if Korell has nuclear weapons, where is it getting them?" 


And where does it? 



"Two alternatives. Either the Korellians have constructed them themselves-" 

"Far-fetched!" 

"Very! But the other possibility is that we are being afflicted with a case of treason." 

"You think so?" Mallow's voice was cold. 

The secretary said calmly, "There's nothing miraculous about the possibility. Since the Four 
Kingdoms accepted the Foundation Convention, we have had to deal with considerable groups 
of dissident populations in each nation. Each former kingdom has its pretenders and its former 
noblemen, who can't very well pretend to love the Foundation. Some of them are becoming 
active, perhaps." 

Mallow was a dull red. "I see. Is there anything you want to say to me? I'm a Smyrnian." 

"I know. You're a Smyrnian - born in Smyrno, one of the former Four Kingdoms. You're a 
Foundation man by education only. By birth, you're an Outlander and a foreigner. No doubt 
your grandfather was a baron at the time of the wars with Anacreon and Loris, and no doubt 
your family estates were taken away when Sef Sermak redistributed the land." 

"No, by Black Space, no! My grandfather was a blood-poor son-of-a-spacer who died heaving 
coal at starving wages before the Foundation took over. I owe nothing to the old regime. But I 
was born in Smyrno, and I'm not ashamed of either Smyrno or Smyrnians, by the Galaxy. Your 
sly little hints of treason aren't going to panic me into licking Foundation spittle. And now you 
can either give your orders or make your accusations. I don't care which." 

"My good Master Trader, I don't care an electron whether your grandfather was King of Smyrno 
or the greatest pauper on the planet. I recited that rigmarole about your birth and ancestry to 
show you that I'm not interested in them. Evidently, you missed the point. Let's go back now. 
You're a Smyrnian. You know the Outlanders. Also, you're a trader and one of the best. You've 
been to Korell and you know the Korellians. That's where you've got to go." 

Mallow breathed deeply, "As a spy?" 

"Not at all. As a trader - but with your eyes open. If you can find out where the power is coming 
from - I might remind you, since you're a Smyrnian, that two of those lost trade ships had 
Smyrnian crews." 

"When do I start?" 

"When will your ship be ready?" 

"In six days." 

"Then that's when you start. You'll have all the details at the Admiralty." 

"Right!" The trader rose, shook hands roughly, and strode out. 

Sutt waited, spreading his fingers gingerly and rubbing out the pressure; then shrugged his 
shoulders and stepped into the mayor's office. 



The mayor deadened the visiplate and leaned back. "What do you make of it, Sutt?" 
"He could be a good actor," said Sutt, and stared thoughtfully ahead. 


2 . 

It was evening of the same day, and in Jorane Sutt's bachelor apartment on the twenty-first 
floor of the Hardin Building, Publis Manlio was sipping wine slowly. 

It was Publis Manlio in whose slight, aging body were fulfilled two great offices of the 
Foundation. He was Foreign Secretary in the mayor's cabinet, and to all the outer suns, barring 
only the Foundation itself, he was, in addition, Primate of the Church, Purveyor of the Holy 
Food, Master of the Temples, and so forth almost indefinitely in confusing but sonorous 
syllables. 

He was saying, "But he agreed to let you send out that trader. It is a point." 

"But such a small one," said Sutt. "It gets us nothing immediately. The whole business is the 
crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying 
out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose." 

"True. And this Mallow is a capable man. What if he is not an easy prey to dupery?" 

"That is a chance that must be run. If there is treachery, it is the capable men that are 
implicated. If not, we need a capable man to detect the truth. And Mallow will be guarded. Your 
glass is empty." 

"No, thanks. I've had enough." 

Sutt filled his own glass and patiently endured the other's uneasy reverie. 

Of whatever the reverie consisted, it ended indecisively, for the primate said suddenly, almost 
explosively, "Sutt, what's on your mind?" 

"I'll tell you, Manlio." His thin lips parted, "We're in the middle of a Seldon crisis." 

Manlio stared, then said softly, "How do you know? Has Seldon appeared in the Time Vault 
again?" 

"That much, my friend, is not necessary. Look, reason it out. Since the Galactic Empire 
abandoned the Periphery, and threw us on our own, we have never had an opponent who 
possessed nuclear power. Now, for the first time, we have one. That seems significant even if it 
stood by itself. And it doesn't. For the first time in over seventy years, we are facing a major 
domestic political crisis. I should think the synchronization of the two crises, inner and outer, 
puts it beyond all doubt." 

Manlio's eyes narrowed, "If that's all, it's not enough. There have been two Seldon crises so far, 
and both times the Foundation was in danger of extermination. Nothing can be a third crisis till 
that danger returns." 



Sutt never showed impatience, "That danger is coming. Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. 
The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo. Look, Manlio, we're proceeding along a 
planned history. We know that Hari Seldon worked out the historical probabilities of the future. 
We know that some day we're to rebuild the Galactic Empire. We know that it will take a 
thousand years or thereabouts. And we know that in the interval we will face certain definite 
crises. 

"Now the first crisis came fifty years after the establishment of the Foundation, and the second, 
thirty years later than that. Almost seventy-five years have gone since. It's time, Manlio, it's 
time." 

Manlio rubbed his nose uncertainly, "And you've made your plans to meet this crisis?" 

Sutt nodded. 

"And I," continued Manlio, "am to play a part in it?" 

Sutt nodded again, "Before we can meet the foreign threat of atomic power, we've got to put 
our own house in order. These traders-" 

"Ah!" The primate stiffened, and his eyes grew sharp. 

"That's right. These traders. They are useful, but they are too strong - and too uncontrolled. 
They are Outlanders, educated apart from religion. On the one hand, we put knowledge into 
their hands, and on the other, we remove our strongest hold upon them." 

"If we can prove treachery?" 

"If we could, direct action would be simple and sufficient. But that doesn't signify in the least. 
Even if treason among them did not exist, they would form an uncertain element in our society. 
They wouldn't be bound to us by patriotism or common descent, or even by religious awe. 
Under their secular leadership, the outer provinces, which, since Hardin's time, look to us as 
the Holy Planet, might break away." 

"I see all that, but the cure-" 

"The cure must come quickly, before the Seldon Crisis becomes acute. If nuclear weapons are 
without and disaffection within, the odds might be too great." Sutt put down the empty glass he 
had been fingering, "This is obviously your job." 

"Mine?" 

"I can't do it. My office is appointive and has no legislative standing." 

"The mayor-" 

"Impossible. His personality is entirely negative. He is energetic only in evading responsibility. 
But if an independent party arose that might endanger re-election, he might allow himself to be 
led." 

"But, Sutt, I lack the aptitude for practical politics." 



"Leave that to me. Who knows, Manlio? Since Salvor Hardin's time, the primacy and the 
mayoralty have never been combined in a single person. But it might happen now - if your job 
were well done." 


3 . 

And at the other end of town, in homelier surroundings, Hober Mallow kept a second 
appointment. He had listened long, and now he said cautiously, "Yes, I've heard of your 
campaigns to get trader representation in the council. But why me, Twer?" 

Jaim Twer, who would remind you any time, asked or unasked, that he was in the first group of 
Outlanders to receive a lay education at the Foundation, beamed. 

"I know what I'm doing," he said. "Remember when I met you first, last year." 

"At the Trader's Convention." 

"Right. You ran the meeting. You had those red-necked oxen planted in their seats, then put 
them in your shirtpocket and walked off with them. And you're all right with the Foundation 
masses, too. You've got glamor- or, at any rate, solid adventure-publicity, which is the same 
thing." 

"Very good," said Mallow, dryly. "But why now?" 

'Because now's our chance. Do you know that the Secretary of Education has handed in his 
resignation? It's not out in the open yet, but it will be." 

"How do you know?" 

"That - never mind-" He waved a disgusted hand. "It's so. The Actionist party is splitting wide 
open, and we can murder it right now on a straight question of equal rights for traders; or, 
rather, democracy, pro- and anti-." 

Mallow lounged back in his chair and stared at his thick fingers, "Uh-uh. Sorry, Twer. I'm 
leaving next week on business. You'll have to get someone else." 

Twer stared, "Business? What kind of business?" 

"Very super-secret. Triple-A priority. All that, you know. Had a talk with the mayor's own 
secretary." 

"Snake Sutt?" Jaim Twer grew excited. "A trick. The son-of-a-spacer is getting rid of you. 
Mallow-" 

"Hold on!" Mallow's hand fell on the other's balled fist. "Don't go into a blaze. If it's a trick, I'll be 
back some day for the reckoning, if it isn't, your snake, Sutt, is playing into our hands. Listen, 
there's a Seldon crisis coming up." 

Mallow waited for a reaction but it never came. Twer merely stared. "What's a Seldon crisis?" 



"Galaxy!" Mallow exploded angrily at the anticlimax, "What the blue blazes did you do when you 
went to school? What do you mean anyway by a fool question like that?" 

The elder man frowned, "If you'll explain-" 

There was a long pause, then, "I'll explain." Mallow's eyebrows lowered, and he spoke slowly. 
"When the Galactic Empire began to die at the edges, and when the ends of the Galaxy 
reverted to barbarism and dropped away, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists planted a 
colony, the Foundation, out here in the middle of the mess, so that we could incubate art, 
science, and technology, and form the nucleus of the Second Empire." 

"Oh, yes, yes-" 

"I'm not finished," said the trader, coldly. "The future course of the Foundation was plotted 
according to the science of psychohistory, then highly developed, and conditions arranged so 
as to bring about a series of crises that will force us most rapidly along the route to future 
Empire. Each crisis, each Seldon crisis, marks an epoch in our history. We're approaching one 
now - our third." 

Twer shrugged. "I suppose this was mentioned in school, but I've been out of school a long 
time - longer than you." 

"I suppose so. Forget it. What matters is that I'm being sent out into the middle of the 
development of this crisis. There's no telling what I'll have when I come back, and there is a 
council election every year." 

Twer looked up, "Are you on the track of anything?" 

"No." 

"You have definite plans?" 

"Not the faintest inkling of one." 

"Well-" 

"Well, nothing. Hardin once said: 'To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must 
improvise as well.' I'll improvise." 

Twer shook his head uncertainly, and they stood, looking at each other. 

Mallow said, quite suddenly, but quite matter-of-factly, "I tell you what, how about coming with 
me? Don't stare, man. You've been a trader before you decided them was more excitement in 
politics. Or so I've heard." 

"Where are you going? Tell me that." 

Towards the Whassallian Rift. I can't be more specific till we're out in space. What do you say?" 
Suppose Sutt decides he wants me where he can see 

"Not likely. If he's anxious to get rid of me, why not of you as well? Besides which, no trader 



would hit space if he couldn't pick his own crew. I take whom I please." 

There was a queer glint in the older man's eyes, "All right. I'll go." He held out his hand, "It'll be 
my first trip in three years." 

Mallow grasped and shook the other's hand, "Good! All fired good! And now I've got to round 
up the boys. You know where the Far Star docks, don 't you? Then show up tomorrow. 
Good-by." 


4 . 

Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of 
the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained 
even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court 
etiquette. 

Materially, its prosperity was low. The day of the Galactic Empire had departed, with nothing 
but silent memorials and broken structures to testify to it. The day of the Foundation had not yet 
come - and in the fierce determination of its ruler, the Commdor Asper Argo, with his strict 
regulation of the traders and his stricter prohibition of the missionaries, it was never coming. 

The spaceport itself was decrepit and decayed, and the crew of the Far Star were drearily 
aware of that. The moldering hangars made for a moldering atmosphere and Jaim Twer itched 
and fretted over a game of solitaire. 

Hober Mallow said thoughtfully, "Good trading material here." He was staring quietly out the 
viewport. So far, there was little else to be said about Korell. The trip here was uneventful. The 
squadron of Korellian ships that had shot out to intercept the Far Star had been tiny, limping 
relics of ancient glory or battered, clumsy hulks. They had maintained their distance fearfully, 
and still maintained it, and for a week now, Mallow's requests for an audience with the local go 
government had been unanswered. 

Mallow repeated, "Good trading here. You might call this virgin territory." 

Jaim Twer looked up impatiently, and threw his cards aside, "What the devil do you intend 
doing, Mallow? The crew's grumbling, the officers are worried, and I’m wondering-" 

"Wondering? About what?" 

"About the situation. And about you. What are we doing?" 

"Waiting." 

The old trader snorted and grew red. He growled, "You're going it blind, Mallow. There's a 
guard around the field and there are ships overhead. Suppose they're getting ready to blow us 
into a hole in the ground." 

"They've had a week." 



"Maybe they're waiting for reinforcements." Twer's eyes were sharp and hard. 

Mallow sat down abruptly, "Yes, I'd thought of that You see, it poses a pretty problem. First, we 
got here without trouble. That may mean nothing, however, for only three ships out of better 
than three hundred went a-glimmer last year. The percentage is low. But that may mean also 
that the number of their ships equipped with nuclear power is small, and that they dare not 
expose them needlessly, until that number grows. 

"But it could mean, on the other hand, that they haven't nuclear power after all. Or maybe they 
have and are keeping undercover, for fear we know something. It's one thing, after all, to 
piratize blundering, light-armed merchant ships. It's another to fool around with an accredited 
envoy of the Foundation when the mere fact of his presence may mean the Foundation is 
growing suspicious. 

"Combine this-" 

"Flold on, Mallow, hold on." Twer raised his hands. "You're just about drowning me with talk. 
What're you getting at? Never mind the in-betweens." 

"You've got to have the in-betweens, or you won't understand, Twer. We're both waiting. They 
don't know what I'm doing here and I don't know what they've got here. But I'm in the weaker 
position because I'm one and they're an entire world - maybe with atomic power. I can't afford 
to be the one to weaken. Sure it's dangerous. Sure there may be a hole in the ground waiting 
for us. But we knew that from the start. What else is there to do?" 

"I don't- Who's that, now?" 

Mallow looked up patiently, and tuned the receiver. The visiplate glowed into the craggy face of 
the watch sergeant. 

"Speak, sergeant." 

The sergeant said, "Pardon, sir. The men have given entry to a Foundation missionary." 

"A what?' Mallow's face grew livid. 

"A missionary, sit. Fle's in need of hospitalization, sir-" 

"There'll be more than one in need of that, sergeant, for this piece of work. Order the men to 
battle stations." 

Crew's lounge was almost empty. Five minutes after the order, even the men on the off-shift 
were at their guns. It was speed that was the great virtue in the anarchic regions of the 
interstellar space of the Periphery, and it was in speed above all that the crew of a master 
trader excelled. 

Mallow entered slowly, and stared the missionary up and down and around. His eye slid to 
Lieutenant Tinter, who shifted uneasily to one side and to Watch-Sergeant Demen, whose 
blank face and stolid figure flanked the other. 

The Master Trader turned to Twer and paused thoughtfully, "Well, then, Twer, get the officers 



here quietly, except for the co-ordinators and the trajectorian. The men are to remain at stations 
till further orders." 

There was a five-minute hiatus, in which Mallow kicked open the doors to the lavatories, looked 
behind the bar, pulled the draperies across the thick windows. For half a minute he left the 
room altogether, and when he returned he was humming abstractedly. 

Men filed in. Twer followed, and closed the door silently. 

Mallow said quietly, "First, who let this man in without orders from me?" 

The watch sergeant stepped forward. Every eye shifted. "Pardon, sir. It was no definite person. 
It was a sort of mutual agreement. Fie was one of us, you might say, and these foreigners 
here-" 

Mallow cut him short, "I sympathize with your feelings, sergeant, and understand them. These 
men, were they under your command?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"When this is over, they're to be confined to individual quarters for a week. You yourself are 
relieved of all supervisory duties for a similar period. Understood?" 

The sergeant's face never changed, but there was the slightest droop to his shoulders. Fie said, 
crisply, "Yes, sir." 

"You may leave. Get to your gun-station." 

The door closed behind him and the babble rose. 

Twer broke in, "Why the punishment, Mallow? You know that these Korellians kill captured 
missionaries." 

"An action against my orders is bad in itself whatever other reasons there may be in its favor. 

No one was to leave or enter the ship without permission." 

Lieutenant Tinter murmured rebelliously, "Seven days without action. You can't maintain 
discipline that way." 

Mallow said icily, "/can. There's no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I'll have it in 
the face of death, or it's useless. Where's this missionary? Get him here in front of me." 

The trader sat down, while the scarlet-cloaked figure was carefully brought forward. 

"What's your name, reverend?" 

"Eh?" The scarlet-robed figure wheeled towards Mallow, the whole body turning as a unit. FHis 
eyes were blankly open and there was a bruise on one temple. Fie had not spoken, nor, as far 
as Mallow could tell, moved during all the previous interval. 

"Your name, revered one?" 

The missionary started to sudden feverish life. FHis arms went out in an embracing gesture. "My 



son - my children. May you always be in the protecting arms of the Galactic Spirit." 

Twer stepped forward, eyes troubled, voice husky, "The man's sick. Take him to bed, 
somebody. Order him to bed, Mallow, and have him seen to. He's badly hurt." 

Mallow's great arm shoved him back, "Don't interfere, Twer, or I'll have you out of the room. 
Your name, revered one?" 

The missionary's hands clasped in sudden supplication, "As you are enlightened men, save me 
from the heathen." The words tumbled out, "Save me from these brutes and darkened ones 
who raven after me and would afflict the Galactic Spirit with their crimes. I am Jord Parma, of 
the Anacreonian worlds. Educated at the Foundation; the Foundation itself, my children. I am a 
Priest of the Spirit educated into all the mysteries, who have come here where the inner voice 
called me." He was gasping. "I have suffered at the hands of the unenlightened. As you are 
Children of the Spirit; and in the name of that Spirit, protect me from them." 

A voice broke in upon them, as the emergency alarm box clamored metallically: 

"Enemy units in sight! Instruction desired!" 

Every eye shot mechanically upward to the speaker. 

Mallow swore violently. He clicked open the reverse and yelled, "Maintain vigil! That is all!" and 
turned it off. 

He made his way to the thick drapes that rustled aside at a touch and stared grimly out, 

Enemy units! Several thousands of them in the persons of the individual members of a 
Korellian mob. The rolling rabble encompassed the port from extreme end to extreme end, and 
in the cold, hard light of magnesium flares the foremost straggled closer. 

"Tinter!" The trader never turned, but the back of his neck was red. "Get the outer speaker 
working and find out what they want. Ask if they have a representative of the law with them. 
Make no promises and no threats, or I'll kill you." 

Tinter turned and left. 

Mallow felt a rough hand on his shoulder and he struck it aside. It was Twer. His voice was an 
angry hiss in his ear, "Mallow, you're bound to hold onto this man. There's no way of 
maintaining decency and honor otherwise. He's of the Foundation and, after all, he - is a priest. 
These savages outside- Do you hear me?" 

"I hear you, Twer." Mallow's voice was incisive. "I've got more to do here than guard 
missionaries. I'll do, sir, what I please, and, by Seldon and all the Galaxy, if you try to stop me, 
I'll tear out your stinking windpipe. Don't get in my way, Twer, or it will be the last of you." 

He turned and strode past. "You! Revered Parma! Did you know that, by convention, no 
Foundation missionaries may enter the Korellian territory?" 

The missionary was trembling, "I can but go where the Spirit leads, my son. If the darkened 
ones refuse enlightenment, is it not the greater sign of their need for it?" 



"That's outside the question, revered one. You are here against the law of both Korell and the 
Foundation. I cannot in law protect you." 

The missionary's hands were raised again. His earlier bewilderment was gone. There was the 
raucous clamor of the ship's outer communication system in action, and the faint, undulating 
gabble of the angry horde in response. The sound made his eyes wild. 

"You hear them? Why do you talk of law to me, of a law made by men? There are higher laws. 
Was it not the Galactic Spirit that said: Thou shalt not stand idly by to the hurl of thy fellowman. 
And has he not said: Even as thou dealest with the humble and defenseless, thus shalt thou be 
dealt with. 

"Have you not guns? Have you not a ship? And behind you is there not the Foundation? And 
above and all-about you is there not the Spirit that rules the universe?" He paused for breath. 

And then the great outer voice of the Far Star ceased and Lieutenant Tinter was back, troubled. 

"Speak!" said Mallow, shortly. 

"Sir, they demand the person of Jord Parma." 

"If not?" 

"There are various threats, sir. It is difficult to make much out. There are so many - and they 
seem quite mad. There is someone who says he governs the district and has police powers, 
but he is quite evidently not his own master." 

"Master or not," shrugged Mallow, "he is the law. Tell them that if this governor, or policeman, 
or whatever he is, approaches the ship alone, he can have the Revered Jord Parma." 

And there was suddenly a gun in his hand. He added, "I don't know what insubordination is. I 
have never had any experience with it. But if there's anyone here who thinks he can teach me, 
I'd like to teach him my antidote in return." 

The gun swiveled slowly, and rested on Twer. With an effort, the old trader's face untwisted and 
his hands unclenched and lowered. His breath was a harsh rasp in his nostrils. 

Tinter left, and in five minutes a puny figure detached itself from the crowd. It approached 
slowly and hesitantly, plainly drenched in fear and apprehension. Twice it turned back, and 
twice the patently obvious threats of the many-headed monster urged him on. 

"All right," Mallow gestured with the hand-blaster, which remained unsheathed. "Grun and 
Upshur, take him out." 

The missionary screeched. He raised his arms and rigid fingers speared upward as the 
voluminous sleeves fell away to reveal the thin, veined arms. There was a momentary, tiny 
flash of light that came and went in a breath. Mallow blinked and gestured again, 
contemptuously. 

The missionary's voice poured out as he struggled in the two-fold grasp, "Cursed be the traitor 
who abandons his fellowman to evil and to death. Deafened be the ears that are deaf to the 



pleadings of the helpless. Blind be the eyes that are blind to innocence. Blackened forever be 
the soul that consorts with blackness-" 

Twer clamped his hands tightly over his ears. 

Mallow flipped his blaster and put it away. "Disperse," he said, evenly, "to respective stations. 
Maintain full vigil for six hours after dispersion of crowd. Double stations for forty-eight hours 
thereafter. Further instructions at that time. Twer, come with me." 

They were alone in Mallow's private quarters. Mallow indicated a chair and Twer sat down. His 
stocky figure looked shrunken. 

Mallow stared him down, sardonically. "Twer," he said, "I'm disappointed. Your three years in 
politics seem to have gotten you out of trader habits. Remember, I may be a democrat back at 
the Foundation, but there's nothing short of tyranny that can run my ship the way I want it run. I 
never had to pull a blaster on my men before, and I wouldn't have had to now, if you hadn't 
gone out of line. 

"Twer, you have no official position, but you're here on my invitation, and I'll extend you every 
courtesy - in private. However, from now on, in the presence of my officers or men, I'm 'sir,' 
and not 'Mallow.' And when I give an order, you'll jump faster than a third-class recruit just for 
luck, or I'll have you handcuffed in the sub-level even faster. Understand?" 

The party-leader swallowed dryly. He said, reluctantly, "My apologies." 

"Accepted! Will you shake?" 

Twer's limp fingers were swallowed in Mallow's huge palm. Twer said, "My motives were good. 
It's difficult to send a man out to be lynched. That wobbly-kneed governor or whatever-he-was 
can't save him. It's murder." 

"I can't help that. Frankly, the incident smelled too bad. Didn't you notice?" 

"Notice what?" 

"This spaceport is deep in the middle of a sleepy far section. Suddenly a missionary escapes. 
Where from? He comes here. Coincidence? A huge crowd gathers. From where? The nearest 
city of any size must be at least a hundred miles away. But they arrive in half an hour. How?" 

"How?" echoed Twer. 

"Well, what if the missionary were brought here and released as bait. Our friend, Revered 
Parma, was considerably confused. He seemed at no time to be in complete possession of his 
wits." 

"Hard usage-" murmured Twer bitterly. 

"Maybe! And maybe the idea was to have us go all chivalrous and gallant, into a stupid defense 
of the man. He was here against the laws of Korell and the Foundation. If I withhold him, it is an 
act of war against Korell, and the Foundation would have no legal right to defend us." 

"That - that's pretty far-fetched." 



The speaker blared and forestalled Mallow's answer: "Sir, official communication received." 
"Submit immediately!" 

The gleaming cylinder arrived in its slot with a click. Mallow opened it and shook out the 
silver-impregnated sheet it held. He rubbed it appreciatively between thumb and finger and 
said, "Teleported direct from the capital. Commdor's own stationery." 

He read it in a glance and laughed shortly, "So my idea was far-fetched, was it?" 

He tossed it to Twer, and added, "Half an hour after we hand back the missionary, we finally 
get a very polite invitation to the Commdor's august presence - after seven days of previous 
waiting. / think we passed a test." 


5 . 

Commdor Asper was a man of the people, by self-acclamation. His remaining back-fringe of 
gray hair drooped limply to his shoulders, his shirt needed laundering, and he spoke with a 
snuffle. 

"There is no ostentation here, Trader Mallow," he said. "No false show. In me, you see merely 
the first citizen of the state. That's what Commdor means, and that's the only title I have." 

He seemed inordinately pleased with it all, "in fact, I consider that fact one of the strongest 
bonds between Korell and your nation. I understand you people enjoy the republican blessings 
we do." 

"Exactly, Commdor," said Mallow gravely, taking mental exception to the comparison, "an 
argument which I consider strongly in favor of continued peace and friendship between our 
governments." 

"Peace! Ah!" The Commdor's sparse gray beard twitched to the sentimental grimaces of his 
face. "I don't think there is anyone in the Periphery who has so near his heart the ideal of 
Peace, as I have. I can truthfully say that since I succeeded my illustrious father to the 
leadership of the state, the reign of Peace has never been broken. Perhaps I shouldn't say it" 
-he coughed gently- "but I have been told that my people, my fellow-citizens rather, know me 
as Asper, the Well-Beloved." 

Mallow's eyes wandered over the well-kept garden. Perhaps the tall men and the 
strangely-designed but openly-vicious weapons they carried just happened to be lurking in odd 
comers as a precaution against himself. That would be understandable. But the lofty, 
steel-girdered walls that circled the place had quite obviously been recently strengthened - an 
unfitting occupation for such a Well-Beloved Asper. 

He said, "It is fortunate that I have you to deal with then, Commdor. The despots and monarchs 
of surrounding worlds, which haven't the benefit of enlightened administration, often lack the 
qualities that would make a ruler well-beloved." 


Such as?" There was a cautious note in the Commdor's voice. 



"Such as a concern for the best interests of their people, You, on the other hand, would 
understand," 

The Commdor kept his eyes on the gravel path as they walked leisurely, His hands caressed 
each other behind his back. 

Mallow went on smoothly, "Up to now, trade between our two nations has suffered because of 
the restrictions placed upon our traders by your government. Surely, it has long been evident to 
you that unlimited trade-" 

"Free Trade!" mumbled the Commdor. 

"Free Trade, then. You must see that it would be of benefit to both of us. There are things you 
have that we want, and things we have that you want. It asks only an exchange to bring 
increased prosperity. An enlightened ruler such as yourself, a friend of the people - I might say, 
a member of the people - needs no elaboration on that theme. I won't insult your intelligence by 
offering any." 

"True! I have seen this. But what would you?" His voice was a plaintive whine. "Your people 
have always been so unreasonable. I am in favor of all the trade our economy can support, but 
not on your terms. I am not sole master here." His voice rose, "I am only the servant of public 
opinion. My people will not take commerce which carries with it a compulsory religion." 

Mallow drew himself up, "A compulsory religion?" 

"So it has always been in effect. Surely you remember the case of Askone twenty years ago. 
First they were sold some of your goods and then your people asked for complete freedom of 
missionary effort in order that the goods might be run properly; that Temples of Health be set 
up. There was then the establishment of religious schools; autonomous rights for all officers of 
the religion and with what result? Askone is now an integral member of the Foundation's 
system and the Grand Master cannot call his underwear his own. Oh, no! Oh, no! The dignity of 
an independent people could never suffer it." 

"None of what you speak is at all what I suggest," interposed Mallow. 

"No?" 

"No. I'm a Master Trader. Money is my religion. All this mysticism and hocus-pocus of the 
missionaries annoy me, and I'm glad you refuse to countenance it. It makes you more my type 
of man." 

The Commdor's laugh was high-pitched and jerky, "Well said! The Foundation should have 
sent a man of your caliber before this." 

He laid a friendly hand upon the trader's bulking shoulder, "But man, you have told me only 
half. You have told me what the catch is not. Now tell me what it is" 

"The only catch, Commdor, is that you're going to be burdened with an immense quantity of 
riches." 



"Indeed?" he snuffled. "But what could I want with riches? The true wealth is the love of one's 
people. I have that." 

"You can have both, for it is possible to gather gold with one hand and love with the other." 

"Now that, my young man, would be an interesting phenomenon, if it were possible. How would 
you go about it?" 

"Oh, in a number of ways. The difficulty is choosing among them. Let's see. Well, luxury items, 
for instance. This object here, now-" 

Mallow drew gently out of an inner pocket a flat, linked chain of polished metal. "This, for 
instance." 

"What is it?" 

"That's got to be demonstrated. Can you get a woman? Any young female will do. And a mirror, 
full length." 

"Hm-m-m. Let's get indoors, then." 

The Commdor referred to his dwelling place as a house. The populace undoubtedly would call 
it a palace. To Mallow's straightforward eyes, it looked uncommonly like a fortress, it was built 
on an eminence that overlooked the capital. Its walls were thick and reinforced. Its approaches 
were guarded, and its architecture was shaped for defense. Just the type of dwelling, Mallow 
thought sourly, for Asper, the Well-Beloved. 

A young girl was before them. She bent low to the Commdor, who said, "This is one of the 
Commdora's girls. Will she do?" 

"Perfectly!" 

The Commdor watched carefully while Mallow snapped the chain about the girl's waist, and 
stepped back. 

The Commdor snuffled, "Well. Is that all?" 

"Will you draw the curtain, Commdor. Young lady, there's a little knob just near the snap. Will 
you move it upward, please? Go ahead, it won't hurt you." 

The girl did so, drew a sharp breath, looked at her hands, and gasped, "Oh!" 

From her waist as a source she was drowned in a pale, streaming luminescence of shifting 
color that drew itself over her head in a flashing coronet of liquid fire. It was as if someone had 
tom the aurora borealis out of the sky and molded it into a cloak. 

The girl stepped to the mirror and stared, fascinated. 

"Here, take this." Mallow handed her a necklace of dull pebbles. "Put it around your neck." 

The girl did so, and each pebble, as it entered the luminescent field became an individual flame 
that leaped and sparkled in crimson and gold. 



"What do you think of it?" Mallow asked her. The girl didn't answer but there was adoration in 
her eyes. The Commdor gestured and reluctantly, she pushed the knob down, and the glory 
died. She left - with a memory. 

"It's yours, Commdor," said Mallow, "for the Commdora. Consider it a small gift from the 
Foundation." 

"Hm-m-m.' The Commdor turned the belt and necklace over in his hand as though calculating 
the weight. "How is it done?" 

Mallow shrugged, "That's a question for our technical experts. But it will work for you without - 
mark you, without- priestly help." 

"Well, it's only feminine frippery after all. What could you do with it? Where would the money 
come in?" 

"You have balls, receptions, banquets - that sort of thing?" 

"Oh, yes." 

"Do you realize what women will pay for that sort of jewelry? Ten thousand credits, at least." 
The Commdor seemed struck in a heap, "Ah!" 

"And since the power unit of this particular item will not last longer than six months, there will be 
the necessity of frequent replacements. Now we can sell as many of these as you want for the 
equivalent in wrought iron of one thousand credits. There's nine hundred percent profit for you." 

The Commdor plucked at his beard and seemed engaged in awesome mental calculations, 
"Galaxy, how they would fight for them. I'll keep the supply small and let them bid. Of course, it 
wouldn't do to let them know that I personally-" 

Mallow said, "We can explain the workings of dummy corporations, if you would like. -Then, 
working further at random, take our complete line of household gadgets. We have collapsible 
stoves that will roast the toughest meats to the desired tenderness in two minutes. We've got 
knives that won't require sharpening. We've got the equivalent of a complete laundry that can 
be packed in a small closet and will work entirely automatically. Ditto dish-washers. Ditto-ditto 
floor-scrubbers, furniture polishers, dust-precipitators, lighting fixtures - oh, anything you like. 
Think of your increased popularity, if you make them available to the public. Think of your 
increased quantity of, uh, worldly goods, if they're available as a government monopoly at nine 
hundred percent profit. It will be worth many times the money to them, and they needn't know 
what you pay for it. And, mind you, none of it will require priestly supervision. Everybody will be 
happy." 

"Except you, it seems. What do you get out of it?" 

"Just what every trader gets by Foundation law. My men and I will collect half of whatever 
profits we take in. Just you buy all I want to sell you, and we'll both make out quite well. Quite 
well." 


The Commdor was enjoying his thoughts, "What did you say you wanted to be paid with? Iron? 



"That, and coal, and bauxite. Also tobacco, pepper, magnesium, hardwood. Nothing you 
haven't got enough of." 

"It sounds well." 

"I think so. Oh, and still another item at random, Commdor. I could retool your factories." 

"Eh? How's that?" 

"Well, take your steel foundries. I have handy little gadgets that could do tricks with steel that 
would cut production costs to one percent of previous marks. You could cut prices by half, and 
still split extremely fat profits with the manufacturers. I tell you, I could show you exactly what I 
mean, if you allowed me a demonstration. Do you have a steel foundry in this city? It wouldn't 
take long." 

"It could be arranged, Trader Mallow. But tomorrow, tomorrow. Would you dine with us 
tonight?" 

"My men-" began Mallow. 

"Let them all come," said the Commdor, expansively. "A symbolic friendly union of our nations. 
It will give us a chance for further friendly discussion. But one thing," his face lengthened and 
grew stem, "none of your religion. Don't think that all this is an entering wedge for the 
missionaries." 

"Commdor," said Mallow, dryly, "I give you my word that religion would cut my profits." 

"Then that will do for now. You'll be escorted back to your ship." 


6 . 

The Commdora was much younger than her husband. Her face was pale and coldly formed 
and her black hair was drawn smoothly and tightly back. 

Her voice was tart. "You are quite finished, my gracious and noble husband? Quite, quite 
finished? I suppose I may even enter the garden if I wish, now." 

"There is no need for dramatics, Licia, my dear," said the Commdor, mildly. "The young man 
will attend at dinner tonight, and you can speak with him all you wish and even amuse yourself 
by listening to all I say. Room will have to be arranged for his men somewhere about the place. 
The stars grant that they be few in numbers." 

"Most likely they'll be great hogs of eaters who will eat meat by the quarter-animal and wine by 
the hogshead. And you will groan for two nights when you calculate the expense." 

"Well now, perhaps I won't. Despite your opinion, the dinner is to be on the most lavish scale." 

"Oh, I see." She stared at him contemptuously. "You are very friendly with these barbarians. 
Perhaps that is why I was not to be permitted to attend your conversation. Perhaps your little 



weazened soul is plotting to turn against my father." 

"Not at all." 

"Yes, I'd be likely to believe you, wouldn't I? If ever a poor woman was sacrificed for policy to 
an unsavory marriage, it was myself. I could have picked a more proper man from the alleys 
and mudheaps of my native world." 

"Well, now, I'll tell you what, my lady. Perhaps you would enjoy returning to your native world. 
Except that, to retain as a souvenir that portion of you with which I am best acquainted, I could 
have your tongue cut out first. And," he tolled his head, calculatingly, to one side, "as a final 
improving touch to your beauty, your ears and the tip of your nose as well." 

"You wouldn't dare, you little pug-dog. My father would pulverize your toy nation to meteoric 
dust. In fact, he might do it in any case, if I told him you were treating with these barbarians." 

"Hm-m-m. Well, there's no need for threats. You are free to question the man yourself tonight. 
Meanwhile, madam, keep your wagging tongue still." 

"At your orders?" 

"Here, take this, then, and keep still." 

The band was about her waist and the necklace around her neck. He pushed the knob himself 
and stepped back. 

The Commdora drew in her breath and held out her hands stiffly. She fingered the necklace 
gingerly, and gasped again. 

The Commdor rubbed his hands with satisfaction and said, "You may wear it tonight - and I'll 
get you more. Now keep still." 

The Commdora kept still. 


7 . 

Jaim Twer fidgeted and shuffled his feet. He said, "What's twisting yoi/rface?" 

Hober Mallow lifted out of his brooding, "Is my face twisted? It's not meant so." 

"Something must have happened yesterday, -I mean, besides that feast." With sudden 
conviction, "Mallow, there's trouble, isn't there?" 

"Trouble? No. Quite the opposite. In fact, I'm in the position of throwing my full weight against a 
door and finding it ajar at the time. We're getting into this steel foundry too easily." 

"You suspect a trap?" 

"Oh, for Seldon's sake, don't be melodramatic." Mallow swallowed his impatience and added 
conversationally, "It's just that the easy entrance means there will be nothing to see. 



"Nuclear power, huh?" Twer ruminated. "I'll tell you. There's just about no evidence of any 
nuclear power economy here in Korell. And it would be pretty hard to mask all signs of the 
widespread effects a fundamental technology such as nucleics would have on everything." 

"Not if it was just starting up, Twer, and being applied to a war economy. You'd find it in the 
shipyards and the steel foundries only." 

"So if we don't find it, then-" 

"Then they haven't got it - or they're not showing it. Toss a coin or take a guess." 

Twer shook his head, "I wish I'd been with you yesterday." 

"I wish you had, too," said Mallow stonily. "I have no objection to moral support. Unfortunately, 
it was the Commdor who set the terms of the meeting, and not myself. And what is coming now 
would seem to be the royal groundcar to escort us to the foundry. Have you got the gadgets?" 


"All of them." 


8 . 

The foundry was large, and bore the odor of decay which no amount of superficial repairs could 
quite erase. It was empty now and in quite an unnatural state of quiet, as it played 
unaccustomed host to the Commdor and his court. 

Mallow had swung the steel sheet onto the two supports with a careless heave. He had taken 
the instrument held out to him by Twer and was gripping the leather handle inside its leaden 
sheath. 

"The instrument," he said, "is dangerous, but so is a buzz saw. You just have to keep your 
fingers away." 

And as he spoke, he drew the muzzle-slit swiftly down the length of the steel sheet, which 
quietly and instantly fell in two. 

There was a unanimous jump, and Mallow laughed. He picked up one of the halves and 
propped it against his knee, "You can adjust the cutting-length accurately to a hundredth of an 
inch, and a two-inch sheet will slit down the middle as easily as this thing did. If you've got the 
thickness exactly judged, you can place steel on a wooden table, and split the metal without 
scratching the wood." 

And at each phrase, the nuclear shear moved and a gouged chunk of steel flew across the 
room. 

"That," he said, "is whittling - with steel." 

He passed back the shear. "Or else you have the plane. Do you want to decrease the thickness 
of a sheet, smooth out an irregularity, remove corrosion? Watch!" 



Thin, transparent foil flew off the other half of the original sheet in six-inch swarths, then 
eight-inch, then twelve. 

"Or drills? It's all the same principle." 

They were crowded around now. It might have been a sleight-of-hand show, a comer magician, 
a vaudeville act made into high-pressure salesmanship. Commdor Asper fingered scraps of 
steel. High officials of the government tiptoed over each other's shoulders, and whispered, 
while Mallow punched clean, beautiful round holes through an inch of hard steel at every touch 
of his nuclear drill. 

"Just one more demonstration. Bring two short lengths of pipe, somebody." 

An Honorable Chamberlain of something-or-other sprang to obedience in the general 
excitement and thought-absorption, and stained his hands like any laborer. 

Mallow stood them upright and shaved the ends off with a single stroke of the shear, and then 
joined the pipes, fresh cut to fresh cut. 

And there was a single pipe! The new ends, with even atomic irregularities missing, formed one 
piece upon joining. 

Then Mallow looked up at his audience, stumbled at his first word and stopped. There was the 
keen stirring of excitement in his chest, and the base of his stomach went tingly and cold. 

The Commdor's own bodyguard, in the confusion, had struggled to the front line, and Mallow, 
for the first time, was near enough to see their unfamiliar hand-weapons in detail. 

They were nuclear! There was no mistaking it; an explosive projectile weapon with a barrel like 
that was impossible. But that wasn't the big point. That wasn't the point at all. 

The butts of those weapons had, deeply etched upon them, in worn gold plating, the 
Spaceship-and-Sun! 

The same Spaceship-and-Sun that was stamped on every, one of the great volumes of the 
original Encyclopedia that the Foundation had begun and not yet finished. The same 
Spaceship-and-Sun that had blazoned the banner of the Galactic Empire through millennia. 

Mallow talked through and around his thoughts, "Test that pipe! It's one piece. Not perfect; 
naturally, the joining shouldn't be done by hand." 

There was no need of further legerdemain. It had gone over. Mallow was through. He had what 
he wanted. There was only one thing in his mind. The golden globe with its conventionalized 
rays, and the oblique cigar shape that was a space vessel. 

The Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire! 

The Empire! The words drilled! A century and a half had passed but there was still the-Empire, 
somewhere deeper in the Galaxy. And it was emerging again, out into the Periphery. 


Mallow smiled! 



9 . 


The Far Star was two days out in space, when Hober Mallow, in his private quarters with Senior 
Lieutenant Drawt, handed him an envelope, a roll of microfilm, and a silvery spheroid. 

"As of an hour from now, Lieutenant, you're Acting Captain of the Far Star, until I return, -or 
forever." 

Drawt made a motion of standing but Mallow waved him down imperiously. 

"Quiet, and listen. The envelope contains the exact location of the planet to which you're to 
proceed. There you will wait for me for two months. If, before the two months are up, the 
Foundation locates you, the microfilm is my report of the trip. 

"If, however," and his voice was somber, "I do not return at the end of two months, and 
Foundation vessels do not locate you, proceed to the planet, Terminus, and hand in the Time 
Capsule as the report. Do you understand that?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"At no time are you, or any of the men, to amplify in any single instance, my official report." 

"If we are questioned, sir?" 

"Then you know nothing." 

"Yes, sir." 

The interview ended, and fifty minutes later, a lifeboat kicked lightly off the side of the Far Star. 


10 . 

Onum Barr was an old man, too old to be afraid. Since the last disturbances, he had lived alone 
on the fringes of the land with what books he had saved from the ruins. Fie had nothing he 
feared losing, least of all the worn remnant of his life, and so he faced the intruder without 
cringing. 

"Your door was open," the stranger explained. 

His accent was clipped and harsh, and Barr did not fail to notice the strange blue-steel 
hand-weapon at his hip. In the half gloom of the small room, Barr saw the glow of a force-shield 
surrounding the man. 

He said, wearily, "There is no reason to keep it closed. Do you wish anything of me?" 

"Yes." The stranger remained standing in the center of the room. He was large, both in height 
and bulk. "Yours is the only house about here." 

"It is a desolate place," agreed Barr, "but there is a town to the east. I can show you the way'." 



"In awhile. May I sit?" 

"If the chairs will hold you," said the old man, gravely. They were old, too. Relics of a better 
youth. 

The stranger said, "My name is Hober Mallow. I come from a far province." 

Barr nodded and smiled, "Your tongue convicted you of that long ago. I am Onum Barr of 
Siwenna - and once Patrician of the Empire." 

"Then this is Siwenna. I had only old maps to guide me." 

"They would have to be old, indeed, for star-positions to be misplaced." 

Barr sat quite still, while the other's eyes drifted away into a reverie. He noticed that the nuclear 
force-shield had vanished from about the man and admitted dryly to himself that his person no 
longer seemed formidable to strangers - or even, for good or for evil, to his enemies. 

He said, "My house is poor and my resources few. You may share what I have if your stomach 
can endure black bread and dried corn." 

Mallow shook his head, "No, I have eaten, and I can't stay. All I need are the directions to the 
center of government." 

"That is easily enough done, and poor though I am, deprives me of nothing. Do you mean the 
capital of the planet, or of the Imperial Sector?" 

The younger man's eyes narrowed, "Aren't the two identical? Isn't this Siwenna?" 

The old patrician nodded slowly, "Siwenna, yes. But Siwenna is no longer capital of the 
Normannic Sector. Your old map has misled you after all. The stars may not change even in 
centuries, but political boundaries are all too fluid." 

"That's too bad. In fact, that's very bad. Is the new capital far off?" 

"It's on Orsha II. Twenty parsecs off. Your map will direct you. How old is it?" 

"A hundred and fifty years." 

"That old?" The old man sighed. "History has been crowded since. Do you know any of it?" 
Mallow shook his bead slowly. 

Barr said, "You're fortunate. It has been an evil time for the provinces, but for the reign of 
Stannell VI, and he died fifty years ago. Since that time, rebellion and ruin, ruin and rebellion." 
Barr wondered if he were growing garrulous. It was a lonely life out here, and he had so little 
chance to talk to men. 

Mallow said with sudden sharpness, "Ruin, eh? You sound as if the province were 
impoverished." 

"Perhaps not on an absolute scale. The physical resources of twenty-five first-rank planets take 



a long time to use up. Compared to the wealth of the last century, though, we have gone a long 
way downhill - and there is no sign of turning, not yet. Why are you so interested in all this, 
young man? You are all alive and your eyes shine!" 

The trader came near enough to blushing, as the faded eyes seemed to look too deep into his 
and smile at what they saw. 

He said, "Now look here. I'm a trader out there - out toward the rim of the Galaxy. I've located 
some old maps, and I'm out to open new markets. Naturally, talk of impoverished provinces 
disturbs me. You can't get money out of a world unless money's there to be got. Now how's 
Siwenna, for instance?" 

The old man leaned forward, "I cannot say. It will do even yet, perhaps. But you a trader? You 
look more like a fighting man. You hold your hand near your gun and there is a scar on your 
jawbone." 

Mallow jerked his head, "There isn't much law out there where I come from. Fighting and scars 
are part of a trader's overhead. But fighting is only useful when there's money at the end, and if 
I can get it without, so much the sweeter. Now will I find enough money here to make it worth 
the fighting? I take it I can find the fighting easily enough." 

"Easily enough," agreed Barr. "You could join Wiscard's remnants in the Red Stars. I don't 
know, though, if you'd call that fighting or piracy. Or you could join our present gracious viceroy 
- gracious by right of murder, pillage, rapine, and the word of a boy Emperor, since rightfully 
assassinated." The patrician's thin cheeks reddened. His eyes closed and then opened, 
bird-bright. 

"You don't sound very friendly to the viceroy, Patrician Barr," said Mallow. "What if I'm one of 
his spies?" 

"What if you are?" said Barr, bitterly. "What can you take?" He gestured a withered arm at the 
bare interior of the decaying mansion. 

"Your life." 

"It would leave me easily enough. It has been with me five years too long. But you are not one 
of the viceroy's men. If you were, perhaps even now instinctive self-preservation would keep 
my mouth closed." 

"How do you know?" 

The old man laughed, "You seem suspicious - Come, I'll wager you think I'm trying to trap you 
into denouncing the government. No, no. I am past politics." 

"Past politics? Is a man ever past that? The words you used to describe the viceroy - what 
were they? Murder, pillage, all that. You didn't sound objective. Not exactly. Not as if you were 
past politics." 

The old man shrugged, "Memories sting when they come suddenly. Listen! Judge for yourself! 
When Siwenna was the provincial capital, I was a patrician and a member of the provincial 



senate. My family was an old and honored one. One of my great-grandfathers had been- No, 
never mind that. Past glories are poor feeding." 

"I take it," said Mallow, "there was a civil war, or a revolution." 

Barr's face darkened. "Civil wars are chronic in these degenerate days, but Siwenna had kept 
apart. Under Stannell VI, it had almost achieved its ancient prosperity. But weak emperors 
followed, and weak emperors mean strong viceroys, and our last viceroy - the same Wiscard, 
whose remnants still prey on the commerce among the Red Stars - aimed at the Imperial 
Purple. He wasn't the first to aim. And if he had succeeded, he wouldn't have been the first to 
succeed. 

"But he failed. For when the Emperor's Admiral approached the province at the head of a fleet, 
Siwenna itself rebelled against its rebel viceroy." He stopped, sadly. 

Mallow found himself tense on the edge of his seat, and relaxed slowly, "Please continue, sir." 

"Thank you," said Barr, wearily. "It's kind of you to humor an old man. They rebelled; or I should 
say, we rebelled, for I was one of the minor leaders. Wiscard left Siwenna, barely ahead of us, 
and the planet, and with it the province, were thrown open to the admiral with every gesture of 
loyalty to the Emperor. Why we did this, -I'm not sure. Maybe we felt loyal to the symbol, if not 
the person, of the Emperor, -a cruel and vicious child. Maybe we feared the horrors of a siege." 

"Well?" urged Mallow, gently. 

"Well, came the grim retort, "that didn't suit the admiral. He wanted the glory of conquering a 
rebellious province and his men wanted the loot such conquest would involve. So while the 
people were still gathered in every large city, cheering the Emperor and his admiral, he 
occupied all armed centers, and then ordered the population put to the nuclear blast." 

"On what pretext?" 

"On the pretext that they had rebelled against their viceroy, the Emperor's anointed. And the 
admiral became the new viceroy, by virtue of one month of massacre, pillage and complete 
horror. I had six sons. Five died - variously. I had a daughter. I hope she died, eventually. / 
escaped because I was old. I came here, too old to cause even our viceroy worry." He bent his 
gray head, "They left me nothing, because I had helped drive out a rebellious governor and 
deprived an admiral of his glory." 

Mallow sat silent, and waited. Then, "What of your sixth son?" he asked softly. 

"Eh?" Barr smiled acidly. "He is safe, for he has joined the admiral as a common soldier under 
an assumed name. He is a gunner in the viceroy's personal fleet. Oh, no, I see your eyes. He is 
not an unnatural son. He visits me when he can and gives me what he can. He keeps me alive. 
And some day, our great and glorious viceroy will grovel to his death, and it will be my son who 
will be his executioner." 

"And you tell this to a stranger? You endanger your son." 

"No. I help him, by introducing a new enemy. And were I a friend of the viceroy, as I am his 



enemy, I would tell him to string outer space with ships, clear to the rim of the Galaxy." 

"There are no ships there?" 

"Did you find any? Did any space-guards question your entry? With ships few enough, and the 
bordering provinces filled with their share of intrigue and iniquity, none can be spared to guard 
the barbarian outer suns. No danger ever threatened us from the broken edge of the Galaxy, 
-until you came." 

"I? I'm no danger." 

"There will be more after you." 

Mallow shook his head slowly, "I'm not sure I understand you." 

"Listen!" There was a feverish edge to the old man's voice. "I knew you when you entered. You 
have a force-shield about your body, or had when I first saw you." 

Doubtful silence, then, "Yes, -I had." 

"Good. That was a flaw, but you didn't know that. There are some things I know. It's out of 
fashion in these decaying times to be a scholar. Events race and flash past and who cannot 
fight the tide with nuclear-blast in hand is swept away, as I was. But I was a scholar, and I know 
that in all the history of nucleics, no portable force-shield was ever invented. We have 
force-shields - huge, lumbering powerhouses that will protect a city, or even a ship, but not 
one, single man." 

"Ah?" Mallow's underlip thrust out. "And what do you deduce from that?" 

"There have been stories percolating through space. They travel strange paths and become 
distorted with every parsec, -but when I was young there was a small ship of strange men, who 
did not know our customs and could not tell where they came from. They talked of magicians at 
the edge of the Galaxy; magicians who glowed in the darkness, who flew unaided through the 
air, and whom weapons would not touch. 

"We laughed. I laughed, too. I forgot it till today. But you glow in the darkness, and I don't think 
my blaster, if I had one, would hurt you. Tell me, can you fly through air as you sit there now?" 

Mallow said calmly, "I can make nothing of all this." 

Barr smiled, "I'm content with the answer. I do not examine my guests. But if there are 
magicians; if you are one of them; there may some day be a great influx of them, or you. 
Perhaps that would be well. Maybe we need new blood." He muttered soundlessly to himself, 
then, slowly, "But it works the other way, too. Our new viceroy also dreams, as did our old 
Wiscard." 

"Also after the Emperor's crown?" 

Barr nodded, "My son hears tales. In the viceroy's personal entourage, one could scarcely help 
it. And he tells me of them. Our new viceroy would not refuse the Crown if offered, but he 
guards his line of retreat. There are stories that, failing Imperial heights, he plans to carve out a 



new Empire in the Barbarian hinterland. It is said, but I don't vouch for this, that he has already 
given one of his daughters as wife to a Kinglet somewhere in the uncharted Periphery." 

"If one listened to every story-" 

"I know. There are many more. I'm old and I babble nonsense. But what do you say?" And 
those sharp, old eyes peered deep. 

The trader considered, "I say nothing. But I'd like to ask something. Does Siwenna have 
nuclear power? Now, wait, I know that it possesses the knowledge of nucleics. I mean, do they 
have power generators intact, or did the recent sack destroy them?" 

"Destroy them? Oh, no. Half a planet would be wiped out before the smallest power station 
would be touched. They are irreplaceable and the suppliers of the strength of the fleet." Almost 
proudly, "We have the largest and best on this side of Trantor itself." 

"Then what would I do first if I wanted to see these generators?" 

"Nothing!" replied Barr, decisively. "You couldn't approach any military center without being 
shot down instantly. Neither could anyone. Siwenna is still deprived of civic rights." 

"You mean all the power stations are under the military?" 

"No. There are the small city stations, the ones supplying power for heating and lighting homes, 
powering vehicles and so forth. Those are almost as bad. They're controlled by the tech-men." 

"Who are they?" 

"A specialized group which supervises the power plants. The honor is hereditary, the young 
ones being brought up in the profession as apprentices. Strict sense of duty, honor, and all that. 
No one but a tech-man could enter a station." 

"I see." 

"I don't say, though," added Barr, "that there aren't cases where tech-men haven't been bribed. 
In days when we have nine emperors in fifty years and seven of these are assassinated, -when 
every space-captain aspires to the usurpation of a viceroyship, and every viceroy to the 
Imperium, 

I suppose even a tech-man can fall prey to money. But it would require a good deal, and I have 
none. Have you?" 

"Money? No. But does one always bribe with money?" 

"What else, when money buys all else." 

"There is quite enough that money won't buy. And now if you'll tell me the nearest city with one 
of the stations, and how best to get there, I'll thank you." 

"Wait!" Barr held out his thin hands. "Where do you rush? You come here, but / ask no 
questions. In the city, where the inhabitants are still called rebels, you would be challenged by 
the first soldier or guard who heard your accent and saw your clothes." 



He rose and from an obscure comer of an old chest brought out a booklet. "My passport, 
-forged. I escaped with it." 

He placed it in Mallow's hand and folded the fingers over it. "The description doesn't fit, but if 
you flourish it, the chances are many to one they will not look closely." 

"But you. You'll be left without one." 

The old exile shrugged cynically, "What of it? And a further caution. Curb your tongue! Your 
accent is barbarous, your idioms peculiar, and every once in a while you deliver yourself of the 
most astounding archaisms. The less you speak, the less suspicion you will draw upon 
yourself. Now I'll tell you how to get to the city-" 

Five minutes later, Mallow was gone. 

He returned but once, for a moment, to the old patrician's house, before leaving it entirely, 
however. And when Onum Barr stepped into his little garden early the next morning, he found a 
box at his feet. It contained provisions, concentrated provisions such as one would find aboard 
ship, and alien in taste and preparation. 

But they were good, and lasted long. 


11 . 

The tech-man was short, and his skin glistened with well-kept plumpness. His hair was a fringe 
and his skull shone through pinkly. The rings on his fingers were thick and heavy, his clothes 
were scented, and he was the first man Mallow had met on the planet who hadn't looked 
hungry. 

The tech-man's lips pursed peevishly, "Now, my man, quickly. I have things of great importance 
waiting for me. You seem a stranger-" He seemed to evaluate Mallow's definitely 
un-Siwennese costume and his eyelids were heavy with suspicion. 

"I am not of the neighborhood," said Mallow, calmly, "but the matter is irrelevant. I have had the 
honor to send you a little gift yesterday-" 

The tech-man's nose lifted, "I received it. An interesting gewgaw. I may have use for it on 
occasion." 

"I have other and more interesting gifts. Quite out of the gewgaw stage." 

"Oh-h?" The tech-man's voice lingered thoughtfully over the monosyllable. "I think I already see 
the course of the interview; it has happened before. You are going to give me some trifle or 
other. A few credits, perhaps a cloak, second-rate jewelry; anything your little soul may think 
sufficient to corrupt a tech-man." His lower lip puffed out belligerently, "And I know what you 
wish in exchange. There have been others and to spare with the same bright idea. You wish to 
be adopted into our clan. You wish to be taught the mysteries of nucleics and the care of the 



machines. You think because you dogs of Siwenna - and probably your strangerhood is 
assumed for safety's sake - are being daily punished for your rebellion that you can escape 
what you deserve by throwing over yourselves the privileges and protections of the tech-man's 
guild." 

Mallow would have spoken, but the tech-man raised himself into a sudden roar. "And now leave 
before I report your name to the Protector of the City. Do you think that I would betray the trust? 
The Siwennese traitors that preceded me would have - perhaps! But you deal with a different 
breed now. Why, Galaxy, I marvel that I do not kill you myself at this moment with my bare 
hands." 

Mallow smiled to himself. The entire speech was patently artificial in tone and content, so that 
all the dignified indignation degenerated into uninspired farce. 

The trader glanced humorously at the two flabby hands that had been named as his possible 
executioners then and there, and said, "Your Wisdom, you are wrong on three counts. First, I 
am not a creature of the viceroy come to test your loyalty. Second, my gift is something the 
Emperor himself in all his splendor does not and will never possess. Third, what I wish in return 
is very little; a nothing; a mere breath." 

"So you say!" He descended into heavy sarcasm. "Come, what is this imperial donation that 
your godlike power wishes to bestow upon me? Something the Emperor doesn't have, eh?" He 
broke into a sharp squawk of derision. 

Mallow rose and pushed the chair aside, "I have waited three days to see you, Your Wisdom, 
but the display will take only three seconds. If you will just draw that blaster whose butt I see 
very near your hand-" 

"Eh?" 

"And shoot me, I will be obliged." 

"What?” 

"If I am killed, you can tell the police I tried to bribe you into betraying guild secrets. You'll 
receive high praise. If I am not killed, you may have my shield." 

For the first time, the tech-man became aware of the dimly-white illumination that hovered 
closely about his visitor, as though he had been dipped in pearl-dust. His blaster raised to the 
level and with eyes a-squint in wonder and suspicion, he closed contact. 

The molecules of air caught in the sudden surge of atomic disruption, tore into glowing, burning 
ions, and marked out the blinding thin line that struck at Mallow's heart - and splashed! 

While Mallow's look of patience never changed, the nuclear forces that tore at him consumed 
themselves against that fragile, pearly illumination, and crashed back to die in mid-air. 

The tech-man's blaster dropped to the floor with an unnoticed crash. 

Mallow said, "Does the Emperor have a personal force-shield? You can have one." 



The tech-man stuttered, "Are you a tech-man?" 

"No." 

"Then - then where did you get that?" 

"What do you care?" Mallow was coolly contemptuous. "Do you want it?" A thin, knobbed chain 
fell upon the desk, "There it is." 

The tech-man snatched it up and fingered it nervously, "Is this complete?" 

"Complete." 

"Where's the power?" 

Mallow's finger fell upon the largest knob, dull in its leaden case. 

The tech-man looked up, and his face was congested with blood, "Sir, I am a tech-man, senior 
grade. I have twenty years behind me as supervisor and I studied under the great Bier at the 
University of Trantor. If you have the infernal charlatanry to tell me that a small container the 
size of a - of a walnut, blast it, holds a nuclear generator, I'll have you before the Protector in 
three seconds." 

"Explain it yourself then, if you can. I say it's complete." 

The tech-man's flush faded slowly as he bound the chain about his waist, and, following 
Mallow's gesture, pushed the knob. The radiance that surrounded him shone into dim relief. His 
blaster lifted, then hesitated. Slowly, he adjusted it to an almost burnless minimum. 

And then, convulsively, he closed circuit and the nuclear fire dashed against his hand, 
harmlessly. 

.He whirled, "And what if I shoot you now, and keep the shield." 

"Try!" said Mallow. "Do you think I gave you my only sample?" And he, too, was solidly incased 
in light. 

The tech-man giggled nervously. The blaster clattered onto the desk. He said, "And what is this 
mere nothing, this breath, that you wish in return'?" 

"I want to see your generators." 

"You realize that that is forbidden. It would mean ejection into space for both of us-" 

"I don't want to touch them or have anything to do with them. I want to see them - from a 
distance." 

"If not?" 

"If not, you have your shield, but I have other things. For one thing, a blaster especially 
designed to pierce that shield." 

"Hm-m-m." The tech-man's eyes shifted. "Come with me." 



12 . 


The tech-man's home was a small two-story affair on the Outskirts of the huge, cubiform, 
windowless affair that dominated the center of the city. Mallow passed from one to the other 
through an underground passage, and found himself in the silent, ozone-tinged atmosphere of 
the powerhouse. 

For fifteen minutes, he followed his guide and said nothing. His eyes missed nothing. His 
fingers touched nothing. And then, the tech-man said in strangled tones, "Have you had 
enough? I couldn't trust my underlings in this case." 

"Could you ever?" asked Mallow, ironically. "I've had enough." 

They were back in the office and Mallow said, thoughtfully, "And all those generators are in 
your hands?" 

"Every one," said the tech-man, with more than a touch of complacency. 

"And you keep them running and in order?" 

"Right!" 

"And if they break down?" 

The tech-man shook his head indignantly, "They don't break down. They never break down. 
They were built for eternity." 

"Eternity is a long time. Just suppose-" 

"It is unscientific to suppose meaningless cases." 

"All right. Suppose I were to blast a vital part into nothingness? I suppose the machines aren't 
immune to nuclear forces? Suppose I fuse a vital connection, or smash a quartz D-tube?" 

"Well, then," shouted the tech-man, furiously, "you would be killed." 

"Yes, I know that," Mallow was shouting, too, "but what about the generator? Could you repair 
it?" 

"Sir," the tech-man howled his words, "you have had a fair return. You've had what you asked 
for. Now get out! I owe you nothing more!" 

Mallow bowed with a satiric respect and left. 

Two days later he was back where the Far Star waited to return with him to the planet, 
Terminus. 

And two days later, the tech-man's shield went dead, and for all his puzzling and cursing never 
glowed again. 



13 . 


Mallow relaxed for almost the first time in six months. He was on his back in the sunroom of his 
new house, stripped to the skin. His great, brown arms were thrown up and out, and the 
muscles tautened into a stretch, then faded into repose. 

The man beside him placed a cigar between Mallow's teeth and lit it. He champed on one of his 
own and said, "You must be overworked. Maybe you need a long rest." 

"Maybe I do, Jael, but I'd rather rest in a council seat. Because I'm going to have that seat, and 
you're going to help me." 

Ankor Jael raised his eyebrows and said, "How did I get into this?" 

"You got in obviously. Firstly, you're an old dog of a politico. Secondly, you were booted out of 
your cabinet seat by Jorane Sutt, the same fellow who'd rather lose an eyeball than see me in 
the council. You don't think much of my chances, do you?" 

"Not much," agreed the ex-Minister of Education. "You're a Smyrnian." 

"That's no legal bar. I've had a lay education." 

"Well, come now. Since when does prejudice follow any law but its own. Now, how about your 
own man - this Jaim Twer? What does he say?" 

"He spoke about running me for council almost a year ago," replied Mallow easily, "but I've 
outgrown him. He couldn't have pulled it off in any case. Not enough depth. He's loud and 
forceful - but that's only an expression of nuisance value. I'm off to put over a real coup. I need 
you." 

"Jorane Sutt is the cleverest politician on the planet and he'll be against you. I don't claim to be 
able to outsmart him. And don't think he doesn't fight hard, and dirty." 

"I've got money." 

"Mat helps. But it takes a lot to buy off prejudice, you dirty Smyrnian." 

"I'll have a lot." 

"Well, I'll look into the matter. But don't ever you crawl up on your hind legs and bleat that I 
encouraged you in the matter. Who's that?" 

Mallow pulled the corners of his mouth down, and said, "Jorane Sutt himself, I think. He's early, 
and I can understand it. I’ve been dodging him for a month. Look, Jael, get into the next room, 
and turn the speaker on low. I want you to listen." 

He helped the council member out of the room with a shove of his bare foot, then scrambled up 
and into a silk robe. The synthetic sunlight faded to normal power. 

The secretary to the mayor entered stiffly, while the solemn major-domo tiptoed the door shut 
behind him. 



Mallow fastened his belt and said, "Take your choice of chairs, Sutt." 

Sutt barely cracked a flickering smile. The chair he chose was comfortable but he did not relax 
into it. From its edge, he said, "If you'll state your terms to begin with, we'll get down to 
business." 

"What terms?" 

"You wish to be coaxed? Well, then, what, for instance, did you do at Korell? Your report was 
incomplete." 

"I gave it to you months ago. You were satisfied then." 

Yes," Sutt rubbed his forehead thoughtfully with one finger, "but since then your activities have 
been significant. We know a good deal of what you're doing, Mallow. We know, exactly, how 
many factories you're putting up; in what a hurry you're doing it; and how much it's costing you. 
And there's this palace you have," he gazed about him with a cold lack of appreciation, "which 
set you back considerably more than my annual salary; and a swathe you've been cutting - a 
very considerable and expensive swathe - through the upper layers of Foundation society." 

"So? Beyond proving that you employ capable spies, what does it show?" 

"It shows you have money you didn't have a year ago. And that can show anything - for 
instance, that a good deal went on at Korell that we know nothing of. Where are you getting 
your money?" 

"My dear Sutt, you can't really expect me to tell you." 

"I don't." 

"I didn't think you did. That's why I'm going to tell you. It's straight from the treasure-chests of 
the Commdor of Korell." 

Sutt blinked. 

Mallow smiled and continued. "Unfortunately for you, the money is quite legitimate. I'm a Master 
Trader and the money I received was a quantity of wrought iron and chromite in exchange for a 
number of trinkets I was able to supply him with. Fifty per cent of the profit is mine by 
hidebound contract with the Foundation. The other half goes to the government at the end of 
the year when all good citizens pay their income tax." 

"There was no mention of any trade agreement in your report." 

"Nor was there any mention of what I had for breakfast that day, or the name of my current 
mistress, or any other irrelevant detail." Mallow's smile was fading into a sneer. "I was sent - to 
quote yourself - to keep my eyes open. They were never, shut. You wanted to find out what 
happened to the captured Foundation merchant ships. I never saw or heard of them. You 
wanted to find out if Korell had nuclear power. My report tells of nuclear blasters in the 
possession of the Commdor's private bodyguard. I saw no other signs. And the blasters I did 
see are relics of the old Empire, and may be show-pieces that do not work, for all my 
knowledge. 



"So far, I followed orders, but beyond that I was, and. still am, a free agent. According to the 
laws of the Foundation, a Master Trader may open whatever new markets he can, and receive 
therefrom his due half of the profits. What are your objections? I don't see them." 

Sutt bent his eyes carefully towards the wall and spoke with a difficult lack of anger, "It is the 
general custom of all traders to advance the religion with their trade." 

"I adhere to law, and not to custom." 

"There are times when custom can be the higher law." 

"Then appeal to the courts." 

Sutt raised somber eyes which seemed to retreat into their sockets. "You're a Smyrnian after 
all. It seems naturalization and education can't wipe out the taint in the blood. Listen, and try to 
understand, just the same. 

"This goes beyond money, or markets. We have the science of the great Hari Seldon to prove 
that upon us depends the future empire of the Galaxy, and from the course that leads to that 
Imperium we cannot turn. The religion we have is our all-important instrument towards that end. 
With it we have brought the Four Kingdoms under our control, even at the moment when they 
would have crushed us. It is the most potent device known with which to control men and 
worlds. 

"The primary reason for the development of trade and traders was to introduce and spread this 
religion more quickly, and to insure that the introduction of new techniques and a new economy 
would be subject to our thorough and intimate control." 

Fie paused for breath, and Mallow interjected quietly, "I know the theory. I understand it 
entirely." 

"Do you? It is more than I expected. Then you see, of course, that your attempt at trade for its 
own sake; at mass production of worthless gadgets, which can only affect a world's economy 
superficially; at the subversion of interstellar policy to the god of profits; at the divorce of 
nuclear power from our controlling religion - can only end with the overthrow and complete 
negation of the policy that has worked successfully for a century." 

"And time enough, too," said Mallow, indifferently, "for a policy outdated, dangerous and 
impossible. Flowever well your religion has succeeded in the Four Kingdoms, scarcely another 
world in the Periphery has accepted it. At the time we seized control of the Kingdoms, there 
were a sufficient number of exiles, Galaxy knows, to spread the story of how Salvor Hardin 
used the priesthood and the superstition of the people to overthrow the independence and 
power of the secular monarchs. And if that wasn't enough, the case of Askone two decades 
back made it plain enough. There isn't a ruler in the Periphery now that wouldn't sooner cut his 
own throat than let a priest of the Foundation enter the territory. 

"I don't propose to force Korell or any other world to accept something I know they don't want. 
No, Sutt. If nuclear power makes them dangerous, a sincere friendship through trade will be 
many times better than an insecure overlordship, based on the hated supremacy of a foreign 



spiritual power, which, once it weakens ever so slightly, can only fall entirely and leave nothing 
substantial behind except an immortal fear and hate." 

Suit said cynically, "Very nicely put. So, to get back to the original point of discussion, what are 
your terms? What do you require to exchange your ideas for mine?" 

"You think my convictions are for sale?" 

"Why not?" came the cold response. "Isn't that your business, buying and selling?" 

"Only at a profit," said Mallow, unoffended. "Can you offer me more than I'm getting as is?" 
"You could have three-quarters of your trade profits, rather than half." 

Mallow laughed shortly, "A fine offer. The whole of the trade on your terms would fall far below 
- a tenth share on mine. Try harder than that." 

"You could have a council seat." 

"I'll have that anyway, without and despite you." 

With a sudden movement, Sutt clenched his fist, "You could also save yourself a prison term. 
Of twenty years, if I have my way. Count the profit in that." 

"No profit at all, but can you fulfill such a threat?" 

"How about a trial for murder?" 

"Whose murder?" asked Mallow, contemptuously. 

Sutt's voice was harsh now, though no louder than before, "The murder of an Anacreonian 
priest, in the service of the Foundation." 

"Is that so now? And what's your evidence?" 

The secretary to the mayor leaned forward, "Mallow, I'm not bluffing. The preliminaries are 
over. I have only to sign one final paper and the case of the Foundation versus Hober Mallow, 
Master Trader, is begun. You abandoned a subject of the Foundation to torture and death at 
the hands of an alien mob, Mallow, and you have only five seconds to prevent the punishment 
due you. For myself, I'd rather you decided to bluff it out. You'd be safer as a destroyed enemy, 
than as a doubtfully-converted friend." 

Mallow said solemnly, "You have your wish." 

"Good!" and the secretary smiled savagely. "It was the mayor who wished the preliminary 
attempt at compromise, not I. Witness that I did not try too hard." 

The door opened before him, and he left. 

Mallow looked up as Ankor Jael re-entered the room. 

Mallow said, "Did you hear him?" 



The politician flopped to the floor. "I never heard him as angry as that, since I've known the 
snake." 

"All right. What do you make of it?" 

"Well, I'll tell you. A foreign policy of domination through spiritual means is his idee fixe, but it's 
my notion that his ultimate aims aren't spiritual. I was fired out of the Cabinet for arguing on the 
same issue, as I needn't tell you." 

"You needn't. And what are those unspiritual aims according to your notion?" 

Jael grew serious, "Well, he's not stupid, so he must see the bankruptcy of our religious policy, 
which has hardly made a single conquest for us in seventy years. He's obviously using it for 
purposes of his own. 

"Now any dogma primarily based on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on 
others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the 
user. For a hundred years now, we've supported a ritual and mythology that is becoming more 
and more venerable, traditional - and immovable. In some ways, it isn't under our control any 
more." 

"In what ways?" demanded Mallow. "Don't stop. I want your thoughts." 

"Well, suppose one man, one ambitious man, uses the force of religion against us, rather than 
for us." 

"You mean Sutt-" 

"You're right. I mean Sutt. Listen, man, if he could mobilize the various hierarchies on the 
subject planets against the Foundation in the name of orthodoxy, what chance would we 
stand? By planting himself at the head of the standards of the pious, he could make war on 
heresy, as represented by you, for instance, and make himself king eventually. After all, it was 
Hardin who said: 'A nuclear blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.'" 

Mallow slapped his bare thigh, "All right, Jael, then get me in that council, and I'll fight him." 

Jael paused, then said significantly, "Maybe not. What was all that about having a priest 
lynched? Is isn't true, is it?" 

"It's true enough," Mallow said, carelessly. 

Jael whistled, "Has he definite proof?" 

"He should have." Mallow hesitated, then added, "Jaim Twer was his man from the beginning, 
though neither of them knew that I knew that. And Jaim Twer was an eyewitness." 

Jael shook his head. "Uh-uh. That's bad." 

"Bad? What's bad about it? That priest was illegally upon the planet by the Foundation's own 
laws. He was obviously used by the Korellian government as a bait, whether involuntary or not. 
By all the laws of common-sense, I had no choice but one action - and that action was strictly 



within the law. If he brings me to trial, he'll do nothing but make a prime fool of himself." 

And Jael shook his head again, "No, Mallow, you've missed it. I told you he played dirty. He's 
not out to convict you; he knows he can't do that. But he is out to ruin your standing with the 
people. You heard what he said. Custom is higher than law, at times. You could walk out of the 
trial scot-free, but if the people think you threw a priest to the dogs, your popularity is gone. 

"They'll admit you did the legal thing, even the sensible thing. But just the same you'll have 
been, in their eyes, a cowardly dog, an unfeeling brute, a hard-hearted monster. And you would 
never get elected to the council. You might even lose your rating as Master Trader by having 
your citizenship voted away from you. You're not native born, you know. What more do you 
think Sutt can want?" Mallow frowned stubbornly, "So!" "My boy," said Jael. "I'll stand by you, 
but / can't help. You're on the spot, -dead center." 


14 . 

The council chamber was full in a very literal sense on the fourth day of the trial of Hober 
Mallow, Master Trader. The only councilman absent was feebly cursing the fractured skull that 
had bedridden him. The galleries were filled to the aisleways and ceilings with those few of the 
crowd who by influence, wealth, or sheer diabolic perseverance had managed to get in. The 
rest filled the square outside, in swarming knots about the open-air trimensional 'visors. 

Ankor Jael made his way into the chamber with the near-futile aid and exertions of the police 
department, and then through the scarcely smaller confusion within to Hober Mallow's seat. 

Mallow turned with relief, "By Seldon, you cut it thin. Have you got it?" 

"Here, take it," said Jael. "It's everything you asked for." 

"Good. How are they taking it outside?" 

"They're wild clear through." Jael stirred uneasily, "You should never have allowed public 
hearings. You could have stopped them." 

"I didn't want to." 

"There's lynch talk. And Publis Manlio's men on the outer planets-" 

"I wanted to ask you about that, Jael. He's stirring up the Hierarchy against me, is he?" 

"Is he? It's the sweetest setup you ever saw, As Foreign Secretary, he handles the prosecution 
in a case of interstellar law. As High Priest and Primate of the Church, he rouses the fanatic 
hordes-" 

"Well, forget it. Do you remember that Hardin quotation you threw at me last month? We'll show 
them that the nuclear blaster can point both ways." 

The mayor was taking his seat now and the council members were rising in respect. 

Mallow whispered, "It's my turn today. Sit here and watch the fun." 



The day's proceedings began and fifteen minutes later, Hober Mallow stepped through a hostile 
whisper to the empty space before the mayor's bench. A lone beam of light centered upon him 
and in the public 'visors of the city, as well as on the myriads of private 'visors in almost every 
home of the Foundation's planets, the lonely giant figure of a man stared out defiantly. 

He began easily and quietly, "To save time, I will admit the truth of every point made against 
me by the prosecution. The story of the priest and the mob as related by them is perfectly 
accurate in every detail." 

There was a stirring in the chamber and a triumphant mass-snarl from the gallery. He waited 
patiently for silence. 

"However, the picture they presented fell short of completion. I ask the privilege of supplying 
the completion in my own fashion. My story may seem irrelevant at first. I ask your indulgence 
for that." 

Mallow made no reference to the notes before him. 

"I begin at the same time as the prosecution did; the day of my meeting with Jorane Sutt and 
Jaim Twer. What went on at those meetings you know. The conversations have been 
described, and to that description I have nothing to add - except my own thoughts of that day. 

"They were suspicious thoughts, for the events of that day were queer. Consider. Two people, 
neither of whom I knew more than casually, make unnatural and somewhat unbelievable 
propositions to me. One, the secretary to the mayor, asks me to play the part of intelligence 
agent to the government in a highly confidential matter, the nature and importance of which has 
already been explained to you. The other, self-styled leader of a political party, asks me to run 
for a council seat. 

"Naturally I looked for the ulterior motive. Sutt's seemed evident. He didn't trust me. Perhaps he 
thought I was selling nuclear power to enemies and plotting rebellion. And perhaps he was 
forcing the issue, or thought he was. In that case, he would need a man of his own near me on 
my proposed mission, as a spy. The last thought, however, did not occur to me until later on, 
when Jaim Twer came on the scene. 

"Consider again: Twer presents himself as a trader, retired into politics, yet I know of no details 
of his trading career, although my knowledge of the field is immense. And further, although 
Twer boasted of a lay education, he had never heard of a Seldon crisis." 

Hober Mallow waited to let the significance sink in and was rewarded with the first silence he 
had yet encountered, as the gallery caught its collective breath. That was for the inhabitants of 
Terminus itself. The men of the Outer Planets could hear only censored versions that would 
suit the requirements of religion. They would hear nothing of Seldon crises. But there would be 
further strokes they would not miss. 

Mallow continued: 

"Who here can honestly state that any man with a lay education can possibly be ignorant of the 
nature of a Seldon crisis? There is only one type of education upon the Foundation that 



excludes all mention of the planned history of Seldon and deals only with the man himself as a 
semi-mythical wizard- 

"I knew at that instant that Jaim Twer had never been a trader. I knew then that he was in holy 
orders and perhaps a full-fledged priest; and, doubtless, that for the three years he had 
pretended to head a political party of the traders, he had been a bought man of Jorane Sutt. 

"At the moment, I struck in the dark. I did not know Sun's purposes with regard to myself, but 
since he seemed to be feeding me rope liberally, I handed him a few fathoms of my own. My 
notion was that Twer was to be with me on my voyage as unofficial guardian on behalf of 
Jorane Sutt. Well, if he didn't get on, I knew well there'd be other devices waiting - and those 
others I might not catch in time. A known enemy is relatively safe. I invited Twer to come with 
me. He accepted. 

"That, gentlemen of the council, explains two things. First, it tells you that Twer is not a friend of 
mine testifying against me reluctantly and for conscience' sake, as the prosecution would have 
you believe. He is a spy, performing his paid job. Secondly, it explains a certain action of mine 
on the occasion of the first appearance of the priest whom I am accused of having murdered - 
an action as yet unmentioned, because unknown." 

Now there was a disturbed whispering in the council. Mallow cleared his throat theatrically, and 
continued: 

"I hate to describe my feelings when I first heard that we had a refugee missionary on board. I 
even hate to remember them. Essentially, they consisted of wild uncertainty. The event struck 
me at the moment as a move by Sutt, and passed beyond my comprehension or calculation. I 
was at sea - and completely. 

"There was one thing I could do. I got rid of Twer for five minutes by sending him after my 
officers. In his absence, I set up a Visual Record receiver, so that whatever happened might be 
preserved for future study. This was in the hope, the wild but earnest hope, that what confused 
me at the time might become plain upon review. 

"I have gone over that Visual Record some fifty times since. I have it here with me now, and will 
repeat the job a fifty-first time in your presence right now." 

The mayor pounded monotonously for order, as the chamber lost its equilibrium and the gallery 
roared. In five million homes on Terminus, excited observers crowded their receiving sets more 
closely, and at the prosecutor's own bench, Jorane Sutt shook his head coldly at the nervous 
high priest, while his eyes blazed fixedly on Mallow's face. 

The center of the chamber was cleared, and the lights burnt low. Ankor Jael, from his bench on 
the left, made the adjustments, and with a preliminary click, a holographic scene sprang to 
view; in color, in three-dimensions, in every attribute of life but life itself. 

There was the missionary, confused and battered, standing between the lieutenant and the 
sergeant. Mallow's image waited silently, and then men filed in, Twer bringing up the rear. 

The conversation played itself out, word for word. The sergeant was disciplined, and the 
missionary was questioned. The mob appeared, their growl could be heard, and the Revered 



Jord Parma made his wild appeal. Mallow drew his gun, and the missionary, as he was 
dragged away, lifted his arms in a mad, final curse and a tiny flash of light came and went. 

The scene ended, with the officers frozen at the horror of the situation, while Twer clamped 
shaking hands over his ears, and Mallow calmly put his gun away. 

The lights were on again; the empty space in the center of the floor was no longer even 
apparently full. Mallow, the real Mallow of the present, took up the burden of his narration: 

"The incident, you see, is exactly as the prosecution has presented it - on the surface. I'll 
explain that shortly. Jaim Twer's emotions through the whole business shows clearly a priestly 
education, by the way. 

"It was on that same day that I pointed out certain incongruities in the episode to Twer. I asked 
him where the missionary came from in the midst of the near-desolate tract we occupied at the 
time. I asked further where the gigantic mob had come from with the nearest sizable town a 
hundred miles away. The prosecution has paid no attention to such problems. 

"Or to other points; for instance, the curious point of Jord Parma's blatant conspicuousness. A 
missionary on Korell, risking his life in defiance of both Korellian and Foundation law, parades 
about in a very new and very distinctive priestly costume. There's something wrong there. At 
the time, I suggested that the missionary was an unwitting accomplice of the Commdor, who 
was using him in an attempt to force us into an act of wildly illegal aggression, to justify, in law, 
his subsequent destruction of our ship and of us. 

"The prosecution has anticipated this justification of my actions. They have expected me to 
explain that the safety of my ship, my crew, my mission itself were at stake and could not be 
sacrificed for one man, when that man would, in any case, have been destroyed, with us or 
without us. They reply by muttering about the Foundation's 'honor' and the necessity of 
upholding our 'dignity' in order to maintain our ascendancy. 

"For some strange reason, however, the prosecution has neglected Jord Parma himself, -as an 
individual. They brought out no details concerning him; neither his birthplace, nor his education, 
nor any detail of previous history. The explanation of this will also explain the incongruities I 
have pointed out in the Visual Record you have just seen. The two are connected. 

"The prosecution has advanced no details concerning Jord Parma because it cannot. That 
scene you saw by Visual Record seemed phoney because Jord Parma was phoney. There 
never was a Jord Parma. This whole trial is the biggest farce ever cooked up over an issue that 
never existed. " 

Once more he had to wait for the babble to die down. Fie said, slowly: 

"I'm going to show you the enlargement of a single still from the Visual Record. It will speak for 
itself. Lights again, Jael." 

The chamber dimmed, and the empty air filled again with frozen figures in ghostly, waxen 
illusion. The officers of the Far Star struck their stiff, impossible attitudes. A gun pointed from 
Mallow's rigid hand. At his left, the Revered Jord Parma, caught in mid-shriek, stretched his 
claws upward, while the failing sleeves hung halfway. 



And from the missionary's hand there was that little gleam that in the previous showing had 
flashed and gone. It was a permanent glow now. 

"Keep your eye on that light on his hand," called Mallow from the shadows. "Enlarge that 
scene, Jael!" 

The tableau bloated quickly. Outer portions fell away as the missionary drew towards the center 
and became a giant. Then there was only a hand and an arm, and then only a hand, which 
filled everything and remained there in immense, hazy tautness. 

The light had become a set of fuzzy, glowing letters: K S P. 

"That," Mallow's voice boomed out, "is a sample of tatooing, gentlemen. Under ordinary light it 
is invisible, but under ultraviolet light - with which I flooded the room in taking this Visual 
Record, it stands out in high relief. I'll admit it is a naive method of secret identification, but it 
works on Korell, where UV light is not to be found on street comers. Even in our ship, detection 
was accidental. 

"Perhaps some of you have already guessed what K S P stands for. Jord Parma knew his 
priestly lingo well and did his job magnificently. Where he had learned it, and how, I cannot say, 
but K S P stands for 'Korellian Secret Police.'" 

Mallow shouted over the tumult, roaring against the noise, "I have collateral proof in the form of 
documents brought from Korell, which I can present to the council if required. 

"And where is now the prosecution's case? They have already made and re-made the 
monstrous suggestion that I should have fought for the missionary in defiance of the law, and 
sacrificed my mission, my ship, and myself to the 'honor' of the Foundation. 

"But to do it for an impostor? 

"Should I have done it then for a Korellian secret agent tricked out in the robes and verbal 
gymnastics probably borrowed of an Anacreonian exile? Would Jorane Sutt and Publis Manlio 
have had me fall into a stupid, odious trap-" 

His hoarsened voice faded into the featureless background of a shouting mob. He was being 
lifted onto shoulders, and carried to the mayor's bench. Out the windows, he could see a torrent 
of madmen swarming into the square to add to the thousands there already. 

Mallow looked about for Ankor Jael, but it was impossible to find any single face in the 
incoherence of the mass. Slowly he became aware of a rhythmic, repeated shout, that was 
spreading from a small beginning, and pulsing into insanity: 

"Long live Mallow - long live Mallow - long live Mallow-" 


15 . 

Ankor Jael blinked at Mallow out of a haggard face. The last two days had been mad, sleepless 



ones. 


"Mallow, you've put on a beautiful show, so don't spoil it by jumping too high. You can't 
seriously consider running for mayor. Mob enthusiasm is a powerful thing, but it's notoriously 
fickle." ' 

"Exactly!" said Mallow, grimly, "so we must coddle it, and the best way to do that is to continue 
the show." 

"Now what?" 

"You're to have Publis Manlio and Jorane Sutt arrested-" 


"What!" 

"Just what you hear. Have the mayor arrest them! I don't care what threats you use. I control 
the mob, -for today, at any rate. He won't dare face them." 

"But on what charge, man?" 

"On the obvious one. They've been inciting the priesthood of the outer planets to take sides in 
the factional quarrels of the Foundation. That's illegal, by Seldon. Charge them with 
'endangering the state.' And I don't care about a conviction any more than they did in my case. 
Just get them out of circulation until I'm mayor." 

"It's half a year till election." 

"Not too long!" Mallow was on his feet, and his sudden grip of Jael's arm was tight. "Listen, I'd 
seize the government by force if I had to - the way Salvor Hardin did a hundred years ago. 
There's still that Seldon crisis coming up, and when it comes I have to be mayor and high 
priest. Both I" 


Jael's brow furrowed. He said, quietly, "What's it going to be? Korell, after all?" 

Mallow nodded, "Of course. They'll declare war, eventually, though I'm betting it'll take another 
pair of years." 

"With nuclear ships?" 

"What do you think? Those three merchant ships we lost in their space sector weren't knocked 
over with compressed-air pistols. Jael, they're getting ships from the Empire itself. Don't open 
your mouth like a fool. I said the Empire! It's still there, you know. It many be gone here in the 
Periphery but in the Galactic center it's still very much alive. And one false move means that it, 
itself, may be on our neck. That's why I must be mayor and high priest. I'm the only man who 
knows how to fight the crisis." 

Jael swallowed dryly, "How? What are you going to do?" 



"Nothing." 

Jael smiled uncertainly, "Really! All of that!" 

But Mallow's answer was incisive, "When I'm boss of this Foundation, I'm going to do nothing. 
One hundred percent of nothing, and that is the secret of this crisis." 


16 . 

Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife's entry by a 
hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not 
apply. Even he knew that. 

She said, in a voice as sleek as her hair and as cold as her eyes, "My gracious lord, I 
understand, has finally come to a decision upon the fate of the Foundation upstarts." 

"Indeed?" said the Commdor, sourly. "And what more does your versatile understanding 
embrace?" 

"Enough, my very noble husband. You had another of your vacillating consultations with your 
councilors. Fine advisors." With infinite scorn, "A herd of palsied purblind idiots hugging their 
sterile profits close to their sunken chests in the face of my father's displeasure." 

"And who, my dear," was the mild response, "is the excellent source from which your 
understanding understands all this?" 

The Commdora laughed shortly, "If I told you, my source would be more corpse than source." 

"Well, you'll have your own way, as always." The Commdor shrugged and turned away. "And 
as for your father's displeasure: I much fear me it extends to a niggardly refusal to supply more 
ships." 

"More ships!" She blazed away, hotly, "And haven't you five? Don't deny it. I know you have 
five; and a sixth is promised." 

"Promised for the last year." 

"But one - just one - can blast that Foundation into stinking rubble. Just one! One, to sweep 
their little pygmy boats out of space." 

"I couldn't attack their planet, even with a dozen." 

"And how long would their planet hold out with their trade ruined, and their cargoes of toys and 
trash destroyed?" "Those toys and trash mean money," he sighed. "A good deal of money." 

"But if you had the Foundation itself, would you not have all it contained'? And if you had my 
father's respect and gratitude, would you not have more than ever the Foundation could give 
you? It's been three years - more - since that barbarian came with his magic sideshow. It's 
long enough." 



"My dear!" The Commdor turned and faced her. "I am growing old. I am weary. I lack the 
resilience to withstand your rattling mouth. You say you know that I have decided. Well, I have. 
It is over, and there is war between Korell and the Foundation." 

"Well!" The Commdora's figure expanded and her eyes sparkled, "You learned wisdom at last, 
though in your dotage. And now when you are master of this hinterland, you may be sufficiently 
respectable to be of some weight and importance in the Empire. For one thing, we might leave 
this barbarous world and attend the viceroy's court. Indeed we might." 

She swept out, with a smile, and a hand on her hip. Her hair gleamed in the light. 

The Commdor waited, and then said to the closed door, with malignance and hate, "And when I 
am master of what you call the hinterland, I may be sufficiently respectable to do without your 
father's arrogance and his daughter's tongue. Completely - without!" 


17 . 

The senior lieutenant of the Dark Nebula stared in horror at the visiplate. 

"Great Galloping Galaxies!" It should have been a howl, but it was a whisper instead, "What's 
that?" 

It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula's minnow; and on its side was the 
Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire. Every alarm on the ship yammered hysterically. 

The orders went out, and the Dark Nebula prepared to run if it could, and fight if it must, -while 
down in the hyperwave room, a message stormed its way through hyperspace to the 
Foundation. 

Over and over again! Partly a plea for help, but mainly a warning of danger. 


18 . 

Flober Mallow shuffled his feet wearily as he leafed through the reports. Two years of the 
mayoralty had made him a bit more housebroken, a bit softer, a bit more patient, -but it had not 
made him learn to like government reports and the mind-breaking officialese in which they were 
written. 

"Flow many ships did they get?" asked Jael. 

"Four trapped on the ground. Two unreported. All others accounted for and safe." Mallow 
grunted, "We should have done better, but it's just a scratch." 

There was no answer and Mallow looked up, "Does anything worry you?" 

"I wish Sutt would get here," was the almost irrelevant answer. 

"Ah, yes, and now we'll hear another lecture on the home front." 



"No, we won't," snapped Jael, "but you're stubborn, Mallow. You may have worked out the 
foreign situation to the last detail but you've never given a care about what goes on here on the 
home planet." 

"Well, that's your job, isn't it? What did I make you Minister of Education and Propaganda for?" 

"Obviously to send me to an early and miserable grave, for all the co-operation you give me. 

For the last year, I've been deafening you with the rising danger of Sutt and his Religionists. 
What good will your plans be, if Sutt forces a special election and has you thrown out?" 

"None, I admit." 

"And your speech last night just about handed the election to Sutt with a smile and a pat. Was 
there any necessity for being so frank?" 

"Isn't there such a thing as stealing Sutt's thunder?" 

"No," said Jael, violently, "not the way you did it. You claim to have foreseen everything, and 
don't explain why you traded with Korell to their exclusive benefit for three years. Your only plan 
of battle is to retire without a battle. You abandon all trade with the sectors of space near Korell. 
You openly proclaim a stalemate. You promise no offensive, even in the future. Galaxy, Mallow, 
what am I supposed to do with such a mess?" 

"It lacks glamor?" 

"It lacks mob emotion-appeal." 

"Same thing." 

"Mallow, wake up. You have two alternatives. Either you present the people with a dynamic 
foreign policy, whatever your private plans are, or you make some sort of compromise with 
Sutt." 

Mallow said, "All right, if I've failed the first, let's try the second. Sutt's just arrived." 

Sutt and Mallow had not met personally since the day of the trial, two years back. Neither 
detected any change in the other, except for that subtle atmosphere about each which made it 
quite evident that the roles of ruler and defier had changed. 

Sutt took his seat without shaking hands. 

Mallow offered a cigar and said, "Mind if Jael stays? He wants a compromise earnestly. He can 
act as mediator if tempers rise." 

Sutt shrugged, "A compromise will be well for you. Upon another occasion I once asked you to 
state your terms. I presume the positions are reversed now." 

"You presume correctly." 

"Then there are my terms. You must abandon your blundering policy of economic bribery and 
trade in gadgetry, and return to the tested foreign policy of our fathers." 



"You mean conquest by missionary." 

"Exactly." 

"No compromise short of that?" 

"None." 

"Um-m-m." Mallow lit up very slowly and inhaled the tip of his cigar into a bright glow. "In 
Hardin's time, when conquest by missionary was new and radical, men like yourself opposed it. 
Now it is tried, tested, hallowed, -everything a Jorane Sutt would find well. But, tell me, how 
would you get us out of our present mess?" 

"Your present mess. I had nothing to do with it." 

"Consider the question suitably modified." 

"A strong offensive is indicated. The stalemate you seem to be satisfied with is fatal. It would be 
a confession of weakness to all the worlds of the Periphery, where the appearance of strength 
is all-important, and there's not one vulture among them that wouldn't join the assault for its 
share of the corpse. You ought to understand that. You're from Smyrno, aren't you?" 

Mallow passed over the significance of the remark. He said, "And if you beat Korell, what of the 
Empire? That is the real enemy." 

Sutt's narrow smile tugged at the comers of his mouth, "Oh, no, your records of your visit to 
Siwenna were complete. The viceroy of the Normannic Sector is interested in creating 
dissension in the Periphery for his own benefit, but only as a side issue. He isn't going to stake 
everything on an expedition to the Galaxy's rim when he has fifty hostile neighbors and an 
emperor to rebel against. I paraphrase your own words." 

"Oh, yes he might, Sutt, if he thinks we're strong enough to be dangerous. And he might think 
so, if we destroy Korell by the main force of frontal attack. We'd have to be considerably more 
subtle." 

"As for instance-" 

Mallow leaned back, "Sutt, I'll give you your chance. I don't need you, but I can use you. So I'll 
tell you what it's all about, and then you can either join me and receive a place in a coalition 
cabinet, or you can play the martyr and rot in jail." 

"Once before you tried that last trick." 

"Not very hard, Sutt. The right time has only just come. Now listen." Mallow's eyes narrowed. 

"When I first landed on Korell," he began, A bribed the Commdor with the trinkets and gadgets 
that form the trader's usual stock. At the start, that, was meant only to get us entrance into a 
steel foundry. I had no plan further than that, but in that I succeeded. I got what I wanted. But it 
was only after my visit to the Empire that I first realized exactly what a weapon I could build that 
trade into. 



"This is a Seldon crisis we're facing, Sutt, and Seldon crises are not solved by individuals but by 
historic forces. Hari Seldon, when he planned our course of future history, did not count on 
brilliant heroics but on the broad sweeps of economics and sociology. So the solutions to the 
various crises must be achieved by the forces that become available to us at the time. 

"In this case, -trade!" 

Sutt raised his eyebrows skeptically and took advantage of the pause, "I hope I am not of 
subnormal intelligence, but the fact is that your vague lecture isn't very illuminating." 

"It will become so," said Mallow. "Consider that until now the power of trade has been 
underestimated. It has been thought that it took a priesthood under our control to make it a 
powerful weapon. That is not so, and this is my contribution to the Galactic situation. Trade 
without priests! Trade alone! It is strong enough. Let us become very simple and specific. Korell 
is now at war with us. Consequently our trade with her has stopped. But, -notice that I am 
making this as simple as a problem in addition, -in the past three years she has based her 
economy more and more upon the nuclear techniques which we have introduced and which 
only we can continue to supply. Now what do you suppose will happen once the tiny nuclear 
generators begin failing, and one gadget after another goes out of commission? 

"The small household appliances go first. After a half a year of this stalemate that you abhor, a 
woman's nuclear knife won't work any more. Her stove begins failing. Her washer doesn't do a 
good job. The temperature-humidity control in her house dies on a hot summer day. What 
happens?" 

He paused for an answer, and Sutt said calmly, "Nothing. People endure a good deal in war." 

"Very true. They do. They'll send their sons out in unlimited numbers to die horribly on broken 
spaceships. They'll bear up under enemy bombardment, if it means they have to live on stale 
bread and foul water in caves half a mile deep. But it's very hard to bear up under little things 
when the patriotic uplift of imminent danger is not present. It's going to, be a stalemate. There 
will be no casualties, no bombardments, no battles. 

"There will just be a knife that won't cut, and a stove that won't cook, and a house that freezes 
in the winter. It will be annoying, and people will grumble." 

Sutt said slowly, wonderingly, "Is that what you're setting your hopes on, man? What do you 
expect? A housewives' rebellion? A Jacquerie? A sudden uprising of butchers and grocers with 
their cleavers and bread-knives shouting 'Give us back our Automatic Super-Kleeno Nuclear 
Washing Machines.'" 

"No, sir," said Mallow, impatiently, "I do not. I expect, however, a general background of 
grumbling and dissatisfaction which will be seized on by more important figures later on." 

"And what more important figures are these?" 

"The manufacturers, the factory owners, the industrialists of Korell. When two years of the 
stalemate have gone, the machines in the factories will, one by one, begin to fail. Those 
industries which we have changed from first to last with our new nuclear gadgets will find 
themselves very suddenly ruined. The heavy industries will find themselves, en masse and at a 



stroke, the owners of nothing but scrap machinery that won't work." 

"The factories ran well enough before you came there, Mallow." 

"Yes, Sutt, so they did - at about one-twentieth the profits, even if you leave out of 
consideration the cost of reconversion to the original pre-nuclear state. With the industrialist 
and financier and the average man all against him, how long will the Commdor hold out?" 

"As long as he pleases, as soon as it occurs to him to get new nuclear generators from the 
Empire." 

And Mallow laughed joyously, "You've missed, Sutt, missed as badly as the Commdor himself. 
You've missed everything, and understood nothing. Look, man, the Empire can replace 
nothing. The Empire has always been a realm of colossal resources. They've calculated 
everything in planets, in stellar systems, in whole sectors of the Galaxy. Their generators are 
gigantic because they thought in gigantic fashion. 

"But we, -we, our little Foundation, our single world almost without metallic resources, -have 
had to work with brute economy. Our generators have had to be the size of our thumb, because 
it was all the metal we could afford. We had to develop new techniques and new methods, 
-techniques and methods the Empire can't follow because they have degenerated past the 
stage where they can make any really vital scientific advance. 

"With all their nuclear shields, large enough to protect a ship, a city, an entire world; they could 
never build one to protect a single man. To supply light and heat to a city, they have motors six 
stories high, -I saw them - where ours could fit into this room. And when I told one of their 
nuclear specialists that a lead container the size of a walnut contained a nuclear generator, he 
almost choked with indignation on the spot. 

"Why, they don't even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from 
generation to generation automatically, and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be 
helpless if a single D-tube in all that vast structure burnt out. 

"The whole war is a battle between those two systems, between the Empire and the 
Foundation; between the big and the little. To seize control of a world, they bribe with immense 
ships that can make war, but lack all economic significance. We, on the other hand, bribe with 
little things, useless in war, but vital to prosperity and profits. 

"A king, or a Commdor, will take the ships and even make war. Arbitrary rulers throughout 
history have bartered their subjects' welfare for what they consider honor, and glory, and 
conquest. But it's still the little things in life that count - and Asper Argo won't stand up against 
the economic depression that will sweep all Korell in two or three years." 

Sutt was at the window, his back to Mallow and Jael. It was early evening now, and the few 
stars that struggled feebly here at the very rim of the Galaxy sparked against the background of 
the misty, wispy Lens that included the remnants of that Empire, still vast, that fought against 
them. 


Sutt said, "No. You are not the man. 



You don't believe me? 


"I mean I don't trust you. You're smooth-tongued. You befooled me properly when I thought I 
had you under proper care on your first trip to Korell. When I thought I had you cornered at the 
trial, you wormed your way out of it and into the mayor's chair by demagoguery. There is 
nothing straight about you; no motive that hasn't another behind it; no statement that hasn't 
three meanings. 

"Suppose you were a traitor. Suppose your visit to the Empire had brought you a subsidy and a 
promise of power. Your actions would be precisely what they are now. You would bring about a 
war after having strengthened the enemy. You would force the Foundation into inactivity. And 
you would advance a plausible explanation of everything, one so plausible it would convince 
everyone." 

"You mean there'll be no compromise?" asked Mallow, gently. 

"I mean you must get out, by free will or force." 

"I warned you of the only alternative to co-operation." 

Jorane Sutt's face congested with blood in a sudden access of emotion. "And I warn you, 

Hober Mallow of Smyrno, that if you arrest me, there will be no quarter. My men will stop 
nowhere in spreading the truth about you, and the common people of the Foundation will unite 
against their foreign ruler. They have a consciousness of destiny that a Smyrnian can never 
understand - and that consciousness will destroy you." 

Flober Mallow said quietly to the two guards who had entered, "Take him away. Fle's under 
arrest." 

Sutt said, "Your last chance." 

Mallow stubbed out his cigar and never looked up. 

And five minutes later, Jael stirred and said, wearily, "Well, now that you've made a martyr for 
the cause, what next?" 

Mallow stopped playing with the ash tray and looked up, "That's not the Sutt I used to know. 
Fle's a blood-blind bull. Galaxy, he hates me." 

"All the more dangerous then." 

"More dangerous? Nonsense! Fle's lost all power of judgement." 

Jael said grimly, "You're overconfident, Mallow. You're ignoring the possibility of a popular 
rebellion." 

Mallow looked up, grim in his turn, "Once and for all, Jael, there is no possibility of a popular 
rebellion." 

"You're sure of yourself!" 

"I'm sure of the Seldon crisis and the historical validity of their solutions, externally and 



internally. There are some things I didn't tell Suit right now. He tried to control the Foundation 
itself by religious forces as he controlled the outer worlds, and he failed, -which is the surest 
sign that in the Seldon scheme, religion is played out. 

"Economic control worked differently. And to paraphrase that famous Salvor Hardin quotation of 
yours, it's a poor nuclear blaster that won't point both ways. If Korell prospered with our trade, 
so did we. If Korellian factories fail without our trade; and if the prosperity of the outer worlds 
vanishes with commercial isolation; so will our factories fail and our prosperity vanish. 

"And there isn't a factory, not a trading center, not a shipping line that isn't under my control; 
that I couldn't squeeze to nothing if Sutt attempts revolutionary propaganda. Where his 
propaganda succeeds, or even looks as though it might succeed, I will make certain that 
prosperity dies. Where it fails, prosperity will continue, because my factories will remain fully 
staffed. 

"So by the same reasoning which makes me sure that the Korellians will revolt in favor of 
prosperity, I am sure we will not revolt against it. The game will be played out to its end." 

"So then," said Jael, "you're establishing a plutocracy. You're making us a land of traders and 
merchant princes. Then what of the future?" 

Mallow lifted his gloomy face, and exclaimed fiercely, "What business of mine is the future? No 
doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to 
come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now. Let my successors 
solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today." 

KORELL-.. .And so after three years of a war which was certainly the most unfought war on 
record, the Republic of Korell surrendered unconditionally, and Hober Mallow took his place 
next to Hari Seldon and Salvor Hardin in the hearts of the people of the Foundation. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Isaac Asimov was born in the Soviet Union to his great surprise. He moved quickly to correct 
the situation. When his parents emigrated to the United States, Isaac (three years old at the 
time) stowed away in their baggage. He has been an American citizen since the age of eight. 

Brought up in Brooklyn, and educated in its public schools, he eventually found his way to 
Columbia University and, over the protests of the school administration, managed to annex a 
series of degrees in chemistry, up to and including a Ph.D. He then infiltrated Boston University 
and climbed the academic ladder, ignoring all cries of outrage, until he found himself Professor 
of Biochemistry. 

Meanwhile, at the age of nine, he found the love of his life (in the inanimate sense) when he 
discovered his first science-fiction magazine. By the time he was eleven, he began to write 



stories, and at eighteen, he actually worked up the nerve to submit one. It was rejected. After 
four long months of tribulation and suffering, he sold his first story and, thereafter, he never 
looked back. 

In 1941 , when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote the classic short story "Nightfall" and his 
future was assured. Shortly before that he had begun writing his robot stories, and shortly after 
that he had begun his Foundation series. 


What was left except quantity? At the present time, he has published over 260 books, 
distributed through every major division of the Dewey system of library classification, and 
shows no signs of slowing up. He remains as youthful, as lively, and as lovable as ever, and 
grows more handsome with each year. You can be sure that this is so since he has written this 
little essay himself and his devotion to absolute objectivity is notorious. 

He is married to Janet Jeppson, psychiatrist and writer, has two children by a previous 
marriage, and lives in New York City. 




ASIMOV 


FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE 


THE FOUNDATION NOVELS 


FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE 
ISAAC ASIMOV 


PROLOGUE 


Contents 





PART I THE GENERAL 


1. SEARCH FOR MAGICIANS 

2. THE MAGICIANS 

3. THE DEAD HAND 

4. THE EMPEROR 

5. THE WAR BEGINS 

6. THE FAVORITE 

7. BRIBERY 

8. TO TRANTOR 

9. ON TRANTOR 

10. THE WAR ENDS 

PART II THE MULE 

11. BRIDE AND GROOM 

12. CAPTAIN AND MAYOR 

1 3. LIEUTENANT AND CLOWN 

14. THE MUTANT 

15. THE PSYCHOLOGIST 

16. CONFERENCE 

17. THE VISI-SONOR 

1 8. FALL OF THE FOUNDATION 

1 9. START OF THE SEARCH 

20. CONSPIRATOR 

21. INTERLUDE IN SPACE 

22. DEATH ON NEOTRANTOR 

23. THE RUINS OF TRANTOR 


24. CONVERT 


25. DEATH OF A PSYCHOLOGIST 

26. END OF THE SEARCH 


PROLOGUE 


The Galactic Empire Was Falling. 

It was a colossal Empire, stretching across millions of worlds from arm-end to arm-end of the 
mighty multi-spiral that was the Milky Way. Its fall was colossal, too - and a long one, for it had 
a long way to go. 

It had been falling for centuries before one man became really aware of that fall. That man was 
Hari Seldon, the man who represented the one spark of creative effort left among the gathering 
decay. He developed and brought to its highest pitch the science of psychohistory. 

Psychohistory dealt not with man, but with man-masses. It was the science of mobs; mobs in 
their billions. It could forecast reactions to stimuli with something of the accuracy that a lesser 
science could bring to the forecast of a rebound of a billiard ball. The reaction of one man could 
be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again. 

Hari Seldon plotted the social and economic trends of the time, sighted along the curves and 
foresaw the continuing and accelerating fall of civilization and the gap of thirty thousand years 
that must elapse before a struggling new Empire could emerge from the ruins. 

It was too late to stop that fall, but not too late to narrow the gap of barbarism. Seldon 
established two Foundations at "opposite ends of the Galaxy" and their location was so 
designed that in one short millennium events would knit and mesh so as to force out of them a 
stronger, more permanent, more benevolent Second Empire. 

Foundation (Gnome Press, 1951) has told the story of one of those Foundations during the first 
two centuries of life. 

It began as a settlement of physical scientists on Terminus, a planet at the extreme end of one 
of the spiral arms of the Galaxy. Separated from the turmoil of the Empire, they worked as 
compilers of a universal compendium of knowledge, the Encyclopedia Galactica, unaware of 
the deeper role planned for them by the already-dead Seldon, 

As the Empire rotted, the outer regions fell into the hands of independent "kings." The 
Foundation was threatened by them. However, by playing one petty ruler against another, 
under the leadership of their first mayor, Salvor Hardin, they maintained a precarious 
independence. As sole possessors, of nuclear power among worlds which were losing their 
sciences and falling back on coal and oil, they even established an ascendancy. The 
Foundation became the "religious" center of the neighboring kingdoms. 


Slowly, the Foundation developed a trading economy as the Encyclopedia receded into the 
background. Their Traders, dealing in nuclear gadgets which not even the Empire in its heyday 
could have duplicated for compactness, penetrated hundreds of light-years through the 
Periphery. 

Under Hober Mallow, the first of the Foundation's Merchant Princes, they developed the 
techniques of economic warfare to the point of defeating the Republic of Korell, even though 
that world was receiving support from one of the outer provinces of what was left of the Empire. 

At the end of two hundred years, the Foundation was the most powerful state in the Galaxy, 
except for the remains of the Empire, which, concentrated in the inner third of the Milky Way, 
still controlled three quarters of the population and wealth of the Universe. 

It seemed inevitable that the next danger the Foundation would have to face was the final lash 
of the dying Empire. 

The way must he cleared for the battle of Foundation and Empire. 


PART I 

THE GENERAL 


1. SEARCH FOR MAGICIANS 

BEL RIOSE .... In his relatively short career, Riose earned the title of "The Last of the Imperials'' 
and earned It well. A study of his campaigns reveals him to be the equal of Peurifoy in strategic 
ability and his superior perhaps in his ability to handle men. That he was born in the days of the 
decline of Empire made it all but impossible for him to equal Peurifoy's record as a conqueror. 
Yet he had his chance when, the first of the Empire's generals to do so, he faced the 
Foundation squarely.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA* 

*AII quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 1 1 6th 
Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with 
permission of the publishers. 

Bel Riose traveled without escort, which is not what court etiquette prescribes for the head of a 
fleet stationed in a yet-sullen stellar system on the Marches of the Galactic Empire. 

But Bel Riose was young and energetic - energetic enough to be sent as near the end of the 
universe as possible by an unemotional and calculating court - and curious besides. Strange 
and improbable tales fancifully-repeated by hundreds and murkily-known to thousands intrigued 





the last faculty; the possibility of a military venture engaged the other two. The combination was 
overpowering. 

He was out of the dowdy ground-car he had appropriated and at the door of the fading mansion 
that was his destination. He waited. The photonic eye that spanned the doorway was alive, but 
when the door opened it was by hand. 

Bel Riose smiled at the old man. "I am Riose-" 

"I recognize you." The old man remained stiffly and unsurprised in his place. "Your business?" 

Riose withdrew a step in a gesture of submission. "One of peace. If you are Ducem Barr, I ask 
the favor of conversation." 

Ducem Barr stepped aside and in the interior of the house the walls glowed into life, The 
general entered into daylight. 

He touched the wall of the study, then stared at his fingertips. "You have this on Siwenna?" 

Barr smiled thinly. "Not elsewhere, I believe. I keep this in repair myself as well as I can. I must 
apologize for your wait at the door. The automatic device registers the presence of a visitor but 
will no longer open the door." 

"Your repairs fall short?" The general's voice was faintly mocking. 

"Parts are no longer available. If you will sit, sir. You drink tea?" 

"On Siwenna? My good sir, it is socially impossible not to drink it here." 

The old patrician retreated noiselessly with a slow bow that was part of the ceremonious legacy 
left by the aristocracy of the last century's better days. 

Riose looked after his host's departing figure, and his studied urbanity grew a bit uncertain at 
the edges. His education had been purely military; his experience likewise. He had, as the 
cliche, has it, faced death many times; but always death of a very familiar and tangible nature, 
Consequently, there is no inconsistency in the fact that the idolized lion of the Twentieth Fleet 
felt chilled in the suddenly musty atmosphere of an ancient room. 

The general recognized the small black-ivroid boxes that lined the shelves to be books. Their 
titles were unfamiliar. He guessed that the large structure at one end of the room was the 
receiver that transmuted the books into sight-and-sound on demand. He had never seen one in 
operation; but he had heard of them. 

Once he had been told that long before, during the golden ages when the Empire had been 
co-extensive with the entire Galaxy, nine houses out of every ten had such receivers - and 
such rows of books. 

But there were borders to watch now; books were for old men. And half the stories told about 
the old days were mythical anyway. More than half. 

The tea arrived, and Riose seated himself. Ducem Barr lifted his cup. "To your honor." 



"Thank you. To yours." 

Ducem Barr said deliberately, "You are said to be young. Thirty-five?" 

"Near enough. Thirty-four." 

"In that case," said Barr, with soft emphasis, "I could not begin better than by informing you 
regretfully that I am not in the possession of love charms, potions, or philtres. Nor am I in the 
least capable of influencing the favors of any young lady as may appeal to you." 

"I have no need of artificial aids in that respect, sir." The complacency undeniably present in the 
general's voice was stirred with amusement. "Do you receive many requests for such 
commodities?" 

"Enough. Unfortunately, an uninformed public tends to confuse scholarship with magicianry, 
and love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering." 

"And so would seem most natural. But I differ. I connect scholarship with nothing but the means 
of answering difficult questions." 

The Siwennian considered somberly, "You may be as wrong as they!" 

"That may turn out or not." The young general set down his cup in its flaring sheath and it 
refilled. He dropped the offered flavor-capsule into it with a small splash. "Tell me then, 
patrician, who are the magicians? The real ones." 

Barr seemed startled at a title long-unused. He said, "There are no magicians." 

"But people speak of them. Siwenna crawls with the tales of them. There are cults being built 
about them. There is some strange connection between it and those groups among your 
countrymen who dream and drivel of ancient days and what they call liberty and autonomy. 
Eventually the matter might become a danger to the State." 

The old man shook his head. "Why ask me? Do you smell rebellion, with myself at the head?" 

Riose shrugged, "Never. Never. Oh, it is not a thought completely ridiculous. Your father was 
an exile in his day; you yourself a patriot and a chauvinist in yours. It is indelicate in me as a 
guest to mention it, but my business here requires it. And yet a conspiracy now? I doubt it. 
Siwenna has had the spirit beat out of it these three generations." 

The old man replied with difficulty, "I shall be as indelicate a host as you a guest. I shall remind 
you that once a viceroy thought as you did of the spiritless Siwennians. By the orders of that 
viceroy my father became a fugitive pauper, my brothers martyrs, and my sister a suicide. Yet 
that viceroy died a death sufficiently horrible at the hands of these same slavish Siwennians." 

"Ah, yes, and there you touch nearly on something I could wish to say. For three years the 
mysterious death of that viceroy has been no mystery to me. There was a young soldier of his 
personal guard whose actions were of interest. You were that soldier, but there is no need of 
details, I think." 


Barr was quiet. "None. What do you propose? 



"That you answer my questions." 

"Not under threats. I am old enough for life not to mean particularly overmuch." 

"My good sir, these are hard times," said Riose, with meaning, "and you have children and 
friends. You have a country for which you have mouthed phrases of love and folly in the past. 
Come, if I should decide to use force, my aim would not be so poor as to strike you." 

Barr said coldly, "What do you want?" 

Riose held the empty cup as he spoke. "Patrician, listen to me. These are days when the most 
successful soldiers are those whose function is to lead the dress parades that wind through the 
imperial palace grounds on feast days and to escort the sparkling pleasure ships that carry His 
Imperial Splendor to the summer planets. I ... I am a failure. I am a failure at thirty-four, and I 
shall stay a failure. Because, you see, I like to fight. 

"That's why they sent me here. I'm too troublesome at court. I don't fit in with the etiquette. I 
offend the dandies and the lord admirals, but I'm too good a leader of ships and men to be 
disposed of shortly be being marooned in space. So Siwenna is the substitute. It's a frontier 
world; a rebellious and a barren province. It is far away, far enough away to satisfy all. 

"And so I moulder. There are no rebellions to stamp down, and the border viceroys do not 
revolt lately, at least, not since His Imperial Majesty's late father of glorious memory made an 
example of Mountel of Paramay." 

"A strong Emperor," muttered Barr. 

"Yes, and we need more of them. He is my master; remember that. These are his interests I 
guard." 

Barr shrugged unconcernedly. "How does all this relate to the subject?" 

"I'll show you in two words. The magicians I've mentioned come from beyond-out there beyond 
the frontier guards, where the stars are scattered thinly-" 

"'Where the stars are scattered thinly,'" quoted Barr, '"And the cold of space seeps in."' 

"Is that poetry?" Riose frowned. Verse seemed frivolous at the moment. "In any case, they're 
from the Periphery - from the only quarter where I am free to fight for the glory of the Emperor." 

"And thus serve His Imperial Majesty's interests and satisfy your own love of a good fight." 

"Exactly. But I must know what I fight; and there you can help." 

"How do you know?" 

Riose nibbled casually at a cakelet. "Because for three years I have traced every rumor, every 
myth, every breath concerning the magicians - and of all the library of information I have 
gathered, only two isolated facts are unanimously agreed upon, and are hence certainly true. 
The first is that the magicians come from the edge of the Galaxy opposite Siwenna; the second 
is that your father once met a magician, alive and actual, and spoke with him." 



The aged Siwennian stared unblinkingly, and Riose continued, "You had better tell me what 
you know-" 

Barr said thoughtfully, "It would be interesting to tell you certain things. It would be a 
psychohistoric experiment of my own." 

"What kind of experiment?" 

"Psychohistoric." The old man had an unpleasant edge to his smile. Then, crisply, "You'd better 
have more tea. I'm going to make a bit of a speech." 

He leaned far back into the soft cushions of his chair. The wall-lights had softened to a 
pink-ivory glow, which mellowed even the soldier's hard profile. 

Ducem Barr began, "My own knowledge is the result of two accidents; the accidents of being 
born the son of my father, and of being born the native of my country. It begins over forty years 
ago, shortly after the great Massacre, when my father was a fugitive in the forests of the South, 
while I was a gunner in the viceroy's personal fleet. This same viceroy, by the way, who had 
ordered the Massacre, and who died such a cruel death thereafter." 

Barr smiled grimly, and continued, "My father was a Patrician of the Empire and a Senator of 
Siwenna. His name was Onum Barr." 

Riose interrupted impatiently, "I know the circumstances of his exile very well. You needn't 
elaborate upon it." 

The Siwennian ignored him and proceeded without deflection. "During his exile a wanderer 
came upon him; a merchant from the edge of the Galaxy; a young man who spoke a strange 
accent, knew nothing of recent Imperial history, and who was protected by an individual 
force-shield." 

"An individual force-shield?" Riose glared. "You speak extravagance. What generator could be 
powerful enough to condense a shield to the size of a single man? By the Great Galaxy, did he 
carry five thousand myria-tons of nuclear power-source about with him on a little wheeled 
gocart?" 

Barr said quietly, "This is the magician of whom you hear whispers, stories and myths. The 
name 'magician' is not lightly earned. He carried no generator large enough to be seen, but not 
the heaviest weapon you can carry in your hand would have as much as creased the shield he 
bore." 

"Is this all the story there is? Are the magicians born of maunderings of an old man broken by 
suffering and exile?" 

"The story of the magicians antedated even my father, sir. And the proof is more concrete. After 
leaving my father, this merchant that men call a magician visited a Tech-man at the city to 
which my father had guided him, and there he left a shield-generator of the type he wore. That 
generator was retrieved by my father after his return from exile upon the execution of the 
bloody viceroy. It took a long time to find- 



"The generator hangs on the wall behind you, sir. It does not work. It never worked but for the 
first two days; but if you'll look at it, you will see that no one in the Empire ever designed it." 

Bel Riose reached for the belt of linked metal that clung to the curved wall. It came away with a 
little sucking noise as the tiny adhesion-field broke at the touch of his hand. The ellipsoid at the 
apex of the belt held his attention. It was the size of a walnut. 

"This-" he said. 

"Was the generator," nodded Barr. "But it was the generator. The secret of its workings are 
beyond discovery now. Sub-electronic investigations have shown it to be fused into a single 
lump of metal and not all the most careful study of the diffraction patterns have sufficed to 
distinguish the discrete parts that had existed before fusion." 

"Then your 'proof still lingers on the frothy border of words backed by no concrete evidence." 

Barr shrugged. "You have demanded my knowledge of me and threatened its extortion by 
force. If you choose to meet it with skepticism, what is that to me? Do you want me to stop?" 

"Go on!" said the general, harshly. 

"I continued my father's researches after he died, and then the second accident I mentioned 
came to help me, for Siwenna was well known to Hari Seldon." 

"And who is Hari Seldon?" 

"Hari Seldon was a scientist of the reign of the Emperor, Daluben IV. He was a psychohistorian; 
the last and greatest of them all. He once visited Siwenna, when Siwenna was a great 
commercial center, rich in the arts and sciences." 

"Hmph," muttered Riose, sourly, "where is the stagnant planet that does not claim to have been 
a land of overflowing wealth in older days?" 

"The days I speak of are the days of two centuries ago, when the Emperor yet ruled to the 
uttermost star; when Siwenna was a world of the interior and not a semi-barbarian border 
province. In those days, Hari Seldon foresaw the decline of Imperial power and the eventual 
barbarization of the entire Galaxy." 

Riose laughed suddenly. "He foresaw that? Then he foresaw wrong, my good scientist. I 
suppose you call yourself that. Why, the Empire is more powerful now than it has been in a 
millennium. Your old eyes are blinded by the cold bleakness of the border. Come to the inner 
worlds some day; come to the warmth and the wealth of the center." 

The old man shook his head somberly. "Circulation ceases first at the outer edges. It will take a 
while yet for the decay to reach the heart. That is, the apparent, obvious-to-all decay, as distinct 
from the inner decay that is an old story of some fifteen centuries." 

"And so this Hari Seldon foresaw a Galaxy of uniform barbarism," said Riose, good-humoredly. 
"And what then, eh?" 


So he established two foundations at the extreme opposing ends of the Galaxy - Foundations 



of the best, and the youngest, and the strongest, there to breed, grow, and develop. The worlds 
on which they were placed were chosen carefully; as were the times and the surroundings. All 
was arranged in such a way that the future as foreseen by the unalterable mathematics of 
psychohistory would involve their early isolation from the main body of Imperial civilization and 
their gradual growth into the germs of the Second Galactic Empire - cutting an inevitable 
barbarian interregnum from thirty thousand years to scarcely a single thousand." 

"And where did you find out all this? You seem to know it in detail." 

"I don't and never did," said the patrician with composure. "It is the painful result of the piecing 
together of certain evidence discovered by my father and a little more found by myself. The 
basis is flimsy and the superstructure has been romanticized into existence to fill the huge 
gaps. But I am convinced that it is essentially true." 

"You are easily convinced." 

"Am I? It has taken forty years of research." 

"Hmph. Forty years! I could settle the question in forty days. In fact, I believe I ought to. It would 
be - different." 

"And how would you do that?" 

"In the obvious way. I could become an explorer. I could find this Foundation you speak of and 
observe with my eyes. You say there are two?" 

"The records speak of two. Supporting evidence has been found only for one, which is 
understandable, for the other is at the extreme end of the long axis of the Galaxy." 

"Well, we'll visit the near one." The general was on his feet, adjusting his belt. 

"You know where to go?" asked Barr. 

"In a way. In the records of the last viceroy but one, he whom you murdered so effectively, 
there are suspicious tales of outer barbarians. In fact, one of his daughters was given in 
marriage to a barbarian prince. I'll find my way." 

Fie held out a hand. "I thank you for your hospitality." 

Ducem Barr touched the hand with his fingers and bowed formally. "Your visit was a great 
honor." 

"As for the information you gave me," continued Bel Riose, "I'll know how to thank you for that 
when I return." 


Ducem Barr followed his guest submissively to the outer door and said quietly to the 
disappearing ground-car, "And if you return." 



2. THE MAGICIANS 

FOUNDATION ... With forty years of expansion behind them, the Foundation faced the menace 
of Riose. The epic days of Hardin and Mallow had gone and with them were gone a certain 
hard daring and resolution.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

There were four men in the room, and the room was set apart where none could approach. The 
four men looked at each other quickly, then lengthily at the table that separated them. There 
were four bottles on the table and as many full glasses, but no one had touched them. 

And then the man nearest the door stretched out an arm and drummed a slow, padding rhythm 
on the table. 

He said, "Are you going to sit and wonder forever? Does it matter who speaks first?" 

"Speak you first, then," said the big man directly opposite. "You're the one who should be the 
most worried." 

Sennett Forell chuckled with noiseless nonhumor. "Because you think I'm the richest. Well - Or 
is it that you expect me to continue as I have started. I don't suppose you forget that it was my 
own Trade Fleet that captured this scout ship of theirs." 

"You had the largest fleet," said a third, "and the best pilots; which is another way of saying you 
are the richest. It was a fearful risk; and would have been greater for one of us." 

Sennett Forell chuckled again. "There is a certain facility in risk-taking that I inherit from my 
father. After all, the essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it. As to which, 
witness the fact that the enemy ship was isolated and captured without loss to ourselves or 
warning to the others." 

That Forell was a distant collateral relative of the late great Hober Mallow was recognized 
openly throughout the Foundation. That he was Mallow's illegitimate son was accepted quietly 
to just as wide an extent. 

The fourth man blinked his little eyes stealthily. Words crept out from between thin lips. "It is 
nothing to sleep over in fat triumph, this grasping of little ships. Most likely, it will but anger that 
young man further." 

"You think he needs motives?" questioned Forell, scornfully. 

"I do, and this might, or will, save him the vexation of having to manufacture one." The fourth 
man spoke slowly, "Hober Mallow worked otherwise. And Salvor Hardin. They let others take 
the uncertain paths of force, while they maneuvered surely and quietly." 

Forell shrugged. "This ship has proved its value. Motives are cheap and we have sold this one 
at a profit." There was the satisfaction of the born Trader in that. He continued, "The young 
man is of the old Empire." 

"We knew that," said the second man, the big one, with rumbling discontent. 



"We suspected that," corrected Forell, softly. "If a man comes with ships and wealth, with 
overtures of friendliness, and with offers of trade, it is only sensible to refrain from antagonizing 
him, until we are certain that the profitable mask is not a face after all. But now-" 

There was a faint whining edge to the third man's voice as he spoke. "We might have been 
even more careful. We might have found out first. We might have found out before allowing him 
to leave. It would have been the truest wisdom." 

"That has been discussed and disposed of," said Forell. Fie waved the subject aside with a 
flatly final gesture. 

"The government is soft," complained the third man. "The mayor is an idiot." 

The fourth man looked at the other three in turn and removed the stub of a cigar from his 
mouth. Fie dropped it casually into the slot at his right where it disappeared with a silent flash of 
disruption. 

Fie said sarcastically, "I trust the gentleman who last spoke is speaking through habit only. We 
can afford to remember here that we are the government." 

There was a murmur of agreement. 

The fourth man's little eyes were on the table. "Then let us leave government policy alone. This 
young man ... this stranger might have been a possible customer. There have been cases. All 
three of you tried to butter him into an advance contract. We have an agreement - a 
gentleman's agreement - against it, but you tried." 

"So did you," growled the second man. 

I know it," said the fourth, calmly. 

"Then let's forget what we should have done earlier," interrupted Forell impatiently, "and 
continue with what we should do now. In any case, what if we had imprisoned him, or killed 
him, what then? We are not certain of his intentions even yet, and at the worst, we could not 
destroy an Empire by snipping short one man's life. There might be navies upon navies waiting 
just the other side of his nonreturn." 

"Exactly," approved the fourth man. "Now what did you get out of your captured ship? I'm too 
old for all this talking." 

"It can be told in a few enough words," said Forell, grimly. "Fle's an Imperial general or 
whatever rank corresponds to that over there. Fle's a young man who has proved his military 
brilliance - so I am told - and who is the idol of his men. Quite a romantic career. The stories 
they tell of him are no doubt half lies, but even so it makes him out to be a type of wonder 
man." 

"Who are the 'they'?" demanded the second man. 

"The crew of the captured ship. Look, I have all their statements recorded on micro-film, which I 
have in a secure place. Later on, if you wish, you can see them. You can talk to the men 
yourselves, if you think it necessary. I've told you the essentials." 



"How did you get it out of them? How do you know they're telling the truth?" 

Forell frowned. "I wasn't gentle, good sir. I knocked them about, drugged them crazy, and used 
the Probe unmercifully. They talked. You can believe them." 

"In the old days," said the third man, with sudden irrelevance, "they would have used pure 
psychology. Painless, you know, but very sure. No chance of deceit." 

"Well, there is a good deal they had in the old days," said Forell, dryly. "These are the new 
days." 

"But," said the fourth man, "what did he want here, this general, this romantic wonder-man?" 
There was a dogged, weary persistence about him. 

Forell glanced at him sharply. "You think he confides the details of state policy to his crew? 
They didn't know. There was nothing to get out of them in that respect, and I tried, Galaxy 
knows." 

"Which leaves us-" 

"To draw our own conclusions, obviously." Forell's fingers were tapping quietly again. "The 
young man is a military leader of the Empire, yet he played the pretense of being a minor 
princeling of some scattered stars in an odd comer of the Periphery. That alone would assure 
us that his real motives are such as it would not benefit him to have us know. Combine the 
nature of his profession with the fact that the Empire has already subsidized one attack upon us 
in my father's time, and the possibilities become ominous. That first attack failed. I doubt that 
the Empire owes us love for that." 

"There is nothing in your findings," questioned the fourth man guardedly, "that makes for 
certainty? You are withholding nothing?" 

Forell answered levelly, "I can't withhold anything. From here on there can be no question of 
business rivalry. Unity is forced upon us." 

"Patriotism?" There was a sneer in the third man's thin voice. 

"Patriotism be damned," said Forell quietly. "Do you think I give two puffs of nuclear emanation 
for the future Second Empire? Do you think I'd risk a single Trade mission to smooth its path? 
But - do you suppose Imperial conquest will help my business or yours? If the Empire wins, 
there will be a sufficient number of yearning carrion crows to crave the rewards of battle." 

"And we're the rewards," added the fourth man, dryly. 

The second man broke his silence suddenly, and shifted his bulk angrily, so that the chair 
creaked under him. "But why talk of that. The Empire can't win, can it? There is Seldon's 
assurance that we will form the Second Empire in the end. This is only another crisis. There 
have been three before this." 

"Only another crisis, yes!" Forell brooded. "But - in the case of the first two, we had Salvor 
Hardin to guide us; in the third, there was Hober Mallow. Whom have we now?" 



He looked at the others somberly and continued, "Seldon's rules of psychohistory on which it is 
so comforting to rely probably have as one of the contributing variables, a certain normal 
initiative on the part of the people of the Foundation themselves. Seldon's laws help those who 
help themselves." 

"The times make the man," said the third man. "There's another proverb for you." 

"You can't count on that, not with absolute assurance," grunted Forell. "Now the way it seems 
to me is this. If this is the fourth crisis, then Seldon has foreseen it. If he has, then it can be 
beaten, and there should be a way of doing it. 

"Now The Empire is stronger than we; it always has been. But this is the first time we are in 
danger of its direct attack, so that strength becomes terribly menacing. If it can be beaten, it 
must be once again as in all past crises by a method other than pure force. We must find the 
weak side of our enemy and attack it there." 

"And what is that weak side?" asked the fourth man. "Do you intend advancing a theory?" 

"No. That is the point I'm leading up to. Our great leaders of the past always saw the weak 
points of their enemies and aimed at that. But now-" 

There was a helplessness in his voice, and for a moment none volunteered a comment. 

Then the fourth man said, "We need spies." 

Forell turned to him eagerly. "Right! I don't know when the Empire will attack. There may be 
time." 

"Hober Mallow himself entered the Imperial dominions," suggested the second man. 

But Forell shook his head. "Nothing so direct. None of us are precisely youthful; and all of us 
are rusty with red-tape and administrative detail. We need young men that are in the field 
now-" 

"The independent traders?" asked the fourth man. 

And Forell nodded his, head and whispered, "If there is yet time-" 


3. THE DEAD HAND 


Bel Riose interrupted his annoyed stridings to look up hopefully when his aide entered. "Any 
word of the Starlet ?" 

"None. The scouting party has quartered space, but the instruments have detected nothing. 
Commander Yume has reported that the Fleet is ready for an immediate attack in retaliation." 

The general shook his head. "No, not for a patrol ship. Not yet. Tell him to double - Wait! I'll 
write out the message. Have it coded and transmitted by tight beam." 

He wrote as he talked and thrust the paper at the waiting officer. "Has the Siwennian arrived 



yet?" 

"Not yet." 

"Well, see to it that he is brought in here as soon as he does arrive." 

The aide saluted crisply and left. Riose resumed his caged stride. 

When the door opened a second time, it was Ducem Barr that stood on the threshold. Slowly, 
in the footsteps of the ushering aide, he stepped into the garish room whose ceiling was an 
ornamented holographic model of the Galaxy, and in the center of which Bel Riose stood in 
field uniform. 

"Patrician, good day!" The general pushed forward a chair with his foot and gestured the aide 
away with a "That door is to stay closed till I open it." 

He stood before the Siwennian, legs apart, hand grasping wrist behind his back, balancing 
himself slowly, thoughtfully, on the balls of his feet. 

Then, harshly, "Patrician, are you a loyal subject of the Emperor?" 

Barr, who had maintained an indifferent silence till then, wrinkled a noncommittal brow. "I have 
no cause to love Imperial rule." 

"Which is a long way from saying that you would be a traitor." 

"True. But the mere act of not being a traitor is also a long way from agreeing to be an active 
helper." 

"Ordinarily also true. But to refuse your help at this point," said Riose, deliberately, "will be 
considered treason and treated as such." 

Barr's eyebrows drew together. "Save your verbal cudgels for your subordinates. A simple 
statement of your needs and wants will suffice me here." 

Riose sat down and crossed his legs. "Barr, we had an earlier discussion half a year ago." 
"About your magicians?" 

"Yes. You remember what I said I would do." 

Barr nodded. His arms rested limply in his lap. "You were going to visit them in their haunts, 
and you've been away these four months. Did you find them?" 

"Find them? That I did," cried Riose. His lips were stiff as he spoke. It seemed to require effort 
to refrain from grinding molars. "Patrician, they are not magicians; they are devils. It is as far 
from belief as the outer galaxies from here. Conceive it! It is a world the size of a handkerchief, 
of a fingernail; with resources so petty, power so minute, a population so microscopic as would 
never suffice the most backward worlds of the dusty prefects of the Dark Stars. Yet with that, a 
people so proud and ambitious as to dream quietly and methodically of Galactic rule. 

"Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, 



phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep 
through systems with dawdling complacence. 

"And they succeed. There is no one to stop them. They have built up a filthy trading community 
that curls its tentacles about the systems further than their toy ships dare reach. For parsecs, 
their Traders - which is what their agents call themselves - penetrate." 

Ducem Barr interrupted the angry flow. "How much of this information is definite; and how much 
is simply fury?" 

The soldier caught his breath and grew calmer. "My fury does not blind me. I tell you I was in 
worlds nearer to Siwenna than to the Foundation, where the Empire was a myth of the 
distance, and where Traders were living truths. We ourselves were mistaken for Traders." 

"The Foundation itself told you they aimed at Galactic dominion?" 

"Told me!" Riose was violent again. "It was not a matter of telling me. The officials said nothing. 
They spoke business exclusively. But I spoke to ordinary men. I absorbed the ideas of the 
common folk; their 'manifest destiny,' their calm acceptance of a great future. It is a thing that 
can't be hidden; a universal optimism they don't even try to hide." 

The Siwennian openly displayed a certain quiet satisfaction. "You will notice that so far it would 
seem to bear out quite accurately my reconstruction of events from the paltry data on the 
subject that I have gathered." 

"It is no doubt," replied Riose with vexed sarcasm, "a tribute to your analytical powers. It is also 
a hearty and bumptious commentary on the growing danger to the domains of His Imperial 
Majesty." 

Barr shrugged his unconcern, and Riose leaned forward suddenly, to seize the old man's 
shoulders and stare with curious gentleness into his eyes. 

He said, "Now, patrician, none of that. I have no desire to be barbaric. For my part, the legacy 
of Siwennian hostility to the Imperium is an odious burden, and one which I would do 
everything in my power to wipe out. But my province is the military and interference in civil 
affairs is impossible. It would bring about my recall and ruin my usefulness at once. You see 
that? I know you see that. Between yourself and myself then, let the atrocity of forty years ago 
be repaid by your vengeance upon its author and so forgotten. I need your help. I frankly admit 
it." 

There was a world of urgency in the young man's voice, but Ducem Barr's head shook gently 
and deliberately in a negative gesture. 

Riose said pleadingly, "You don't understand, patrician, and I doubt my ability to make you. I 
can't argue on your ground. You're the scholar, not I. But this I can tell you. Whatever you think 
of the Empire, you will admit its great services. Its armed forces have committed isolated 
crimes, but in the main they have been a force for peace and civilization. It was the Imperial 
navy that created the Pax Imperium that ruled over all the Galaxy for thousands of years. 
Contrast the millennia of peace under the Sun-and-Spaceship of the Empire with the millennia 
of interstellar anarchy that preceded it. Consider the wars and devastations of those old days 



and tell me if, with all its faults, the Empire is not worth preserving. 

"Consider," he drove on forcefully, "to what the outer fringe of the Galaxy is reduced in these 
days of their breakaway and independence, and ask yourself if for the sake of a petty revenge 
you would reduce Siwenna from its position as a province under the protection of a mighty 
Navy to a barbarian world in a barbarian Galaxy, all immersed in its fragmentary independence 
and its common degradation and misery." 

"Is it so bad - so soon?" murmured the Siwennian. 

"No," admitted Riose. "We would be safe ourselves no doubt, were our lifetimes quadrupled. 

But it is for the Empire I fight; that, and a military tradition which is something for myself alone, 
and which I can not transfer to you. It is a military tradition built on the Imperial institution which 
I serve." 

"You are getting mystical, and I always find it difficult to penetrate another person's mysticism." 
"No matter. You understand the danger of this Foundation." 

"It was I who pointed out what you call the danger before ever you headed outward from 
Siwenna." 

"Then you realize that it must be stopped in embryo or perhaps not at all. You have known of 
this Foundation before anyone had heard of it. You know more about it than anyone else in the 
Empire. You probably know how it might best be attacked; and you can probably forewarn me 
of its countermeasures. Come, let us be friends." 

Ducem Barr rose. Fie said flatly, "Such help as I could give you means nothing. So I will make 
you free of it in the face of your strenuous demand." 

"I will be the judge of its meaning." 

"No, I am serious. Not all the might of the Empire could avail to crush this pygmy world." 

"Why not?" Bel Riose's eyes glistened fiercely. "No, stay where you are. I'll tell you when you 
may leave. Why not? If you think I underestimate this enemy I have discovered, you are wrong. 
Patrician," he spoke reluctantly, "I lost a ship on my return. I have no proof that it fell into the 
hands of the Foundation; but it has not been located since and were it merely an accident, its 
dead hulk should, certainly have been found along the route we took. It is not an important loss 
- less than the tenth part of a fleabite, but it may mean that the Foundation has already opened 
hostilities. Such eagerness and such disregard for consequences might mean secret forces of 
which I know nothing. Can you help me then by answering a specific question? What is their 
military power?" 

"I haven't any notion." 

"Then explain yourself on your own terms. Why do you say the Empire can not defeat this small 
enemy?" 

The Siwennian seated himself once more and looked away from Riose's fixed glare. Fie spoke 
heavily, "Because I have faith in the principles of psychohistory. It is a strange science. It 



reached mathematical maturity with one man, Hari Seldon, and died with him, for no man since 
has been capable of manipulating its intricacies. But in that short period, it proved itself the 
most powerful instrument ever invented for the study of humanity. Without pretending to predict 
the actions of individual humans, it formulated definite laws capable of mathematical analysis 
and extrapolation to govern and predict the mass action of human groups." 

"So-" 

"It was that psychohistory which Seldon and the group he worked with applied in full force to 
the establishment of the Foundation. The place, time, and conditions all conspire 
mathematically and so, inevitably, to the development of a Second Galactic Empire." 

Riose's voice trembled with indignation. "You mean that this art of his predicts that I would 
attack the Foundation and lose such and such a battle for such and such a reason? You are 
trying to say that I am a silly robot following a predetermined course into destruction." 

"No," replied the old patrician, sharply. "I have already said that the science had nothing to do 
with individual actions. It is the vaster background that has been foreseen." 

"Then we stand clasped tightly in the forcing hand of the Goddess of Historical Necessity." 

"Of Psyc/7ohistorical Necessity," prompted Barr, softly. 

"And if I exercise my prerogative of freewill? If I choose to attack next year, or not to attack at 
all? Flow pliable is the Goddess? Flow resourceful?" 

Barr shrugged. "Attack now or never; with a single ship, or all the force in the Empire; by 
military force or economic pressure; by candid declaration of war or by treacherous ambush. 

Do whatever you wish in your fullest exercise of freewill. You will still lose." 

"Because of Hari Seldon's dead hand?" 

"Because of the dead hand of the mathematics of human behavior that can neither be stopped, 
swerved, nor delayed." 

The two faced each other in deadlock, until the general stepped back. 

Fie said simply, "I'll take that challenge. It's a dead hand against a living will." 


4. THE EMPEROR 

CLEON II commonly called "The Great. " The last strong Emperor of the First Empire, he is 
important for the political and artistic renaissance that took place during his long reign. He is 
best known to romance, however, for his connection with Bel Riose, and to the common man, 
he is simply "Riose's Emperor. " It is important not to allow events of the last year of his reign to 
overshadow forty years of... 


ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 



Cleon II was Lord of the Universe. Cleon II also suffered from a painful and undiagnosed 
ailment. By the queer twists of human affairs, the two statements are not mutually exclusive, 
nor even particularly incongruous. There have been a wearisomely large number of precedents 
in history. 

But Cleon II cared nothing for such precedents. To meditate upon a long list of similar cases 
would not ameliorate personal suffering an electron's worth. It soothed him as little to think that 
where his great-grandfather had been the pirate ruler of a dust-speck planet, he himself slept in 
the pleasure palace of Ammenetik the Great, as heir of a line of Galactic rulers stretching 
backward into a tenuous past. It was at present no source of comfort to him that the efforts of 
his father had cleansed the realm of its leprous patches of rebellion and restored it to the peace 
and unity it had enjoyed under Stanel VI; that, as a consequence, in the twenty-five years of his 
reign, not one cloud of revolt had misted his burnished glory. 

The Emperor of the Galaxy and the Lord of All whimpered as he lolled his head backward into 
the invigorating plane of force about his pillows. It yielded in a softness that did not touch, and 
at the pleasant tingle, Cleon relaxed a bit. He sat up with difficulty and stared morosely at the 
distant walls of the grand chamber. It was a bad room to be alone in. It was too big. All the 
rooms were too big. 

But better to be alone during these crippling bouts than to endure the prinking of the courtiers, 
their lavish sympathy, their soft, condescending dullness. Better to be alone than to watch 
those insipid masks behind which spun the tortuous speculations on the chances of death and 
the fortunes of the succession. 

His thoughts hurried him. There were his three sons; three straight-backed youths full of 
promise and virtue. Where did they disappear on these bad days? Waiting, no doubt. Each 
watching the other; and all watching him. 

He stirred uneasily. And now Brodrig craved audience. The low-born, faithful Brodrig; faithful 
because he was hated with a unanimous and cordial hatred that was the only point of 
agreement between the dozen cliques that divided his court. 

Brodrig - the faithful favorite, who had to be faithful, since unless he owned the fastest 
speed-ship in the Galaxy and took to it the day of the Emperor's death, it would be the 
radiation-chamber the day after. 

Cleon II touched the smooth knob on the arm of his great divan, and the huge door at the end 
of the room dissolved to transparency. 

Brodrig advanced along the crimson carpet, and knelt to kiss the Emperor's limp hand. 

"Your health, sire?" asked the Privy Secretary in a low tone of becoming anxiety. 

"I live," snapped the Emperor with exasperation, "if you can call it life where every scoundrel 
who can read a book of medicine uses me as a blank and receptive field for his feeble 
experiments. If there is a conceivable remedy, chemical, physical, or nuclear, which has not yet 
been tried, why then, some learned babbler from the far comers of the realm will arrive 
tomorrow to try it. And still another newly-discovered book, or forgery morelike, will be used as 



authority. 

"By my father's memory," he rumbled savagely, "it seems there is not a biped extant who can 
study a disease before his eyes with those same eyes. There is not one who can count a 
pulse-beat without a book of the ancients before him. I'm sick and they call it 'unknown.' The 
fools! If in the course of millennia, human bodies learn new methods of falling askew, it remains 
uncovered by the studies of the ancients and uncurable forevermore. The ancients should be 
alive now, or I then." 

The Emperor ran down to a low-breathed curse while Brodrig waited dutifully. Cleon II said 
peevishly, "How many are waiting outside?" 

He jerked his head in the direction of the door. 

Brodrig said patiently, "The Great Hall holds the usual number." 

"Well, let them wait. State matters occupy me. Have the Captain of the Guard announce it. Or 
wait, forget the state matters. Just have it announced I hold no audience, and let the Captain of 
the Guard look doleful. The jackals among them may betray themselves." The Emperor 
sneered nastily. 

"There is a rumor, sire," said Brodrig, smoothly, "that it is your heart that troubles you." 

The Emperor's smile was little removed from the previous sneer. "It will hurt others more than 
myself if any act prematurely on that rumor. But what is it you want. Let's have this over." 

Brodrig rose from his kneeling posture at a gesture of permission and said, "It concerns 
General Bel Riose, the Military Governor of Siwenna." 

"Riose?" Cleon II frowned heavily. "I don't place him. Wait, is he the one who sent that quixotic 
message some months back? Yes, I remember. He panted for permission to enter a career of 
conquest for the glory of the Empire and Emperor." 

"Exactly, sire." 

The Emperor laughed shortly. "Did you think I had such generals left me, Brodrig? He seems to 
be a curious atavism. What was the answer? I believe you took care of it." 

"I did, sire. He was instructed to forward additional information and to take no steps involving 
naval action without further orders from the Imperium." 

"Hmp. Safe enough. Who is this Riose? Was he ever at court?" 

Brodrig nodded and his mouth twisted ever so little. "He began his career as a cadet in the 
Guards ten years back. He had part in that affair off the Lemul Cluster." 

"The Lemul Cluster? You know, my memory isn't quite - Was that the time a young soldier 
saved two ships of the line from a head-on collision by ... uh ... something or other?" He waved 
a hand impatiently. "I don't remember the details. It was something heroic." 

"Riose was that soldier. He received a promotion for it," Brodrig said dryly, "and an appointment 



to field duty as captain of a ship." 

"And now Military Governor of a border system and still young. Capable man, Brodrig!" 

"Unsafe, sire. He lives in the past. He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of 
what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of 
realism makes them fools for others." He added, "His men, I understand, are completely under 
his control. He is one of your popular generals." 

"Is he?" the Emperor mused. "Well, come, Brodrig, I would not wish to be served entirely by 
incompetents. They certainly set no enviable standard for faithfulness themselves." 

"An incompetent traitor is no danger. It is rather the capable men who must be watched." 

"You among them, Brodrig?" Cleon II laughed and then grimaced with pain. "Well, then, you 
may forget the lecture for the while. What new development is there in the matter of this young 
conqueror? I hope you haven't come merely to reminisce." 

"Another message, sire, has been received from General Riose." 

"Oh? And to what effect?" 

"He has spied out the land of these barbarians and advocates an expedition in force. His 
arguments are long and fairly tedious. It is not worth annoying Your Imperial Majesty with it at 
present, during your indisposition. Particularly since it will be discussed at length during the 
session of the Council of Lords." He glanced sidewise at the Emperor. 

Cleon II frowned. "The Lords? Is it a question for them, Brodrig? It will mean further demands 
for a broader interpretation of the Charter. It always comes to that." 

"It can't be avoided, sire. It might have been better if your august father could have beaten 
down the last rebellion without granting the Charter. But since it is here, we must endure it for 
the while." 

"You're right, I suppose. Then the Lords it must be. But why all this solemnity, man? It is, after 
all, a minor point. Success on a remote border with limited troops is scarcely a state affair." 

Brodrig smiled narrowly. He said coolly, "It is an affair of a romantic idiot; but even a romantic 
idiot can be a deadly weapon when an unromantic rebel uses him as a tool. Sire, the man was 
popular here and is popular there. He is young. If he annexes a vagrant barbarian planet or 
two, he will become a conqueror. Now a young conqueror who has proven his ability to rouse 
the enthusiasm of pilots, miners, tradesmen and suchlike rabble is dangerous at any time. Even 
if he lacked the desire to do to you as your august father did to the usurper, Ricker, then one of 
our loyal Lords of the Domain may decide to use him as his weapon." 

Cleon II moved an arm hastily and stiffened with pain. Slowly he relaxed, but his smile was 
weak, and his voice a whisper. "You are a valuable subject, Brodrig. You always suspect far 
more than is necessary, and I have but to take half your suggested precautions to be utterly 
safe. We'll put it up to the Lords. We shall see what they say and take our measure accordingly. 
The young man, I suppose, has made no hostile moves yet." 



"He report none. But already he asks for reinforcements." 

"Reinforcements!" The Emperor's eyes narrowed with wonder. "What force has he?" 

"Ten ships of the line, sire, with a full complement of auxiliary vessels. Two of the ships are 
equipped with motors salvaged from the old Grand Fleet, and one has a battery of power 
artillery from the same source. The other ships are new ones of the last fifty years, but are 
serviceable, nevertheless." 

"Ten ships would seem adequate for any reasonable undertaking. Why, with less than ten ships 
my father won his first victories against the usurper. Who are these barbarians he's fighting?" 

The Privy Secretary raised a pair of supercilious eyebrows. "He refers to them as 'the 
Foundation.'" 

"The Foundation? What is it?" 

"There is no record of it, sire. I have searched the archives carefully. The area of the Galaxy 
indicated falls within the ancient province of Anacreon, which two centuries since gave itself up 
to brigandage, barbarism, and anarchy. There is no planet known as Foundation in the 
province, however. There was a vague reference to a group of scientists sent to that province 
just before its separation from our protection. They were to prepare an Encyclopedia." He 
smiled thinly. "I believe they called it the Encyclopedia Foundation." 

"Well," the Emperor considered it somberly, "that seems a tenuous connection to advance." 

"I'm not advancing it, sire. No word was ever received from that expedition after the growth of 
anarchy in that region. If their descendants still live and retain their name, then they have 
reverted to barbarism most certainly." 

"And so he wants reinforcements." The Emperor bent a fierce glance at his secretary. "This is 
most peculiar; to propose to fight savages with ten ships and to ask for more before a blow is 
struck. And yet I begin to remember this Riose; he was a handsome boy of loyal family. 

Brodrig, there are complications in this that I don't penetrate. There may be more importance in 
it than would seem." 

His fingers played idly with the gleaming sheet that covered his stiffened legs. He said, "I need 
a man out there; one with eyes, brains and loyalty. Brodrig-" 

The secretary bent a submissive head. "And the ships, sire?" 

"Not yet!" The Emperor moaned softly as he shifted his position in gentle stages. He pointed a 
feeble finger, "Not till we know more. Convene the Council of Lords for this day week. It will be 
a good opportunity for the new appropriation as well. I'll put that through or lives will end." 

He leaned his aching head into the soothing tingle of the force-field pillow, "Go now, Brodrig, 
and send in the doctor. He's the worst bumbler of the lot." 



5. THE WAR BEGINS 

From the radiating point of Siwenna, the forces of the Empire reached out cautiously into the 
black unknown of the Periphery. Giant ships passed the vast distances that separated the 
vagrant stars at the Galaxy's rim, and felt their way around the outermost edge of Foundation 
influence. 

Worlds isolated in their new barbarism of two centuries felt the sensation once again of Imperial 
overlords upon their soil. Allegiance was sworn in the face of the massive artillery covering 
capital cities. 

Garrisons were left; garrisons of men in Imperial uniform with the Spaceship-and-Sun insignia 
upon their shoulders. The old men took notice and remembered once again the forgotten tales 
of their grandfathers' fathers of the times when the universe was big, and rich, and peaceful 
and that same Spaceship-and-Sun ruled all. 

Then the great ships passed on to weave their line of forward bases further around the 
Foundation. And as each world was knotted into its proper place in the fabric, the report went 
back to Bel Riose at the General Fleadquarters he had established on the rocky barrenness of 
a wandering sunless planet. 

Now Riose relaxed and smiled grimly at Ducem Barr. "Well, what do you think, patrician?" 

"I? Of what value are my thoughts? I am not a military man." He took in with one wearily 
distasteful glance the crowded disorder of the rock-bound room which had been carved out of 
the wall of a cavern of artificial air, light, and heat which marked the single bubble of life in the 
vastness of a bleak world. 

"For the help I could give you," he muttered, "or would want to give you, you might return me to 
Siwenna." 

"Not yet. Not yet." The general turned his chair to the comer which held the huge, 
brilliantly-transparent sphere that mapped the old Imperial prefect of Anacreon and its 
neighboring sectors. "Later, when this is over, you will go back to your books and to more. I'll 
see to it that the estates of your family are restored to you and to your children for the rest of 
time." 

"Thank you," said Barr, with faint irony, "but I lack your faith in the happy outcome of all this." 

Riose laughed harshly, "Don't start your prophetic croakings again. This map speaks louder 
than all your woeful theories." He caressed its curved invisible outline gently. "Can you read a 
map in radial projection? You can? Well, here, see for yourself. The stars in gold represent the 
Imperial territories. The red stars are those in subjection to the Foundation and the pink are 
those which are probably within the economic sphere of influence. Now watch-" 

Riose's hand covered a rounded knob, and slowly an area of hard, white pinpoints changed into 
a deepening blue. Like an inverted cup they folded about the red and the pink. 

"Those blue stars have been taken over by my forces," said Riose with quiet satisfaction, "and 



they still advance. No opposition has appeared anywhere. The barbarians are quiet. And 
particularly, no opposition has come from Foundation forces. They sleep peacefully and well." 

"You spread your force thinly, don't you?" asked Barr. 

"As a matter of fact," said Riose, "despite appearances, I don't. The key points which I garrison 
and fortify are relatively few, but they are carefully chosen. The result is that the force 
expended is small, but the strategic result great. There are many advantages, more than would 
ever appear to anyone who hasn't made a careful study of spatial tactics, but it is apparent to 
anyone, for instance, that I can base an attack from any point in an inclosing sphere, and that 
when I am finished it will be impossible for the Foundation to attack at flank or rear. I shall have 
no flank or rear with respect to them. 

"This strategy of the Previous Enclosure has been tried before, notably in the campaigns of 
Loris VI, some two thousand years ago, but always imperfectly; always with the knowledge and 
attempted interference of the enemy. This is different." 

"The ideal textbook case?" Barr's voice was languid and indifferent. 

Riose was impatient, "You still think my forces will fail?" 

"They must." 

"You understand that there is no case in military history where an Enclosure has been 
completed that the attacking forces have not eventually won, except where an outside Navy 
exists in sufficient force to break the Enclosure." 

"If you say so." 

"And you still adhere to your faith." 

"Yes." 

Riose shrugged. "Then do so." 

Barr allowed the angry silence to continue for a moment, then asked quietly, "Flave you 
received an answer from the Emperor?" 

Riose removed a cigarette from a wall container behind his head, placed a filter tip between his 
lips and puffed it aflame carefully. Fie said, "You mean my request for reinforcements? It came, 
but that's all. Just the answer." 

"No ships." 

"None. I half-expected that. Frankly, patrician, I should never have allowed myself to be 
stampeded by your theories into requesting them in the first place. It puts me in a false light." 

"Does it?" 

"Definitely. Ships are at a premium. The civil wars of the last two centuries have smashed up 
more than half of the Grand Fleet and what's left is in pretty shaky condition. You know it isn't 
as if the ships we build these days are worth anything. I don't think there's a man in the Galaxy 



today who can build a first-rate hypernuclear motor." 

"I knew that," said the Siwennian. His eyes were thoughtful and introspective. "I didn't know that 
yoi/knew it. So his Imperial Majesty can spare no ships. Psychohistory could have predicted 
that; in fact, it probably did. I should say that Hari Seldon's dead hand wins the opening round." 

Riose answered sharply, "I have enough ships as it is. Your Seldon wins nothing. Should the 
situation turn more serious, then more ships will be available. As yet, the Emperor does not 
know all the story." 

"Indeed? What haven't you told him?" 

"Obviously - your theories." Riose looked sardonic. "The story is, with all respect to you, 
inherently improbable. If developments warrant; if events supply me with proof, then, but only 
then, would I make out the case of mortal danger. 

"And in addition," Riose drove on, casually, "the story, unbolstered by fact, has a flavor of lese 
majeste that could scarcely be pleasant to His Imperial Majesty." 

The old patrician smiled. "You mean that telling him his august throne is in danger of 
subversion by a parcel of ragged barbarians from the ends of the universe is not a warning to 
be believed or appreciated. Then you expect nothing from him." 

"Unless you count a special envoy as something." 

"And why a special envoy?" 

"It's an old custom. A direct representative of the crown is present on every military campaign 
which is under government auspices." 

"Really? Why?" 

"It's a method of preserving the symbol of personal Imperial leadership in all campaigns. It's 
gained a secondary function of insuring the fidelity of generals. It doesn't always succeed in 
that respect." 

"You'll find that inconvenient, general. Extraneous authority, I mean." 

"I don't doubt that," Riose reddened faintly, "but it can't be helped-" 

The receiver at the general's hand glowed warmly, and with an unobtrusive jar, the cylindered 
communication popped into its slot. Riose unrolled it, "Good! This is it!" 

Ducem Barr raised a mildly questioning eyebrow. 

Riose said, "You know we've captured one of these Trader people. Alive - and with his ship 
intact." 

"I've heard talk of it." 

"Well, they've just brought him in, and we'll have him here in a minute. You keep your seat, 
patrician. I want you here when I'm questioning him. It's why I asked you here today in the first 



place. You may understand him where I might miss important points." 

The door signal sounded and a touch of the general's toe swung the door wide. The man who 
stood on the threshold was tall and bearded, wore a short coat of a soft, leathery plastic, with 
an attached hood shoved back on his neck. His hands were free, and if he noticed the men 
about him were armed, he did not trouble to indicate it. 

He stepped in casually, and looked about with calculating eyes. He favored the general with a 
rudimentary wave of the hand and a half nod. 

"Your name?" demanded Riose, crisply. 

"Lathan Devers." The trader hooked his thumbs into his wide and gaudy belt. "Are you the boss 
here?" 

"You are a trader of the Foundation?" 

"That's right. Listen, if you're the boss, you'd better tell your hired men here to lay off my cargo." 

The general raised his head and regarded the prisoner coldly. "Answer questions. Do not 
volunteer orders." 

"All right. I'm agreeable. But one of your boys blasted a two-foot hole in his chest already, by 
sticking his fingers where he wasn't supposed to." 

Riose shifted his gaze to the lieutenant in charge. "Is this man telling the truth? Your report, 
Vrank, had it that no lives were lost." 

"None were, sir," the lieutenant spoke stiffly, apprehensively, "at the time. There was later some 
disposition to search the ship, there having arisen a rumor that a woman was aboard. Instead, 
sir, many instruments of unknown nature were located, instruments which the prisoner claims 
to be his stock in trade. One of them flashed on handling, and the soldier holding it died." 

The general turned back to the trader. "Does your ship carry nuclear explosives?" 

"Galaxy, no. What for? That fool grabbed a nuclear puncher, wrong end forward and set at 
maximum dispersion. You're not supposed to do that. Might as well point a neut-gun at your 
head. I'd have stopped him, if five men weren't sitting on my chest." 

Riose gestured at the waiting guard, "You go. The captured ship is to he sealed against all 
intrusion. Sit down, Devers." 

The trader did so, in the spot indicated, and withstood stolidly the hard scrutiny of the Imperial 
general and the curious glance of the Siwennian patrician. 

Riose said, "You're a sensible man, Devers." 

"Thank you. Are you impressed by my face, or do you want something? Tell you what, though. 
I'm a good business man." 

"It's about the same thing. You surrendered your ship when you might have decided to waste 
our ammunition and have yourself blown to electron-dust. It could result in good treatment for 



you, if you continue that sort of outlook on life." 

"Good treatment is what I mostly crave, boss." 

"Good, and co-operation is what I mostly crave." Riose smiled, and said in a low aside to 
Ducem Barr, "I hope the word 'crave' means what I think it does. Did you ever hear such a 
barbarous jargon?" 

Devers said blandly, "Right. I check you. But what kind of co-operation are you talking about, 
boss? To tell you straight, I don't know where I stand." He looked about him, "Where's this 
place, for instance, and - what's the idea?" 

"Ah, I've neglected the other half of the introductions. I apologize." Riose was in good humor. 
"That gentleman is Ducem Barr, Patrician of the Empire. I am Bel Riose, Peer of the Empire, 
and General of the Third Class in the armed forces of His Imperial Majesty." 

The trader's jaw slackened. Then, "The Empire? I mean the old Empire they taught us about at 
school? Huh! Funny! I always had the sort of notion that it didn't exist any more." 

"Look about you. It does," said Riose grimly. 

"Might have known it though," and Lathan Devers pointed his beard at the ceiling. "That was a 
mightily polished-looking set of craft that took my tub. No kingdom of the Periphery could have 
turned them out." His brow furrowed. "So what's the game, boss? Or do I call you general?" 

"Me game is war." 

"Empire versus Foundation, that it?" 

"Right." 

"Why?" 

"I think you know why." 

The trader stared sharply and shook his head. 

Riose let the other deliberate, then said softly, "I'm sure you know why." 

Lathan Devers muttered, "Warm here," and stood up to remove his hooded jacket. Then he sat 
down again and stretched his legs out before him. 

"You know," he said, comfortably, "I figure you're thinking I ought to jump up with a whoop and 
lay about me. I can catch you before you could move if I choose my time, and this old fellow 
who sits there and doesn't say anything couldn't do much to stop me." 

"But you won't," said Riose, confidently. 

"I won't," agreed Devers, amiably. "First off, killing you wouldn't stop the war, I suppose. There 
are more generals where you came from." 

"Very accurately calculated." 



"Besides which, I'd probably be slammed down about two seconds after I got you, and killed 
fast, or maybe slow, depending. But I'd be killed, and I never like to count on that when I'm 
making plans. It doesn't pay off." 

"I said you were a sensible man." 

"But there's one thing I would like, boss. I'd like you to tell me what you mean when you say I 
know why you're jumping us. I don't; and guessing games bother me no end." 

"Yes? Ever hear of Hari Seldon?" 

"No. I said I don't like guessing games." 

Riose flicked a side glance at Ducem Barr who smiled with a narrow gentleness and resumed 
his inwardly-dreaming expression. 

Riose said with a grimace, "Don't you play games, Devers. There is a tradition, or a fable, or 
sober history - I don't care what - upon your Foundation, that eventually you will found the 
Second Empire. I know quite a detailed version of Hari Seldon's psychohistorical claptrap, and 
your eventual plans of aggression against the Empire." 

"That so?" Devers nodded thoughtfully. "And who told you all that?" 

"Does that matter?" said Riose with dangerous smoothness. "You're here to question nothing. I 
want what you know about the Seldon Fable." 

"But if it's a Fable-" 

"Don't play with words, Devers." 

"I'm not. In fact, I'll give it to you straight. You know all I know about it. It's silly stuff, half-baked. 
Every world has its yams; you can't keep it away from them. Yes, I've heard that sort of talk; 
Seldon, Second Empire, and so on. They put kids to sleep at night with the stuff. The young 
squirts curl up in the spare rooms with their pocket projectors and suck up Seldon thrillers. But 
it's strictly non-adult. Nonintelligent adult, anyway." The trader shook his head. 

The Imperial general's eyes were dark. "Is that really so? You waste your lies, man. I've been 
on the planet, Terminus. I know your Foundation. I've looked it in the face." 

"And you ask me? Me, when I haven't kept foot on it for two months at a piece in ten years. You 
are wasting your time. But go ahead with your war, if it's fables you're after." 

And Barr spoke for the first time, mildly, "You are so confident then that the Foundation will 
win?" 

The trader turned. He flushed faintly and an old scar on one temple showed whitely, "Hm-m-m, 
the silent partner. How'd you squeeze that out of what I said, doc?" 

Riose nodded very slightly at Barr, and the Siwennian continued in a low voice, "Because the 
notion would bother you if you thought your world might lose this war, and suffer the bitter 
reapings of defeat, I know. My world once did, and still does." 



Lathan Devers fumbled his beard, looked from one of his opponents to the other, then laughed 
shortly. "Does he always talk like that, boss? Listen," he grew serious, "what's defeat? I've seen 
wars and I've seen defeats. What if the winner does take over? Who's bothered? Me? Guys like 
me?" He shook his head in derision. 

"Get this," the trader spoke forcefully and earnestly, "there are five or six fat slobs who usually 
run an average planet. They get the rabbit punch, but I'm not losing peace of mind over them. 
See. The people? The ordinary run of guys? Sure, some get killed, and the rest pay extra taxes 
for a while. But it settles itself out; it runs itself down. And then it's the old situation again with a 
different five or six." 

Ducem Barr's nostrils flared, and the tendons of his old right hand jerked; but he said nothing. 

Lathan Devers' eyes were on him. They missed nothing. He said, "Look. I spend my life in 
space for my five-and-dime gadgets and my beer-and-pretzel kickback from the Combines. 
There's fat fellows back there," his thumb jerked over his shoulder and back, "that sit home and 
collect my year's income every minute - out of skimmings from me and more like me. Suppose 
you run the Foundation. You'll still need us. You'll need us more than ever the Combines do - 
because you'd not know your way around, and we could bring in the hard cash. We'd make a 
better deal with the Empire. Yes, we would; and I'm a man of business. If it adds up to a plus 
mark, I'm for it." 

And he stared at the two with sardonic belligerence. 

The silence remained unbroken for minutes, and then a cylinder rattled into its slot. The general 
flipped it open, glanced at the neat printing and in-circuited the visuals with a sweep. 

"Prepare plan indicating position of each ship in action. Await orders on full-armed defensive." 

He reached for his cape. As he fastened it about his shoulders, he whispered in a stiff-lipped 
monotone to Barr, "I'm leaving this man to you. I'll expect results. This is war and I can be cruel 
to failures. Remember!" He left, with a salute to both. 

Lathan Devers looked after him, "Well, something's hit him where it hurts. What goes on?" 

"A battle, obviously," said Barr, gruffly. "The forces of the Foundation are coming out for their 
first battle. You'd better come along." 

There were armed soldiers in the room. Their bearing was respectful and their faces were hard. 
Devers followed the proud old Siwennian patriarch out of the room. 

The room to which they were led was smaller, barer. It contained two beds, a visi-screen, and 
shower and sanitary facilities. The soldiers marched out, and the thick door boomed hollowly 
shut. 

" Hmp ?' Devers stared disapprovingly about. "This looks permanent." 

"It is," said Barr, shortly. The old Siwennian turned his back. 

The trader said irritably, "What's your game, doc?" 



"I have no game. You're in my charge, that's all." 

The trader rose and advanced. His bulk towered over the unmoving patrician. "Yes? But you're 
in this cell with me and when you were marched here the guns were pointed just as hard at you 
as at me. Listen, you were all boiled up about my notions on the subject of war and peace." 

He waited fruitlessly, "All fight, let me ask you something. You said your country was licked 
once. By whom? Comet people from the outer nebulae?" 

Barr looked up. "By the Empire." 

"That so? Then what are you doing here?" 

Barr maintained an eloquent silence. 

The trader thrust out a lower lip and nodded his head slowly. He slipped off the flat-linked 
bracelet that hugged his fight wrist and held it out. "What do you think of that?" He wore the 
mate to it on his left. 

The Siwennian took the ornament. He responded slowly to the trader's gesture and put it on. 
The odd tingling at the wrist passed away quickly. 

Devers' voice changed at once. "Right, doc, you've got the action now. Just speak casually. If 
this room is wired, they won't get a thing. That's a Field Distorter you've got there; genuine 
Mallow design. Sells for twenty-five credits on any world from here to the outer rim. You get it 
free. Hold your lips still when you talk and take it easy. You've got to get the trick of it." 

Ducem Barr was suddenly weary. The trader's boring eyes were luminous and urging. He felt 
unequal to their demands. 

Barr said, "What do you want?" The words slurred from between unmoving lips. 

"I've told you. You make mouth noises like what we call a patriot. Yet your own world has been 
mashed up by the Empire, and here you are playing ball with the Empire's fair-haired general. 
Doesn't make sense, does it?" 

Barr said, "I have done my part. A conquering Imperial viceroy is dead because of me." 

"That so? Recently?" 

"Forty years ago." 

"Forty ... years ... ago!" The words seemed to have meaning to the trader. He frowned, "That's 
a long time to live on memories. Does that young squirt in the general's uniform know about it?" 

Barr nodded. 

Devers' eyes were dark with thought. "You want the Empire to win?" 

And the old Siwennian patrician broke out in sudden deep anger, "May the Empire and all its 
works perish in universal catastrophe. All Siwenna prays that daily. I had brothers once, a 
sister, a father. But I have children now, grandchildren. The general knows where to find them." 



Devers waited. 


Barr continued in a whisper, "But that would not stop me if the results in view warranted the 
risk. They would know how to die." 

The trader said gently, "You killed a viceroy once, huh? You know, I recognize a few things. We 
once had a mayor, Hober Mallow his name was. He visited Siwenna; that's your world, isn't it? 
He met a man named Barr." 

Ducem Barr stared hard, suspiciously. "What do you know of this?" 

"What every trader on the Foundation knows. You might be a smart old fellow put in here to get 
on my right side. Sure, they'd point guns at you, and you'd hate the Empire and be all-out for its 
smashing. Then I'd fall all over you and pour out my heart to you, and wouldn't the general be 
pleased. There's not much chance of that, doc. 

"But just the same I'd like to have you prove that you're the son of Onum Barr of Siwenna - the 
sixth and youngest who escaped the massacre." 

Ducem Barr's hand shook as he opened the flat metal box in a wall recess. The metal object he 
withdrew clanked softly as he thrust it into the trader's hands. "Look at that," he said. 

Devers stared. He held the swollen central link of the chain close to his eyes and swore softly. 
"That's Mallow's monogram, or I'm a space-struck rookie, and the design is fifty years old if it's 
a day." 

He looked up and smiled. 

"Shake, doc. A man-sized nuclear shield is all the proof I need," and he held out his large hand. 


6. THE FAVORITE 

The tiny ships had appeared out of the vacant depths and darted into the midst of the Armada. 
Without a shot or a burst of energy, they weaved through the ship-swollen area, then blasted 
on and out, while the Imperial wagons turned after them like lumbering beasts. There were two 
noiseless flares that pinpointed space as two of the tiny gnats shriveled in atomic disintegration, 
and the rest were gone. 

The great ships searched, then returned to their original task, and world by world, the great web 
of the Enclosure continued. 

Brodrig's uniform was stately; carefully tailored and as carefully worn. His walk through the 
gardens of the obscure planet Wanda, now temporary Imperial headquarters, was leisurely; his 
expression was somber. 

Bel Riose walked with him, his field uniform open at the collar, and doleful in its monotonous 
gray-black. 

Riose indicated the smooth black bench under the fragrant tree-fern whose large spatulate 



leaves lifted flatly against the white sun. "See that, sir. It is a relic of the Imperium. The 
ornamented benches, built for lovers, linger on, fresh and useful, while the factories and the 
palaces collapse into unremembered ruin." 

He seated himself, while Cleon ll's Privy Secretary stood erect before him and clipped the 
leaves above neatly with precise swings of his ivory staff. 

Riose crossed his legs and offered a cigarette to the other. He fingered one himself as he 
spoke, "It is what one would expect from the enlightened wisdom of His Imperial Majesty to 
send so competent an observer as yourself. It relieves any anxiety I might have felt that the 
press of more important and more immediate business might perhaps force into the shadows a 
small campaign on the Periphery." 

"The eyes of the Emperor are everywhere," said Brodrig, mechanically. "We do not 
underestimate the importance of the campaign; yet still it would seem that too great an 
emphasis is being placed upon its difficulty. Surely their little ships are no such barrier that we 
must move through the intricate preliminary maneuver of an Enclosure." 

Riose flushed, but he maintained his equilibrium. "I can not risk the lives of my men, who are 
few enough, or the destruction of my ships which are irreplaceable, by a too-rash attack. The 
establishment of an Enclosure will quarter my casualties in the ultimate attack, howsoever 
difficult it be. The military reasons for that I took the liberty to explain yesterday." 

"Well, well, I am not a military man. In this case, you assure me that what seems patently and 
obviously right is, in reality, wrong. We will allow that. Yet your caution shoots far beyond that. 
In your second communication, you requested reinforcements. And these, against an enemy 
poor, small, and barbarous, with whom you have had not one' skirmish at the time. To desire 
more forces under the circumstances would savor almost of incapacity or worse, had not your 
earlier career given sufficient proof of your boldness and imagination." 

"I thank you," said the general, coldly, "but I would remind you that there is a difference 
between boldness and blindness. There is a place for a decisive gamble when you know your 
enemy and can calculate the risks at least roughly; but to move at all against an unknown 
enemy is boldness in itself. You might as well ask why the same man sprints safely across an 
obstacle course in the day, and falls over the furniture in his room at night." 

Brodrig swept away the other's words with a neat flirt of the fingers. "Dramatic, but not 
satisfactory. You have been to this barbarian world yourself. You have in addition this enemy 
prisoner you coddle, this trader. Between yourself and the prisoner you are not in a night fog." 

"No? I pray you to remember that a world which has developed in isolation for two centuries 
can not be interpreted to the point of intelligent attack by a month's visit. I am a soldier, not a 
cleft-chinned, barrel-chested hero of a subetheric trimensional thriller. Nor can a single 
prisoner, and one who is an obscure member of an economic group which has no close 
connection with the enemy world introduce me to all the inner secrets of enemy strategy." 

"You have questioned him?" 

"I have." 



Well? 


"It has been useful, but not vitally so. His ship is tiny, of no account. He sells little toys which 
are amusing if nothing else. I have a few of the cleverest which I intend sending to the Emperor 
as curiosities. Naturally, there is a good deal about the ship and its workings which I do not 
understand, but then I am not a tech-man." 

"But you have among you those who are," pointed out Brodrig. 

"I, too, am aware of that," replied the general in faintly caustic tones. "But the fools have far to 
go before they could meet my needs. I have already sent for clever men who can understand 
the workings of the odd nuclear field-circuits the ship contains. I have received no answer." 

"Men of that type can not be spared, general. Surely, there must be one man of your vast 
province who understands nucleics." 

"Were there such a one, I would have him heal the limping, invalid motors that power two of my 
small fleet of ships. Two ships of my meager ten that can not fight a major battle for lack of 
sufficient power supply. One fifth of my force condemned to the carrion activity of consolidating 
positions behind the lines." 

The secretary's fingers fluttered impatiently. "Your position is not unique in that respect, 
general. The Emperor has similar troubles." 

The general threw away his shredded, never-lit cigarette, lit another, and shrugged. "Well, it is 
beside the immediate point, this lack of first-class tech-men. Except that I might have made 
more progress with my prisoner were my Psychic Probe in proper order." 

The secretary's eyebrows lifted. "You have a Probe?" 

"An old one. A superannuated one which fails me the one time I needed it. I set it up during the 
prisoner's sleep, and received nothing. So much for the Probe. I have tried it on my own men 
and the reaction is quite proper, but again there is not one among my staff of tech-men who 
can tell me why it fails upon the prisoner. Ducem Barr, who is a theoretician of parts, though no 
mechanic, says the psychic structure of the prisoner may be unaffected by the Probe since 
from childhood he has been subjected to alien environments and neural stimuli. I don't know. 
But he may yet be useful. I save him in that hope." 

Brodrig leaned on his staff. A shall see if a specialist is available in the capital. In the 
meanwhile, what of this other man you just mentioned, this Siwennian? You keep too many 
enemies in your good graces." 

"He knows the enemy. He, too, I keep for future reference and the help he may afford me." 

"But he is a Siwennian and the son of a proscribed rebel." 

"He is old and powerless, and his family acts as hostage." 

"I see. Yet I think that I should speak to this trader, myself." 

"Certainly." 



"Alone," the secretary added coldly, making his point. 

"Certainly," repeated Riose, blandly. "As a loyal subject of the Emperor, I accept his personal 
representative as my superior. However, since the trader is at the permanent base, you will 
have to leave the front areas at an interesting moment." 

"Yes? Interesting in what way?" 

"Interesting in that the Enclosure is complete today. Interesting in that within the week, the 
Twentieth Fleet of the Border advances inward towards the core of resistance." Riose smiled 
and turned away. 

In a vague way, Brodrig felt punctured. 


7. BRIBERY 


Sergeant Mori Luk made an ideal soldier of the ranks. He came from the huge agricultural 
planets of the Pleiades where only army life could break the bond to the soil and the unavailing 
life of drudgery; and he was typical of that background. Unimaginative enough to face danger 
without fear, he was strong and agile enough to face it successfully. He accepted orders 
instantly, drove the men under him unbendingly and adored his general unswervingly. 

And yet with that, he was of a sunny nature. If he killed a man in the line of duty without a scrap 
of hesitation, it was also without a scrap of animosity. 

That Sergeant Luk should signal at the door before entering was further a sign of tact, for he 
would have been perfectly within his rights to enter without signaling. 

The two within looked up from their evening meal and one reached out with his foot to cut off 
the cracked voice which rattled out of the battered pocket-transmitter with bright liveliness. 

"More books?" asked Lathan Devers. 

The sergeant held out the tightly-wound cylinder of film and scratched his neck. "It belongs to 
Engineer Orre, but he'll have to have it back. He's going to send it to his kids, you know, like 
what you might call a souvenir, you know." 

Ducem Barr turned the cylinder in his hands with interest. "And where did the engineer get it? 
He hasn't a transmitter also, has he?" 

The sergeant shook his head emphatically. He pointed to the knocked-about remnant at the 
foot of the bed. "That's the only one in the place. This fellow, Orre, now, he got that book from 
one of these pig-pen worlds out here we captured. They had it in a big building by itself and he 
had to kill a few of the natives that tried to stop him from taking it." 

He looked at it appraisingly. "It makes a good souvenir - for kids." 

He paused, then said stealthily, "There's big news floating about, by the way. It's only 
scuttlebutt, but even so, it's too good to keep. The general did it again." And he nodded slowly, 



gravely. 

"That so?" said Devers. "And what did he do?" 

"Finished the Enclosure, that's all." The sergeant chuckled with a fatherly pride. "Isn't he the 
corker, though? Didn't he work it fine? One of the fellows who's strong on fancy talk, says it 
went as smooth and even as the music of the spheres, whatever they are." 

"The big offensive starts now?" asked Barr, mildly. 

"Hope so," was the boisterous response. "I want to get back on my ship now that my arm is in 
one piece again. I'm tired of sitting on my scupper out here." 

"So am I," muttered Devers, suddenly and savagely. There was a bit of underlip caught in his 
teeth, and he worried it. 

The sergeant looked at him doubtfully, and said, "I'd better go now. The captain's round is due 
and I'd just as soon he didn't catch me in here." 

He paused at the door. "By the way, sir," he said with sudden, awkward shyness to the trader, 

"I heard from my wife. She says that little freezer you gave me to send her works fine. It doesn't 
cost her anything, and she just about keeps a month's supply of food froze up complete. I 
appreciate it." 

"It's all right. Forget it." 

The great door moved noiselessly shut behind the grinning sergeant. 

Ducem Barr got out of his chair. "Well, he gives us a fair return for the freezer. Let's take a look 
at this new book. Ahh, the title is gone." 

He unrolled a yard or so of the film and looked through at the light. Then he murmured, "Well, 
skewer me through the scupper, as the sergeant says. This is 'The Garden of Summa,' 

Devers." 

"That so?" said the trader, without interest. He shoved aside what was left of his dinner. "Sit 
down, Barr. Listening to this old-time literature isn't doing me any good. You heard what the 
sergeant said?" 

"Yes, I did. What of it?" 

"The offensive will start. And we sit here!" 

"Where do you want to sit?" 

"You know what I mean. There's no use just waiting." 

"Isn't there?" Barr was carefully removing the old film from the transmitter and installing the 
new. "You told me a good deal of Foundation history in the last month, and it seems that the 
great leaders of past crises did precious little more than sit - and wait." 

"Ah, Barr, but they knew where they were going." 



"Did they? I suppose they said they did when it was over, and for all I know maybe they did. But 
there's no proof that things would not have worked out as well or better if they had not known 
where they were going. The deeper economic and sociological forces aren't directed by 
individual men." 

Devers sneered. "No way of telling that things wouldn't have worked out worse, either. You're 
arguing tail-end backwards." His eyes were brooding. "You know, suppose I blasted him?" 

"Whom? Riose?" 

"Yes." 

Barr sighed. His aging eyes were troubled with a reflection of the long past. "Assassination isn't 
the way out, Devers. I once tried it, under provocation, when I was twenty - but it solved 
nothing. I removed a villain from Siwenna, but not the Imperial yoke; and it was the Imperial 
yoke and not the villain that mattered." 

"But Riose is not just a villain, doc. He's the whole blamed army. It would fall apart without him. 
They hang on him like babies. The sergeant out there slobbers every time he mentions him." 

"Even so. There are other armies and other leaders. You must go deeper. There is this Brodrig, 
for instance - no one more than he has the ear of the Emperor. He could demand hundreds of 
ships where Riose must struggle with ten. I know him by reputation." 

"That so? What about him?" The trader's eyes lost in frustration what they gained in sharp 
interest. 

"You want a pocket outline? He's a low-born rascal who has by unfailing flattery tickled the 
whims of the Emperor. He's well-hated by the court aristocracy, vermin themselves, because 
he can lay claim to neither family nor humility. He is the Emperor's adviser in all things, and the 
Emperor's too in the worst things. He is faithless by choice but loyal by necessity. There is not a 
man in the Empire as subtle in villainy or as crude in his pleasures. And they say there is no 
way to the Emperor's favor but through him; and no way to his, but through infamy." 

"Wow!" Devers pulled thoughtfully at his neatly trimmed beard. "And he's the old boy the 
Emperor sent out here to keep an eye on Riose. Do you know I have an idea?" 

"I do now." 

"Suppose this Brodrig takes a dislike to our young Army's Delight?" 

"He probably has already. He's not noted for a capacity for liking." 

"Suppose it gets really bad. The Emperor might hear about it, and Riose might be in trouble." 
"Uh-huh. Quite likely. But how do you propose to get that to happen?" 

"I don't know. I suppose he could be bribed?" 

The patrician laughed gently. "Yes, in a way, but not in the manner you bribed the sergeant - 
not with a pocket freezer. And even if you reach his scale, it wouldn't be worth it. There's 
probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable 



corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum. Think of something else." 

Devers swung a leg over his knee and his toe nodded quickly and restlessly. "It's the first hint, 
though-" 

He stopped; the door signal was flashing once again, and the sergeant was on the threshold 
once more. He was excited, and his broad face was red and unsmiling. 

"Sir," he began, in an agitated attempt at deference, "I am very thankful for the freezer, and you 
have always spoken to me very fine, although I am only the son of a farmer and you are great 
lords." 

His Pleiades accent had grown thick, almost too much so for easy comprehension; and with 
excitement, his lumpish peasant derivation wiped out completely the soldierly bearing so long 
and so painfully cultivated. 

Barr said softly, "What is it, sergeant?" 

"Lord Brodrig is coming to see you. Tomorrow! I know, because the captain told me to have my 
men ready for dress review tomorrow for ... for him. I thought - I might warn you." 

Barr said, "Thank you, sergeant, we appreciate that. But it's all right, man; no need for-" 

But the look on Sergeant Luk's face was now unmistakably one of fear. He spoke in a rough 
whisper, "You don't hear the stories the men tell about him. He has sold himself to the space 
fiend. No, don't laugh. There are most terrible tales told about him. They say he has men with 
blast-guns who follow him everywhere, and when he wants pleasure, he just tells them to blast 
down anyone they meet. And they do - and he laughs. They say even the Emperor is in terror 
of him, and that he forces the Emperor to raise taxes and won't let him listen to the complaints 
of the people. 

"And he hates the general, that's what they say. They say he would like to kill the general, 
because the general is so great and wise. But he can't because our general is a match for 
anyone and he knows Lord Brodrig is a bad 'un." 

The sergeant blinked; smiled in a sudden incongruous shyness at his own outburst; and 
backed toward the door. He nodded his head, jerkily. "You mind my words. Watch him." 

He ducked out. 

And Devers looked up, hard-eyed. "This breaks things our way, doesn't it, doc?" 

"It depends," said Barr, dryly, "on Brodrig, doesn't it?" 

But Devers was thinking, not listening. 

He was thinking hard. 

Lord Brodrig ducked his head as he stepped into the cramped living quarters of the trading 
ship, and his two armed guards followed quickly, with bared guns and the professionally hard 
scowls of the hired bravos. 



The Privy Secretary had little of the look of the lost soul about him just then. If the space fiend 
had bought him, he had left no visible mark of possession. Rather might Brodrig have been 
considered a breath of court-fashion come to enliven the hard, bare ugliness of an army base. 

The stiff, tight lines of his sheened and immaculate costume gave him the illusion of height, 
from the very top of which his cold, emotionless eyes stared down the declivity of a long nose 
at the trader. The mother-of-pearl ruches at his wrists fluttered filmily as he brought his ivory 
stick to the ground before him and leaned upon it daintily. 

"No," he said, with a little gesture, "you remain here. Forget your toys; I am not interested in 
them." 

He drew forth a chair, dusted it carefully with the iridescent square of fabric attached to the top 
of his white stick, and seated himself. Devers glanced towards the mate to the chair, but 
Brodrig said lazily, "You will stand in the presence of a Peer of the Realm." 

He smiled. 

Devers shrugged. "If you're not interested in my stock in trade, what am I here for?" 

The Privy Secretary waited coldly, and Devers added a slow, "Sir." 

"For privacy," said the secretary. "Now is it likely that I would come two hundred parsecs 
through space to inspect trinkets? It's you I want to see." He extracted a small pink tablet from 
an engraved box and placed it delicately between his teeth. He sucked it slowly and 
appreciatively. 

"For instance," he said, "who are you? Are you really a citizen of this barbarian world that is 
creating all this fury of military frenzy?" 

Devers nodded gravely. 

"And you were really captured by him after the beginning of this squabble he calls a war. I am 
referring to our young general." 

Devers nodded again. 

"So! Very well, my worthy Outlander. I see your fluency of speech is at a minimum. I shall 
smooth the way for you. It seems that our general here is fighting an apparently meaningless 
war with frightful transports of energy - and this over a forsaken fleabite of a world at the end of 
nowhere, which to a logical man would not seem worth a single blast of a single gun. Yet the 
general is not illogical. On the contrary, I would say he was extremely intelligent. Do you follow 
me?" 

"Can't say I do, sir." 

The secretary inspected his fingernails and said, "Listen further, then. The general would not 
waste his men and ships on a sterile feat of glory. I know he talks of glory and of Imperial 
honor, but it is quite obvious that the affectation of being one of the insufferable old demigods 
of the Heroic Age won't wash. There is something more than glory hereand he does take queer, 
unnecessary care of you. Now if you were my prisoner and told me as little of use as you have 



our general, I would slit open your abdomen and strangle you with your own intestines." 

Devers remained wooden. His eyes moved slightly, first to one of the secretary's bully-boys, 
and then to the other. They were ready; eagerly ready. 

The secretary smiled. "Well, now, you're a silent devil. According to the general, even a Psychic 
Probe made no impression, and that was a mistake on his part, by the way, for it convinced me 
that our young military whizz-bang was lying." He seemed in high humor. 

"My honest tradesman," he said, "I have a Psychic Probe of my own, one that ought to suit you 
peculiarly well. You see this-" 

And between thumb and forefinger, held negligently, were intricately designed, pink-and-yellow 
rectangles which were most definitely obvious in identity. 

Devers said so. "It looks like cash," he said. 

"Cash it is - and the best cash of the Empire, for it is backed by my estates, which are more 
extensive than the Emperor's own. A hundred thousand credits. All here! Between two fingers! 
Yours!" 

"For what, sir? I am a good trader, but all trades go in both directions." 

"For what? For the truth! What is the general after? Why is he fighting this war?" 

Lathan Devers sighed, and smoothed his beard thoughtfully. 

"What he's after?" His eyes were following the motions of the secretary's hands as he counted 
the money slowly, bill by bill. "In a word, the Empire." 

"Hmp. How ordinary! It always comes to that in the end. But how? What is the road that leads 
from the Galaxy's edge to the peak of Empire so broadly and invitingly?" 

"The Foundation," said Devers, bitterly, "has secrets. They have books, old books - so old that 
the language they are in is only known to a few of the top men. But the secrets are shrouded in 
ritual and religion, and none may use them. I tried and now I am here - and there is a death 
sentence waiting for me, there." 

"I see. And these old secrets? Come, for one hundred thousand I deserve the intimate details." 
"The transmutation of elements," said Devers, shortly. 

The secretary's eyes narrowed and lost some of their detachment. "I have been told that 
practical transmutation is impossible by the laws of nucleics." 

"So it is, if nuclear forces are used. But the ancients were smart boys. There are sources of 
power greater than the nuclei and more fundamental. If the Foundation used those sources as I 
suggested-" 

Devers felt a soft, creeping sensation in his stomach. The bait was dangling; the fish was 
nosing it. 



The secretary said suddenly, "Continue. The general, I am sure, is aware of a this. But what 
does he intend doing once he finishes this opera-bouffe affair?" 

Devers kept his voice rock-steady. "With transmutation he controls the economy of the whole 
set-up of your Empire. Mineral holdings won't be worth a sneeze when Riose can make 
tungsten out of aluminum and iridium out of iron. An entire production system based on the 
scarcity of certain elements and the abundance of others is thrown completely out of whack. 
There'll be the greatest disjointment the Empire has ever seen, and only Riose will be able to 
stop it. Anc/ there is the question of this new power I mentioned, the use of which won't give 
Riose religious heebies. 

"There's nothing that can stop him now. He's got the Foundation by the back of the neck, and 
once he's finished with it, he'll be Emperor in two years." 

"So." Brodrig laughed lightly. "Iridium out of iron, that's what you said, isn't it? Come, I'll tell you 
a state secret. Do you know that the Foundation has already been in communication with the 
general?" 

Devers' back stiffened. 

"You look surprised. Why not? It seems logical now. They offered him a hundred tons of iridium 
a year to make peace. A hundred tons of iron converted to iridium in violation of their religious 
principles to save their necks. Fair enough, but no wonder our rigidly incorruptible general 
refused - when he can have the iridium and the Empire as well. And poor Cleon called him his 
one honest general. My bewhiskered merchant, you have earned your money." 

He tossed it, and Devers scrambled after the flying bills. 

Lord Brodrig stopped at the door and turned. "One reminder, trader. My playmates with the 
guns here have neither middle ears, tongues, education, nor intelligence. They can neither 
hear, speak, write, nor even make sense to a Psychic Probe. But they are very expert at 
interesting executions. I have bought you, man, at one hundred thousand credits. You will be 
good and worthy merchandise. Should you forget that you are bought at any time and attempt 
to ... say ... repeat our conversation to Riose, you will be executed. But executed my way." 

And in that delicate face there were sudden hard lines of eager cruelty that changed the studied 
smile into a red-lipped snarl. For one fleeting second, Devers saw that space fiend who had 
bought his buyer, look out of his buyer's eyes. 

Silently, he preceded the two thrusting blast-guns of Brodrig's "playmates" to his quarters. 

And to Ducem Barr's question, he said with brooding satisfaction, "No, that's the queerest part 
of it. He bribed me. 

Two months of difficult war had left their mark on Bel Riose. There was heavy-handed gravity 
about him; and he was short-tempered. 

It was with impatience that he addressed the worshiping Sergeant Luk. "Wait outside, soldier, 
and conduct these men back to their quarters when I am through. No one is to enter until I call. 
No one at all, you understand." 



The sergeant saluted himself stiffly out of the room, and Riose with muttered disgust scooped 
up the waiting papers on his desk, threw them into the top drawer and slammed it shut. 

"Take seats," he said shortly, to the waiting two. "I haven't much time. Strictly speaking, I 
shouldn't be here at all, but it is necessary to see you." 

He turned to Ducem Barr, whose long fingers were caressing with interest the crystal cube in 
which was set the simulacrum of the lined, austere face of His Imperial Majesty, Cleon II. 

"In the first place, patrician," said the general, "your Seldon is losing. To be sure, he battles 
well, for these men of the Foundation swarm like senseless bees and fight like madmen. Every 
planet is defended viciously, and once taken, every planet heaves so with rebellion it is as 
much trouble to hold as to conquer. But they are taken, and they are held. Your Seldon is 
losing." 

"But he has not yet lost," murmured Barr politely. 

"The Foundation itself retains less optimism. They offer me millions in order that I may not put 
this Seldon to the final test." 

"So rumor goes." 

"Ah, is rumor preceding me? Does it prate also of the latest?" 

"What is the latest?" 

"Why, that Lord Brodrig, the darling of the Emperor, is now second in command at his own 
request." 

Devers spoke for the first time. "At his own request, boss? How come? Or are you growing to 
like the fellow?" He chuckled. 

Riose said, calmly, "No, can't say I do. It's just that he bought the office at what I considered a 
fair and adequate price." 

"Such as?" 

"Such as a request to the Emperor for reinforcements." 

Devers' contemptuous smile broadened. "'He has communicated with the Emperor, huh? And I 
take it, boss, you're just waiting for these reinforcements, but they'll come any day. Right?" 

"Wrong! They have already come. Five ships of the line; smooth and strong, with a personal 
message of congratulations from the Emperor, and more ships on the way. What's wrong, 
trader?" he asked, sardonically. 

Devers spoke through suddenly frozen lips. "Nothing!" 

Riose strode out from behind his desk and faced the trader, hand on the butt of his blast-gun. 

"I say, what's wrong, trader? The news would seem to disturb you. Surely, you have no sudden 
birth of interest in the Foundation." 



"I haven't." 

"Yes - there are queer points about you." 

"That so, boss?" Devers smiled tightly, and balled the fists in his pockets. "Just you line them 
up and I'll knock them down for you." 

"Here they are. You were caught easily. You surrendered at first blow with a burnt-out shield. 
You're quite ready to desert your world, and that without a price. Interesting, all this, isn't it?" 

"I crave to be on the winning side, boss. I'm a sensible man; you called me that yourself." 

Riose said with tight throatiness, "Granted! Yet no trader since has been captured. No trade 
ship but has had the speed to escape at choice. No trade ship but has had a screen that could 
take all the beating a light cruiser could give it, should it choose to fight. And no trader but has 
fought to death when occasion warranted. Traders have been traced as the leaders and 
instigators of the guerilla warfare on occupied planets and of the flying raids in occupied space. 

"Are you the only sensible man then? You neither fight nor flee, but turn traitor without urging. 
You are unique, amazingly unique - in fact, suspiciously unique." 

Devers said softly, "I take your meaning, but you have nothing on me. I've been here now six 
months, and I've been a good boy." 

"So you have, and I have repaid you by good treatment. I have left your ship undisturbed and 
treated you with every consideration. Yet you fall short. Freely offered information, for instance, 
on your gadgets might have been helpful. The atomic principles on which they are built would 
seem to be used in some of the Foundation's nastiest weapons. Right?" 

"I am only a trader," said Devers, "and not one of these bigwig technicians. I sell the stuff; I 
don't make it." 

"Well, that will be seen shortly. It is what I came here for. For instance, your ship will be 
searched for a personal force-shield. You have never worn one; yet all soldiers of the 
Foundation do. It will be significant evidence that there is information you do not choose to give 
me. Right?" 

There was no answer. He continued, "And there will be more direct evidence. I have brought 
with me the Psychic Probe. It failed once before, but contact with the enemy is a liberal 
education." 

His voice was smoothly threatening and Devers felt the gun thrust hard in his midriff - the 
general's gun, hitherto in its holster. 

The general said quietly, "You will remove your wristband and any other metal ornament you 
wear and give them to me. Slowly! Atomic fields can be distorted, you see, and Psychic Probes 
might probe only into static. That's right.. I'll take it." 

The receiver on the general's desk was glowing and a message capsule clicked into the slot, 
near which Barr stood and still held the trimensional Imperial bust. 



Riose stepped behind his desk, with his blast-gun held ready. He said to Barr, "You too, 
patrician. Your wristband condemns you. You have been helpful earlier, however, and I am not 
vindictive, but I shall judge the fate of your behostaged family by the results of the Psychic 
Probe." 

And as Riose leaned over to take out the message capsule, Barr lifted the crystal-enveloped 
bust of Cleon and quietly and methodically brought it down upon the general's head. 

It happened too suddenly for Devers to grasp. It was as if a sudden demon had grown into the 
old man. 

"Out!" said Barr, in a tooth-clenched whisper. "Quickly!" He seized Riose's dropped blaster and 
buried it in his blouse. 

Sergeant Luk turned as they emerged from the narrowest possible crack of the door. 

Barr said easily, "Lead on, sergeant!" 

Devers closed the door behind him. 

Sergeant Luk led in silence to their quarters, and then, with the briefest pause, continued 
onward, for there was the nudge of a blast-gun muzzle in his ribs, and a hard voice in his ears 
which said, "To the trade ship." 

Devers stepped forward to open the air lock, and Barr said, "Stand where you are, Luk. You've 
been a decent man, and we're not going to kill you." 

But the sergeant recognized the monogram on the gun. He cried in choked fury, "You've killed 
the general." 

With a wild, incoherent yell, he charged blindly upon the blasting fury of the gun and collapsed 
in blasted ruin. 

The trade ship was rising above the dead planet before the signal lights began their eerie blink 
and against the creamy cobweb of the great Lens in the sky which was the Galaxy, other black 
forms rose. 

Devers said grimly, "Hold tight, Barr - and let's see if they've got a ship that can match my 
speed." 

He knew they hadn't! 

And once in open space, the trader's voice seemed lost and dead as he said, "The line I fed 
Brodrig was a little too good. It seems as if he's thrown in with the general." 

Swiftly they raced into the depths of the star-mass that was the Galaxy. 



8. TO TRANTOR 

Devers bent over the little dead globe, watching for a tiny sign of life. The directional control 
was slowly and thoroughly sieving space with its jabbing tight sheaf of signals. 

Barr watched patiently from his seat on the low cot in the comer, He asked, "No more signs of 
them?" 

"The Empire boys? No." The trader growled the words with evident impatience. "We lost the 
scuppers long ago. Space! With the blind jumps we took through hyperspace, it's lucky we 
didn't land up in a sun's belly. They couldn't have followed us even if they outranqed us, which 
they didn't." 

He sat back and loosened his collar with a jerk. "I don't know what those Empire boys have 
done here. I think some of the gaps are out of alignment." 

"I take it, then, you're trying to get to the Foundation." 

"I'm calling the Association - or trying to." 

"The Association? Who are they?" 

"Association of Independent Traders. Never heard of it, huh? Well, you're not alone. We haven't 
made our splash yet!" 

For a while there was a silence that centered about the unresponsive Reception Indicator, and 
Barr said, "Are you within range?" 

"I don't know. I haven't but a small notion where we are, going by dead reckoning. That's why I 
have to use directional control. It could take years, you know." 

"Might it?" 

Barr pointed; and Devers jumped and adjusted his earphones. Within the little murky sphere 
there was a tiny glowing whiteness. 

For half an hour, Devers nursed the fragile, groping thread of communication that reached 
through hyperspace to connect two points that laggard light would take five hundred years to 
bind together. 

Then he sat back, hopelessly. He looked up, and shoved the earphones back. 

"Let's eat, doc. There's a needle-shower you can use if you want to, but go easy on the hot 
water." 

He squatted before one of the cabinets that lined one wall and felt through the contents. "You're 
not a vegetarian, I hope?" 

Barr said, "I'm omnivorous. But what about the Association. Have you lost them?" 

"Looks so. It was extreme range, a little too extreme. Doesn't matter, though. I got all that 
counted." 



He straightened, and placed the two metal containers upon the table. "Just give it five minutes, 
doc, then slit it open by pushing the contact. It'll be plate, food, and fork - sort of handy for 
when you're in a hurry, if you're not interested in such incidentals as napkins. I suppose you 
want to know what I got out of the Association." 

"If it isn't a secret." 

Devers shook his head. "Not to you. What Riose said was true." 

"About the offer of tribute?" 

"Uh-huh. They offered it, and had it refused. Things are bad. There's fighting in the outer suns 
of Loris." 

"Loris is close to the Foundation?" 

"Huh? Oh, you wouldn't know. It's one of the original Four Kingdoms. You might call it part of 
the inner line of defense. That's not the worst. They've been fighting large ships previously 
never encountered. Which means Riose wasn't giving us the works. He has received more 
ships. Brodrig has switched sides, and I have messed things up." 

His eyes were bleak as he joined the food-container contact-points and watched it fall open 
neatly. The stewlike dish steamed its aroma through the room. Ducem Barr was already eating. 

"So much," said Barr, "for improvisations, then. We can do nothing here; we can not cut 
through the Imperial lines to return to the Foundation; we can do nothing but that which is most 
sensible - to wait patiently. However, if Riose has reached the inner line I trust the wait will not 
be too long." 

And Devers put down his fork. "Wait, is it?" he snarled, glowering. "That's all right for you. 
You've got nothing at stake." 

"Haven't I?" Barr smiled thinly. 

"No. In fact, I'll tell you." Devers' irritation skimmed the surface. "I'm tired of looking at this whole 
business as if it were an interesting something-or-other on a microscope slide. I've got friends 
somewhere out there, dying; and a whole world out there, my home, dying also. You're an 
outsider. You don't know." 

"I have seen friends die." The old man's hands were limp in his lap and his eyes were closed. 
"Are you married?" 

Devers said, "Traders don't marry." 

"Well, I have two sons and a nephew. They have been warned, but - for reasons - they could 
take no action. Our escape means their death. My daughter and my two grandchildren have, I 
hope, left the planet safety before this, but even excluding them, I have already risked and lost 
more than you." 

Devers was morosely savage. "I know. But that was a matter of choice. You might have played 
ball with Riose. I never asked you to-" 



Barr shook his head. "It was not a matter of choice, Devers. Make your conscience free, I didn't 
risk my sons for you. I co-operated with Riose as long as I dared. But there was the Psychic 
Probe." 

The Siwennian patrician opened his eyes and they were sharp with pain. "Riose came to me 
once; it was over a year ago. He spoke of a cult centering about the magicians, but missed the 
truth. It is not quite a cult. You see, it is forty years now that Siwenna has been gripped in the 
same unbearable vise that threatens your world. Five revolts have been ground out. Then I 
discovered the ancient records of Hari Seldon - and now this 'cult' waits. 

"It waits for the coming of the 'magicians' and for that day it is ready. My sons are leaders of 
those who wait. It is that secret which is in my mind and which the Probe must never touch. 

And so they must die as hostages; for the alternative is their death as rebels and half of 
Siwenna with them. You see, I had no choice! And I am no outsider." 

Devers' eyes fell, and Barr continued softly, "It is on a Foundation victory that Siwenna's hopes 
depend. It is for a Foundation victory that my sons are sacrificed. And Hari Seldon does not 
pre-calculate the inevitable salvation of Siwenna as he does that of the Foundation. I have no 
certainty for my people - only hope." 

"But you are still satisfied to wait. Even with the Imperial Navy at Loris." 

"I would wait, in perfect confidence," said Barr, simply, "if they had landed on the planet, 
Terminus, itself." 

The trader frowned hopelessly. "I don't know. It can't really work like that; not just like magic. 
Psychohistory or not, they're terribly strong, and we're weak. What can Setdon do about it?" 

"There's nothing to do. It's all already done. It's proceeding now. Because you don't hear the 
wheels turning and the gongs beating doesn't mean it's any the less certain." 

"Maybe; but I wish you had cracked Riose's skull for keeps. He's more the enemy than all his 
army." 

"Cracked his skull? With Brodrig his second in command?" Barr's face sharpened with hate. "All 
Siwenna would have been my hostage. Brodrig has proven his worth long since. There exists a 
world which five years ago lost one male in every ten - and simply for failure to meet 
outstanding taxes. This same Brodrig was the tax-collector. No, Riose may live. His 
punishments are mercy in comparison." 

"But six months, six months, in the enemy Base, with nothing to show for it." Devers' strong 
hands clasped each other tautly, so that his knuckles cracked. "Nothing to show for it!" 

"Well, now, wait. You remind me-" Barr fumbled in his pouch. "You might want to count this." 
And he tossed the small sphere of metal on the table. 

Devers snatched it. "What is it?" 

"The message capsule. The one that Riose received just before I jacked him. Does that count 
as something?" 



"I don't know. Depends on what's in it!" Devers sat down and turned it over carefully in his 
hand. 


When Barr stepped from his cold shower and, gratefully, into the mild warm current of the air 
dryer, he found Devers silent and absorbed at the workbench. 

The Siwennian slapped his body with a sharp rhythm and spoke above the punctuating sounds. 
"What are you doing?" 

Devers looked up. Droplets of perspiration glittered in his beard. "I'm going to open this 
capsule." 

"Can you open it without Riose's personal characteristic?" There was mild surprise in the 
Siwennian's voice. 

"If I can't, I'll resign from the Association and never skipper a ship for what's left of my life. I've 
got a three-way electronic analysis of the interior now, and I've got little jiggers that the Empire 
never heard of, especially made for jimmying capsules. I've been a burglar before this, y'know. 
A trader has to be something of everything." 

He bent low over the little sphere, and a small flat instrument probed delicately and sparked 
redly at each fleeting contact. 

He said, "This capsule is a crude job, anyway. These Imperial boys are no shakes at this small 
work. I can see that. Ever see a Foundation capsule? It's half the size and impervious to 
electronic analysis in the first place." 

And then he was rigid, the shoulder muscles beneath his tunic tautening visibly. His tiny probe 
pressed slowly- 

It was noiseless when it came, but Devers; relaxed and sighed. In his hand was the shining 
sphere with its message unrolled like a parchment tongue. 

"It's from Brodrig," he said. Then, with contempt, "The message medium is permanent. In a 
Foundation capsule, the message would be oxidized to gas within the minute." 

But Ducem Barr waved him silent. He read the message quickly. 

FROM: AMMEL BRODRIG, ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, PRIVY 
SECRETARY OF THE COUNCIL, AND PEER OF THE REALM. 

TO: BEL RIOSE, MILITARY GOVERNOR OF SIWENNA. GENERAL OF THE IMPERIAL 
FORCES, AND PEER OF THE REALM. I GREET YOU. 

PLANET #1 1 20 NO LONGER RESISTS. THE PLANS OF OFFENSE AS OUTLINED 
CONTINUE SMOOTHLY. THE ENEMY WEAKENS VISIBLY AND THE ULTIMATE ENDS IN 
VIEW WILL SURELY BE GAINED. 

Barr raised his head from the almost microscopic print and cried bitterly, "The fool! The 
forsaken blasted fop! That a. message?" 



"Huh?" said Devers. He was vaguely disappointed. 

"It says nothing," ground out Barr. "Our lick-spittle courtier is playing at general now. With Riose 
away, he is the field commander and must sooth his paltry spirit by spewing out his pompous 
reports concerning military affairs he has nothing to do with. 'So-and-so planet no longer 
resists.' 'The offensive moves on.' 'The enemy weakens.' The vacuum-headed peacock." 

"Well, now, wait a minute. Hold on-" 

"Throw it away." The old man turned away in mortification. "The Galaxy knows I never expected 
it to be world-shakingly important, but in wartime it is reasonable to assume that even the most 
routine order left undelivered might hamper military movements and lead to complications later. 
It's why I snatched it. But this! Better to have left it. It would have wasted a minute of Riose's 
time that will now be put to more constructive use." 

But Devers had arisen. "Will you hold on and stop throwing your weight around? For Seldon's 
sake-" 

He held out the sliver of message before Barr's nose, "Now read that again. What does he 
mean by 'ultimate ends in view'?" 

"The conquest of the Foundation. Well?" 

"Yes? And maybe he means the conquest of the Empire. You know he believes that to be the 
ultimate end." 

"And if he does?" 

"If he does!" Devers' one-sided smile was lost in his beard. "Why, watch then, and I'll show 
you." 

With one finger the lavishly monogrammed sheet of message-parchment was thrust back into 
its slot. With a soft twang, it disappeared and the globe was a smooth, unbroken whole again. 
Somewhere inside was the tiny oiled whir of the controls as they lost their setting by random 
movements. 

"Now there is no known way of opening this capsule without knowledge of Riose's personal 
characteristic, is there?" 

"To the Empire, no," said Barr. 

"Then the evidence it contains is unknown to us and absolutely authentic." 

"To the Empire, yes," said Barr. 

"And the Emperor can open it, can't he? Personal Characteristics of Government officials must 
be on file. We keep records of OL/r officials at the Foundation." 

"At the Imperial capital as well," agreed Barr. 

"Then when you, a Siwennian patrician and Peer of the Realm, tell this Cleon, this Emperor, 
that his favorite tame-parrot and his shiniest general are getting together to knock him over, 



and hand him the capsule as evidence, what will he think Brodrig's 'ultimate ends' are?" 

Barr sat down weakly. "Wait, I don't follow you." He stroked one thin cheek, and said, "You're 
not really serious, are you?" 

"I am." Devers was angrily excited. "Listen, nine out of the last ten Emperors got their throats 
cut, or their gizzards blasted out by one or another of their generals with bigtime notions in their 
heads. You told me that yourself more than once. Old man Emperor would believe us so fast it 
would make Riose's head swim." 

Barr muttered feebly, "He is serious, For the Galaxy's sake, man, you can't beat a Seldon crisis 
by a far-fetched, impractical, storybook scheme like that. Suppose you had never got hold of 
the capsule. Suppose Brodrig hadn't used the word 'ultimate.' Seldon doesn't depend on wild 
luck." 

"If wild luck comes our way, there's no law says Seldon can't take advantage of it." 

"Certainly. But ... but," Barr stopped, then spoke calmly but with visible restraint. "Look, in the 
first place, how will you get to the planet Trantor? You don't know its location in space, and I 
certainly don't remember the co-ordinates, to say nothing of the ephemerae. You don't even 
know your own position in space." 

"You can't get lost in space," grinned Devers. He was at the controls already. "Down we go to 
the nearest planet, and back we come with complete bearings and the best navigation charts 
Brodrig's hundred thousand smackers can buy." 

"And a blaster in our belly. Our descriptions are probably in every planet in this quarter of the 
Empire." 

"Doc," said Devers, patiently, "don't be a hick tom the sticks. Riose said my ship surrendered 
too easily and, brother, he wasn't kidding. This ship has enough fire-power and enough juice in 
its shield to hold off anything we're Rely to meet this deep inside the frontier. And we have 
personal shields, too. The Empire boys never found them, you know, but they weren't meant to 
be found." 

"All fight," said Barr, "all right. Suppose yourself on Trantor. How do you see the Emperor then? 
You think he keeps office hours?" 

"Suppose we worry about that on Trantor," said Devers. 

And Barr muttered helplessly, "All right again. I've wanted to see Trantor before I die for half a 
century now. Have your way." 

The hypernuclear motor was cut in. The lights flickered and there was the slight internal wrench 
that marked the shift into hyperspace. 



9. ON TRANTOR 

The stars were as thick as weeds in an unkempt field, and for the first time, Lathan Devers 
found the figures to the right of the decimal point of prime importance in calculating the cuts 
through the hyper-regions. There was a claustrophobic sensation about the necessity for leaps 
of not more than a light-year. There was a frightening harshness about a sky which glittered 
unbrokenly in every direction. It was being lost in a sea of radiation. 

And in the center of an open cluster of ten thousand stars, whose light tore to shreds the feebly 
encircling darkness, there circled the huge Imperial planet, Trantor. 

But it was more than a planet; it was the living pulse beat of an Empire of twenty million stellar 
systems. It had only one, function, administration; one purpose, government; and one 
manufactured product, law. 

The entire world was one functional distortion. There was no living object on its surface hut 
man, his pets, and his parasites. No blade of grass or fragment of uncovered soil could be 
found outside the hundred square miles of the Imperial Palace. No fresh water outside the 
Palace grounds existed but in the vast underground cisterns that held the water supply of a 
world. 

The lustrous, indestructible, incorruptible metal that was the unbroken surface of the planet was 
the foundation of the huge, metal structures that mazed the planet. They were structures 
connected by causeways; laced by corridors; cubbyholed by offices; basemented by the huge 
retail centers that covered square miles; penthoused by the glittering amusement world that 
sparkled into life each night. 

One could walk around the world of Trantor and never leave that one conglomerate building, 
nor see the city. 

A fleet of ships greater in number than all the war fleets the Empire had ever supported landed 
their cargoes on Trantor each day to feed the forty billions of humans who gave nothing in 
exchange but the fulfillment of the necessity of untangling the myriads of threads that spiraled 
into the central administration of the most complex government Humanity had ever known. 

Twenty agricultural worlds were the granary of Trantor. A universe was its servant. 

Tightly held by the huge metal arms on either side, the trade ship was gently lowered down the 
huge ramp that led to the hangar. Already Devers had fumed his way through the manifold 
complications of a world conceived in paper work and dedicated to the principle of the 
form-in-quadruplicate. 

There had been the preliminary halt in space, where the first of what had grown into a hundred 
questionnaires had been filled out. There were the hundred cross-examinations, the routine 
administration of a simple Probe, the photographing of the ship, the Characteristic-Analysis of 
the two men, and the subsequent recording of the same, the search for contraband, the 
payment of the entry tax - and finally the question of the identity cards and visitor's visa. 

Ducem Barr was a Siwennian and subject of the Emperor, but Lathan Devers was an unknown 



without the requisite documents. The official in charge at the moment was devastated with 
sorrow, but Devers could not enter. In fact, he would have to be held for official investigation. 

From somewhere a hundred credits in crisp, new bills backed by the estates of Lord Brodrig 
made their appearance, and changed bands quietly. The official hemmed importantly and the 
devastation of his sorrow was assuaged. A new form made its appearance from the appropriate 
pigeonhole. It was filled out rapidly and efficiently, with the Devers characteristic thereto 
formally and properly attached. 

The two men, trader and patrician, entered Siwenna. 

In the hangar, the trade ship was another vessel to be cached, photographed, recorded, 
contents noted, identity cards of passengers facsimiled, and for which a suitable fee was paid, 
recorded, and receipted. 

And then Devers was on a huge terrace under the bright white sun, along which women 
chattered, children shrieked, and men sipped drinks languidly and listened to the huge 
televisors blaring out the news of the Empire. 

Barr paid a requisite number of iridium coins and appropriated the uppermost member of a pile 
of newspapers. It was the Trantor Imperial News, official organ of the government. In the back 
of the news room, there was the soft clicking noise of additional editions being printed in 
long-distance sympathy with the busy machines at the Imperial News offices ten thousand 
miles away by corridor - six thousand by air-machine - just as ten million sets of copies were 
being likewise printed at that moment in ten million other news rooms all over the planet. 

Barr glanced at the headlines and said softly, "What shall we do first?" 

Devers tried to shake himself out of his depression. He was in a universe far removed from his 
own, on a world that weighted him down with its intricacy, among people whose doings were 
incomprehensible and whose language was nearly so. The gleaming metallic towers that 
surrounded him and continued onwards in never-ending multiplicity to beyond the horizon 
oppressed him; the whole busy, unheeding life of a world-metropolis cast him into the horrible 
gloom of isolation and pygmyish unimportance. 

He said, "I better leave it to you, doc." 

Barr was calm, low-voice. "I tried to tell you, but it's hard to believe without seeing for yourself, I 
know that. Do you know how many people want to see the Emperor every day? About one 
million. Do you know how many he sees? About ten. We'll have to work through the civil 
service, and that makes it harder. But we can't afford the aristocracy." 

"We have almost one hundred thousand." 

"A single Peer of the Realm would cost us that, and it would take at least three or four to form 
an adequate bridge to the Emperor. It may take fifty chief commissioners and senior 
supervisors to do the same, but they would cost us only a hundred apiece perhaps. I'll do the 
talking. In the first place, they wouldn't understand your accent, and in the second, you don't 
know the etiquette of Imperial bribery. It's an art, I assure you. Ah!" 



The third page of the Imperial News had what he wanted and he passed the paper to Devers. 

Devers read slowly. The vocabulary was strange, but he understood. He looked up, and his 
eyes were dark with concern. He slapped the news sheet angrily with the back of his hand. 

"You think this can be trusted?" 

"Within limits," replied Barr, calmly. "It's highly improbable that the Foundation fleet was wiped 
out. They've probably reported that several times already, if they've gone by the usual 
war-reporting technique of a world capital far from the actual scene of fighting. What it means, 
though, is that Riose has won another battle, which would be none-too-unexpected. It says he's 
captured Loris. Is that the capital planet of the Kingdom of Loris?" 

"Yes," brooded Devers, "or of what used to be the Kingdom of Loris. And it's not twenty parsecs 
from the Foundation. Doc, we've got to work fast." 

Barr shrugged, "You can't go fast on Trantor. If you try, you'll end up at the point of an 
atom-blaster, most likely." 

"How long will it take?" 

"A month, if we're lucky. A month, and our hundred thousand credits - if even that will suffice. 
And that is providing the Emperor does not take it into his head in the meantime to travel to the 
Summer Planets, where he sees no petitioners at all." 

"But the Foundation-" 

"-Will take care of itself, as heretofore. Come, there's the question of dinner. I'm hungry. And 
afterwards, the evening is ours and we may as well use it. We shall never see Trantor or any 
world like it again, you know." 

The Home Commissioner of the Outer Provinces spread his pudgy hands helplessly and 
peered at the petitioners with owlish nearsightedness. "But the Emperor is indisposed, 
gentlemen. It is really useless to take the matter to my superior. His Imperial Majesty has seen 
no one in a week." 

"He will see us," said Barr, with an affectation of confidence. "It is but a question of seeing a 
member of the staff of the Privy Secretary." 

"Impossible," said the commissioner emphatically. "It would be the worth of my job to attempt 
that. Now if you could but be more explicit concerning the nature of your business. I'm willing to 
help you, understand, but naturally I want something less vague, something I can present to my 
superior as reason for taking the matter further." 

"If my business were such that it could be told to any but the highest," suggested Barr, 
smoothly, "it would scarcely be important enough to rate audience with His Imperial Majesty. I 
propose that you take a chance. I might remind you that if His Imperial Majesty attaches the 
importance to our business which we guarantee that he will, you will stand certain to receive 
the honors you will deserve for helping us now." 

"Yes, but-" and the commissioner shrugged, wordlessly. 



"It's a chance," agreed Barr. "Naturally, a risk should have its compensation. It is a rather great 
favor to ask you, but we have already been greatly obliged with your kindness in offering us this 
opportunity to explain our problem. But if you would allow us to express our gratitude just 
slightly by-" 

Devers scowled. He had heard this speech with its slight variations twenty times in the past 
month. It ended, as always, in a quick shift of the half-hidden bills. But the epilogue differed 
here. Usually the bills vanished immediately; here they remained in plain view, while slowly the 
commissioner counted them, inspecting them front and back as he did so. 

There was a subtle change in his voice. "Backed by the Privy Secretary, hey? Good money!" 

"To get back to the subject-" urged Barr. 

"No, but wait," interrupted the commissioner, "let us go back by easy stages. I really do wish to 
know what your business can be. This money, it is fresh and new, and you must have a good 
deal, for it strikes me that you have seen other officials before me. Come, now, what about it?" 

Barr said, "I don't see what you are driving at." 

"Why, see here, it might be proven that you are upon the planet illegally, since the Identification 
and Entry Cards of your silent friend are certainly inadequate. He is not a subject of the 
Emperor." 

"I deny that." 

"It doesn't matter that you do," said the commissioner, with sudden bluntness. "The official who 
signed his Cards for the sum of a hundred credits has confessed - under pressure - and we 
know more of you than you think." 

"If you are hinting, sir, that the sum we have asked you to accept is inadequate in view of the 
risks-" 

The commissioner smiled. "On the contrary, it is more than adequate." He tossed the bills 
aside. "To return to what I was saying, it is the Emperor himself who has become interested in 
your case. Is it not true, sirs, that you have recently been guests of General Riose? Is it not true 
that you have escaped from the midst of his army with, to put it mildly, astonishing ease? Is it 
not true that you possess a small fortune in bills backed by Lord Brodrig's estates? In short, is it 
not true that you are a pair of spies and assassins sent here to - Well, you shall tell us yourself 
who paid you and for what!" 

"Do you know," said Barr, with silky anger, "I deny the right of a petty commissioner to accuse 
us of crimes. We will leave." 

"You will not leave." The commissioner arose, and his eyes no longer seemed near-sighted. 
"You need answer no question now; that will be reserved for a later - and more forceful - time. 
Nor am I a commissioner; I am a Lieutenant of the Imperial Police. You are under arrest." 

There was a glitteringly efficient blast-gun in his fist as he smiled. "There are greater men than 
you under arrest this day. It is a hornet's nest we are cleaning up." 



Devers snarled and reached slowly for his own gun. The lieutenant of police smiled more 
broadly and squeezed the contacts. The blasting line of force struck Devers' chest in an 
accurate blaze of destruction - that bounced harmlessly off his personal shield in sparkling 
spicules of light. 

Devers shot in turn, and the lieutenant's head fell from off an upper torso that had disappeared. 
It was still smiling as it lay in the jag of sunshine which entered through the new-made hole in 
the wall. 

It was through the back entrance that they left. 

Devers said huskily, "Quickly to the ship. They'll have the alarm out in no time." He cursed in a 
ferocious whisper. "It's another plan that's backfired. I could swear the space fiend himself is 
against me." 

It was in the open that they became aware of the jabbering crowds that surrounded the huge 
televisors. They had no time to wait; the disconnected roaring words that reached them, they 
disregarded. But Barr snatched a copy of the Imperial News before diving into the huge barn of 
the hangar, where the ship lifted hastily through a giant cavity burnt fiercely into the roof. 

"Can you get away from them?" asked Barr. 

Ten ships of the traffic-police wildly followed the runaway craft that had burst out of the lawful, 
radio-beamed Path of Leaving, and then broken every speed law in creation. Further behind 
still, sleek vessels of the Secret Service were lifting in pursuit of a carefully described ship 
manned by two thoroughly identified murderers. 

"Watch me," said Devers, and savagely shifted into hyperspace two thousand miles above the 
surface of Trantor. The shift, so near a planetary mass, meant unconsciousness for Barr and a 
fearful haze of pain for Devers, but light-years further, space above them was clear. 

Devers' somber pride in his ship burst to the surface. He said, "There's not an Imperial ship that 
could follow me anywhere." 

And then, bitterly, "But there is nowhere left to run to for us, and we can't fight their weight. 
What's there to do? What can anyone do?" 

Barr moved feebly on his cot. The effect of the hypershift had not yet worn off, and each of his 
muscles ached. He said, "No one has to do anything. It's all over. Here!" 

He passed the copy of the Imperial News that he still clutched, and the headlines were enough 
for the trader. 

"Recalled and arrested - Riose and Brodrig," Devers muttered. He stared blankly at Barr. 
"Why?" 

"The story doesn't say, but what does it matter? The war with the Foundation is over, and at 
this moment, Siwenna is revolting. Read the story and see." His voice was drifting off. "We'll 
stop in some of the provinces and find out the later details. If you don't mind, I'll go to sleep 
now." 



And he did. 


In grasshopper jumps of increasing magnitude, the trade ship was spanning the Galaxy in its 
return to the Foundation. 


10. THE WAR ENDS 

Lathan Devers felt definitely uncomfortable, and vaguely resentful. He had received his own 
decoration and withstood with mute stoicism the turgid oratory of the mayor which 
accompanied the slip of crimson ribbon. That had ended his share of the ceremonies, but, 
naturally, formality forced him to remain. And it was formality, chiefly - the type that couldn't 
allow him to yawn noisily or to swing a foot comfortably onto a chair seat - that made him long 
to be in space, where he belonged. 

The Siwennese delegation, with Ducem Barr a lionized member, signed the Convention, and 
Siwenna became the first province to pass directly from the Empire's political rule to the 
Foundation's economic one. 

Five Imperial Ships of the Line - captured when Siwenna rebelled behind the lines of the 
Empire's Border Fleet - flashed overhead, huge and massive, detonating a roaring salute as 
they passed over the city. 

Nothing but drinking, etiquette, and small talk now. 

A voice called him. It was Forell; the man who, Devers realized coldly, could buy twenty of him 
with a morning's profits - but a Forell who now crooked a finger at him with genial 
condescension. 

He stepped out upon the balcony into the cool night wind, and bowed properly, while scowling 
into his bristling beard. Barr was there, too; smiling. He said, "Devers, you'll have to come to my 
rescue. I'm being accused of modesty, a horrible and thoroughly unnatural crime." 

"Devers," Forell removed the fat cigar from the side of his mouth when he spoke, "Lord Barr 
claims that your trip to Cleon's capital had nothing to do with the recall of Riose." 

"Nothing at all, sir." Devers was curt. "We never saw the Emperor. The reports we picked up on 
our way back concerning the trial, showed it up to be the purest frameup. There was a mess of 
rigmarole about the general being tied up with subversive interests at the court." 

"And he was innocent?" 

"Riose?" interposed Barr. "Yes! By the Galaxy, yes. Brodrig was a traitor on general principles 
but was never guilty of the specific accusations brought against him. It was a judicial farce; but 
a necessary one, a predictable one, an inevitable one." 

"By psychohistorical necessity, I presume." Forell rolled the phrase sonorously with the 
humorous ease of long familiarity. 

"Exactly." Barr grew serious. "It never penetrated earlier, but once it was over and I could ... 



well ... look at the answers in the back of the book, the problem became simple. We can see, 
now , that the social background of the Empire makes wars of conquest impossible for it. Under 
weak Emperors, it is tom apart by generals competing for a worthless and surely death-bringing 
throne. Under strong Emperors, the Empire is frozen into a paralytic rigor in which 
disintegration apparently ceases for the moment, but only at the sacrifice of all possible 
growth." 

Forell growled bluntly through strong puffs, "You're not clear, Lord Barr." 

Barr smiled slowly. "I suppose so. It's the difficulty of not being trained in psychohistory. Words 
are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations. But let's see now-" 

Barr considered, while Forell relaxed, back to railing, and Devers looked into the velvet sky and 
thought wonderingly of Trantor. 

Then Barr said, "You see, sir, you - and Devers - and everyone no doubt, had the idea that 
beating the Empire meant first prying apart the Emperor and his general. You, and Devers, and 
everyone else were right - right all the time, as far as the principle of internal disunion was 
concerned. 

"You were wrong, however, in thinking that this internal split was something to be brought about 
by individual acts, by inspirations of the moment. You tried bribery and lies. You appealed to 
ambition and to fear. But you got nothing for all your pains. In fact, appearances were worse 
after each attempt. 

"And through all this wild threshing up of tiny ripples, the Seldon tidal wave continued onward, 
quietly - but quite irresistibly." 

Ducem Barr turned away, and looked over the railing at the lights of a rejoicing city. Fie said, 
"There was a dead hand pushing all of us; the mighty general and the great Emperor; my world 
and your world - the dead hand of Hari Seldon. Fie knew that a man like Riose would have to 
fail, since it was his success that brought failure; and the greater the success, the surer the 
failure." 

Forell said dryly, "I can't say you're getting clearer." 

"A moment," continued Barr earnestly. "Look at the situation. A weak general could never have 
endangered us, obviously. A strong general during the time of a weak Emperor would never 
have endangered us, either; for he would have turned his arms towards a much more fruitful 
target. Events have shown that three-fourths of the Emperors of the last two centuries were 
rebel generals and rebel viceroys before they were Emperors. 

"So it is only the combination of strong Emperor and strong general that can harm the 
Foundation; for a strong Emperor can not be dethroned easily, and a strong general is forced to 
turn outwards, past the frontiers. 

"But, what keeps the Emperor strong? What kept Cleon strong? It's obvious. Fie is strong, 
because he permits no strong subjects. A courtier who becomes too rich, or a general who 
becomes too popular is dangerous. All the recent history of the Empire proves that to any 
Emperor intelligent enough to be strong. 



"Riose won victories, so the Emperor grew suspicious. All the atmosphere of the times forced 
him to be suspicious. Did Riose refuse a bribe? Very suspicious; ulterior motives. Did his most 
trusted courtier suddenly favor Riose? Very suspicious; ulterior motives. It wasn't the individual 
acts that were suspicious. Anything else would have done which is why our individual plots 
were unnecessary and rather futile. It was the success of Riose that was suspicious. So he was 
recalled, and accused, condemned, murdered. The Foundation wins again. 

"Look, there is not a conceivable combination of events that does not result in the Foundation 
winning. It was inevitable; whatever Riose did, whatever we did." 

The Foundation magnate nodded ponderously. "So! But what if the Emperor and the general 
had been the same person. Fley? What then? That's a case you didn't cover, so you haven't 
proved your point yet." 

Barr shrugged. "I can't prove anything; I haven't the mathematics. But I appeal to your reason. 
With an Empire in which every aristocrat, every strong man, every pirate can aspire to the 
Throne - and, as history shows, often successfully - what would happen to even a strong 
Emperor who preoccupied himself with foreign wars at the extreme end of the Galaxy? How 
long would he have to remain away from the capital before somebody raised the standards of 
civil war and forced him home. The social environment of the Empire would make that time 
short. 

"I once told Riose that not all the Empire's strength could swerve the dead hand of Hari 
Seldom" 

"Good! Good!" Forell was expansively pleased. "Then you imply the Empire can never threaten 
us again." 

"It seems to me so," agreed Barr. "Frankly, Cleon may not live out the year, and there's going to 
be a disputed succession almost as a matter of course, which might mean the last civil war for 
the Empire." 

"Then," said Forell, "there are no more enemies." 

Barr was thoughtful. "There's a Second Foundation." 

"At the other end of the Galaxy? Not for centuries." 

Devers turned suddenly at this, and his face was dark as he faced Forell. "There are internal 
enemies, perhaps." 

"Are there?" asked Forell, coolly. "Who, for instance?" 

"People, for instance, who might like to spread the wealth a bit, and keep it from concentrating 
too much out of the hands that work for it. See what I mean?" 


Slowly, Forell's gaze lost its contempt and grew one with the anger of Devers' own. 



PART II 
THE MULE 

11. BRIDE AND GROOM 

THE MULE Less is known of "The Mule" than of any character of comparable significance to 
Galactic history. Even the period of his greatest renown is known to us chiefly through the eyes 
of his antagonists and, principally, through those of a young bride.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

Bayta's first sight of Haven was entirely the contrary of spectacular. Her husband pointed it out 
- a dull star lost in the emptiness of the Galaxy's edge. It was past the last sparse clusters, to 
where straggling points of light gleamed lonely. And even among these it was poor and 
inconspicuous. 

Toran was quite aware that as the earliest prelude to married life, the Red Dwarf lacked 
impressiveness and his lips curled self-consciously. "I know, Bay - It isn't exactly a proper 
change, is it? I mean from the Foundation to this." 

"A horrible change, Toran. I should never have married you." 

And when his face looked momentarily hurt, before he caught himself, she said with her special 
"cozy" tone, "All right, silly. Now let your lower lip droop and give me that special dying-duck 
look - the one just before you're supposed to bury your head on my shoulder, while I stroke 
your hair full of static electricity. You were fishing for some drivel, weren't you? You were 
expecting me to say 'I'd be happy anywhere with you, Toran!' or 'The interstellar depths 
themselves would be home, my sweet, were you but with me!' Now you admit it." 

She pointed a finger at him and snatched it away an instant before his teeth closed upon it. 

He said, "If I surrender, and admit you're right, will you prepare dinner?" 

She nodded contentedly. He smiled, and just looked at her. 

She wasn't beautiful on the grand scale to others - he admitted that - even if everybody did 
look twice. Her hair was dark and glossy, though straight, her mouth a bit wide - but her 
meticulous, close-textured eyebrows separated a white, unlined forehead from the warmest 
mahogany eyes ever filled with smiles. 

And behind a very sturdily-built and staunchly-defended facade of practical, unromantic, 
hard-headedness towards life, there was just that little pool of softness that would never show if 
you poked for it, but could be reached if you knew just how - and never let on that you were 
looking for it. 

Toran adjusted the controls unnecessarily and decided to relax. He was one interstellar jump, 



and then several milli-microparsecs "on the straight" before manipulation by hand was 
necessary. He leaned over backwards to look into the storeroom, where Bayta was juggling 
appropriate containers. 

There was quite a bit of smugness about his attitude towards Bayta - the satisfied awe that 
marks the triumph of someone who has been hovering at the edge of an inferiority complex for 
three years. 

After all he was a provincial - and not merely a provincial, but the son of a renegade Trader. 
And she was of the Foundation itself - and not merely that, but she could trace her ancestry 
back to Mallow. 

And with all that, a tiny quiver underneath. To take her back to Haven, with its rock-world and 
cave-cities was bad enough. To have her face the traditional hostility of Trader for Foundation - 
nomad for city dweller - was worse. 

Still - After supper, the last jump! 

Haven was an angry crimson blaze, and the second planet was a ruddy patch of light with 
atmosphere-blurred rim and a half-sphere of darkness. Bayta leaned over the large view table 
with its spidering of crisscross lines that centered Haven II neatly. 

She said gravely, "I wish I had met your father first. If he takes a dislike to me-" 

"Then," said Toran matter-of-factly, "you would be the first pretty girl to inspire that in him. 
Before he lost his arm and stopped roving around the Galaxy, he - Well, if you ask him about it, 
he'll talk to you about it till your ears wear down to a nubbin. After a while I got to thinking that 
he was embroidering; because he never told the same story twice the same way-" 

Haven II was rushing up at them now. The landlocked sea wheeled ponderously below them, 
slate-gray in the lowering dimness and lost to sight, here and there, among the wispy clouds. 
Mountains jutted raggedly along the coast. 

The sea became wrinkled with nearness and, as it veered off past the horizon just at the end, 
there was one vanishing glimpse of shore-hugging ice fields. 

Toran grunted under the fierce deceleration, "Is your suit locked?" 

Bayta's plump face was round and ruddy in the incasing sponge-foam of the internally-heated, 
skin-clinging costume. 

The ship lowered crunchingly on the open field just short of the lifting of the plateau. 

They climbed out awkwardly into the solid darkness of the outer-galactic night, and Bayta 
gasped as the sudden cold bit, and the thin wind swirled emptily. Toran seized her elbow and 
nudged her into an awkward run over the smooth, packed ground towards the sparking of 
artificial light in the distance. 

The advancing guards met them halfway, and after a whispered exchange of words, they were 
taken onward. The wind and the cold disappeared when the gate of rock opened and then 
closed behind them. The warm interior, white with wall-light, was filled with an incongruous 



humming bustle. Men looked up from their desks, and Toran produced documents. 

They were waved onward after a short glance and Toran whispered to his wife, "Dad must have 
fixed up the preliminaries. The usual lapse here is about five hours." 

They burst into the open and Bayta said suddenly, "Oh, my-" 

The cave city was in daylight - the white daylight of a young sun. Not that there was a sun, of 
course. What should have been the sky was lost in the unfocused glow of an over-all brilliance. 
And the warm air was properly thick and fragrant with greenery. 

Bayta said, "Why, Toran, it's beautiful." 

Toran grinned with anxious delight. "Well, now, Bay, it isn't like anything on the Foundation, of 
course, but it's the biggest city on Haven II - twenty thousand people, you know - and you'll get 
to like it. No amusement palaces, I'm afraid, but no secret police either." 

"Oh, Torie, it's just like a toy city. It's all white and pink - and so clean." 

"Well-" Toran looked at the city with her. The houses were two stories high for the most part, 
and of the smooth vein rock indigenous to the region. The spires of the Foundation were 
missing, and the colossal community houses of the Old Kingdoms - but the smallness was 
there and the individuality; a relic of personal initiative in a Galaxy of mass life. 

He snapped to sudden attention. "Bay - There's Dad! Right there - where I'm pointing, silly. 
Don't you see him?" 

She did. It was just the impression of a large man, waving frantically, fingers spread wide as 
though groping wildly in air. The deep thunder of a drawn-out shout reached them. Bayta trailed 
her husband, rushing downwards over the close-cropped lawn. She caught sight of a smaller 
man, white-haired, almost lost to view behind the robust One-arm, who still waved and still 
shouted. 

Toran cried over his shoulder, "It's my father's half-brother. The one who's been to the 
Foundation. You know." 

They met in the grass, laughing and incoherent, and Toran's father let out a final whoop for 
sheer joy. He hitched at his short jacket and adjusted the metal-chased belt that was his one 
concession to luxury. 

His eyes shifted from one of the youngsters to the other, and then he said, a little out of breath, 
"You picked a rotten day to return home, boy!" 

"What? Oh, it is Seldon's birthday, isn't it?" 

"It is. I had to rent a car to make the trip here, and dragoon Randu to drive it. Not a public 
vehicle to be had at gun's point." 

His eyes were on Bayta now, and didn't leave. He spoke to her more softly, "I have the crystal 
of you right here - and it's good, but I can see the fellow who took it was an amateur." 



He had the small cube of transparency out of his jacket pocket and in the light the laughing little 
face within sprang to vivid colored life as a miniature Bayta. 

"That one!" said Bayta. "Now I wonder why Toran should send that caricature. I'm surprised you 
let me come near you, sir." 

"Are you now? Call me Fran. I'll have none of this fancy mess. For that, I think you can take my 
arm, and we'll go on to the car. Till now I never did think my boy knew what he was ever up to. I 
think I'll change that opinion. I think I'll have to change that opinion." 

Toran said to his half uncle softly, "How is the old man these days? Does he still hound the 
women?" 

Randu puckered up all over his face when he smiled. "When he can, Toran, when he can. 

There are times when he remembers that his next birthday will be his sixtieth, and that 
disheartens him. But he shouts it down, this evil thought, and then he is himself. He is a Trader 
of the ancient type. But you, Toran. Where did you find such a pretty wife?" 

The young man chuckled and linked arms. "Do you want a three years' history at a gasp, 
uncle?" 

It was in the small living room of the home that Bayta struggled out of her traveling cloak and 
hood and shook her hair loose. She sat down, crossing her knees, and returned the 
appreciative stare of this large, ruddy man. 

She said, "I know what you're trying to estimate, and I'll help you; Age, twenty-four, height, 
five-four, weight, one-ten, educational specialty, history." She noticed that he always crooked 
his stand so as to hide the missing arm. But now Fran leaned close and said, "Since you 
mention it -weight, one-twenty." 

He laughed loudly at her flush. Then he said to the company in general, "You can always tell a 
woman's weight by her upper arm - with due experience, of course. Do you want a drink, Bay?" 

"Among other things," she said, and they left together, while Toran busied himself at the book 
shelves to check for new additions. 

Fran returned alone and said, "She'll be down later." 

He lowered himself heavily into the large comer chair and placed his stiff-jointed left leg on the 
stool before it. The laughter had left his red face, and Toran turned to face him. 

Fran said, "Well, you're home, boy, and I'm glad you are. I like your woman. She's no whining 
ninny." 

"I married her," said Toran simply. 

"Well, that's another thing altogether, boy." His eyes darkened. "It's a foolish way to tie up the 
future. In my longer life, and more experienced, I never did such a thing." 

Randu interrupted from the comer where he stood quietly. "Now Franssart, what comparisons 
are you making? Till your crash landing six years ago you were never in one spot long enough 



to establish residence requirements for marriage, And since then, who would have you?" 

The one-armed man jerked erect in his seat and replied hotly, "Many, you snowy dotard-" 

Toran said with hasty tact, "It's largely a legal formality, Dad. The situation has its 
conveniences." 

"Mostly for the woman," grumbled Fran. 

"And even if so," agreed Randu, "it's up to the boy to decide. Marriage is an old custom among 
the Foundationers." 

"The Foundationers are not fit models for an honest Trader," smoldered Fran. 

Toran broke in again, "My wife is a Foundationer." Fie looked from one to the other, and then 
said quietly, "She's coming." 

The conversation took a general turn after the evening meal, which Fran had spiced with three 
tales of reminiscence composed of equal parts of blood, women, profits, and embroidery. The 
small televisor was on, and some classic drama was playing itself out in an unregarded 
whisper. Randu had hitched himself into a more comfortable position on the low couch and 
gazed past the slow smoke of his long pipe to where Bayta had knelt down upon the softness 
of the white fur mat brought back once long ago from a trade mission and now spread out only 
upon the most ceremonious occasions. 

"You have studied history, my girl?" he asked, pleasantly. 

Bayta nodded. "I was the despair of my teachers, but I learned a bit, eventually." 

"A citation for scholarship," put in Toran, smugly, "that's all!" 

"And what did you learn?" proceeded Randu, smoothly. 

"Everything? Now?" laughed the girl. 

The old man smiled gently. "Well then, what do you think of the Galactic situation?" 

"I think," said Bayta, concisely, "that a Seldon crisis is pending - and that if it isn't then away 
with the Seldon plan altogether. It is a failure." 

("Whew," muttered Fran, from his comer. "What a way to speak of Seldon." But he said nothing 
aloud.) 

Randu sucked at his pipe speculatively. "Indeed? Why do you say that? I was to the 
Foundation, you know, in my younger days, and I, too, once thought great dramatic thoughts. 
But, now, why do you say that?" 

"Well," Bayta's eyes misted with thought as she curled her bare toes into the white softness of 
the rug and nestled her little chin in one plump hand, "it seems to me that the whole essence of 
Seldon's plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was 
failing apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation - 
and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and 



maldistribution of the goods of the universe." 

Randu nodded slowly, while Toran gazed with proud, luminous eyes at his wife, and Fran in the 
comer clucked his tongue and carefully refilled his glass. 

Bayta said, "If the story of Seldon is true, he foresaw the complete collapse of the Empire 
through his Jaws of psychohistory, and was able to predict the necessary thirty thousand years 
of barbarism before the establishment of a new Second Empire to restore civilization and 
culture to humanity. It was the whole aim of his life-work to set up such conditions as would 
insure a speedier rejuvenation," 

The deep voice of Fran burst out, "And that's why he established the two Foundations, honor 
be to his name." 

"And that's why he established the two Foundations," assented Bayta. "Our Foundation was a 
gathering of the scientists of the dying Empire intended to carry on the science and learning of 
man to new heights. And the Foundation was so situated in space and the historical 
environment was such that through the careful calculations of his genius, Seldon foresaw that 
in one thousand years, it would become a newer, greater Empire." 

There was a reverent silence. 

The girl said softly, "It's an old story. You all know it. For almost three centuries every human 
being of the Foundation has known it. But I thought it would be appropriate to go through it - 
just quickly. Today is Seldon's birthday, you know, and even if I am of the Foundation, and you 
are of Flaven, we have that in common-" 

She lit a cigarette slowly, and watched the glowing tip absently. "The laws of history are as 
absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because 
history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations 
count for more. Seldon predicted a series of crises through the thousand years of growth, each 
of which would force a new turning of our history into a pre-calculated path. It is those crises 
which direct us - and therefore a crisis must come now. 

"Now!" she repeated, forcefully. "It's almost a century since the last one, and in that century, 
every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows 
one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one 
desire; to hold what is theirs." 

"While others starve!" roared Fran suddenly with a mighty blow of his fist upon the arm of his 
chair. "Girl, your words are pearls. The fat guts on their moneybags ruin the Foundation, while 
the brave Traders hide their poverty on dregs of worlds like Flaven. It's a disgrace to Seldon, a 
casting of dirt in his face, a spewing in his beard." Fie raised his arm high, and then his face 
lengthened. "If I had my other arm! If - once - they had listened to me!" 

"Dad," said Toran, "take it easy." 

"Take it easy. Take it easy," his father mimicked savagely. "We'll live here and die here forever 
- and you say, take it easy." 



"That's our modern Lathan Devers," said Randu, gesturing with his pipe, "this Fran of ours. 
Devers died in the slave mines eighty years ago with your husband's great-grandfather, 
because he lacked wisdom and didn't lack heart-" 

"Yes, by the Galaxy, I'd do the same if I were he," swore Fran. "Devers was the greatest Trader 
in history - greater than the overblown windbag, Mallow, the Foundationers worship. If the 
cutthroats who lord the Foundation killed him because he loved justice, the greater the 
blood-debt owed them." 

"Go on, girl," said Randu. "Go on, or, surely, he'll talk a the night and rave all the next day." 

"There's nothing to go on about," she said, with a sudden gloom. "There must be a crisis, but I 
don't know how to make one. The progressive forces on the Foundation are oppressed 
fearfully. You Traders may have the will, but you are hunted and disunited. If all the forces of 
good will in and out of the Foundation could combine-" 

Fran's laugh was a raucous jeer. "Listen to her, Randu, listen to her. In and out of the 
Foundation, she says. Girl, girl, there's no hope in the flab-sides of the Foundation. Among 
them some hold the whip and the rest are whipped dead whipped. Not enough spunk left in the 
whole rotten world to outface one good Trader." 

Bayta's attempted interruptions broke feebly against the overwhelming wind. 

Toran leaned over and put a hand over her mouth. "Dad," he said, coldly, "you've never been 
on the Foundation. You know nothing about it. I tell you that the underground there is brave and 
daring enough. I could tell you that Bayta was one of them-" 

"All right, boy, no offense. Now, where's the cause for anger?" Fie was genuinely perturbed. 

Toran drove on fervently, "The trouble with you, Dad, is that you've got a provincial outlook. 

You think because some hundred thousand Traders scurry into holes on an unwanted planet at 
the end of nowhere, that they're a great people. Of course, any tax collector from the 
Foundation that gets here never leaves again, but that's cheap heroism. What would you do if 
the Foundation sent a fleet?" 

"We'd blast them," said Fran, sharply. 

"And get blasted - with the balance in their favor. You're outnumbered, outarmed, outorganized 
- and as soon as the Foundation thinks it worth its while, you'll realize that. So you had better 
seek your allies - on the Foundation itself, if you can." 

"Randu, said Fran, looking at his brother like a great, helpless bull. 

Randu took his pipe away from his lips, "The boy's right, Fran. When you listen to the little 
thoughts deep inside you, you know he is. But they're uncomfortable thoughts, so you drown 
them out with that roar of yours. But they're still there. Toran, I'll tell you why I brought all this 
up." 

Fie puffed thoughtfully awhile, then dipped his pipe into the neck of the tray, waited for the silent 
flash, and withdrew it clean. Slowly, he filled it again with precise tamps of his little finger. 



He said, "Your little suggestion of Foundation's interest in us, Toran, is to the point. There have 
been two recent visits lately - for tax purposes. The disturbing point is that the second visitor 
was accompanied by a light patrol ship. They landed in Gleiar City - giving us the miss for a 
change - and they never lifted off again, naturally. But now they'll surely be back. Your father is 
aware of all this, Toran, he really is. 

"Look at the stubborn rakehell. He knows Haven is in trouble, and he knows we're helpless, but 
he repeats his formulas. It warms and protects him. But once he's had his say, and roared his 
defiance, and feels he's discharged his duty as a man and a Bull Trader, why he's as 
reasonable as any of us." 

"Any of who?" asked Bayta. 

He smiled at her. "We've formed a little group, Bayta - just in our city. We haven't done 
anything, yet. We haven't even managed to contact the other cities yet, but it's a start." 

"But towards what?" 

Randu shook his head. "We don't know-yet. We hope for a miracle. We have decided that, as 
you say, a Seldon crisis must be at hand." He gestured widely upwards. "The Galaxy is full of 
the chips and splinters of the broken Empire. The generals swarm. Do you suppose the time 
may come when one will grow bold?" 

Bayta considered, and shook her head decisively, so that the long straight hair with the single 
inward curl at the end swirled about her ears. "No, not a chance. There's not one of those 
generals who doesn't know that an attack on the Foundation is suicide. Bel Riose of the old 
Empire was a better man than any of them, and he attacked with the resources of a galaxy, and 
couldn't win against the Seldon Plan. Is there one general that doesn't know that?" 

"But what if we spur them on?" 

"Into where? Into an atomic furnace? With what could you possibly spur them?" 

"Well, there is one - a new one. In this past year or two, there has come word of a strange man 
whom they call the Mule." 

"The Mule?" She considered. "Ever hear of him, Torie?" 

Toran shook his head. She said, "What about him?" 

"I don't know. But he wins victories at, they say, impossible odds. The rumors may be 
exaggerated, but it would be interesting, in any case, to become acquainted with him. Not every 
man with sufficient ability and sufficient ambition would believe in Hari Seldon and his laws of 
psychohistory. We could encourage that disbelief. He might attack." 

"And the Foundation would win." 

"Yes - but not necessarily easily. It might be a crisis, and we could take advantage of such a 
crisis to force a compromise with the despots of the Foundation. At the worst, they would forget 
us long enough to enable us to plan farther." 



"What do you think, Torie?" 

Toran smiled feebly and pulled at a loose brown curl that fell over one eye. "The way he 
describes it, it can't hurt; but who is the Mule? What do you know of him, Randu?" 

"Nothing yet. For that, we could use you, Toran. And your wife, if she's willing. We've talked of 
this, your father and I. We've talked of this thoroughly." 

"In what way, Randu? What do you want of us?" The young man cast a quick inquisitive look at 
his wife. 

"Have you had a honeymoon?" 

"Well ... yes ... if you can call the trip from the Foundation a honeymoon." 

"How about a better one on Kalgan? It's semitropical beaches - water sports - bird hunting - 
quite the vacation spot. It's about seven thousand parsecs in-not too far." 

"What's on Kalgan?" 

"The Mule! His men, at least. He took it last month, and without a battle, though Kalgan's 
warlord broadcast a threat to blow the planet to ionic dust before giving it up." 

"Where's the warlord now?" 

"He isn't," said Randu, with a shrug. "What do you say?" 

"But what are we to do?" 

"I don't know. Fran and I are old; we're provincial. The Traders of Haven are all essentially 
provincial. Even you say so. Our trading is of a very restricted sort, and we're not the Galaxy 
roamers our ancestors were, Shut up, Fran! But you two know the Galaxy. Bayta, especially, 
speaks with a nice Foundation accent. We merely wish whatever you can find out. If you can 
make contact ... but we wouldn't expect that. Suppose you two think it over. You can meet our 
entire group if you wish ... oh, not before next week. You ought to have some time to catch your 
breath." 

There was a pause and then Fran roared, "Who wants; another drink? I mean, besides me?" 


12. CAPTAIN AND MAYOR 

Captain Han Pritcher was unused to the luxury of his surroundings and by no means 
impressed. As a general thing, he discouraged self-analysis and all forms of philosophy and 
metaphysics not directly connected with his work. 

It helped. 

His work consisted largely of what the War Department called "intelligence," the sophisticates, 
"espionage," and the romanticists, "spy stuff." And, unfortunately, despite the frothy shrillness of 
the televisors, "intelligence," "espionage," and "spy stuff" are at best a sordid business of 



routine betrayal and bad faith. It is excused by society since it is in the "interest of the State," 
but since philosophy seemed always to lead Captain Pritcher to the conclusion that even in that 
holy interest, society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience - he discouraged 
philosophy. 

And now, in the luxury of the mayor's anteroom, his thoughts turned inward despite himself. 

Men had been promoted over his head continuously, though of lesser ability - that much was 
admitted. He had withstood an eternal rain of black marks and official reprimands, and survived 
it. And stubbornly he had held to his own way in the firm belief that insubordination in that same 
holy "interest of the State" would yet be recognized for the service it was. 

So here he was in the anteroom of the mayor-with five soldiers as a respectful guard, and 
probably a court-martial awaiting him. 

The heavy, marble doors rolled apart smoothly, silently, revealing satiny walls, a red plastic 
carpeting, and two more marble doors, metal-inlaid, within. Two officials in the straight-lined 
costume of three centuries back, stepped out, and called: 

"An audience to Captain Han Pritcher of Information." 

They stepped back with a ceremonious bow as the captain started forward. His escort stopped 
at the outer door, and he entered the inner alone. 

On the other side of the doors, in a large room strangely simple, behind a large desk strangely 
angular, sat a small man, almost lost in the immensity, 

Mayor Indbur - successively the third of that name - was the grandson of the first Indbur, who 
had been brutal and capable; and who had exhibited the first quality in spectacular fashion by 
his manner of seizing power, and the latter by the skill with which he put an end to the last 
farcical remnants of free election and the even greater skill with which he maintained a 
relatively peaceful rule. 

Mayor Indbur was also the son of the second Indbur, who was the first Mayor of the Foundation 
to succeed to his post by right of birth - and who was only half his father, for he was merely 
brutal. 

So Mayor Indbur was the third of the name and the second to succeed by right of birth, and he 
was the least of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable - but merely an excellent 
bookkeeper born wrong. 

Indbur the Third was a peculiar combination of ersatz characteristics to all but himself. 

To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was "system," an indefatigable and feverish 
interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was "industry," indecision when right 
was "caution," and blind stubbornness when wrong, "determination." 

And withal he wasted no money, killed no man needlessly, and meant extremely well. 

If Captain Pritcher's gloomy thoughts ran along these lines as he remained respectfully in place 
before the large desk, the wooden arrangement of his features yielded no insight into the fact. 



He neither coughed, shifted weight, nor shuffled his feet until the thin face of the mayor lifted 
slowly as the busy stylus ceased in its task of marginal notations, and a sheet of close-printed 
paper was lifted from one neat stack and placed upon another neat stack. 

Mayor Indbur clasped his hands carefully before him, deliberately refraining from disturbing the 
careful arrangement of desk accessories. 

He said, in acknowledgment, "Captain Han Pritcher of Information." 

And Captain Pritcher in strict obedience to protocol bent one knee nearly to the ground and 
bowed his head until he heard the words of release. 

"Arise, Captain Pritcher!" 

The mayor said with an air of warm sympathy, "You are here, Captain Pritcher, because of 
certain disciplinary action taken against yourself by your superior officer. The papers 
concerning such action have come, in the ordinary course of events, to my notice, and since no 
event in the Foundation is of disinterest to me, I took the trouble to ask for further information 
on your case. You are not, I hope, surprised." 

Captain Pritcher said unemotionally, "Excellence, no. Your justice is proverbial." 

"Is it? Is it?" His tone was pleased, and the tinted contact lenses he wore caught the light in a 
manner that imparted a hard, dry gleam to his eyes. Meticulously, he fanned out a series of 
metal-bound folders before him. The parchment sheets within crackled sharply as he turned 
them, his long finger following down the line as he spoke. 

"I have your record here, captain - complete. You are forty-three and have been an Officer of 
the Armed Forces for seventeen years. You were born in Loris, of Anacreonian parents, no 
serious childhood diseases, an attack of myo ... well, that's of no importance ... education, 
premilitary, at the Academy of Sciences, major, hyper-engines, academic standing ... hm-m-m, 
very good, you are to be congratulated ... entered the Army as Under-Officer on the one 
hundred second day of the 293rd year of the Foundation Era." 

He lifted his eyes momentarily as he shifted the first folder, and opened the second. 

"You see," he said, "in my administration, nothing is left to chance. Order! System!" 

He lifted a pink, scented jelly-globule to his lips. It was his one vice, and but dolingly indulged 
in. Witness the fact that the mayor's desk lacked that almost-inevitable atom flash for the 
disposal of dead tobacco. For the mayor did not smoke. 

Nor, as a matter of course, did his visitors. 

The mayor's voice droned on, methodically, slurringly, mumblingly - now and then interspersed 
with whispered comments of equally mild and equally ineffectual commendation or reproof. 

Slowly, he replaced the folders as originally, in a single neat pile. 

"Well, captain," he said, briskly, "your record is unusual. Your ability is outstanding, it would 
seem, and your services valuable beyond question. I note that you have been wounded in the 



line of duty twice, and that you have been awarded the Order of Merit for bravery beyond the 
call of duty. Those are facts not lightly to be minimized." 

Captain Pritcher's expressionless face did not soften. He remained stiffly erect. Protocol 
required that a subject honored by an audience with the mayor may not sit down - a point 
perhaps needlessly reinforced by the fact that only one chair existed in the room, the one 
underneath the mayor. Protocol further required no statements other than those needed to 
answer a direct question. 

The mayor's eyes bore down hard upon the soldier and his voice grew pointed and heavy. 
"However, you have not been promoted in ten years, and your superiors report, over and over 
again, of the unbending stubbornness of your character. You are reported to be chronically 
insubordinate, incapable of maintaining a correct attitude towards superior officers, apparently 
uninterested in maintaining frictionless relationships with your colleagues, and an incurable 
troublemaker, besides. How do you explain that, captain?" 

"Excellence, I do what seems right to me. My deeds on behalf of the State, and my wounds in 
that cause bear witness that what seems fight to me is also in the interest of the State." 

"A soldierly statement, captain, but a dangerous doctrine. More of that, later. Specifically, you 
are charged with refusing an assignment three times in the face of orders signed by my legal 
delegates. What have you to say to that?" 

"Excellence, the assignment lacks significance in a critical time, where matters of first 
importance are being ignored." 

"Ah, and who tells you these matters you speak of are of the first importance at all, and if they 
are, who tells you further that they are ignored?" 

"Excellence, these things are quite evident to me. My experience and my knowledge of events 
- the value of neither of which my superiors deny - make it plain." 

"But, my good captain, are you blind that you do not see that by arrogating to yourself the right 
to determine Intelligence policy, you usurp the duties of your superior?" 

"Excellence, my duty is primarily to the State, and not to my superior." 

"Fallacious, for your superior has his superior, and that superior is myself, and I am the State. 
But come, you shall have no cause to complain of this justice of mine that you say is proverbial. 
State in your own words the nature of the breach in discipline that has brought all this on." 

"Excellence, my duty is primarily to the State, and not to my living the life of a retired merchant 
mariner upon the world of Kalgan. My instructions were to direct Foundation activity upon the 
planet, perfect an organization to act as check upon the warlord of Kalgan, particularly as 
regards his foreign policy." 

"This is known to me. Continue!" 

"Excellence, my reports have continually stressed the strategic positions of Kalgan and the 
systems it controls. I have reported on the ambition of the warlord, his resources, his 



determination to extend his domain and his essential friendliness - or, perhaps, neutrality - 
towards the Foundation." 

"I have read your reports thoroughly. Continue!" 

"Excellence, I returned two months ago. At that time, there was no sign of impending war; no 
sign of anything but an almost superfluity of ability to repel any conceivable attack. One month 
ago, an unknown soldier of fortune took Kalgan without a fight. The man who was once warlord 
of Kalgan is apparently no longer alive. Men do not speak of treason - they speak only of the 
power and genius of this strange condottiere - this Mule." 

"This who?" the mayor leaned forward, and looked offended. 

"Excellence, he is known as the Mule. He is spoken of little, in a factual sense, but I have 
gathered the scraps and fragments of knowledge and winnowed out the most probable of them. 
He is apparently a man of neither birth nor standing. His father, unknown. His mother, dead in 
childbirth. His upbringing, that of a vagabond. His education, that of the tramp worlds, and the 
backwash alleys of space. He has no name other than that of the Mule, a name reportedly 
applied by himself to himself, and signifying, by popular explanation, his immense physical 
strength, and stubbornness of purpose." 

"What is his military strength, captain? Never mind his physique." 

"Excellence, men speak of huge fleets, but in this they may be influenced by the strange fall of 
Kalgan. The territory he controls is not large, though its exact limits are not capable of definite 
determination. Nevertheless, this man must be investigated." 

"Hm-m-m. So! So!" The mayor fell into a reverie, and slowly with twenty-four strokes of his 
stylus drew six squares in hexagonal arrangements upon the blank top sheet of a pad, which 
he tore off, folded neatly in three parts and slipped into the wastepaper slot at his right hand. It 
slid towards a clean and silent atomic disintegration. 

"Now then, tell me, captain, what is the alternative? You have told me what 'must' be 
investigated. What have you been ordered to investigate?" 

"Excellence, there is a rat hole in space that, it seems, does not pay its taxes." 

"Ah, and is that all? You are not aware, and have not been told that these men who do not pay 
their taxes, are descendants of the wild Traders of our early days - anarchists, rebels, social 
maniacs who claim Foundation ancestry and deride Foundation culture. You are not aware, 
and have not been told, that this rat hole in space, is not one, but many; that these rat holes are 
in greater number than we know; that these rat holes conspire together, one with the other, and 
all with the criminal elements that still exist throughout Foundation territory. Even here, captain, 
even here!" 

The mayor's momentary fire subsided quickly. "You are not aware, captain?" 

"Excellence, I have been told all this. But as servant of the State, I must serve faithfully - and 
he serves most faithfully who serves Truth. Whatever the political implications of these dregs of 
the ancient Traders - the warlords who have inherited the splinters of the old Empire have the 



power. The Traders have neither arms nor resources. They have not even unity. I am not a tax 
collector to be sent on a child's errand." 


"Captain Pritcher, you are a soldier, and count guns. It is a failing to be allowed you up to the 
point where it involves disobedience to myself. Take care. My justice is not simply weakness. 
Captain, it has already been proven that the generals of the Imperial Age and the warlords of 
the present age are equally impotent against us. Seldon's science which predicts the course of 
the Foundation is based, not on individual heroism, as you seem to believe, but on the social 
and economic trends of history. We have passed successfully through four crises already, have 
we not?" 

"Excellence, we have. Yet Seldon's science is known only to Seldon. We ourselves have but 
faith. In the first three crises, as I have been carefully taught, the Foundation was led by wise 
leaders who foresaw the nature of the crises and took the proper precautions. Otherwise - who 
can say?" 

"Yes, captain, but you omit the fourth crisis. Come, captain, we had no leadership worthy of the 
name then, and we faced the cleverest opponent, the heaviest armor, the strongest force of all. 
Yet we won by the inevitability of history." 

"Excellence, that is true. But this history you mention became inevitable only after we had 
fought desperately for over a year. The inevitable victory we won cost us half a thousand ships 
and half a million men. Excellence, Seldon's plan helps those who help themselves." 

Mayor Indbur frowned and grew suddenly tired of his patient exposition. It occurred to him that 
there was a fallacy in condescension, since it was mistaken for permission to argue eternally; to 
grow contentious; to wallow in dialectic. Fie said, stiffly, "Nevertheless, captain, Seldon 
guarantees victory over the warlords, and I can not, in these busy times, indulge in a dispersal 
of effort. These Traders you dismiss are Foundation-derived. A war with them would be a civil 
war. Seldon's plan makes no guarantee there for us - since they anc/we are Foundation. So 
they must be brought to heel. You have your orders." 

"Excellence-" 

"You have been asked no question, captain. You have your orders. You will obey those orders. 
Further argument of any sort with myself or those representing myself will be considered 
treason. You are excused." 

Captain Flan Pritcher knelt once more, then left with slow, backward steps. 

Mayor Indbur, third of his name, and second mayor of Foundation history to be so by fight of 
birth, recovered his equilibrium, and lifted another sheet of paper from the neat stack at his left. 
It was a report on the saving of funds due to the reduction of the quantity of metal-foam edging 
on the uniforms of the police force. Mayor Indbur crossed out a superfluous comma, corrected 
a misspelling, made three marginal notations, and placed it upon the neat stack at his fight. Fie 
lifted another sheet of paper from the neat stack at his left. 

Captain Flan Pritcher of Information found a Personal Capsule waiting for him when he returned 
to barracks. It contained orders, terse and redly underlined with a stamped "URGENT"' across 



it, and the whole initialed with a precise, capital "I". 

Captain Han Pritcher was ordered to the "rebel world called Haven" in the strongest terms. 

Captain Han Pritcher, alone in his light one-man speedster, set his course quietly and calmly 
for Kalgan. He slept that night the sleep of a successfully stubborn man. 


13. LIEUTENANT AND CLOWN 

If, from a distance of seven thousand parsecs, the fall of Kalgan to the armies of the Mule had 
produced reverberations that had excited the curiosity of an old Trader, the apprehension of a 
dogged captain, and the annoyance of a meticulous mayor - to those on Kalgan itself, it 
produced nothing and excited no one. It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in 
time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever 
been permanently learned. 

Kalgan was - Kalgan. It alone of all that quadrant of the Galaxy seemed not to know that the 
Empire had fallen, that the Stannells no longer ruled, that greatness had departed, and peace 
had disappeared. 

Kalgan was the luxury world. With the edifice of mankind crumbling, it maintained its integrity as 
a producer of pleasure, a buyer of gold and a seller of leisure. 

It escaped the harsher vicissitudes of history, for what conqueror would destroy or even 
seriously damage a world so full of the ready cash that would buy immunity. 

Yet even Kalgan had finally become the headquarters of a warlord and its softness had been 
tempered to the exigencies of war. 

Its tamed jungles, its mildly modeled shores, and its garishly glamorous cities echoed to the 
march of imported mercenaries and impressed citizens. The worlds of its province had been 
armed and its money invested in battleships rather than bribes for the first time in its history. Its 
ruler proved beyond doubt that he was determined to defend what was his and eager to seize 
what was others. He was a great one of the Galaxy, a war and peace maker, a builder of 
Empire, an establisher of dynasty. 

And an unknown with a ridiculous nickname had taken him - and his arms - and his budding 
Empire - and had not even fought a battle. 

So Kalgan was as before, and its uniformed citizens hurried back to their older life, while the 
foreign professionals of war merged easily into the newer bands that descended. 

Again as always, there were the elaborate luxury hunts for the cultivated animal life of the 
jungles that never took human life; and the speedster bird-chases in the air above, that was 
fatal only to the Great Birds. 

In the cities, the escapers of the Galaxy could take their varieties of pleasure to suit their purse, 
from the ethereal sky-palaces of spectacle and fantasy that opened their doors to the masses 



at the jingle of half a credit, to the unmarked, unnoted haunts to which only those of great 
wealth were of the cognoscenti. 

To the vast flood, Toran and Bayta added not even a trickle. They registered their ship in the 
huge common hangar on the East Peninsula, and gravitated to that compromise of the 
middle-classes, the Inland Sea-where the pleasures were yet legal, and even respectable, and 
the crowds not yet beyond endurance. 

Bayta wore dark glasses against the light, and a thin, white robe against the heat. Warm-tinted 
arms, scarcely the goldener for the sun, clasped her knees to her, and she stared with firm, 
abstracted gaze at the length of her husband's outstretched body - almost shimmering in the 
brilliance of white sun-splendor. 

"Don't overdo it," she had said at first, but Toran was of a dying-red star, Despite three years of 
the Foundation, sunlight was a luxury, and for four days now his skin, treated beforehand for 
ray resistance, had not felt the harshness of clothing, except for the brief shorts. 

Bayta huddled close to him on the sand and they spoke in whispers. 

Toran's voice was gloomy, as it drifted upwards from a relaxed face, "No, I admit we're 
nowhere. But where is he? Who is he? This mad world says nothing of him. Perhaps he doesn't 
exist." 

"He exists," replied Bayta, with lips that didn't move. "He's clever, that's all. And your uncle is 
right. He's a man we could use - if there's time." 

A short pause. Toran whispered, "Know what I've been doing, Bay? I'm just daydreaming 
myself into a sun-stupor. Things figure themselves out so neatly - so sweetly." His voice nearly 
trailed off, then returned, "Remember the way Dr. Amann talked back at college, Bay. The 
Foundation can never lose, but that does not mean the rulers of the Foundation can't. Didn't the 
real history of the Foundation begin when Salvor Hardin kicked out the Encyclopedists and took 
over the planet Terminus as the first mayor? And then in the next century, didn't Hober Mallow 
gain power by methods almost as drastic? That's twice the rulers were defeated, so it can be 
done. So why not by us?" 

"It's the oldest argument in the books. Torie. What a waste of good reverie." 

"Is it? Follow it out. What's Haven? Isn't it part of the Foundation? If we become top dog, it's still 
the Foundation winning, and only the current rulers losing." 

"Lots of difference between 'we can' and 'we will.' You're just jabbering." 

Toran squirmed. "Nuts, Bay, you're just in one of your sour, green moods. What do you want to 
spoil my fun for? I'll just go to sleep if you don't mind." 

But Bayta was craning her head, and suddenly - quite a non sequitur - she giggled, and 
removed her glasses to look down the beach with only her palm shading her eyes. 

Toran looked up, then lifted and twisted his shoulders to follow her glance. 

Apparently, she was watching a spindly figure, feet in air, who teetered on his hands for the 



amusement of a haphazard crowd. It was one of the swarming acrobatic beggars of the shore, 
whose supple joints bent and snapped for the sake of the thrown coins. 

A beach guard was motioning him on his way and with a surprising one-handed balance, the 
clown brought a thumb to his nose in an upside-down gesture. The guard advanced 
threateningly and reeled backward with a foot in his stomach. The clown righted himself without 
interrupting the motion of the initial kick and was away, while the frothing guard was held off by 
a thoroughly unsympathetic crowd. 

The clown made his way raggedly down the beach. He brushed past many, hesitated often, 
stopped nowhere. The original crowd had dispersed. The guard had departed. 

"He's a queer fellow," said Bayta, with amusement, and Toran agreed indifferently. The clown 
was close enough now to be seen clearly. His thin face drew together in front into a nose of 
generous planes and fleshy tip that seemed all but prehensile. His long, lean limbs and spidery 
body, accentuated by his costume, moved easily and with grace, but with just a suggestion of 
having been thrown together at random. 

To look was to smile. 

The clown seemed suddenly aware of their regard, for he stopped after he had passed, and, 
with a sharp turn, approached. His large, brown eyes fastened upon Bayta. 

She found herself disconcerted. 

The clown smiled, but it only saddened his beaked face, and when he spoke it was with the 
soft, elaborate phrasing of the Central Sectors. 

"Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me," he said, "then I would say this lady can not 
exist - for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and 
lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes." 

Bayta's own eyes opened wide. She said, "Wow!" 

Toran laughed, "Oh, you enchantress. Go ahead, Bay, that deserves a five-credit piece. Let 
him have it." 

But the clown was forward with a jump. "No, my lady, mistake me not. I spoke for money not at 
all, but for bright eyes and sweet face." 

"Well, thanks," then, to Toran, "Golly, you think the sun's in his eyes?" 

"Yet not alone for eyes and face," babbled the clown, as his words hurled past each other in 
heightened frenzy, "but also for a mind, clear and sturdy - and kind as well." 

Toran rose to his feet, reached for the white robe he had crooked his arm about for four days, 
and slipped into it. 

"Now, bud," he said, "suppose you tell me what you want, and stop annoying the lady." 

The clown fell back a frightened step, his meager body cringing. "Now, sure I meant no harm. I 



am a stranger here, and it's been said I am of addled wits; yet there is something in a face that I 
can read. Behind this lady's fairness, there is a heart that's kind, and that would help me in my 
trouble for all I speak so boldly." 

"Will five credits cure your trouble?" said Toran, dryly, and held out the coin. 

But the clown did not move to take it, and Bayta said, "Let me talk to him, Torie," She added 
swiftly, and in an undertone, "There's no use being annoyed at his silly way of talking. That's 
just his dialect; and our speech is probably as strange to him." 

She said, "What is your trouble? You're not worried about the guard, are you? He won't bother 
you." 

"Oh, no, not he. He's but a windlet that blows the dust about my ankles. There is another that I 
flee, and he is a storm that sweeps the worlds aside and throws them plunging at each other. A 
week ago, I ran away, have slept in city streets, and hid in city crowds. I've looked in many 
faces for help in need. I find it here." He repeated the last phrase in softer, anxious tones, and 
his large eyes were troubled, "I find it here." 

"Now," said Bayta, reasonably, "I would like to help, but really, friend, I'm no protection against 
a world-sweeping storm. To be truthful about it, I could use-" 

There was an uplifted, powerful voice that bore down upon them. 

"Now, then, you mud-spawned rascal-" 

It was the beach guard, with a fire-red face, and snarling mouth, that approached at a run. He 
pointed with his low-power stun pistol. 

"Hold him, you two. Don't let him get away." His heavy hand fell upon the clown's thin shoulder, 
so that a whimper was squeezed out of him. 

Toran said, "What's he done?" 

"What's he done? What's he done? Well, now, that's good!" The guard reached inside the 
dangling pocket attached to his belt, and removed a purple handkerchief, with which he 
mopped his bare neck. He said with relish. "I'll tell you what he's done. He's run away. The 
word's all over Kalgan and I would have recognized him before this if he had been on his feet 
instead of on his hawkface top." And he rattled his prey in a fierce good humor. 

Bayta said with a smile, "Now where did he escape from, sir?" 

The guard raised his voice. A crowd was gathering, popeyed and jabbering, and with the 
increase of audience, the guard's sense of importance increased in direct ratio. 

"Where did he escape from?" he declaimed in high sarcasm. "Why, I suppose you've heard of 
the Mule, now." 

All jabbering stopped, and Bayta felt a sudden iciness trickle down into her stomach. The clown 
had eyes only for her-he still quivered in the guard's brawny grasp. 

"And who," continued the guard heavily, "would this infernal ragged piece be, but his lordship's 



own court fool who's run away." He jarred his captive with a massive shake, "Do you admit it, 
fool?" 


There was only white fear for answer, and the soundless sibilance of Bayta's voice close to 
Toran's ear. 

Toran stepped forward to the guard in friendly fashion, "Now, my man, suppose you take your 
hand away for just a while. This entertainer you hold has been dancing for us and has not yet 
danced out his fee." 

"Here!" The guard's voice rose in sudden concern. "There's a reward-" 

"You'll have it, if you can prove he's the man you want. Suppose you withdraw till then. You 
know that you're interfering with a guest, which could be serious for you." 

"But you're interfering with his lordship and that will be serious for you." He shook the clown 
once again. "Return the man's fee, carrion." 

Toran's hand moved quickly and the guard's stun pistol was wrenched away with half a finger 
nearly following it. The guard howled his pain and rage. Toran shoved him violently aside, and 
the clown, unhanded, scuttled behind him. 

The crowd, whose fringes were now lost to the eye, paid little attention to the latest 
development. There was among them a craning of necks, and a centrifugal motion as if many 
had decided to increase their distance from the center of activity. 

Then there was a bustle, and a rough order in the distance. A corridor formed itself and two 
men strode through, electric whips in careless readiness. Upon each purple blouse was 
designed an angular shaft of lightning with a splitting planet underneath. 

A dark giant, in lieutenant's uniform, followed them; dark of skin, and hair, and scowl. 

The dark man spoke with the dangerous softness that meant he had little need of shouting to 
enforce his whims. He said, "Are you the man who notified us?" 

The guard was still holding his wrenched hand, and with a pain-distorted face mumbled, "I 
claim the reward, your mightiness, and I accuse that man-" 

"You'll get your reward," said the lieutenant, without looking at him. He motioned curtly to his 
men, "Take him." 

Toran felt the clown tearing at his robe with a maddened grip. 

He raised his voice and kept it from shaking, "I'm sorry, lieutenant; this man is mine." 

The soldiers took the statement without blinking. One raised his whip casually, but the 
lieutenant's snapped order brought it down. 

His dark mightiness swung forward and planted his square body before Toran, "Who are you?" 
And the answer rang out, "A citizen of the Foundation." 



It worked-with the crowd, at any rate. The pent-up silence broke into an intense hum. The 
Mule's name might excite fear, but it was, after all, a new name and scarcely stuck as deeply in 
the vitals as the old one of the Foundation - that had destroyed the Empire - and the fear of 
which ruled a quadrant of the Galaxy with ruthless despotism. 

The lieutenant kept face. He said, "Are you aware of the identity of the man behind you?" 

"I have been told he's a runaway from the court of your leader, but my only sure knowledge is 
that he is a friend of mine. You'll need firm proof of his identity to take him." 

There were high-pitched sighs from the crowd, but the lieutenant let it pass. "Have you your 
papers of Foundation citizenship with you?" 

"At my ship." 

"You realize that your actions are illegal? I can have you shot." 

"Undoubtedly. But then you would have shot a Foundation citizen and it is quite likely that your 
body would be sent to the Foundation - quartered - as part compensation. It's been done by 
other warlords." 

The lieutenant wet his lips. The statement was true. 

He said, "Your name?" 

Toran followed up his advantage, "I will answer further questions at my ship. You can get the 
cell number at the Hangar; it is registered under the name 'Bayta'." 

"You won't give up the runaway?" 

"To the Mule, perhaps. Send your master!" 

The conversation had degenerated to a whisper and the lieutenant turned sharply away. 
"Disperse the crowd!" he said to his men, with suppressed ferocity. 

The electric whips rose and fell. There were shrieks and a vast surge of separation and flight. 

Toran interrupted his reverie only once on their way back to the Hangar. He said, almost to 
himself, "Galaxy, Bay, what a time I had! I was so scared-" 

"Yes," she said, with a voice that still shook, and eyes that still showed something akin to 
worship, "it was quite out of character." 

"Well, I still don't know what happened. I just got up there with a stun pistol that I wasn't even 
sure I knew how to use, and talked back to him. I don't know why I did it." 

He looked across the aisle of the short-run air vessel that was carrying them out of the beach 
area, to the seat on which the Mule's clown scrunched up in sleep, and added distastefully, "It 
was the hardest thing I've ever done." 

The lieutenant stood respectfully before the colonel of the garrison, and the colonel looked at 
him and said, "Well done. Your part's over now." 



But the lieutenant did not retire immediately. He said darkly, "The Mule has lost face before a 
mob, sir. It will be necessary to undertake disciplinary action to restore proper atmosphere of 
respect." 

"Those measures have already been taken." 

The lieutenant half turned, then, almost with resentment, "I'm willing to agree, sir, that orders 
are orders, but standing before that man with his stun pistol and swallowing his insolence 
whole, was the hardest thing I've ever done." 


14. THE MUTANT 

The "hangar" on Kalgan is an institution peculiar unto itself, born of the need for the disposition 
of the vast number of ships brought in by the visitors from abroad, and the simultaneous and 
consequent vast need for living accommodations for the same. The original bright one who had 
thought of the obvious solution had quickly become a millionaire. His heirs - by birth or finance 
- were easily among the richest on Kalgan. 

The "hangar" spreads fatly over square miles of territory, and "hangar" does not describe it at 
all sufficiently. It is essentially a hotel - for ships. The traveler pays in advance and his ship is 
awarded a berth from which it can take off into space at any desired moment. The visitor then 
lives in his ship as always. The ordinary hotel services such as the replacement of food and 
medical supplies at special rates, simple servicing of the ship itself, special intra-Kalgan 
transportation for a nominal sum are to be had, of course. 

As a result, the visitor combines hangar space and hotel bill into one, at a saving. The owners 
sell temporary use of ground space at ample profits. The government collects huge taxes. 
Everyone has fun. Nobody loses. Simple! 

The man who made his way down the shadow-borders of the wide corridors that connected the 
multitudinous wings of the "hangar" had in the past speculated on the novelty and usefulness of 
the system described above, but these were reflections for idle moments - distinctly unsuitable 
at present. 

The ships hulked in their height and breadth down the long lines of carefully aligned cells, and 
the man discarded line after line. He was an expert at what he was doing now and if his 
preliminary study of the hangar registry had failed to give specific information beyond the 
doubtful indication of a specific wing - one containing hundreds of ships - his specialized 
knowledge could winnow those hundreds into one. 

There was the ghost of a sigh in the silence, as the man stopped and faded down one of the 
lines; a crawling insect beneath the notice of the arrogant metal monsters that rested there. 

Here and there the sparkling of light from a porthole would indicate the presence of an early 
returner from the organized pleasures to simpler - or more private - pleasures of his own. 

The man halted, and would have smiled if he ever smiled. Certainly the convolutions of his 



brain performed the mental equivalent of a smile. 

The ship he stopped at was sleek and obviously fast. The peculiarity of its design was what he 
wanted. It was not a usual model - and these days most of the ships of this quadrant of the 
Galaxy either imitated Foundation design or were built by Foundation technicians. But this was 
special. This was a Foundation ship - if only because of the tiny bulges in the skin that were 
the nodes of the protective screen that only a Foundation ship could possess. There were other 
indications, too. 

The man felt no hesitation. 

The electronic barrier strung across the line of the ships as a concession to privacy on the part 
of the management was not at all important to him. It parted easily, and without activating the 
alarm, at the use of the very special neutralizing force he had at his disposal. 

So the first knowledge within the ship of the intruder without was the casual and almost friendly 
signal of the muted buzzer in the ship's living room that was the result of a palm placed over the 
little photocell just one side of the main air lock. 

And while that successful search went on, Toran and Bayta felt only the most precarious 
security within the steel walls of the Bayta. The Mule's clown who had reported that within his 
narrow compass of body he held the lordly name of Magnifico Giganticus, sat hunched over the 
table and gobbled at the food set before him. 

His sad, brown eyes lifted from his meat only to follow Bayta's movements in the combined 
kitchen and larder where he ate. 

"The thanks of a weak one are of but little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in 
this past week, little but scraps have come my way - and for all my body is small, yet is my 
appetite unseemly great." 

"Well, then, eat!" said Bayta, with a smile. "Don't waste your time on thanks. Isn't there a 
Central Galaxy proverb about gratitude that I once heard?" 

"Truly there is, my lady. For a wise man, I have been told, once said, 'Gratitude is best and 
most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.' But alas, my lady, I am but a 
mass of empty phrases, it would seem. When my empty phrases pleased the Mule, it brought 
me a court dress, and a grand name - for, see you, it was originally simply Bobo, one that 
pleases him not - and then when my empty phrases pleased him not, it would bring upon my 
poor bones beatings and whippings." 

Toran entered from the pilot room, "Nothing to do now but wait, Bay. I hope the Mule is capable 
of understanding that a Foundation ship is Foundation territory." 

Magnifico Giganticus, once Bobo, opened his eyes wide and exclaimed, "How great is the 
Foundation before which even the cruel servants of the Mule tremble." 

"Have you heard of the Foundation, too?" asked Bayta, with a little smile. 

"And who has not?" Magnifico's voice was a mysterious whisper. "There are those who say it is 



a world of great magic, of fires that can consume planets, and secrets of mighty strength. They 
say that not the highest nobility of the Galaxy could achieve the honor and deference 
considered only the natural due of a simple man who could say 'I am a citizen of the 
Foundation,' - were he only a salvage miner of space, or a nothing like myself." 

Bayta said, "Now, Magnifico, you'll never finish if you make speeches. Here, I'll get you a little 
flavored milk. It's good." 

She placed a pitcher of it upon the table and motioned Toran out of the room. 

"Torie, what are we going to do now - about him?" and she motioned towards the kitchen. 

"How do you mean?" 

"If the Mule comes, are we going to give him up?" 

"Well, what else, Bay?" He sounded harassed, and the gesture with which he shoved back the 
moist curl upon his forehead testified to that. 

He continued impatiently, "Before I came here I had a sort of vague idea that all we had to do 
was to ask for the Mule, and then get down to business - just business, you know, nothing 
definite." 

"I know what you mean, Torie. I wasn't much hoping to see the Mule myself, but I did think we 
could pick up some firsthand knowledge of the mess, and then pass it over to people who know 
a little more about this interstellar intrigue. I'm no storybook spy." 

"You're not behind me, Bay." He folded his arms and frowned. "What a situation! You'd never 
know there was a person like the Mule, except for this last queer break. Do you suppose he'll 
come for his clown?" 

Bayta looked up at him. "I don't know that I want him to. I don't know what to say or do. Do 
you?" 

The inner buzzer sounded with its intermittent burring noise. Bayta's lips moved wordlessly, 
"The Mule!" 

Magnifico was in the doorway, eyes wide, his voice a whimper, "The Mule?" 

Toran murmured, "I've got to let them in." 

A contact opened the air lock and the outer door closed behind the newcomer. The scanner 
showed only a single shadowed figure. 

"It's only one person," said Toran, with open relief, and his voice was almost shaky as he bent 
toward the signal tube, "Who are you?" 

"You'd better let me in and find out, hadn't you?" The words came thinly out the receiver. 

"I'll inform you that this is a Foundation ship and consequently Foundation territory by 
international treaty." 



"I know that." 

"Come with your arms free, or I'll shoot. I'm well-armed." 

"Done!" 

Toran opened the inner door and closed contact on his blast pistol, thumb hovering over the 
pressure point. There was the sound of footsteps and then the door swung open, and Magnifico 
cried out, "It's not the Mule. It's but a man." 

The "man" bowed to the clown somberly, "Very accurate. I'm not the Mule." He held his hands 
apart, "I'm not armed, and I come on a peaceful errand. You might relax and put the blast pistol 
away. Your hand isn't steady enough for my peace of mind." 

"Who are you?" asked Toran, brusquely. 

"I might ask you that," said the stranger, coolly, "since you're the one under false pretenses, not 
I." 

"How so?" 

"You're the one who claims to be a Foundation citizen when there's not an authorized Trader 
on the planet." 

"That's not so. How would you know?" 

"Because I am a Foundation citizen, and have my papers to prove it. Where are yours?" 

"I think you'd better get out." 

"I think not. If you know anything about Foundation methods, and despite your imposture you 
might, you'd know that if I don't return alive to my ship at a specified time, there'll be a signal at 
the nearest Foundation headquarters so I doubt if your weapons will have much effect, 
practically speaking." 

There was an irresolute silence and then Bayta said, calmly, "Put the blaster away, Toran, and 
take him at face value. He sounds like the real thing." 

"Thank you," said the stranger. 

Toran put his gun on the chair beside him, "Suppose you explain all this now." 

The stranger remained standing. He was long of bone and large of limb. His face consisted of 
hard flat planes and it was somehow evident that he never smiled. But his eyes lacked 
hardness. 

He said, "News travels quickly, especially when it is apparently beyond belief. I don't suppose 
there's a person on Kalgan who doesn't know that the Mule's men were kicked in the teeth 
today by two tourists from the Foundation. I knew of the important details before evening, and, 
as I said, there are no Foundation tourists aside from myself on the planet. We know about 
those things." 



Who are the 'we'? 


"'We' are - 'we'! Myself for one! I knew you were at the Hangar - you had been overheard to 
say so. I had my ways of checking the registry, and my ways of finding the ship." 

He turned to Bayta suddenly, "You're from the Foundation - by birth, aren't you?" 

"Am I?" 

"You're a member of the democratic opposition - they call it 'the underground.' I don't 
remember your name, but I do the face. You got out only recently - and wouldn't have if you 
were more important." 

Bayta shrugged, "You know a lot." 

"I do. You escaped with a man. That one?" 

"Does it matter what I say?" 

"No. I merely want a thorough mutual understanding. I believe that the password during the 
week you left so hastily was 'Seldon, Hardin, and Freedom.' Porfirat Hart was your section 
leader. " 

"Where'd you get that?" Bayta was suddenly fierce. "Did the police get him?" Toran held her 
back, but she shook herself loose and advanced. 

The man from the Foundation said quietly, "Nobody has him. It's just that the underground 
spreads widely and in queer places. I'm Captain Han Pritcher of Information, and I'm a section 
leader myself - never mind under what name." 

He waited, then said, "No, you don't have to believe me. In our business it is better to overdo 
suspicion than the opposite. But I'd better get past the preliminaries." 

"Yes," said Toran, "suppose you do." 

"May I sit down? Thanks." Captain Pritcher swung a long leg across his knee and let an arm 
swing loose over the back of the chair. "I'll start out by saying that I don't know what all this is 
about - from your angle. You two aren't from the Foundation, but it's not a hard guess that 
you're from one of the independent Trading worlds. That doesn't bother me overmuch. But out 
of curiosity, what do you want with that fellow, that clown you snatched to safety? You're risking 
your life to hold on to him." 

"I can't tell you that." 

"Hm-m-m. Well, I didn't think you would. But if you're waiting for the Mule himself to come 
behind a fanfarade of horns, drums, and electric organs - relax! The Mule doesn't work that 
way." 

"What?" It came from both Toran and Bayta, and in the comer where Magnifico lurked with ears 
almost visibly expanded, there was a sudden joyful start. 

"That's right. I've been trying to contact him myself, and doing a rather more thorough job of it 



than you two amateurs can. It won't work. The man makes no personal appearance, does not 
allow himself to be photographed or simulated, and is seen only by his most intimate 
associates." 

"Is that supposed to explain your interest in us, captain?" questioned Toran. 

"No. That clown is the key. That clown is one of the very few that have seen him. I want him. 

He may be the proof I need - and I need something, Galaxy knows - to awaken the 
Foundation." 

"It needs awakening?" broke in Bayta with sudden sharpness. "Against what? And in what role 
do you act as alarm, that of rebel democrat or of secret police and provocateur?" 

The captain's face set in its hard lines. "When the entire Foundation is threatened, Madame 
Revolutionary, both democrats and tyrants perish. Let us save the tyrants from a greater, that 
we may overthrow them in their turn." 

"Who's the greater tyrant you speak of?" flared Bayta. 

"The Mule! I know a bit about him, enough to have been my death several times over already, if 
I had moved less nimbly. Send the clown out of the room. This will require privacy." 

"Magnifico," said Bayta, with a gesture, and the clown left without a sound. 

The captain's voice was grave and intense, and low enough so that Toran and Bayta drew 
close. 

He said, "The Mule is a shrewd operator - far too shrewd not to realize the advantage of the 
magnetism and glamour of personal leadership. If he gives that up, it's for a reason. That 
reason must be the fact that personal contact would reveal something that is of overwhelming 
importance not to reveal." 

He waved aside questions, and continued more quickly, "I went back to his birthplace for this, 
and questioned people who for their knowledge will not live long. Few enough are still alive. 
They remember the baby born thirty years before - the death of his mother - his strange youth. 
The Mule is not a human being!" 

And his two listeners drew back in horror at the misty implications. Neither understood, fully or 
clearly, but the menace of the phrase was definite. 

The captain continued, "He is a mutant, and obviously from his subsequent career, a highly 
successful one. I don't know his powers or the exact extent to which he is what our thrillers 
would call a 'superman,' but the rise from nothing to the conqueror of Kalgan's warlord in two 
years is revealing. You see, don't you, the danger? Can a genetic accident of unpredictable 
biological properties be taken into account in the Seldon plan?" 

Slowly, Bayta spoke, "I don't believe it. This is some sort of complicated trickery. Why didn't the 
Mule's men kill us when they could have, if he's a superman?" 

"I told you that I don't know the extent of his mutation. He may not be ready, yet, for the 
Foundation, and it would be a sign of the greatest wisdom to resist provocation until ready. Now 



let me speak to the clown." 

The captain faced the trembling Magnifico, who obviously distrusted this huge, hard man who 
faced him. 

The captain began slowly, "Have you seen the Mule with your own eyes?" 

"I have but too well, respected sir. And felt the weight of his arm with my own body as well." 

"I have no doubt of that. Can you describe him?" 

"It is frightening to recall him, respected sir. He is a man of mighty frame. Against him, even you 
would be but a spindling. His hair is of a burning crimson, and with all my strength and weight I 
could not pull down his arm, once extended - not a hair's thickness." Magnifico's thinness 
seemed to collapse upon itself in a huddle of arms and legs. "Often, to amuse his generals or to 
amuse only himself, he would suspend me by one finger in my belt from a fearful height, while I 
chattered poetry. It was only after the twentieth verse that I was withdrawn, and each 
improvised and each a perfect rhyme, or else start over. He is a man of overpowering might, 
respected sir, and cruel in the use of his power - and his eyes, respected sir, no one sees." 

"What? What's that last?" 

"He wears spectacles, respected sir, of a curious nature. It is said that they are opaque and that 
he sees by a powerful magic that far transcends human powers. I have heard," and his voice 
was small and mysterious, "that to see his eyes is to see death; that he kills with his eyes, 
respected sir." 

Magnifico's eyes wheeled quickly from one watching face to another. He quavered, "It is true. 

As I live, it is true. " 

Bayta drew a long breath, "Sounds like you're right, captain. Do you want to take over?" 

"Well, let's look at the situation. You don't owe anything here? The hangar's barrier above is 
free?" 

"I can leave any time." 

"Then leave. The Mule may not wish to antagonize the Foundation, but he runs a frightful risk in 
letting Magnifico get away. It probably accounts for the hue and cry after the poor devil in the 
first place. So there may be ships waiting for you upstairs. If you're lost in space, who's to pin 
the crime?" 

"You're right," agreed Toran, bleakly. 

"However, you've got a shield and you're probably speedier than anything they've got, so as 
soon as you're clear of the atmosphere make the circle in neutral to the other hemisphere, then 
just cut a track outwards at top acceleration." 

"Yes," said Bayta coldly, "and when we are back on the Foundation, what then, captain?" 

"Why, you are then co-operative citizens of Kalgan, are you not? I know nothing to the contrary, 
do I?" 



Nothing was said. Toran turned to the controls. There was an imperceptible lurch. 

It was when Toran had left Kalgan sufficiently far in the rear to attempt his first interstellar jump, 
that Captain Pritcher's face first creased slightly - for no ship of the Mule had in any way 
attempted to bar their leaving. 

"Looks like he's letting us carry off Magnifico," said Toran. "Not so good for your story." 

"Unless," corrected the captain, "he wants us to carry him off, in which case it's not so good for 
the Foundation." 

It was after the last jump, when within neutral-flight distance of the Foundation, that the first 
hyperwave news broadcast reached the ship. 

And there was one news item barely mentioned. It seemed that a warlord - unidentified by the 
bored speaker - had made representations to the Foundation concerning the forceful abduction 
of a member of his court. The announcer went on to the sports news. 

Captain Pritcher said icily, "He's one step ahead of us after all." Thoughtfully, he added, "He's 
ready for the Foundation, and he uses this as an excuse for action. It makes things more 
difficult for us. We will have to act before we are really ready." 


15. THE PSYCHOLOGIST 

There was reason to the fact that the element known as "pure science" was the freest form of 
life on the Foundation. In a Galaxy where the predominance - and even survival - of the 
Foundation still rested upon the superiority of its technology - even despite its large access of 
physical power in the last century and a half - a certain immunity adhered to The Scientist. He 
was needed, and he knew it. 

Likewise, there was reason to the fact that Ebling Mis - only those who did not know him added 
his titles to his name - was the freest form of life in the "pure science" of the Foundation. In a 
world where science was respected, he was The Scientist - with capital letters and no smile. 

He was needed, and he knew it. 

And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his 
ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the 
mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited 
anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots. 

So it also happened, that when Ebling Mis decided to allow Indbur to honor him with an 
audience, he did not wait for the usual rigid line of command to pass his request up and the 
favored reply down, but, having thrown the less disreputable of his two formal jackets over his 
shoulders and pounded an odd hat of impossible design on one side of his head, and lit a 
forbidden cigar into the bargain, he barged past two ineffectually bleating guards and into the 
mayor's palace. 

The first notice his excellence received of the intrusion was when from his garden he heard the 



gradually nearing uproar of expostulation and the answering bull-roar of inarticulate swearing. 

Slowly, Indbur lay down his trowel; slowly, he stood up; and slowly, he frowned. For Indbur 
allowed himself a daily vacation from work, and for two hours in the early afternoon, weather 
permitting, he was in his garden. There in his garden, the blooms grew in squares and 
triangles, interlaced in a severe order of red and yellow, with little dashes of violet at the apices, 
and greenery bordering the whole in rigid lines. There in his garden no one disturbed him - no 
one! 

Indbur peeled off his soil-stained gloves as he advanced toward the little garden door. 

Inevitably, he said, "What is the meaning of this?" 

It is the precise question and the precise wording thereof that has been put to the atmosphere 
on such occasions by an incredible variety of men since humanity was invented. It is not 
recorded that it has ever been asked for any purpose other than dignified effect. 

But the answer was literal this time, for Mis's body came plunging through with a bellow, and a 
shake of a fist at the ones who were still holding tatters of his cloak. 

Indbur motioned them away with a solemn, displeased frown, and Mis bent to pick up his ruin of 
a hat, shake about a quarter of the gathered dirt off it, thrust it under his armpit and say: 

"Look here, Indbur, those unprintable minions of yours will be charged for one good cloak. Lots 
of good wear left in this cloak." He puffed and wiped his forehead with just a trace of 
theatricality. 

The mayor stood stiff with displeasure, and said haughtily from the peak of his five-foot-two, "It 
has not been brought to my attention, Mis, that you have requested an audience. You have 
certainly not been assigned one." 

Ebling Mis looked down at his mayor with what was apparently shocked disbelief, "Ga-LAX-y, 
Indbur, didn't you get my note yesterday? I handed it to a flunky in purple uniform day before. I 
would have handed it to you direct, but I know how you like formality." 

"Formality!" Indbur turned up exasperated eyes. Then, strenuously, "Have you ever heard of 
proper organization? At all future times you are to submit your request for an audience, 
properly made out in triplicate, at the government office intended for the purpose. You are then 
to wait until the ordinary course of events brings you notification of the time of audience to be 
granted. You are then to appear, properly clothed - properly clothed, do you understand - and 
with proper respect, too. You may leave." 

"What's wrong with my clothes?" demanded Mis, hotly. "Best cloak I had till those unprintable 
fiends got their claws on it. I'll leave just as soon as I deliver what I came to deliver. "Ga-LAX-y, 
if it didn't involve a Seldon Crisis, I would leave right now." 

"Seldon crisis!" Indbur exhibited first interest. Mis was a great psychologist - a democrat, boor, 
and rebel certainly, but a psychologist, too. In his uncertainty, the mayor even failed to put into 
words the inner pang that stabbed suddenly when Mis plucked a casual bloom, held it to his 
nostrils expectantly, then flipped it away with a wrinkled nose. 



Indbur said coldly, "Would you follow me? This garden wasn't made for serious conversation." 

He felt better in his built-up chair behind his large desk from which he could look down on the 
few hairs that quite ineffectually hid Mis's pink scalp-skin. He felt much better when Mis cast a 
series of automatic glances about him for a non-existent chair and then remained standing in 
uneasy shifting fashion. He felt best of all when in response to a careful pressure of the correct 
contact, a liveried underling scurried in, bowed his way to the desk, and laid thereon a bulky, 
metal-bound volume. 

"Now, in order," said Indbur, once more master of the situation, "to make this unauthorized 
interview as short as possible, make your statement in the fewest possible words." 

Ebling Mis said unhurriedly, "You know what I'm doing these days?" 

"I have your reports here," replied the mayor, with satisfaction, "together with authorized 
summaries of them. As I understand it, your investigations into the mathematics of 
psychohistory have been intended to duplicate Hari Seldon's work and, eventually, trace the 
projected course of future history, for the use of the Foundation." 

"Exactly," said Mis, dryly. "When Seldon first established the Foundation, he was wise enough 
to include no psychologists among the scientists placed here - so that the Foundation has 
always worked blindly along the course of historical necessity. In the course of my researches, I 
have based a good deal upon hints found at the Time Vault." 

"I am aware of that, Mis. It is a waste of time to repeat." 

"I'm not repeating," blared Mis, "because what I'm going to tell you isn't in any of those reports." 

"How do you mean, not in the reports?" said Indbur, stupidly. "How could-" 

"Ga-LAX-y, Let me tell this my own way, you offensive little creature. Stop putting words into 
my mouth and questioning my every statement or I'll tramp out of here and let everything 
crumble around you. Remember, you unprintable fool, the Foundation will come through 
because it must, but if I walk out of here now - you won't." 

Dashing his hat on the floor, so that clods of earth scattered, he sprang up the stairs of the dais 
on which the wide desk stood and shoving papers violently, sat down upon a comer of it. 

Indbur thought frantically of summoning the guard, or using the built-in blasters of his desk. But 
Mis's face was glaring down upon him and there was nothing to do but cringe the best face 
upon it. 

"Dr. Mis," he began, with weak formality, "you must-" 

"Shut up," said Mis, ferociously, "and listen. If this thing here," and his palm came down heavily 
on the metal of the bound data, "is a mess of my reports - throw it out. Any report I write goes 
up through some twenty-odd officials, gets to you, and then sort of winds down through twenty 
more. That's fine if there's nothing you don't want kept secret. Well, I've got something 
confidential here. It's so confidential, even the boys working for me haven't got wind of it. They 
did the work, of course, but each just a little unconnected piece - and I put it together. You 



know what the Time Vault is? 


Indbur nodded his head, but Mis went on with loud enjoyment of the situation, "Well, I'll tell you 
anyhow because I've been sort of imagining this unprintable situation for a "Ga-LAX-y, of a long 
time; I can read your mind, you puny fraud. You've got your hand right near a little knob that'll 
call in about five hundred or so armed men to finish me off, but you're afraid of what I know - 
you're afraid of a Seldon Crisis. Besides which, if you touch anything on your desk, I'll knock 
your unprintable head off before anyone gets here. You and your bandit father and pirate 
grandfather have been blood-sucking the Foundation long enough anyway." 

"This is treason," gabbled Indbur. 

"It certainly is," gloated Mis, "but what are you going to do about it? Let me tell you about the 
Time Vault. That Time Vault is what Hari Seldon placed here at the beginning to help us over 
the rough spots. For every crisis, Seldon has prepared a personal simulacrum to help - and 
explain. Four crises so far - four appearances. The first time he appeared at the height of the 
first crisis. The second time, he appeared at the moment just after the successful evolution of 
the second crisis. Our ancestors were there to listen to him both times. At the third and fourth 
crises, he was ignored - probably because he was not needed, but recent investigations -not 
included in those reports you have - indicate that he appeared anyway, and at the proper 
times. Get it?" 

Fie did not wait for any answer. His cigar, a tattered, dead ruin was finally disposed of, a new 
cigar groped for, and lit. The smoke puffed out violently. 

Fie said, "Officially I've been trying to rebuild the science of psychohistory. Well, no one man is 
going to do that, and it won't get done in any one century, either. But I've made advances in the 
more simple elements and I've been able to use it as an excuse to meddle with the Time Vault. 
What I have done, involves the determination, to a pretty fair kind of certainty, of the exact date 
of the next appearance of Hari Seldon. I can give you the exact day, in other words, that the 
coming Seldon Crisis, the fifth, will reach its climax. " 

"Flow far off?" demanded Indbur, tensely. 

And Mis exploded his bomb with cheerful nonchalance, 

"Four months," he said. "Four unprintable months, less two days." 

"Four months," said Indbur, with uncharacteristic vehemence. "Impossible." 

"Impossible, my unprintable eye." 

"Four months? Do you understand what that means? For a crisis to come to a head in four 
months would mean that it has been preparing for years." 

"And why not? Is there a law of Nature that requires the process to mature in the full light of 
day?" 

"But nothing impends. Nothing hangs over us." Indbur almost wrung his hands for anxiety. With 
a sudden spasmodic recrudescence of ferocity, he screamed, "Will you get off my desk and let 



me put it in order? How do you expect me to think?" 

Mis, startled, lifted heavily and moved aside. 

Indbur replaced objects in their appropriate niches with a feverish motion. He was speaking 
quickly, "You have no right to come here like this. If you had presented your theory-" 

"It is not a theory. " 

"I say it is a theory. If you had presented it together with your evidence and arguments, in 
appropriate fashion, it would have gone to the Bureau of Historical Sciences. There it could 
have been properly treated, the resulting analyses submitted to me, and then, of course, proper 
action would have been taken. As it is, you've vexed me to no purpose. Ah, here it is." 

He had a sheet of transparent, silvery paper in his hand which he shook at the bulbous 
psychologist beside him. 

"This is a short summary I prepare myself - weekly - of foreign matters in progress. Listen - 
we have completed negotiations for a commercial treaty with Mores, continue negotiations for 
one with Lyonesse, sent a delegation to some celebration or other on Bonde, received some 
complaint or other from Kalgan and we've promised to look into it, protested some sharp trade 
practices in Asperta and they've promised to look into it - and so on and so on." The mayor's 
eyes swarmed down the list of coded notations, and then he carefully placed the sheet in its 
proper place in the proper folder in the proper pigeonhole. 

I tell you, Mis, there's not a thing there that breathes anything but order and peace-" 

The door at the far, long end opened, and, in far too dramatically coincident a fashion to 
suggest anything but real life, a plainly-costumed notable stepped in. 

Indbur half-rose. He had the curiously swirling sensation of unreality that comes upon those 
days when too much happens. After Mis's intrusion and wild turnings there now came the 
equally improper, hence disturbing, intrusion unannounced, of his secretary, who at least knew 
the rules. 

The secretary kneeled low. 

Indbur said, sharply, "Well!" 

The secretary addressed the floor, "Excellence, Captain Han Pritcher of Information, returning 
from Kalgan, in disobedience to your orders, has according to prior instructions - your order 
X20-513 - been imprisoned, and awaits execution. Those accompanying him are being held for 
questioning. A full report has been filed." 

Indbur, in agony, said, "A full report has been received. Well!" 

"Excellence, Captain Pritcher has reported, vaguely, dangerous designs on the part of the new 
warlord of Kalgan. He has been given, according to prior instructions - your order X20-651 - no 
formal hearing, but his remarks have been recorded and a full report filed." 


Indbur screamed, "A full report has been received. Well!" 



"Excellence, reports have within the quarter-hour been received from the Salinnian frontier. 
Ships identified as Kalganian have been entering Foundation territory, unauthorized. The ships 
are armed. Fighting has occurred." 

The secretary was bent nearly double. Indbur remained standing. Ebling Mis shook himself, 
clumped up to the secretary, and tapped him sharply on the shoulder. 

"Flere, you'd better have them release this Captain Pritcher, and have him sent here. Get out." 

The secretary left, and Mis turned to the mayor, "Fladn't you better get the machinery moving, 
Indbur? Four months, you know." 

Indbur remained standing, glaze-eyed. Only one finger seemed alive - and it traced rapid jerky 
triangles on the smooth desk top before him. 


16. CONFERENCE 

When the twenty-seven independent Trading worlds, united only by their distrust of the mother 
planet of the Foundation, concert an assembly among themselves, and each is big with a pride 
grown of its smallness, hardened by its own insularity and embittered by eternal danger - there 
are preliminary negotiations to be overcome of a pettiness sufficiently staggering to heartsicken 
the most persevering. 

It is not enough to fix in advance such details as methods of voting, type of representation - 
whether by world or by population. These are matters of involved political importance. It is not 
enough to fix matters of priority at the table, both council and dinner, those are matters of 
involved social importance. 

It was the place of meeting - since that was a matter of overpowering provincialism. And in the 
end the devious routes of diplomacy led to the world of Radole, which some commentators had 
suggested at the start for logical reason of central position. 

Radole was a small world - and, in military potential, perhaps the weakest of the twenty-seven. 
That, by the way, was another factor in the logic of the choice. 

It was a ribbon world - of which the Galaxy boasts sufficient, but among which, the inhabited 
variety is a rarity for the physical requirements are difficult to meet. It was a world, in other 
words, where the two halves face the monotonous extremes of heat and cold, while the region 
of possible life is the girdling ribbon of the twilight zone. 

Such a world invariably sounds uninviting to those who have not tried it, but there exist spots, 
strategically placed - and Radole City was located in such a one. 

It spread along the soft slopes of the foothills before the hacked-out mountains that backed it 
along the rim of the cold hemisphere and held off the frightful ice. The warm, dry air of the 
sun-half spilled over, and from the mountains was piped the water-and between the two, 

Radole City became a continuous garden, swimming in the eternal morning of an eternal June. 



Each house nestled among its flower garden, open to the fangless elements. Each garden was 
a horticultural forcing ground, where luxury plants grew in fantastic patterns for the sake of the 
foreign exchange they brought - until Radole had almost become a producing world, rather 
than a typical Trading world. 

So, in its way, Radole City was a little point of softness and luxury on a horrible planet - a tiny 
scrap of Eden - and that, too, was a factor in the logic of the choice. 

The strangers came from each of the twenty-six other Trading worlds: delegates, wives, 
secretaries, newsmen, ships, and crews - and Radole's population nearly doubled and 
Radole's resources strained themselves to the limit. One ate at will, and drank at will, and slept 
not at all. 

Yet there were few among the roisterers who were not intensely aware that all that volume of 
the Galaxy burnt slowly in a sort of quiet, slumbrous war. And of those who were aware, there 
were dime classes. First, there were the many who knew little and were very confident. 

Such as the young space pilot who wore the Haven cockade on the clasp of his cap, and who 
managed, in holding his glass before his eyes, to catch those of the faintly smiling Radolian girl 
opposite. He was saying: 

"We came fight through the war-zone to get here-on purpose. We traveled about a light-minute 
or so, in neutral, right past Horleggor-" 

"Horleggor?" broke in a long-legged native, who was playing host to that particular gathering. 
"That's where the Mule got the guts beat out of him last week, wasn't it?" 

"Where'd you hear that the Mule got the guts beat out of him?" demanded the pilot, loftily. 

"Foundation radio." 

"Yeah? Well, the Mule's got Horleggor. We almost ran into a convoy of his ships, and that's 
where they were coming from. It isn't a gut-beating when you stay where you fought, and the 
gut-beater leaves in a hurry." 

Someone else said in a high, blurred voice, "Don't talk like that. Foundation always takes it on 
the chin for a while. You watch; just sit tight and watch. 01' Foundation knows when to come 
back. And then - pow T The thick voice concluded and was succeeded by a bleary grin. 

"Anyway." said the pilot from Haven, after a short pause, "As I say, we saw the Mule's ships, 
and they looked pretty good, pretty good. I tell you what - they looked new." 

"New?" said the native, thoughtfully. "They build them themselves?" He broke a leaf from an 
overhanging branch, sniffed delicately at it, then crunched it between his teeth, the bruised 
tissues bleeding greenly and diffusing a minty odor. He said, "You trying to tell me they beat 
Foundation ships with homebuilt jobs? Go on." 

"We saw them, doc. And I can tell a ship from a comet, too, you know." 

The native leaned close. "You know what I think. Listen, don't kid yourself. Wars don't just start 
by themselves, and we have a bunch of shrewd apples running things. They know what they're 



doing." 

The well-unthirsted one said with sudden loudness, "You watch ol' Foundation. They wait for 
the last minute, then - powf' He grinned with vacuously open mouth at the girl, who moved 
away from him. 

The Radolian was saying, "For instance, old man, you think maybe that this Mule guy's running 
things. No-o-o." And he wagged a finger horizontally. "The way I hear it, and from pretty high 
up, mind you, he's our boy. We're paying him off, and we probably built those ships. Let's be 
realistic about it - we probably did. Sure, he can't beat the Foundation in the long run, but he 
can get them shaky, and when he does - we get in." 

The girl said, "Is that all you can talk about, Kiev? The war? You make me tired." 

The pilot from Haven said, in an access of gallantry, 

"Change the subject. Can't make the girls tired." 

The bedewed one took up the refrain and banged a mug to the rhythm. The little groups of two 
that had formed broke up with giggles and swagger, and a few similar groups of twos emerged 
from the sun-house in the background. 

The conversation became more general, more varied, more meaningless. 

Then there were those who knew a little more and were less confident. 

Such as the one-armed Fran, whose large bulk represented Haven as official delegated, and 
who lived high in consequence, and cultivated new friendships - with women when he could 
and with men when he had to. 

It was on the sun platform of the hilltop home, of one of these new friends, that he relaxed for 
the first of what eventually proved to be a total of two times while on Radole. The new friend 
was Iwo Lyon, a kindred soul of Radole. Iwo's house was apart from the general cluster, 
apparently alone in a sea of floral perfume and insect chatter. The sun platform was a grassy 
strip of lawn set at a forty-five degree angle, and upon it Fran stretched out and fairly sopped 
up sun. 

He said, "Don't have anything like this on Haven." 

Iwo replied, sleepily, "Ever seen the cold side. There's a spot twenty miles from here where the 
oxygen runs like water. " 

"Go on. 

"Fact." 

"Well, I'll tell you, Iwo-ln the old days before my arm was chewed off I knocked around, see - 
and you won't believe this, but" - The story that followed lasted considerably, and Iwo didn't 
believe it. 


Iwo said, through yawns, "They don't make them like in the old days, that's the truth. 



"No, guess they don't. Well, now," Fran fired up, "don't say that. I told you about my son, didn't 
I? He's one of the old school, if you like. He'll make a great Trader, blast it. He's his old man up 
and down. Up and down, except that he gets married." 

"You mean legal contract? With a girl?" 

"That's right. Don't see the sense in it myself. They went to Kalgan for their honeymoon." 
"Kalgan? Kalgan? When the Galaxy was this?" 

Fran smiled broadly, and said with slow meaning, "Just before the Mule declared war on the 
Foundation." 

"That so?" 

Fran nodded and motioned Iwo closer with his head. He said, hoarsely, "In fact, I can tell you 
something, if you don't let it go any further. My boy was sent to Kalgan for a purpose. Now I 
wouldn't like to let it out, you know, just what the purpose was, naturally, but you look at the 
situation now, and I suppose you can make a pretty good guess. In any case, my boy was the 
man for the job. We Traders needed some sort of ruckus." He smiled, craftily. "It's here. I'm not 
saying how we did it, but - my boy went to Kalgan, and the Mule sent out his ships. My son!" 

Iwo was duly impressed. He grew confidential in his turn, "That's good. You know, they say 
we've got five hundred ships ready to pitch in on our own at the right time. " 

Fran said authoritatively, "More than that, maybe. This is real strategy. This is the kind I like." 
He clawed loudly at the skin of his abdomen. "But don't you forget that the Mule is a smart boy, 
too. What happened at Horleggor worries me." 

"I heard he lost about ten ships." 

"Sure, but he had a hundred more, and the Foundation had to get out. It's all to the good to 
have those tyrants beaten, but not as quickly as all that." He shook his head. 

"The question I ask is where does the Mule get his ships? There's a widespread rumor we're 
making them for him." 

"We? The Traders? Haven has the biggest ship factories anywhere in the independent worlds, 
and we haven't made one for anyone but ourselves. Do you suppose any world is building a 
fleet for the Mule on its own, without taking the precaution of united action? That's a ... a fairy 
tale." 

"Well, where does he get them?" 

And Fran shrugged, "Makes them himself, I suppose. That worries me, too." 

Fran blinked at the sun and curled his toes about the smooth wood of the polished foot-rest. 
Slowly, he fell asleep and the soft burr of his breathing mingled with the insect sibilance. 

Lastly, there were the very few who knew considerable and were not confident at all. 

Such as Randu, who on the fifth day of the all-Trader convention entered the Central Hall and 



found the two men he had asked to be there, waiting for him. The five hundred seats were 
empty - and were going to stay so. 

Randu said quickly, almost before he sat down, "We three represent about half the military 
potential of the Independent Trading Worlds." 

"Yes," said Mangin of Iss, "my colleague and I have already commented upon the fact." 

"I am ready," said Randu, "to speak quickly and earnestly. I am not interested in bargaining or 
subtlety. Our position is radically in the worse." 

"As a result of-" urged Ovall Gri of Mnemon. 

"Of developments of the last hour. Please! From the beginning. First, our position is not of our 
doing, and but doubtfully of our control. Our original dealings were not with the Mule, but with 
several others; notably the ex-warlord of Kalgan, whom the Mule defeated at a most 
inconvenient time for us." 

"Yes, but this Mule is a worthy substitute," said Mangin. "I do not cavil at details." 

"You may when you know all the details." Randu leaned forward and placed his hands upon the 
table palms-up in an obvious gesture. 

Fie said, "A month ago I sent my nephew and my nephew's wife to Kalgan." 

"Your nephew!" cried Ovall Gri, in surprise. "I did not know he was your nephew." 

"With what purpose," asked Mangin, dryly. "This?" And his thumb drew an inclusive circle high 
in the air. 

"No. If you mean the Mule's war on the Foundation, no. Flow could I aim so high? The young 
man knew nothing - neither of our organization nor of our aims. Fie was told I was a minor 
member of an intra-Flaven patriotic society, and his function at Kalgan was nothing but that of 
an amateur observer. My motives were, I must admit, rather obscure. Mainly, I was curious 
about the Mule. Fie is a strange phenomenon - but that's a chewed cud; I'll not go into it. 
Secondly, it would make an interesting and educational training project for a man who had 
experience with the Foundation and the Foundation underground and showed promise of future 
usefulness to us. You see-" 

Ovall's long face fell into vertical lines as he showed his large teeth, "You must have been 
surprised at the outcome, then, since there is not a world among the Traders, I believe, that 
does not know that this nephew of yours abducted a Mule underling in the name of the 
Foundation and furnished the Mule with a casus belli. Galaxy, Randu, you spin romances. I find 
it hard to believe you had no hand in that. Come, it was a skillful job." 

Randu shook his white head, "Not of my doing. Nor, willfully, of my nephew's, who is now held 
prisoner at the Foundation, and may not live to see the completion of this so-skillful job. I have 
just heard from him. The Personal Capsule has been smuggled out somehow, come through 
the war zone, gone to Haven, and traveled from there to here. It has been a month on its 
travels." 



And?-' 


Randu leaned a heavy hand upon the heel of his palm and said, sadly, "I'm afraid we are cast 
for the same role that the onetime warlord of Kalgan played. The Mule is a mutant!" 

There was a momentary qualm; a faint impression of quickened heartbeats. Randu might easily 
have imagined it. 

When Mangin spoke, the evenness of his voice was unchanged, "How do you know?" 

"Only because my nephew says so, but he was on Kalgan. 

"What kind of a mutant? There are all kinds, you know." 

Randu forced the rising impatience down, "All kinds of mutants, yes, Mangin. All kinds! But only 
one kind of Mule. What kind of a mutant would start as an unknown, assemble an army, 
establish, they say, a five-mile asteroid as original base, capture a planet, then a system, then 
a region - and then attack the Foundation, and defeat them at Horleggor. And all in two or 
three years!" 

Ovall Gri shrugged, "So you think he'll beat the Foundation?" 

"I don't know. Suppose he does?" 

"Sorry, I can't go that far. You don't beat the Foundation. Look, there's not a new fact we have 
to go on except for the statements of a ... well, of an inexperienced boy. Suppose we shelve it 
for a while. With all the Mule's victories, we weren't worried until now, and unless he goes a 
good deal further than he has, I see no reason to change that. Yes?" 

Randu frowned and despaired at the cobweb texture of his argument. He said to both, "Have 
we yet made any contact with the Mule?" 

"No," both answered. 

"It's true, though, that we've tried, isn't it? It's true that there's not much purpose to our meeting 
unless we do reach him, isn't it? It's true that so far there's been more drinking than thinking, 
and more wooing than doing - I quote from an editorial in today's Radole Tribune - and all 
because we can't reach the Mule. Gentlemen, we have nearly a thousand ships waiting to be 
thrown into the fight at the proper moment to seize control of the Foundation. I say we should 
change that. I say, throw those thousand onto the board now - against the Mule." 

"You mean for the Tyrant Indbur and the bloodsuckers of the Foundation?" demanded Mangin, 
with quiet venom. 

Randu raised a weary hand, "Spare me the adjectives. Against the Mule, I say, and for 
l-don't-care-who." 

Ovall Gri rose, "Randu, I'll have nothing to do with that, You present it to the full council tonight 
if you particularly hunger for political suicide." 

He left without another word and Mangin followed silently, leaving Randu to drag out a lonely 



hour of endless, insoluble consideration. 

At the full council that night, he said nothing. 

But it was Ovall Gri who pushed into his room the next morning; an Ovall Gri only sketchily 
dressed and who had neither shaved nor combed his hair. 

Randu stared at him over a yet-uncleared breakfast table with an astonishment sufficiently 
open and strenuous to cause him to drop his pipe. 

Ovall said baldly, harshly. "Mnemon has been bombarded from space by treacherous attack." 
Randu's eyes narrowed, "The Foundation?" 

"The Mule!" exploded Ovall. "The Mule!" His words raced, "It was unprovoked and deliberate. 
Most of our fleet had joined the international flotilla. The few left as Home Squadron were 
insufficient and were blown out of the sky. There have been no landings yet, and there may not 
be, for half the attackers are reported destroyed - but it is war - and I have come to ask how 
Haven stands on the matter." 

"Haven, I am sure, will adhere to the spirit of the Charter of Federation. But, you see? He 
attacks us as well." 

"This Mule is a madman. Can he defeat the universe?" He faltered and sat down to seize 
Randu's wrist, "Our few survivors have reported the Mule's poss ... enemy's possession of a 
new weapon. A nuclear-field depressor." 

"A what?" 

Ovall said, "Most of our ships were lost because their nuclear weapons failed them. It could not 
have happened by either accident or sabotage. It must have been a weapon of the Mule. It 
didn't work perfectly; the effect was intermittent; there were ways to neutralize - my dispatches 
are not detailed. But you see that such a tool would change the nature of war and, possibly, 
make our entire fleet obsolete." 

Randu felt an old, old man. His face sagged hopelessly, "I am afraid a monster is grown that 
will devour all of us. Yet we must fight him." 


17. THE VISI-SONOR 

Ebling Mis's house in a not-so-pretentious neighborhood of Terminus City was well known to 
the intelligentsia, literati, and just-plain-well-read of the Foundation. Its notable characteristics 
depended, subjectively, upon the source material that was read. To a thoughtful biographer, it 
was the "symbolization of a retreat from a nonacademic reality," a society columnist gushed 
silkily at its "frightfully masculine atmosphere of careless disorder," a University Ph.D. called it 
brusquely, "bookish, but unorganized," a nonuniversity friend said, "good for a drink anytime 
and you can put your feet on the sofa," and a breezy newsweekly broadcast, that went in for 
color, spoke of the "rocky, down-to-earth, no-nonsense living quarters of blaspheming, Leftish, 



balding Ebling Mis." 

To Bayta, who thought for no audience but herself at the moment, and who had the advantage 
of first-hand information, it was merely sloppy. 

Except for the first few days, her imprisonment had been a light burden. Far lighter, it seemed, 
that this half-hour wait in the psychologist's home - under secret observation, perhaps? She 
had been with Toran then, at least. 

Perhaps she might have grown wearier of the strain, had not Magnifico's long nose drooped in 
a gesture that plainly showed his own far greater tension. 

Magnifico's pipe-stem legs were folded up under a pointed, sagging chin, as if he were trying to 
huddle himself into disappearance, and Bayta's hand went out in a gentle and automatic 
gesture of reassurance. Magnifico winced, then smiled. 

"Surely, my lady, it would seem that even yet my body denies the knowledge of my mind and 
expects of others' hands a blow." 

"There's no need for worry, Magnifico. I'm with you, and I won't let anyone hurt you." 

The clown's eyes sidled towards her, then drew away quickly. "But they kept me away from you 
earlier - and from your kind husband - and, on my word, you may laugh, but I was lonely for 
missing friendship." 

"I wouldn't laugh at that. I was, too." 

The clown brightened, and he hugged his knees closer. He said, "You have not met this man 
who will see us?" It was a cautious question. 

"No. But he is a famous man. I have seen him in the newscasts and heard quite a good deal of 
him. I think he's a good man, Magnifico, who means us no harm." 

"Yes?" The clown stirred uneasily. "That may be, my lady, but he has questioned me before, 
and his manner is of an abruptness and loudness that bequivers me. He is full of strange 
words, so that the answers to his questions could not worm out of my throat. Almost, I might 
believe the romancer who once played on my ignorance with a tale that, at such moments, the 
heart lodged in the windpipe and prevented speech." 

"But it's different now. We're two to his one, and he won't be able to frighten the both of us, will 
he?" 

"No, my lady." 

A door slammed somewheres, and the roaring of a voice entered the house. Just outside the 
room, it coagulated into words with a fierce, "Get the "Ga-LAX-y out of here!" and two 
uniformed guards were momentarily visible through the opening door, in quick retreat. 

Ebling Mis entered frowning, deposited a carefully wrapped bundle on the floor, and 
approached to shake Bayta's hand with careless pressure. Bayta returned it vigorously, 
man-fashion. Mis did a double-take as he turned to the clown, and favored the girl with a longer 



look. 

He said, "Married?" 

"Yes. We went through the legal formalities." 

Mis paused. Then, "Happy about it?" 

"So far." 

Mis shrugged, and turned again to Magnifico. He unwrapped the package, "Know what this is, 
boy?" 

Magnifico fairly hurled himself out of his seat and caught the multi-keyed instrument. He 
fingered the myriad knobby contacts and threw a sudden back somersault of joy, to the 
imminent destruction of the nearby furniture. 

He croaked, "A Visi-Sonor - and of a make to distill joy out of a dead man's heart." His long 
fingers caressed softly and slowly, pressing lightly on contacts with a rippling motion, resting 
momentarily on one key then another - and in the air before them there was a soft glowing 
rosiness, just inside the range of vision. 

Ebling Mis said, "All right, boy, you said you could pound on one of those gadgets, and there's 
your chance. You'd better tune it, though. It's out of a museum." Then, in an aside to Bayta, 
"Near as I can make it, no one on the Foundation can make it talk right." 

He leaned closer and said quickly, "The clown won't talk without you. Will you help?" 

She nodded. 

"Good!" he said. "His state of fear is almost fixed, and I doubt that his mental strength would 
possibly stand a psychic probe. If I'm to get anything out of him otherwise, he's got to feel 
absolutely at ease. You understand?" 

She nodded again. 

"This Visi-Sonor is the first step in the process. He says he can play it; and his reaction now 
makes it pretty certain that it's one of the great joys of his life. So whether the playing is good or 
bad, be interested and appreciative. Then exhibit friendliness and confidence in me. Above all, 
follow my lead in everything." There was a swift glance at Magnifico, huddled in a comer of the 
sofa, making rapid adjustments in the interior of the instrument. He was completely absorbed. 

Mis said in a conversational tone to Bayta, "Ever hear a Visi-Sonor?" 

"Once," said Bayta, equally casually, "at a concert of rare instruments. I wasn't impressed." 

"Well, I doubt that you came across good playing. There are very few really good players. It's 
not so much that it requires physical co-ordination - a multi-bank piano requires more, for 
instance - as a certain type of free-wheeling mentality." In a lower voice, "That's why our living 
skeleton there might be better than we think. More often than not, good players are idiots 
otherwise. It's one of those queer setups that makes psychology interesting." 



He added, in a patent effort to manufacture light conversation, "You know how the beblistered 
thing works? I looked it up for this purpose, and all I've made out so far is that its radiations 
stimulate the optic center of the brain directly, without ever touching the optic nerve. It's actually 
the utilization of a sense never met with in ordinary nature. Remarkable, when you come to 
think of it. What you hear is all right. That's ordinary. Eardrum, cochlea, all that. But - Shh! He's 
ready. Will you kick that switch. It works better in the dark." 

In the darkness, Magnifico was a mere blob, Ebling Mis a heavy-breathing mass. Bayta found 
herself straining her eyes anxiously, and at first with no effect. There was a thin, reedy quaver 
in the air, that wavered raggedly up the scale. It hovered, dropped and caught itself, gained in 
body, and swooped into a booming crash that had the effect of a thunderous split in a veiling 
curtain. 

A little globe of pulsing color grew in rhythmic spurts and burst in midair into formless gouts that 
swirled high and came down as curving streamers in interfacing patterns. They coalesced into 
little spheres, no two alike in color - and Bayta began discovering things. 

She noticed that closing her eyes made the color pattern all the clearer; that each little 
movement of color had its own little pattern of sound; that she could not identify the colors; and, 
lastly, that the globes were not globes but little figures. 

Little figures; little shifting flames, that danced and flickered in their myriads; that dropped out of 
sight and returned from nowhere; that whipped about one another and coalesced then into a 
new color. 

Incongruously, Bayta thought of the little blobs of color that come at night when you close your 
eyelids till they hurt, and stare patiently. There was the old familiar effect of the marching polka 
dots of shifting color, of the contracting concentric circles, of the shapeless masses that quiver 
momentarily. All that, larger, multivaried - and each little dot of color a tiny figure. 

They darted at her in pairs, and she lifted her hands with a sudden gasp, but they tumbled and 
for an instant she was the center of a brilliant snowstorm, while cold light slipped off her 
shoulders and down her arm in a luminous ski-slide, shooting off her stiff fingers and meeting 
slowly in a shining midair focus. Beneath it all, the sound of a hundred instruments flowed in 
liquid streams until she could not tell it from the light. 

She wondered if Ebling Mis were seeing the same thing, and if not, what he did see, The 
wonder passed, and then- 

She was watching again. The little figures-were they little figures? -little tiny women with 
burning hair that turned and bent too quickly for the mind to focus? -seized one another in 
star-shaped groups that turned - and the music was faint laughter - girls' laughter that began 
inside the ear. 

The stars drew together, sparked towards one another, grew slowly into structure - and from 
below, a palace shot upward in rapid evolution. Each brick a tiny color, each color a tiny spark, 
each spark a stabbing light that shifted patterns and led the eye skyward to twenty jeweled 
minarets. 



A glittering carpet shot out and about, whirling, spinning an insubstantial web that engulfed all 
space, and from it luminous shoots stabbed upward and branched into trees that sang with a 
music all their own. 

Bayta sat inclosed in it. The music welled about her in rapid, lyrical flights. She reached out to 
touch a fragile tree and blossoming spicules floated downwards and faded, each with its clear, 
tiny tinkle. 

The music crashed in twenty cymbals, and before her an area flamed up in a spout and 
cascaded down invisible steps into Bayta's lap, where it spilled over and flowed in rapid current, 
raising the fiery sparkle to her waist, while across her lap was a rainbow bridge and upon it the 
little figures- 

A palace, and a garden, and tiny men and women on a bridge, stretching out as far as she 
could see, swimming through the stately swells of stringed music converging in upon her- 

And then - there seemed a frightened pause, a hesitant, indrawn motion, a swift collapse. The 
colors fled, spun into a globe that shrank, and rose, and disappeared. 

And it was merely dark again. 

A heavy foot scratched for the pedal, reached it, and the light flooded in; the flat light of a prosy 
sun. Bayta blinked until the tears came, as though for the longing of what was gone. Ebling Mis 
was a podgy inertness with his eyes still round and his mouth still open. 

Only Magnifico himself was alive, and he fondled his Visi-Sonor in a crooning ecstasy. 

"My lady," he gasped, "it is indeed of an effect the most magical. It is of balance and response 
almost beyond hope in its delicacy and stability. On this, it would seem I could work wonders. 
How liked you my composition, my lady?" 

"Was it yours?" breathed Bayta. "Your own?" 

At her awe, his thin face turned a glowing red to the tip of his mighty nose. "My very own, my 
lady. The Mule liked it not, but often and often I have played it for my own amusement. It was 
once, in my youth, that I saw the palace - a gigantic place of jeweled riches that I saw from a 
distance at a time of high carnival. There were people of a splendor undreamed of - and 
magnificence more than ever I saw afterwards, even in the Mule's service. It is but a poor 
makeshift I have created, but my mind's poverty precludes more. I call it, 'The Memory of 
Heaven.'" 

Now through the midst of the chatter, Mis shook himself to active life. "Here," he said, "here, 
Magnifico, would you like to do that same thing for others?" 

For a moment, the clown drew back. "For others?" he quavered. 

"For thousands," cried Mis, "in the great Halls of the Foundation. Would you like to be your own 
master, and honored by all, wealthy, and ... and-" his imagination failed him. "And all that? Eh? 
What do you say?" 

"But how may I be all that, mighty sir, for indeed I am but a poor clown ungiven to the great 



things of the world?" 

The psychologist puffed out his lips, and passed the back of his hand across his brow. He said, 
"But your playing, man. The world is yours if you would play so for the mayor and his Trading 
Trusts. Wouldn't you like that?" 

The clown glanced briefly at Bayta, "Would she stay with me?" 

Bayta laughed, "Of course, silly. Would it be likely that I'd leave you now that you're on the point 
of becoming rich and famous?" 

"It would all be yours," he replied earnestly, "and surely the wealth of Galaxy itself would be 
yours before I could repay my debt to your kindness." 

"But," said Mis, casually, "if you would first help me-" 

"What is that?" 

The psychologist paused, and smiled, "A little surface probe that doesn't hurt. It wouldn't touch 
but the peel of your brain." 

There was a flare of deadly fear in Magnifico's eyes. "Not a probe. I have seen it used. It drains 
the mind and leaves an empty skull. The Mule did use it upon traitors and let them wander 
mindless through the streets, until out of mercy, they were killed." He held up his hand to push 
Mis away. 

"That was a psychic probe," explained Mis, patiently, "and even that would only harm a person 
when misused. This probe I have is a surface probe that wouldn't hurt a baby. " 

"That's right, Magnifico," urged Bayta. "It's only to help beat the Mule and keep him far away. 
Once that's done, you and I will be rich and famous all our lives." 

Magnifico held out a trembling hand, "Will you hold my hand, then?" 

Bayta took it in both her own, and the clown watched the approach of the burnished terminal 
plates with large eyes. 

Ebling Mis rested carelessly on the too-lavish chair in Mayor Indbur's private quarters, 
unregenerately unthankful for the condescension shown him and watched the small mayor's 
fidgeting unsympathetically. He tossed away a cigar stub and spat out a shred of tobacco. 

"And, incidentally, if you want something for your next concert at Mallow Hall, Indbur," he said, 
"you can dump out those electronic gadgeteers into the sewers they came from and have this 
little freak play the Visi-Sonor for you. Indbur - it's out of this world." 

Indbur said peevishly, "I did not call you here to listen to your lectures on music. What of the 
Mule? Tell me that. What of the Mule?" 

"The Mule? Well, I'll tell you - I used a surface probe and got little. Can't use the psychic probe 
because the freak is scared blind of it, so that his resistance will probably blow his unprintable 
mental fuses as soon as contact is made. But this is what I've got, if you'll just stop tapping your 



fingernails— 

"First place, de-stress the Mule's physical strength. He's probably strong, but most of the freak's 
fairy tales about it are probably considerably blown up by his own fearful memory, He wears 
queer glasses and his eyes kill, he evidently has mental powers." 

"So much we had at the start," commented the mayor, sourly. 

"Then the probe confirms it, and from there on I've been working mathematically." 

"So? And how long will all this take? Your word-rattling will deafen me yet." 

"About a month, I should say, and I may have something for you. And I may not, of course. But 
what of it? If this is all outside Seldon's plans, our chances are precious little, unprintable little." 

Indbur whirled on the psychologist fiercely, "Now I have you, traitor. Lie! Say you're not one of 
these criminal rumormongers that are spreading defeatism and panic through the Foundation, 
and making my work doubly hard." 

"I? I?" Mis gathered anger slowly. 

Indbur swore at him, "Because by the dust-clouds of space, the Foundation will win - the 
Foundation must win." 

"Despite the loss at Horleggor?" 

"It was not a loss. You have swallowed that spreading lie, too? We were outnumbered and 
betreasoned-" 

"By whom?" demanded Mis, contemptuously. 

"By the lice-ridden democrats of the gutter," shouted Indbur back at him. "I have known for long 
that the fleet has been riddled by democratic cells. Most have been wiped out, but enough 
remain for the unexplained surrender of twenty ships in the thickest of the swarming fight. 
Enough to force an apparent defeat. 

"For that matter, my rough-tongued, simple patriot and epitome of the primitive virtues, what are 
your own connections with the democrats?" 

Ebling Mis shrugged it off, "You rave, do you know that? What of the retreat since, and the loss 
of half of Siwenna? Democrats again?" 

"No. Not democrats," the little man smiled sharply. "We retreat - as the Foundation has always 
retreated under attack, until the inevitable march of history turns with us. Already, I see the 
outcome. Already, the so-called underground of the democrats has issued manifestoes 
swearing aid and allegiance to the Government. It could be a feint, a cover for a deeper 
treachery, but I make good use of it, and the propaganda distilled from it will have its effect, 
whatever the crawling traitors scheme. And better than that-" 

"Even better than that, Indbur?" 

"Judge for yourself. Two days ago, the so-called Association of Independent Traders declared 



war on the Mule, and the Foundation fleet is strengthened, at a stroke, by a thousand ships. 
You see, this Mule goes too far. He finds us divided and quarreling among ourselves and under 
the pressure of his attack we unite and grow strong. He must lose. It is inevitable - as always." 

Mis still exuded skepticism, "Then you tell me that Seldon planned even for the fortuitous 
occurrence of a mutant." 

"A mutant! I can't tell him from a human, nor could you but for the ravings of a rebel captain, 
some outland youngsters, and an addled juggler and clown. You forget the most conclusive 
evidence of all - your own." 

"My own?" For just a moment, Mis was startled. 

"Your own," sneered the mayor. "The Time Vault opens in nine weeks. What of that? It opens 
for a crisis. If this attack of the Mule is not the crisis, where is the 'real' one, the one the Vault is 
opening for? Answer me, you lardish ball." 

The psychologist shrugged, "All tight. If it keeps you happy. Do me a favor, though. Just in case 
... just in case old Seldon makes his speech and it does go sour, suppose you let me attend the 
Grand Opening." 

"All right. Get out of here. And stay out of my sight for nine weeks." 

"With unprintable pleasure, you wizened horror," muttered Mis to himself as he left. 


18. FALL OF THE FOUNDATION 

There was an atmosphere about the Time Vault that just missed definition in several directions 
at once. It was not one of decay, for it was well-lit and well-conditioned, with the color scheme 
of the walls lively, and the rows of fixed chairs comfortable and apparently designed for eternal 
use. It was not even ancient, for three centuries had left no obvious mark. There was certainly 
no effort at the creation of awe or reverence, for the appointments were simple and everyday - 
next door to bareness, in fact. 

Yet after all the negatives were added and the sum disposed of, something was left - and that 
something centered about the glass cubicle that dominated half the room with its clear 
emptiness. Four times in three centuries, the living simulacrum of Hari Seldon himself had sat 
there and spoken. Twice he had spoken to no audience. 

Through three centuries and nine generations, the old man who had seen the great days of 
universal empire projected himself - and still he understood more of the Galaxy of his 
great-ultra-great-grandchildren, than did those grandchildren themselves. 

Patiently that empty cubicle waited. 

The first to arrive was Mayor Indbur III, driving his ceremonial ground car through the hushed 
and anxious streets. Arriving with him was his own chair, higher than those that belonged there, 
and wider. It was placed before all the others, and Indbur dominated all but the empty 



glassiness before him. 

The solemn official at his left bowed a reverent head. "Excellence, arrangements are completed 
for the widest possible sub-etheric spread for the official announcement by your excellence 
tonight." 

"Good. Meanwhile, special interplanetary programs concerning the Time Vault are to continue. 
There will, of course, be no predictions or speculations of any sort on the subject. Does popular 
reaction continue satisfactory?" 

"Excellence, very much so. The vicious rumors prevailing of late have decreased further. 
Confidence is widespread." 

"Good!" He gestured the man away and adjusted his elaborate neckpiece to a nicety. 

It was twenty minutes of noon! 

A select group of the great props of the mayoralty - the leaders of the great Trading 
organizations - appeared in ones and twos with the degree of pomp appropriate to their 
financial status and place in mayoral favor. Each presented himself to the mayor, received a 
gracious word or two, took an assigned seat. 

Somewhere, incongruous among the stilted ceremony of all this, Randu of Haven made his 
appearance and wormed his way unannounced to the mayor's seat. 

"Excellence!" he muttered, and bowed. 

Indbur frowned. "You have not been granted an audience. " 

"Excellence, I have requested one for a week." 

"I regret that the matters of State involved in the appearance of Seldon have-" 

"Excellence, I regret them, too, but I must ask you to rescind your order that the ships of the 
Independent Traders be distributed among the fleets of the Foundation." 

Indbur had flushed red at the interruption. "This is not the time for discussion." 

"Excellence, it is the only time," Randu whispered urgently. "As representative of the 
Independent Trading Worlds, I tell you such a move can not be obeyed. It must be rescinded 
before Seldon solves our problem for us. Once the emergency is passed, it will be too late to 
conciliate and our alliance will melt away." 

Indbur stared at Randu coldly. "You realize that I am head of the Foundation armed forces? 
Have I the right to determine military policy or have I not?" 

"Excellence, you have, but some things are inexpedient." 

"I recognize no inexpediency. It is dangerous to allow your people separate fleets in this 
emergency. Divided action plays into the hands of the enemy. We must unite, ambassador, 
militarily as well as politically." 



Randu felt his throat muscles tighten. He omitted the courtesy of the opening title. "You feet 
safe now that Seldon will speak, and you move against us. A month ago you were soft and 
yielding, when our ships defeated the Mule at Terel. I might remind you, sir, that it is the 
Foundation Fleet that has been defeated in open battle five times, and that the ships of the 
Independent Trading Worlds have won your victories for you." 

Indbur frowned dangerously, "You are no longer welcome upon Terminus, ambassador. Your 
return will be requested this evening. Furthermore, your connection with subversive democratic 
forces on Terminus will be - and has been - investigated." 

Randu replied, "When I leave, our ships will go with me. I know nothing of your democrats. I 
know only that your Foundation's ships have surrendered to the Mule by the treason of their 
high officers, not their sailors, democratic or otherwise. I tell you that twenty ships of the 
Foundation surrendered at Horleggor at the orders of their rear admiral, when they were 
unharmed and unbeaten. The rear admiral was your own close associate - he presided at the 
trial of my nephew when he first arrived from Kalgan. It is not the only case we know of and our 
ships and men will not be risked under potential traitors. 

Indbur said, "You will be placed under guard upon leaving here." 

Randu walked away under the silent stares of the contemptuous coterie of the rulers of 
Terminus. 

It was ten minutes of twelve! 

Bayta and Toran had already arrived. They rose in their back seats and beckoned to Randu as 
he passed. 

Randu smiled gently, "You are here after all. How did you work it?" 

"Magnifico was our politician," grinned Toran. "Indbur insists upon his Visi-Sonor composition 
based on the Time Vault, with himself, no doubt, as hero. Magnifico refused to attend without 
us, and there was no arguing him out of it. Ebling Mis is with us, or was. He's wandering about 
somewhere." Then, with a sudden access of anxious qravity, "Why, what's wronq, uncle? You 
don't look well." 

Randu nodded, "I suppose not. We're in for bad times, Toran. When the Mule is disposed of, 
our turn will come, I'm afraid. " 

A straight solemn figure in white approached, and greeted them with a stiff bow. 

Bayta's dark eyes smiled, as she held out her hand, "Captain Pritcher! Are you on space duty 
then?" 

The captain took the hand and bowed lower, "Nothing like it. Dr. Mis, I understand, has been 
instrumental in bringing me here, but it's only temporary. Back to home guard tomorrow. What 
time is it?" 

It was three minutes of twelve! 

Magnifico was the picture of misery and heartsick depression. His body curled up, in his eternal 



effort at self-effacement. His long nose was pinched at the nostrils and his large, down-slanted 
eyes darted uneasily about. 

He clutched at Bayta's hand, and when she bent down, he whispered, "Do you suppose, my 
lady, that all these great ones were in the audience, perhaps, when I ... when I played the 
Visi-Sonor?" 

"Everyone, I'm sure," Bayta assured him, and shook him gently. "And I'm sure they all think 
you're the most wonderful player in the Galaxy and that your concert was the greatest ever 
seen, so you just straighten yourself and sit correctly. We must have dignity." 

He smiled feebly at her mock-frown and unfolded his long-boned limbs slowly. 

It was noon - and the glass cubicle was no longer empty. 

It was doubtful that anyone had witnessed the appearance. It was a clean break; one moment 
not there and the next moment there. 

In the cubicle was a figure in a wheelchair, old and shrunken, from whose wrinkled face bright 
eyes shone, and whose voice, as it turned out, was the livest thing about him. A book lay face 
downward in his lap, and the voice came softly. 

"I am Hari Seldon!" 

He spoke through a silence, thunderous in its intensity. 

"I am Hari Seldon! I do not know if anyone is here at all by mere sense-perception but that is 
unimportant. I have few fears as yet of a breakdown in the Plan. For the first three centuries the 
percentage probability of nondeviation is nine-four point two." 

He paused to smile, and then said genially, "By the way, if any of you are standing, you may sit. 
If any would like to smoke, please do. I am not here in the flesh. I require no ceremony. 

"Let us take up the problem of the moment, then. For the first time, the Foundation has been 
faced, or perhaps, is in the last stages of facing, civil war. Till now, the attacks from without 
have been adequately beaten off, and inevitably so, according to the strict laws of 
psychohistory. The attack at present is that of a too-undisciplined outer group of the Foundation 
against the too-authoritarian central government. The procedure was necessary, the result 
obvious." 

The dignity of the high-born audience was beginning to break. Indbur was half out of his chair. 

Bayta leaned forward with troubled eyes. What was the great Seldon talking about? She had 
missed a few of the words- 

"-that the compromise worked out is necessary in two respects. The revolt of the Independent 
Traders introduces an element of new uncertainty in a government perhaps grown 
over-confident. The element of striving is restored. Although beaten, a healthy increase of 
democracy-" 

There were raised voices now. Whispers had ascended the scale of loudness, and the edge of 



panic was in them. 

Bayta said in Toran's ear, "Why doesn't he talk about the Mule? The Traders never revolted." 
Toran shrugged his shoulders. 

The seated figure spoke cheerfully across and through the increasing disorganization: 

"-a new and firmer coalition government was the necessary and beneficial outcome of the 
logical civil war forced upon the Foundation. And now only the remnants of the old Empire 
stand in the way of further expansion, and in them, for the next few years, at any rate, is no 
problem. Of course, I can not reveal the nature of the next prob-" 

In the complete uproar, Seldon's lips moved soundlessly. 

Ebling Mis was next to Randu, face ruddy. He was shouting. "Seldon is off his rocker. He's got 
the wrong crisis. Were your Traders ever planning civil war?" 

Randu said thinly, "We planned one, yes. We called it off in the face of the Mule." 

"Then the Mule is an added feature, unprepared for in Seldon's psychohistory. Now what's 
happened?" 

In the sudden, frozen silence, Bayta found the cubicle once again empty. The nuclear glow of 
the walls was dead, the soft current of conditioned air absent. 

Somewhere the sound of a shrill siren was rising and falling in the scale and Randu formed the 
words with his lips, "Space raid!" 

And Ebling Mis held his wrist watch to his ears and shouted suddenly, "Stopped, by the 
"Ga-LAX-y, is there a watch in the room that is going?" His voice was a roar. 

Twenty wrists went to twenty ears. And in far less than twenty seconds, it was quite certain that 
none were. 

"Then," said Mis, with a grim and horrible finality, "something has stopped all nuclear power in 
the Time Vault - and the Mule is attacking." 

Indbur's wail rose high above the noise, "Take your seats! The Mule is fifty parsecs distant." 

"He was," shouted back Mis, "a week ago. Right now, Terminus is being bombarded." 

Bayta felt a deep depression settle softly upon her. She felt its folds tighten close and thick, 
until her breath forced its way only with pain past her tightened throat. 

The outer noise of a gathering crowd was evident. The doors were thrown open and a harried 
figure entered, and spoke rapidly to Indbur, who had rushed to him. 

"Excellence," he whispered, "not a vehicle is running in the city, not a communication line to the 
outside is open. 

The Tenth Fleet is reported defeated and the Mule's ships are outside the atmosphere. The 
general staff-" 



Indbur crumpled, and was a collapsed figure of impotence upon the floor. In all that hall, not a 
voice was raised now. Even the growing crowd without was fearful, but silent, and the horror of 
cold panic hovered dangerously. 

Indbur was raised. Wine was held to his lips. His lips moved before his eyes opened, and the 
word they formed was, "Surrender!" 

Bayta found herself near to crying - not for sorrow or humiliation, but simply and plainly out of a 
vast frightened despair. Ebling Mis plucked at her sleeve. "Come, young lady-" 

She was pulled out of her chair, bodily. 

"We're leaving," he said, "and take your musician with you." The plump scientist's lips were 
trembling and colorless. 

"Magnifico," said Bayta, faintly. The clown shrank in horror. His eyes were glassy. 

"The Mule," he shrieked. "The Mule is coming for me." 

He thrashed wildly at her touch. Toran leaned over and brought his fist up sharply. Magnifico 
slumped into unconsciousness and Toran carried him out potato-sack fashion. 

The next day, the ugly, battle-black ships of the Mule poured down upon the landing fields of 
the planet Terminus. The attacking general sped down the empty main street of Terminus City 
in a foreign-made ground car that ran where a whole city of atomic cars still stood useless. 

The proclamation of occupation was made twenty-four hours to the minute after Seldon had 
appeared before the former mighty of the Foundation. 

Of all the Foundation planets, only the Independent Traders still stood, and against them the 
power of the Mule - conqueror of the Foundation - now turned itself. 


19. START OF THE SEARCH 

The lonely planet, Haven - only planet of an only sun of a Galactic Sector that trailed raggedly 
off into intergalactic vacuum - was under siege. 

In a strictly military sense, it was certainly under siege, since no area of space on the Galactic 
side further than twenty parsecs distance was outside range of the Mule's advance bases. In 
the four months since the shattering fall of the Foundation, Haven's communications had fallen 
apart like a spiderweb under the razor's edge. The ships of Haven converged inwards upon the 
home world, and only Haven itself was now a fighting base. 

And in other respects, the siege was even closer; for the shrouds of helplessness and doom 
had already invaded 

Bayta plodded her way down the pink-waved aisle past the rows of milky plastic-topped tables 
and found her seat by blind reckoning. She eased on to the high, armless chair, answered 
half-heard greetings mechanically, rubbed a wearily-itching eye with the back of a weary hand, 



and reached for her menu. 


She had time to register a violent mental reaction of distaste to the pronounced presence of 
various cultured-fungus dishes, which were considered high delicacies at Haven, and which her 
Foundation taste found highly inedible - and then she was aware of the sobbing near her and 
looked up. 

Until then, her notice of Juddee, the plain, snub-nosed, indifferent blonde at the dining unit 
diagonally across had been the superficial one of the nonacquaintance. And now Juddee was 
crying, biting woefully at a moist handkerchief, and choking back sobs until her complexion was 
blotched with turgid red. Her shapeless radiation-proof costume was thrown back upon her 
shoulders, and her transparent face shield had tumbled forward into her dessert, and there 
remained. 

Bayta joined the three girls who were taking turns at the eternally applied and eternally 
inefficacious remedies of shoulder-patting, hair-smoothing, and incoherent murmuring. 

"What's the matter?" she whispered. 

One turned to her and shrugged a discreet, "I don't know." Then, feeling the inadequacy of the 
gesture, she pulled Bayta aside. 

"She's had a hard day, I guess. And she's worrying about her husband." 

"Is he on space patrol?" 

"Yes". 

Bayta reached a friendly hand out to Juddee. 

"Why don't you go home, Juddee?" Her voice was a cheerfully businesslike intrusion on the 
soft, flabby inanities that had preceded. 

Juddee looked up half in resentment. "I've been out once this week already-" 

"Then you'll be out twice. If you try to stay on, you know, you'll just be out three days next week 
- so going home now amounts to patriotism. Any of you girls work in her department? Well, 
then, suppose you take care of her card. Better go to the washroom first, Juddee, and get the 
peaches and cream back where it belongs. Go ahead! Shoo!" 

Bayta returned to her seat and took up the menu again with a dismal relief. These moods were 
contagious. One weeping girl would have her entire department in a frenzy these nerve-torn 
days. 

She made a distasteful decision, pressed the correct buttons at her elbow and put the menu 
back into its niche. 

The tall, dark girl opposite her was saying, "Isn't much any of us can do except cry, is there?" 

Her amazingly full lips scarcely moved, and Bayta noticed that their ends were carefully 
touched to exhibit that artificial, just-so half-smile that was the current last word in 
sophistication. 



Bayta investigated the insinuating thrust contained in the words with lashed eyes and 
welcomed the diversion of the arrival of her lunch, as the tile-top of her unit moved inward and 
the food lifted. She tore the wrappings carefully off her cutlery and handled them gingerly till 
they cooled. 

She said, "Can't you think of anything else to do, Hella?" 

"Oh, yes," said Hella. "/can!" She flicked her cigarette with a casual and expert finger-motion 
into the little recess provided and the tiny flash caught it before it hit shallow bottom. 

"For instance," and Hella clasped slender, well-kept hands under her chin, "I think we could 
make a very nice arrangement with the Mule and stop all this nonsense. But then I don't have 
the ... uh ... facilities to manage to get out of places quickly when the Mule takes over." 

Bayta's clear forehead remained clear. Her voice was light and indifferent. "You don't happen to 
have a brother or husband in the fighting ships, do you?" 

"No. All the more credit that I see no reason for the sacrifice of the brothers and husbands of 
others." 

"The sacrifice will come the more surely for surrender." 

"The Foundation surrendered and is at peace. Our men are away and the Galaxy is against 
us." 

Bayta shrugged, and said sweetly, "I'm afraid it is the first of the pair that bothers you." She 
returned to her vegetable platter and ate it with the clammy realization of the silence about her. 
No one in ear-shot had cared to answer Hella's cynicism. 

She left quickly, after stabbing at the button which cleared her dining unit for the next shift's 
occupant. 

A new girl, three seats away, stage-whispered to Hella, "Who was she?" 

Hella's mobile lips curled in indifference. "She's our coordinator's niece. Didn't you know that?" 

"Yes?" Her eyes sought out the last glimpse of disappearing back. "What's she doing here?" 

"Just an assembly girl. Don't you know it's fashionable to be patriotic? It's all so democratic, it 
makes me retch." 

"Now, Hella," said the plump girl to her right. "She's never pulled her uncle on us yet. Why don't 
you lay off?" 

Hella ignored her neighbor with a glazed sweep of eyes and lit another cigarette. 

The new girl was listening to the chatter of the bright-eyed accountant opposite. The words 
were coming quickly, 

"-and she's supposed to have been in the Vault - actually in the Vault, you know - when 
Seldon spoke - and they say the mayor was in frothing furies and there were riots, and all of 
that sort of thing, you know. She got away before the Mule landed, and they say she had the 



most tha-rilling escape - had to go through the blockade, and all - and I do wonder she doesn't 
write a book about it, these war books being so popular these days, you know. And she was 
supposed to be on this world of the Mule's, too - Kalgan, you know - and-" 

The time bell shrilled and the dining room emptied slowly. The accountant's voice buzzed on, 
and the new girl interrupted only with the conventional and wide-eyed, "Really-y-y-y?" at 
appropriate points. 

The huge cave lights were being shielded group-wise in the gradual descent towards the 
darkness that meant sleep for the righteous and hard-working, when Bayta returned home. 

Toran met her at the door, with a slice of buttered bread in his hand. 

"Where've you been?" he asked, food-muffled. Then, more clearly, "I've got a dinner of sorts 
rassled up. If it isn't much, don't blame me." 

But she was circling him, wide-eyed. "Torie! Where's your uniform? What are you doing in 
civvies?" 

"Orders, Bay. Randu is holed up with Ebling Mis right now, and what it's all about, I don't know. 
So there you have everything." 

"Am I going?" She moved towards him impulsively. 

He kissed her before he answered, "I believe so. It will probably be dangerous." 

"What isn't dangerous?" 

"Exactly. Oh, yes, and I've already sent for Magnifico, so he's probably coming too." 

"You mean his concert at the Engine Factory will have to be cancelled." 

"Obviously." 

Bayta passed into the next room and sat down to a meal that definitely bore signs of having 
been "rassled-up." She cut the sandwiches in two with quick efficiency and said: 

"That's too bad about the concert. The girls at the factory were looking forward to it. Magnifico, 
too, for that matter." She shook her head. "He's such a queer thing." 

"Stirs your mother-complex, Bay, that's what he does. Some day we'll have a baby, and then 
you'll forget Magnifico." 

'Bayta answered from the depths of her sandwich, "Strikes me that you're all the stirring my 
mother-complex can stand." 

And then she laid the sandwich down, and was gravely serious in a moment. 

"Torie." 

"M-m-m?" 

"Torie, I was at City Hall today - at the Bureau of Production. That is why I was so late today." 



"What were you doing there?" 

"Well..." she hesitated, uncertainly. "It's been building up. I was getting so I couldn't stand it at 
the factory. Morale just doesn't exist. The girls go on crying jags for no particular reason. Those 
who don't get sick become sullen. Even the little mousie types pout. In my particular section, 
production isn't a quarter what it was when I came, and there isn't a day that we have a full 
roster of workers." 

"All right," said Toran, "tie in the B. of P. What did you do there?" 

"Asked a few questions. And it's so, Torie, it's so all over Haven. Dropping production, 
increasing sedition and disaffection. The bureau chief just shrugged his shoulders - after I had 
sat in the anteroom an hour to see him, and only got in because I was the co-ordinator's niece 
- and said it was beyond him. Frankly, I don't think he cared." 

"Now, don't go off base, Bay." 

"I don't think he did." She was strenuously fiery. "I tell you there's something wrong. It's that 
same horrible frustration that hit me in the Time Vault when Seldon deserted us. You felt it 
yourself." 

"Yes, I did." 

"Well, it's back," she continued savagely. "And we'll never be able to resist the Mule. Even if we 
had the material, we lack the heart, the spirit, the will - Torie, there's no use fighting-" 

Bayta had never cried in Toran's memory, and she did not cry now. Not really. But Toran laid a 
light hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Suppose you forget it, baby. I know what you mean. 
But there's nothing-" 

"Yes, there's nothing we can do! Everyone says that - and we just sit and wait for the knife to 
come down." 

She returned to what was left of her sandwich and tea. Quietly, Toran was arranging the beds. 

It was quite dark outside. 

Randu, as newly-appointed co-ordinator - in itself a wartime post - of the confederation of 
cities on Haven, had been assigned, at his own request, to an upper room, out of the window of 
which he could brood over the roof tops and greenery of the city. Now, in the fading of the cave 
lights, the city receded into the level lack of distinction of the shades. Randu did not care to 
meditate upon the symbolism. 

He said to Ebling Mis - whose clear, little eyes seemed to have no further interest than the 
red-filled goblet in his hand - "There's a saying on Haven that when the cave lights go out, it is 
time for the righteous and hard-working to sleep." 

"Do you sleep much lately?" 

"No! Sorry to call you so late, Mis. I like the night better somehow these days. Isn't that 
strange? The people on Haven condition themselves pretty strictly on the lack of light meaning 
sleep. Myself, too. But it's different now-" 



"You're hiding," said Mis, flatly. "You're surrounded by people in the waking period, and you feel 
their eyes and their hopes on you. You can't stand up under it. In the sleep period, you're free." 

"Do you feel it, too, then? This miserable sense of defeat?" 

Ebling Mis nodded slowly, "I do. It's a mass psychosis, an unprintable mob panic. "Ga-LAX-y, 
Randu, what do you expect? Here you have a whole culture brought up to a blind, blubbering 
belief that a folk hero of the past has everything all planned out and is taking care of every little 
piece of their unprintable lives. The thought-pattern evoked has religious characteristics, and 
you know what that means." 

"Not a bit." 

Mis was not enthusiastic about the necessity of explanation. He never was. So he growled, 
stared at the long cigar he rolled thoughtfully between his fingers and said, "Characterized by 
strong faith reactions. Beliefs can't be shaken short of a major shock, in which case, a fairly 
complete mental disruption results. Mild cases-hysteria, morbid sense of insecurity. Advanced 
cases - madness and suicide." 

Randu bit at a thumbnail. "When Seldon fails us, in other words, our prop disappears, and 
we've been leaning upon it so long, our muscles are atrophied to where we can not stand 
without it." 

"That's it. Sort of a clumsy metaphor, but that's it." 

"And you, Ebling, what of your own muscles?" 

The psychologist filtered a long draught of air through his cigar, and let the smoke laze out. 
"Rusty, but not atrophied. My profession has resulted in just a bit of independent thinking." 

"And you see a way out?" 

"No, but there must be one. Maybe Seldon made no provisions for the Mule. Maybe he didn't 
guarantee our victory. But, then, neither did he guarantee defeat. He's just out of the game and 
we're on our own. The Mule can be licked." 

"How?" 

"By the only way anyone can be licked - by attacking in strength at weakness. See here, 

Randu, the Mule isn't a superman. If he is finally defeated, everyone will see that for himself. 

It's just that he's an unknown, and the legends cluster quickly. He's supposed to be a mutant. 
Well, what of that? A mutant means a 'superman' to the ignoramuses of humanity. Nothing of 
the sort. 

"It's been estimated that several million mutants are born in the Galaxy every day. Of the 
several million, all but one or two percent can be detected only by means of microscopes and 
chemistry. Of the one or two percent macromutants, that is, those with mutations detectable to 
the naked eye or naked mind, all but one or two percent are freaks, fit for the amusement 
centers, the laboratories, and death. Of the few macromutants whose differences are to the 
good, almost all are harmless curiosities, unusual in some single respect, normal - and often 



subnormal - in most others. You see that, Randu?" 

"I do. But what of the Mule?" 

"Supposing the Mule to be a mutant then, we can assume that he has some attribute, 
undoubtedly mental, which can be used to conquer worlds. In other respects, he undoubtedly 
has his shortcomings, which we must locate. He would not be so secretive, so shy of others' 
eyes, if these shortcomings were not apparent and fatal. If he's a mutant." 

"Is there an alternative?" 

"There might be. Evidence for mutation rests on Captain Han Pritcher of what used to be 
Foundation's Intelligence. He drew his conclusions from the feeble memories of those who 
claimed to know the Mule-or somebody who might have been the Mule - in infancy and early 
childhood. Pritcher worked on slim pickings there, and what evidence he found might easily 
have been planted by the Mule for his own purposes, for it's certain that the Mule has been 
vastly aided by his reputation as a mutant-superman." 

"This is interesting. How long have you thought that?" 

"I never thought that, in the sense of believing it. It is merely an alternative to be considered. 

For instance, Randu, suppose the Mule has discovered a form of radiation capable of 
depressing mental energy just as he is in possession of one which depresses nuclear 
reactions. What then, eh? Could that explain what's hitting us now - and what did hit the 
Foundation?" 

Randu seemed immersed in a near-wordless gloom. 

He said, "What of your own researches on the Mule's clown." 

And now Ebling Mis hesitated. "Useless as yet. I spoke bravely to the mayor previous to the 
Foundation's collapse, mainly to keep his courage up - partly to keep my own up as well. But, 
Randu, if my mathematical tools were up to it, then from the clown alone I could analyze the 
Mule completely. Then we would have him. Then we could solve the queer anomalies that have 
impressed me already." 

"Such as?" 

"Think, man. The Mule defeated the navies of the Foundation at will, but he has not once 
managed to force the much weaker fleets of the Independent Traders to retreat in open 
combat. The Foundation fell at a blow; the Independent Traders hold out against all his 
strength. He first used Extinguishing Field upon the nuclear weapons of the Independent 
Traders of Mnemon. The element of surprise lost them that battle but they countered the Field. 
He was never able to use it successfully against the Independents again. 

"But over and over again, it worked against Foundation forces. It worked on the Foundation 
itself. Why? With our present knowledge, it is all illogical. So there must be factors of which we 
are not aware." 


Treachery? 



"That's rattle-pated nonsense, Randu. Unprintable twaddle. There wasn't a man on the 
Foundation who wasn't sure of victory. Who would betray a certain-to-win side." 

Randu stepped to the curved window and stared unseeingly out into the unseeable. He said, 
"But we're certain to lose now, if the Mule had a thousand weaknesses; if he were a network of 
holes-" 

He did not turn. It was as if the slump of his back, the nervous groping for one another of the 
hands behind him that spoke. He said, "We escaped easily after the Time Vault episode, 

Ebling. Others might have escaped as well. A few did. Most did not. The Extinguishing Field 
could have been counteracted. It asked ingenuity and a certain amount of labor. All the ships of 
the Foundation Navy could have flown to Haven or other nearby planets to continue the fight as 
we did. Not one percent did so. In effect, they deserted to the enemy. 

"The Foundation underground, upon which most people here seem to rely so heavily, has thus 
far done nothing of consequence. The Mule has been politic enough to promise to safeguard 
the property and profits of the great Traders and they have gone over to him." 

Ebling Mis said stubbornly, "The plutocrats have always been against us." 

"They always held the power, too. Listen, Ebling. We have reason to believe that the Mule or 
his tools have already been in contact with powerful men among the Independent Traders. At 
least ten of the twenty-seven Trading Worlds are known to have gone over to the Mule. 

Perhaps ten more waver. There are personalities on Haven itself who would not be unhappy 
over the Mule's domination. It's apparently an insurmountable temptation to give up 
endangered political power, if that will maintain your hold over economic affairs. " 

"You don't think Haven can fight the Mule?" 

"I don't think Haven will." And now Randu turned his troubled face full upon the psychologist. "I 
think Haven is waiting to surrender. It's what I called you here to tell you. I want you to leave 
Haven." 

Ebling Mis puffed up his plump checks in amazement. "Already?" 

Randu felt horribly tired. "Ebling, you are the Foundation's greatest psychologist. The real 
master-psychologists went out with Seldon, but you're the best we have. You're our only 
chance of defeating the Mule. You can't do that here; you'll have to go to what's left of the 
Empire." 

"To Trantor?" 

"That's right. What was once the Empire is bare bones today, but something must still be at the 
center. They've got the records there, Ebling. You may learn more of mathematical psychology; 
perhaps enough to be able to interpret the clown's mind. He will go with you, of course." 

Mis responded dryly, "I doubt if he'd be willing to, even for fear of the Mule, unless your niece 
went with him." 


I know that. Toran and Bayta are leaving with you for that very reason. And, Ebling, there's 



another, greater purpose. Hari Seldon founded two Foundations three centuries ago; one at 
each end of the Galaxy. You must find that Second Foundation. " 


20. CONSPIRATOR 

The mayor's palace - what was once the mayor's palace - was a looming smudge in the 
darkness. The city was quiet under its conquest and curfew, and the hazy milk of the great 
Galactic Lens, with here and there a lonely star, dominated the sky of the Foundation. 

In three centuries the Foundation had grown from a private project of a small group of scientists 
to a tentacular trade empire sprawling deep into the Galaxy and half a year had flung it from its 
heights to the status of another conquered province. 

Captain Flan Pritcher refused to grasp that. 

The city's sullen nighttime quiet, the darkened palace, intruder-occupied, were symbolic 
enough, but Captain Flan Pritcher, just within the outer gate of the palace, with the tiny nuclear 
bomb under his tongue, refused to understand. 

A shape drifted closer - the captain bent his head. 

The whisper came deathly low, "The alarm system is as it always was, captain. Proceed! It will 
register nothing." 

Softly, the captain ducked through the low archway, and down the fountain-lined path to what 
had been Indbur's garden. 

Four months ago had been the day in the Time Vault, the fullness of which his memory balked 
at. Singly and separately the impressions would come back, unwelcome, mostly at night. 

Old Seldon speaking his benevolent words that were so shatteringly wrong - the jumbled 
confusion - Indbur, with his mayoral costume incongruously bright about his pinched, 
unconscious face - the frightened crowds gathering quickly, waiting noiselessly for the 
inevitable word of surrender - the young man, Toran, disappearing out of a side door with the 
Mule's clown dangling over his shoulder. 

And himself, somehow out of it all afterward, with his car unworkable. 

Shouldering his way along and through the leaderless mob that was already leaving the city - 
destination unknown. 

Making blindly for the various rat holes which were - which had once been - the headquarters 
for a democratic underground that for eighty years had been failing and dwindling. 

And the rat holes were empty. 

The next day, black alien ships were momentarily visible in the sky, sinking gently into the 
clustered buildings of the nearby city. Captain Flan Pritcher felt an accumulation of 
helplessness and despair drown him. 



He started his travels in earnest. 


In thirty days he had covered nearly two hundred miles on foot, changed to the clothing of a 
worker in the hydroponic factories whose body he found newly-dead by the side of the road, 
grown a fierce beard of russet intensity 

And found what was left of the underground. 

The city was Newton, the district a residential one of one-time elegance slowly edging towards 
squalor, the house an undistinguished member of a row, and the man a small-eyed, big-boned 
whose knotted fists bulged through his pockets and whose wiry body remained unbudgingly in 
the narrow door opening. 

The captain mumbled, "I come from Miran." 

The man returned the gambit, grimly. "Miran is early this year." 

The captain said, "No earlier than last year." 

But the man did not step aside. He said, "Who are you?" 

"Aren't you Fox?" 

"Do you always answer by asking?" 

The captain took an imperceptibly longer breath, and then said calmly, "I am Han Pritcher, 
Captain of the Fleet, and member of the Democratic Underground Party. Will you let me in?" 

The Fox stepped aside. He said, "My real name is Orum Palley." 

He held out his hand. The captain took it. 

The room was well-kept, but not lavish. In one comer stood a decorative book-film projector, 
which to the captain's military eyes might easily have been a camouflaged blaster of 
respectable caliber. The projecting lens covered the doorway, and such could be remotely 
controlled. 

The Fox followed his bearded guest's eyes, and smiled tightly. He said, "Yes! But only in the 
days of Indbur and his lackey-hearted vampires. It wouldn't do much against the Mule, eh? 
Nothing would help against the Mule. Are you hungry?" 

The captain's jaw muscles tightened beneath his beard, and he nodded. 

"It'll take a minute if you don't mind waiting." The Fox removed cans from a cupboard and 
placed two before Captain Pritcher. "Keep your finger on it, and break them when they're hot 
enough. My heat-control unit's out of whack. Things like that remind you there's a war on - or 
was on, eh?" 

His quick words had a jovial content, but were said in anything but a jovial tone - and his eyes 
were coldly thoughtful. He sat down opposite the captain and said, "There'll be nothing but a 
burn-spot left where you're sitting, if there's anything about you I don't like. Know that?" 



The captain did not answer. The cans before him opened at a pressure. 

The Fox said, shortly, "Stew! Sorry, but the food situation is short." 

"I know," said the captain. He ate quickly; not looking up. 

The Fox said, "I once saw you. I'm trying to remember, and the beard is definitely out of the 
picture." 

"I haven't shaved in thirty days." Then, fiercely, "What do you want? I had the correct 
passwords. I have identification." 

The other waved a hand, "Oh, I'll grant you're Pritcher all right. But there are plenty who have 
the passwords, and the identifications, and the identities - who are with the Mule. Ever hear of 
Levvaw, eh?" 

"Yes." 

"He's with the Mule." 

"What? He-" 

"Yes. He was the man they called 'No Surrender.'" The Fox's lips made laughing motions, with 
neither sound nor humor. "Then there's Willig. With the Mule! Garre and Noth. With the Mule! 
Why not Pritcher as well, eh? How would I know?" 

The captain merely shook his head. 

"But it doesn't matter," said the Fox, softly. "They must have my name, if Noth has gone over - 
so if you're legitimate, you're in more new danger than I am over our acquaintanceship." 

The captain had finished eating. He leaned back, "If you have no organization here, where can 
I find one? The Foundation may have surrendered, but I haven't." 

"So! You can't wander forever, captain. Men of the Foundation must have travel permits to 
move from town to town these days. You know that? Also identity cards. You have one? Also, 
all officers of the old Navy have been requested to report to the nearest occupation 
headquarters. That's you, eh?" 

"Yes." The captain's voice was hard. "Do you think I run through fear. I was on Kalgan not long 
after its fall to the Mule. Within a month, not one of the old warlord's officers was at large, 
because they were the natural military leaders of any revolt. It's always been the underground's 
knowledge that no revolution can be successful without the control of at least part of the Navy. 
The Mule evidently knows it, too." 

The Fox nodded thoughtfully, "Logical enough. The Mule is thorough." 

"I discarded the uniform as soon as I could. I grew the beard. Afterwards there may be a 
chance that others have taken the same action." 


Are you married? 



"My wife is dead. I have no children. 

"You're hostage-immune, then." 

"Yes." 

"You want my advice?" 

"If you have any." 

A don't know what the Mule's policy is or what he intends, but skilled workers have not been 
harmed so far. Pay rates have gone up. Production of all sorts of nuclear weapons is booming." 

"Yes? Sounds like a continuing offensive." 

"I don't know. The Mule's a subtle son of a drab, and he may merely be soothing the workers 
into submission. If Seldon couldn't figure him out with all his psychohistory, I'm not going to try. 
But you're wearing work clothes. That suggests something, eh?" 

"I'm not a skilled worker." 

"You've had a military course in nucleics, haven't you?" 

"Certainly." 

"That's enough. The Nuclear-Field Bearings, Inc., is located here in town. Tell them you've had 
experience. The stinkers who used to run the factory for Indbur are still running it - for the 
Mule. They won't ask questions, as long as they need more workers to make their fat hunk. 
They'll give you an identity card and you can apply for a room in the Corporation's housing 
district. You might start now." 

In that manner, Captain Han Pritcher of the National Fleet became Shield-man Lo Moro of the 
45 Shop of Nuclear-Field Bearings, Inc. And from an Intelligence agent, he descended the 
social scale to "conspirator"- a calling which led him months later to what had been Indbur's 
private garden, 

In the garden, Captain Pritcher consulted the radometer in the palm of his hand. The inner 
warning field was still in operation, and he waited. Half an hour remained to the life of the 
nuclear bomb in his mouth. He rolled it gingerly with his tongue. 

The radometer died into an ominous darkness and the captain advanced quickly. 

So far, matters had progressed well. 

He reflected objectively that the life of the nuclear bomb was his as well; that its death was his 
death - and the Mule's death. 

And the grand climacteric of a four-month's private war would be reached; a war that had 
passed from flight through a Newton factory 

For two months, Captain Pritcher wore leaden aprons and heavy face shields, till all things 
military had been frictioned off his outer bearing. He was a laborer, who collected his pay, spent 



his evenings in town, and never discussed politics. 

For two months, he did not see the Fox. 

And then, one day, a man stumbled past his bench, and there was a scrap of paper in his 
pocket. The word "Fox" was on it. Fie tossed it into the nuclear chamber, where it vanished in a 
sightless puff, sending the energy output up a millimicrovolt - and turned back to his work. 

That night he was at the Fox's home, and took a hand in a game of cards with two other men 
he knew by reputation and one by name and face. 

Over the cards and the passing and repassing tokens, they spoke. 

The captain said, "It's a fundamental error. You live in the exploded past. For eighty years our 
organization has been waiting for the correct historical moment. We've been blinded by 
Seldon's psychohistory, one of the first propositions of which is that the individual does not 
count, does not make history, and that complex social and economic factors override him, 
make a puppet out of him." Fie adjusted his cards carefully, appraised their value and said, as 
he put out a token. "Why not kill the Mule?" 

"Well, now, and what good would that do?" demanded the man at his left, fiercely. 

"You see," said the captain, discarding two cards, "that's the attitude. What is one man - out of 
quadrillions. The Galaxy won't stop rotating because one man dies. But the Mule is not a man, 
he is a mutant. Already, he had upset Seldon's plan, and if you'll stop to analyze the 
implications, it means that he - one man - one mutant - upset all of Seldon's psychohistory. If 
he had never lived, the Foundation would not have fallen. If he ceased living, it would not 
remain fallen. 

"Come, the democrats have fought the mayors and the traders for eighty years by connivery. 
Let's try assassination." 

"Flow?" interposed the Fox, with cold common sense. 

The captain said, slowly, "I've spent three months of thought on that with no solution. I came 
here and had it in five minutes." Fie glanced briefly at the man whose broad, pink melon of a 
face smiled from the place at his right. "You were once Mayor Indbur's chamberlain. I did not 
know you were of the underground," 

"Nor I, that you were." 

"Well, then, in your capacity as chamberlain you periodically checked the working of the alarm 
system of the palace." 

"I did." 

"And the Mule occupies the palace now." 

"So it has been announced - though he is a modest conqueror who makes no speeches, 
proclamations nor public appearances of any sort." 

"That's an old story, and affects nothing. You, my ex-chamberlain, are all we need." 



The cards were shown and the Fox collected the stakes. Slowly, he dealt a new hand. 

The man who had once been chamberlain picked up his cards, singly. "Sorry, captain. I 
checked the alarm system, but it was routine. I know nothing about it." 

"I expected that, but your mind carries an eidetic memory of the controls if it can be probed 
deeply enough - with a psychic probe." 

The chamberlain's ruddy face paled suddenly and sagged. The cards in his hand crumpled 
under sudden fist-pressure, "A psychic probe?" 

"You needn't worry," said the captain, sharply. "I know how to use one. It will not harm you past 
a few days' weakness. And if it did, it is the chance you take and the price you pay. There are 
some among us, no doubt, who from the controls of the alarm could determine the wavelength 
combinations. There are some among us who could manufacture a small bomb under 
time-control and I myself will carry it to the Mule." 

The men gathered over the table. 

The captain announced, "On a given evening, a riot will start in Terminus City in the 
neighborhood of the palace. No real fighting. Disturbance - then flight. As long as the palace 
guard is attracted ... or, at the very least, distracted-" 

From that day for a month the preparations went on, and Captain Flan Pritcher of the National 
Fleet having become conspirator descended further in the social scale and became an 
"assassin." 

Captain Pritcher, assassin, was in the palace itself, and found himself grimly pleased with his 
psychology. A thorough alarm system outside meant few guards within. In this case, it meant 
none at all. 

The floor plan was clear in his mind. Fie was a blob moving noiselessly up the well-carpeted 
ramp. At its head, he flattened against the wall and waited. 

The small closed door of a private room was before him. Behind that door must be the mutant 
who had beaten the unbeatable. Fie was early - the bomb had ten minutes of life in it. 

Five of these passed, and still in all the world there was no sound. The Mule had five minutes to 
live - So had Captain Pritcher- 

He stepped forward on sudden impulse. The plot could no longer fail. When the bomb went, the 
palace would go with it - all the palace. A door between - ten yards between - was nothing. 

But he wanted to see the Mule as they died together. 

In a last, insolent gesture, he thundered upon the door. 

And it opened and let out the blinding light. 

Captain Pritcher staggered, then caught himself. The solemn man, standing in the center of the 
small room before a suspended fish bowl, looked up mildly. 

FHis uniform was a somber black, and as he tapped the bowl in an absent gesture, it bobbed 



quickly and the feather-finned, orange and vermilion fish within darted wildly. 

He said, "Come in, captain!" 

To the captain's quivering tongue the little metal globe beneath was swelling ominously - a 
physical impossibility, the captain knew. But it was in its last minute of life. 

The uniformed man said, "You had better spit out the foolish pellet and free yourself for speech. 
It won't blast." 

The minute passed and with a slow, sodden motion the captain bent his head and dropped the 
silvery globe into his palm. With a furious force it was flung against the wall. It rebounded with a 
tiny, sharp clangor, gleaming harmlessly as it flew. 

The uniformed man shrugged. "So much for that, then. It would have done you no good in any 
case, captain. I am not the Mule. You will have to be satisfied with his viceroy." 

"How did you know?" muttered the captain, thickly. 

"Blame it on an efficient counter-espionage system. I can name every member of your little 
gang, every step of their planning-" 

"And you let it go this far?" 

"Why not? It has been one of my great purposes here to find you and some others. Particularly 
you. I might have had you some months ago, while you were still a worker at the Newton 
Bearings Works, but this is much better. If you hadn't suggested the main outlines of the plot 
yourself, one of my own men would have advanced something of much the same sort for you. 
The result is quite dramatic, and rather grimly humorous." 

The captain's eyes were hard. "I find it so, too. Is it all over now?" 

"Just begun. Come, captain, sit down. Let us leave heroics for the fools who are impressed by 
it. Captain, you are a capable man. According to the information I have, you were the first on 
the Foundation to recognize the power of the Mule. Since then you have interested yourself, 
rather daringly, in the Mule's early life. You have been one of those who carried off his clown, 
who, incidentally, has not yet been found, and for which there will yet be full payment. Naturally, 
your ability is recognized and the Mule is not of those who fear the ability of his enemies as 
long as he can convert it into the ability of a new friend." 

"Is that what you're hedging up to? Oh, no!" 

"Oh, yes! It was the purpose of tonight's comedy. You are an intelligent man, yet your little 
conspiracies against die Mule fail humorously. You can scarcely dignify it with the name of 
conspiracy. Is it part of your military training to waste ships in hopeless actions?" 

"One must first admit them to be hopeless." 

"One will," the viceroy assured him, gently. "The Mule has conquered the Foundation, It is 
rapidly being turned into an arsenal for accomplishment of his greater aims." 

"What greater aims?" 



"The conquest of the entire Galaxy. The reunion of all the tom worlds into a new Empire. The 
fulfillment, you dull-witted patriot, of your own Seldon's dream seven hundred years before he 
hoped to see it. And in the fulfillment, you can help us." 

"I can, undoubtedly. But I won't, undoubtedly." 

"I understand," reasoned the viceroy, "that only three of the Independent Trading Worlds yet 
resist. They will not last much longer. It will be the last of all Foundation forces. You still hold 
out." 

"Yes." 

"Yet you won't. A voluntary recruit is the, most efficient. But the other kind will do. 

Unfortunately, the Mule is absent. He leads the fight, as always, against the resisting Traders. 
But he is in continual contact with us. You will not have to wait long." 

"For what?" 

"For your conversion. 

"The Mule," said the captain, frigidly, "will find that beyond his ability." 

"But he won't. I was not beyond it. You don't recognize me? Come, you were on Kalgan, so you 
have seen me. I wore a monocle, a fur-lined scarlet robe, a high-crowned hat-" 

The captain stiffened in dismay. "You were the warlord of Kalgan." 

"Yes. And now I am the loyal viceroy of the Mule. You see, he is persuasive." 


21. INTERLUDE IN SPACE 

The blockade was run successfully. In the vast volume of space, not all the navies ever in 
existence could keep their watch in tight proximity. Given a single ship, a skillful pilot, and a 
moderate degree of luck, and there are holes and to spare. 

With cold-eyed calm, Toran drove a protesting vessel from the vicinity of one star to that of 
another. If the neighborhood of great mass made an interstellar jump erratic and difficult, it also 
made the enemy detection devices useless or nearly so. 

And once the girdle of ships had been passed the inner sphere of dead space, through whose 
blockaded sub-ether no message could be driven, was passed as well. For the first time in over 
three months Toran felt unisolated. 

A week passed before the enemy news programs dealt with anything more than the dull, 
self-laudatory details of growing control over the Foundation. It was a week in which Toran's 
armored trading ship fled inward from the Periphery in hasty jumps. 

Ebling Mis called out to the pilot room and Toran rose blink-eyed from his charts. 

"What's the matter?" Toran stepped down into the small central chamber which Bayta had 



inevitably devised into a living room. 

Mis shook his head, "Bescuppered if I know. The Mule's newsmen are announcing a special 
bulletin. Thought you might want to get in on it." 

"Might as well. Where's Bayta?" 

"Setting the table in the diner and picking out a menuor some such frippery." 

Toran sat down upon the cot that served as Magnifico's bed, and waited. The propaganda 
routine of the Mule's "special bulletins" were monotonously similar. First the martial music, and 
then the buttery slickness of the announcer. The minor news items would come, following one 
another in patient lock step. Then the pause. Then the trumpets and the rising excitement and 
the climax. 

Toran endured it. Mis muttered to himself. 

The newscaster spilled out, in conventional war-correspondent phraseology, the unctuous 
words that translated into sound the molten metal and blasted flesh of a battle in space. 

"Rapid cruiser squadrons under Lieutenant General Sammin hit back hard today at the task 
force striking out from Iss-" The carefully expressionless face of the speaker upon the screen 
faded into the blackness of a space cut through by the quick swaths of ships reeling across 
emptiness in deadly battle. The voice continued through the soundless thunder 

"The most striking action of the battle was the subsidiary combat of the heavy cruiser Cluster 
against three enemy ships of the 'Nova' class-" 

The screen's view veered and closed in. A great ship sparked and one of the frantic attackers 
glowed angrily, twisted out of focus, swung back and rammed. The Cluster bowed wildly and 
survived the glancing blow that drove the attacker off in twisting reflection. 

The newsman's smooth unimpassioned delivery continued to the last blow and the last hulk. 

Then a pause, and a large similar voice-and-picture of the fight off Mnemon, to which the 
novelty was added of a lengthy description of a hit-and-run landing - the picture of a blasted 
city - huddled and weary prisoners - and off again. 

Mnemon had not long to live. 

The pause again - and this time the raucous sound of the expected brasses. The screen faded 
into the long, impressively soldier-lined corridor up which the government spokesman in 
councilor's uniform strode quickly. 

The silence was oppressive. 

The voice that came at last was solemn, slow and hard: "By order of our sovereign, it is 
announced that the planet, Haven, hitherto in warlike opposition to his will, has submitted to the 
acceptance of defeat. At this moment, the forces of our sovereign are occupying the planet. 
Opposition was scattered, unco-ordinated, and speedily crushed." 



The scene faded out, the original newsman returned to state importantly that other 
developments would be transmitted as they occurred. 

Then there was dance music, and Ebling Mis threw the shield that cut the power. 

Toran rose and walked unsteadily away, without a word. The psychologist made no move to 
stop him. 

When Bayta stepped out of the kitchen, Mis motioned silence. 

He said, "They've taken Haven." 

And Bayta said, "Already?" Her eyes were round, and sick with disbelief. 

"Without a fight. Without an unprin-" He stopped and swallowed. "You'd better leave Toran 
alone. It's not pleasant for him. Suppose we eat without him this once." 

Bayta looked once toward the pilot room, then turned hopelessly. "Very well!" 

Magnifico sat unnoticed at the table. He neither spoke nor ate but stared ahead with a 
concentrated fear that seemed to drain all the vitality out of his thread of a body. 

Ebling Mis pushed absently at his iced-fruit dessert and said, harshly, "Two Trading worlds 
fight. They fight, and bleed, and die and don't surrender. Only at Haven - Just as at the 
Foundation-" 

"But why? Why?" 

The psychologist shook his head. "It's of a piece with all the problem. Every queer facet is a 
hint at the nature of the Mule. First, the problem of how he could conquer the Foundation, with 
little blood, and at a single blow essentially - while the Independent Trading Worlds held out. 
The blanket on nuclear reactions was a puny weapon - we've discussed that back and forth till 
I'm sick of it - and it did not work on any but the Foundation. 

"Randu suggested," and Ebling's grizzly eyebrows pulled together, "it might have been a 
radiant Will-Depresser. It's what might have done the work on Haven. But then why wasn't it 
used on Mnemon and Iss - which even now fight with such demonic intensity that it is taking 
half the Foundation fleet in addition to the Mule's forces to beat them down. Yes, I recognized 
Foundation ships in the attack." 

Bayta whispered, "The Foundation, then Haven. Disaster seems to follow us, without touching. 
We always seem to get out by a hair. Will it last forever?" 

Ebling Mis was not listening. To himself, he was making a point. "But there's another problem - 
another problem. Bayta, you remember the news item that the Mule's clown was not found on 
Terminus; that it was suspected he had fled to Haven, or been carried there by his original 
kidnappers. There is an importance attached to him, Bayta, that doesn't fade, and we have not 
located it yet. Magnifico must know something that is fatal to the Mule. I'm sure of it. " 

Magnifico, white and stuttering, protested, "Sire ... noble lord ... indeed, I swear it is past my 
poor reckoning to penetrate your wants. I have told what I know to the utter limits, and with your 



probe, you have drawn out of my meager wit that which I knew, but knew not that I knew." 

"I know ... I know. It is something small. A hint so small that neither you nor I recognize it for 
what it is. Yet I must find it - for Mnemon and Iss will go soon, and when they do, we are the 
last remnants, the last droplets of the independent Foundation." 

The stars begin to cluster closely when the core of the Galaxy is penetrated. Gravitational fields 
begin to overlap at intensities sufficient to introduce perturbations in an interstellar jump that 
can not be overlooked. 

Toran became aware of that when a jump landed their ship in the full glare of a red giant which 
clutched viciously, and whose grip was loosed, then wrenched apart, only after twelve 
sleepless, soul-battering hours. 

With charts limited in scope, and an experience not at all fully developed, either operationally or 
mathematically, Toran resigned himself to days of careful plotting between jumps. 

It became a community project of a sort. Ebling Mis checked Toran's mathematics and Bayta 
tested possible routes, by the various generalized methods, for the presence of real solutions. 
Even Magnifico was put to work on the calculating machine for routine computations, a type of 
work, which, once explained, was a source of great amusement to him and at which he was 
surprisingly proficient. 

So at the end of a month, or nearly, Bayta was able to survey the red line that wormed its way 
through the ship's trimensional model of the Galactic Lens halfway to its center, and say with 
Satiric relish, "You know what it looks like. It looks like a ten-foot earth-worm with a terrific case 
of indigestion. Eventually, you'll land us back in Haven." 

"I will," growled Toran, with a fierce rustle of his chart, "if you don't shut up." 

"And at that," continued Bayta, "there is probably a route fight through, straight as a meridian of 
longitude." 

"Yeah? Well, in the first place, dimwit, it probably took five hundred ships five hundred years to 
work out that route by hit-and-miss, and my lousy half-credit charts don't give it. Besides, 
maybe those straight routes are a good thing to avoid. They're probably choked up with ships. 
And besides-" 

"Oh, for Galaxy's sake, stop driveling and slavering so much righteous indignation." Her hands 
were in his hair. 

He yowled, "Ouch! Let go!" seized her wrists and whipped downward, whereupon Toran, Bayta, 
and chair formed a tangled threesome on the floor. It degenerated into a panting wrestling 
match, composed mostly of choking laughter and various foul blows. 

Toran broke loose at Magnifico's breathless entrance. 

"What is it?" 

The lines of anxiety puckered the clown's face and tightened the skin whitely over the 
enormous bridge of his nose. "The instruments are behaving queerly, sir. I have not, in the 



knowledge of my ignorance, touched anything-" 

In two seconds, Toran was in the pilot room. He said quietly to Magnifico, "Wake up Ebling Mis. 
Have him come down here." 

He said to Bayta, who was trying to get a basic order back to her hair by use of her fingers, 
"We've been detected, Bay." 

"Detected?" And Bayta's arms dropped. "By whom?" 

"Galaxy knows," muttered Toran, "but I imagine by someone with blasters already ranged and 
trained." 

He sat down and in a low voice was already sending into the sub-ether the ship's identification 
code. 

And when Ebling Mis entered, bathrobed and blear-eyed, Toran said with a desperate calm, "It 
seems we're inside the borders of a local Inner Kingdom which is called the Autarchy of Filia." 

"Never heard of it," said Mis, abruptly. 

"Well, neither did I," replied Toran, "but we're being stopped by a Filian ship just the same, and 
I don't know what it will involve." 

The captain-inspector of the Filian ship crowded aboard with six armed men following him. He 
was short, thin-haired, thin-lipped, and dry-skinned. He coughed a sharp cough as he sat down 
and threw open the folio under his arm to a blank page. 

"Your passports and ship's clearance, please." 

"We have none," said Toran. 

"None, hey?" he snatched up a microphone suspended from his belt and spoke into it quickly, 
"Three men and one woman. Papers not in order." He made an accompanying notation in the 
folio. 

He said, "Where are you from?" 

"Siwenna," said Toran warily. 

"Where is that?" 

"Thirty thousand parsecs, eighty degrees west Trantor, forty degrees-" 

"Never mind, never mind!" Toran could see that his inquisitor had written down: "Point of origin 
- Periphery." 

The Filian continued, "Where are you going?" 

Toran said, "Trantor sector." 

"Purpose?" 



"Pleasure trip." 

"Carrying any cargo?" 

"No." 

"Hm-m-m. We'll check on that." He nodded and two men jumped to activity. Toran made no 
move to interfere. 

"What brings you into Filian territory?" The Filian's eyes gleamed unamiably. 

"We didn't know we were. I lack a proper chart." 

"You will be required to pay a hundred credits for that lack - and, of course, the usual fees 
required for tariff duties, et cetera." 

He spoke again into the microphone - but listened more than he spoke. Then, to Toran, "Know 
anything about nuclear technology?" 

"A little," replied Toran, guardedly. 

"Yes?" The Filian closed his folio, and added, "The men of the Periphery have a knowledgeable 
reputation that way. Put on a suit and come with me." 

Bayta stepped forward, "What are you going to do with him?" 

Toran put her aside gently, and asked coldly, "Where do you want me to come?" 

"Our power plant needs minor adjustments. He'll come with you." His pointing finger aimed 
directly at Magnifico, whose brown eyes opened wide in a blubbery dismay. 

"What's he got to do with it?" demanded Toran fiercely. 

The official looked up coldly. "I am informed of pirate activities in this vicinity. A description of 
one of the known thugs tallies roughly. It is a purely routine matter of identification. " 

Toran hesitated, but six men and six blasters are eloquent arguments. He reached into the 
cupboard for the suits. 

An hour later, he rose upright in the bowels of the Filian ship and raged, "There's not a thing 
wrong with the motors that I can see. The busbars are true, the L-tubes are feeding properly 
and the reaction analysis checks. Who's in charge here?" 

The head engineer said quietly, "I am." 

"Well, get me out of here-" 

He was led to the officers' level and the small anteroom held only an indifferent ensign. 

"Where's the man who came with me?" 

"Please wait," said the ensign. 

It was fifteen minutes later that Magnifico was brought in. 



"What did they do to you?" asked Toran quickly. 

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Magnifico's head shook a slow negative. 

It took two hundred and fifty credits to fulfill the demands of Filia - fifty credits of it for instant 
release - and they were in free space again. 

Bayta said with a forced laugh, "Don't we rate an escort? Don't we get the usual figurative boot 
over the border?" 

And Toran replied, grimly, "That was no Filian ship - and we're not leaving for a while. Come in 
here." 

They gathered about him. 

Fie said, whitely, "That was a Foundation ship, and those were the Mule's men aboard." 

Ebling bent to pick up the cigar he had dropped. Fie said, "Flere? We're fifteen thousand 
parsecs from the Foundation. " 

"And we're here. What's to prevent them from making the same trip. Galaxy, Ebling, don't you 
think I can tell ships apart? I saw their engines, and that's enough for me. I tell you it was a 
Foundation engine in a Foundation ship." 

"And how did they get here?" asked Bayta, logically. "What are the chances of a random 
meeting of two given ships in space?" 

"What's that to do with it?" demanded Toran, hotly. "It would only show we've been followed." 
"Followed?" hooted Bayta. "Through hyperspace?" 

Ebling Mis interposed wearily, "That can be done - given a good ship and a great pilot. But the 
possibility doesn't impress me." 

"I haven't been masking my trail," insisted Toran. "I've been building up take-off speed on the 
straight. A blind man could have calculated our route." 

"The blazes he could," cried Bayta. "With the cockeyed jumps you are making, observing our 
initial direction didn't mean a thing. We came out of the jump wrong-end forwards more than 
once." 

"We're wasting time," blazed Toran, with gritted teeth. "It's a Foundation ship under the Mule. 
It's stopped us. It's searched us. It's had Magnifico - alone - with me as hostage to keep the 
rest of you quiet, in case you suspected. And we're going to bum it out of space right now." 

"Flold on now," and Ebling Mis clutched at him. "Are you going to destroy us for one ship you 
think is an enemy? Think, man, would those scuppers chase us over an impossible route half 
through the bestinkered Galaxy, look us over, and then let us go?' 

"They're still interested in where we're going." 

"Then why stop us and put us on our guard? You can't have it both ways, you know." 



"I'll have it my way. Let go of me, Ebling, or I'll knock you down." 

Magnifico leaned forward from his balanced perch on his favorite chair back. His long nostrils 
flared with excitement. "I crave your pardon for my interruption, but my poor mind is of a 
sudden plagued with a queer thought." 

Bayta anticipated Toran's gesture of annoyance, and added her grip to Ebling's. "Go ahead and 
speak, Magnifico. We will all listen faithfully." 

Magnifico said, "In my stay in their ship what addled wits I have were bemazed and bemused 
by a chattering fear that befell men. Of a truth I have a lack of memory of most that happened. 
Many men staring at me, and talk I did not understand. But towards the last - as though a 
beam of sunlight had dashed through a cloud rift - there was a face I knew. A glimpse, the 
merest glimmer - and yet it glows in my memory ever stronger and brighter." 

Toran said, "Who was it?" 

"That captain who was with us so long a time ago, when first you saved me from slavery." 

It had obviously been Magnifico's intention to create a sensation, and the delighted smile that 
curled broadly in the shadow of his proboscis, attested to his realization of the intention's 
success. 

"Captain ... Han ... Pritcher?" demanded Mis, sternly. "You're sure of that? Certain sure now?" 

"Sir, I swear," and he laid a bone-thin hand upon his narrow chest. "I would uphold the truth of it 
before the Mule and swear it in his teeth, though all his power were behind him to deny it." 

Bayta said in pure wonder, "Then what's it all about?" The clown faced her eagerly, "My lady, I 
have a theory. It came upon me, ready made, as though the Galactic Spirit had gently laid it in 
my mind." He actually raised his voice above Toran's interrupting objection. 

"My lady," he addressed himself exclusively to Bayta, "if this captain had, like us, escaped with 
a ship; if he, like us, were on a trip for a purpose of his own devising; if he blundered upon us - 
he would suspect us of following and waylaying him, as we suspect him of the like. What 
wonder he played this comedy to enter our ship?" 

"Why would he want us in his ship, then?" demanded Toran. "That doesn't fit." 

"Why, yes, it does," clamored the clown, with a flowing inspiration. "He sent an underling who 
knew us not, but who described us into his microphone. The listening captain would be struck 
at my own poor likeness - for, of a truth there are not many in this great Galaxy who bear a 
resemblance to my scantiness. I was the proof of the identity of the rest of you." 

"And so he leaves us?" 

"What do we know of his mission, and the secrecy thereof? lie has spied us out for not an 
enemy and having it done so, must he needs think it wise to risk his plan by widening the 
knowledge thereof?" 

Bayta said slowly, "Don't be stubborn, Torie. It does explain things." 



"It could be," agreed Mis. 

Toran seemed helpless in the face of united resistance. Something in the clown's fluent 
explanations bothered him. Something was wrong. Yet he was bewildered and, in spite of 
himself, his anger ebbed. 

"For a while," he whispered, "I thought we might have had one of the Mule's ships." 

And his eyes were dark with the pain of Haven's loss. 

The others understood. 


22. DEATH ON NEOTRANTOR 

NEOTRANTOR The small planet of Dellcass, renamed after the Great Sack, was for nearly a 
century, the seat of the last dynasty of the First Empire. It was a shadow world and a shadow 
Empire and Its existence Is only of legalistic importance. Under the first of the Neotrantorlan 
dynasty.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 

Neotrantor was the name! New Trantor! And when you have said the name you have 
exhausted at a stroke all the resemblances of the new Trantor to the great original. Two 
parsecs away, the sun of Old Trantor still shone and the Galaxy's Imperial Capital of the 
previous century still cut through space in the silent and eternal repetition of its orbit. 

Men even inhabited Old Trantor. Not many - a hundred million, perhaps, where fifty years 
before, forty billions had swarmed. The huge, metal world was in jagged splinters. The towering 
thrusts of the multi-towers from the single world-girdling base were torn and empty - still 
bearing the original blastholes and firegut - shards of the Great Sack of forty years earlier. 

It was strange that a world which had been the center of a Galaxy for two thousand years - that 
had ruled limitless space and been home to legislators and rulers whose whims spanned the 
parsecs - could die in a month. It was strange that a world which had been untouched through 
the vast conquering sweeps and retreats of a millennia, and equally untouched by the civil wars 
and palace revolutions of other millennia - should lie dead at last. It was strange that the Glory 
of the Galaxy should be a rotting corpse. 

And pathetic! 

For centuries would yet pass before the mighty works of fifty generations of humans would 
decay past use. Only the declining powers of men, themselves, rendered them useless now. 

The millions left after the billions had died tore up the gleaming metal base of the planet and 
exposed soil that had not felt the touch of sun in a thousand years. 

Surrounded by the mechanical perfections of human efforts, encircled by the industrial marvels 
of mankind freed of the tyranny of environment - they returned to the land. In the huge traffic 



clearings, wheat and corn grew. In the shadow of the towers, sheep grazed. 

But Neotrantor existed - an obscure village of a planet drowned in the shadow of mighty 
Trantor, until a heart-throttled royal family, racing before the fire and flame of the Great Sack 
sped to it as its last refuge - and held out there, barely, until the roaring wave of rebellion 
subsided. There it ruled in ghostly splendor over a cadaverous remnant of Imperium. 

Twenty agricultural worlds were a Galactic Empire! 

Dagobert IX, ruler of twenty worlds of refractory squires and sullen peasants, was Emperor of 
the Galaxy, Lord of the Universe. 

Dagobert IX had been twenty-five on the bloody day he arrived with his father upon Neotrantor. 
His eyes and mind were still alive with the glory and the power of the Empire that was. But his 
son, who might one day be Dagobert X, was born on Neotrantor. 

Twenty worlds were all he knew. 

Jord Commason's open air car was the finest vehicle of its type on all Neotrantor - and, after 
all, justly so. It did not end with the fact that Commason was the largest landowner on 
Neotrantor. It began there. For in earlier days he had been the companion and evil genius of a 
young crown prince, restive in the dominating grip of a middle-aged emperor. And now he was 
the companion and still the evil genius of a middle-aged crown prince who hated and 
dominated an old emperor. 

So Jord Commason, in his air car, which in mother-of-pearl finish and gold-and-lumetron 
ornamentation needed no coat of arms as owner's identification, surveyed the lands that were 
his, and the miles of rolling wheat that were his, and the huge threshers and harvesters that 
were his, and the tenant-farmers and machine-tenders that were his - and considered his 
problems cautiously. 

Beside him, his bent and withered chauffeur guided the ship gently through the upper winds 
and smiled. 

Jord Commason spoke to the wind, the air, and the sky, "You remember what I told you, 
Inchney?" 

Inchney's thin gray hair wisped lightly in the wind. His gap-toothed smile widened in its 
thin-lipped fashion and the vertical wrinkles of his cheeks deepened as though he were keeping 
an eternal secret from himself. The whisper of his voice whistled between his teeth. 

"I remember, sire, and I have thought." 

"And what have you thought, Inchney?" There was an impatience about the question. 

Inchney remembered that he had been young and handsome, and a lord on Old Trantor. 
Inchney remembered that he was a disfigured ancient on Neotrantor, who lived by grace of 
Squire Jord Commason, and paid for the grace by lending his subtlety on request. He sighed 
very softly. 

He whispered again, "Visitors from the Foundation, sire, are a convenient thing to have. 



Especially, sire, when they come with but a single ship, and but a single fighting man. How 
welcome they might be." 

"Welcome?" said Commason, gloomily. "Perhaps so. But those men are magicians and may be 
powerful." 

"Pugh," muttered Inchney, "the mistiness of distance hides the truth. The Foundation is but a 
world. Its citizens are but men. If you blast them, they die." 

Inchney held the ship on its course - A river was a winding sparkle below. He whispered, "And 
is there not a man they speak of now who stirs the worlds of the Periphery?" 

Commason was suddenly suspicious. "What do you know of this?" 

There was no smile on his chauffeur's face. "Nothing, sire. It was but an idle question." 

The squire's hesitation was short. He said, with brutal directness, "Nothing you ask is idle, and 
your method of acquiring knowledge will have your scrawny neck in a vise yet. But - I have it! 
This man is called the Mule, and a subject of his had been here some months ago on a ... 
matter of business. I await another ... now ... for its conclusion." 

"And these newcomers? They are not the ones you want, perhaps?" 

"They lack the identification they should have." 

"It has been reported that the Foundation has been captured-" 

"I did not tell you that." 

"It has been so reported," continued Inchney, coolly, "and if that is correct, then these may be 
refugees from the destruction, and may be held for the Mule's man out of honest friendship." 

"Yes?" Commason was uncertain. 

"And, sire, since it is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim, it would be 
but a measure of honest self-defense. For there are such things as psychic probes, and here 
we have four Foundation brains. There is much about the Foundation it would be useful to 
know, much even about the Mule. And then the Mule's friendship would be a trifle the less 
overpowering." 

Commason, in the quiet of the upper air, returned with a shiver to his first thought. "But if the 
Foundation has not fallen. If the reports are lies. It is said that it has been foretold it can not 
fall." 

"We are past the age of soothsayers, sire." 

"And yet if it did not fall, Inchney. Think! If it did not fall. The Mule made me promises, indeed-" 
He had gone too far, and backtracked. "That is, he made boasts. But boasts are wind and 
deeds are hard." 


Inchney laughed noiselessly. "Deeds are hard indeed, until begun. One could scarcely find a 
further fear than a Galaxy-end Foundation." 



"There is still the prince," murmured Commason, almost to himself. 

"He deals with the Mule also, then, sire?" 

Commason could not quite choke down the complacent shift of features. "Not entirely. Not as / 
do. But he grows wilder, more uncontrollable. A demon is upon him. If I seize these people and 
he takes them away for his own use - for he does not lack a certain shrewdness - I am not yet 
ready to quarrel with him." He frowned and his heavy cheeks bent downwards with dislike. 

"I saw those strangers for a few moments yesterday," said the gray chauffeur, irrelevantly, "and 
it is a strange woman, that dark one. she walks with the freedom of a man and she is of a 
startling paleness against the dark luster of hair." There was almost a warmth in the husky 
whisper of the withered voice, so that Commason turned toward him in sudden surprise. 

Inchney continued, "The prince, I think, would not find his shrewdness proof against a 
reasonable compromise. You could have the rest, if you left him the girl-" 

A light broke upon Commason, "A thought! Indeed a thought! Inchney, turn back! And Inchney, 
if all turns well, we will discuss further this matter of your freedom." 

It was with an almost superstitious sense of symbolism that Commason found a Personal 
Capsule waiting for him in his private study when he returned. It had arrived by a wavelength 
known to few. Commason smiled a fat smile. The Mule's man was coming and the Foundation 
had indeed fallen. 

Bayta's misty visions, when she had them, of an Imperial palace, did not jibe with the reality, 
and inside her, there was a vague sense of disappointment. The room was small, almost plain, 
almost ordinary. The palace did not even match the mayor's residence back at the Foundation 
- and Dagobert IX - 

Bayta had definite ideas of what an emperor ought to look like. He ought not look like 
somebody's benevolent grandfather. He ought not be thin and white and faded - or serving 
cups of tea with his own hand in an expressed anxiety for the comfort of his visitors. 

But so it was. 

Dagobert IX chuckled as he poured tea into her stiffly outheld cup. 

"This is a great pleasure for me, my dear. It is a moment away from ceremony and courtiers. I 
have not had the opportunity for welcoming visitors from my outer provinces for a time now. My 
son takes care of these details now that I'm older. You haven't met my son? A fine boy. 
Headstrong, perhaps. But then he's young. Do you care for a flavor capsule? No?" 

Toran attempted an interruption, "Your imperial majesty-" 

"Yes?" 

"Your imperial majesty, it has not been our intention to intrude upon you-" 

"Nonsense, there is no intrusion. Tonight there will be the official reception, but until then, we 
are free. Let's see, where did you say you were from? It seems a long time since we had an 



official reception. You said you were from the Province of Anacreon?" 

"From the Foundation, your imperial majesty!" 

"Yes, the Foundation. I remember now. I had it located. It is in the Province of Anacreon. I have 
never been there. My doctor forbids extensive traveling. I don't recall any recent reports from 
my viceroy at Anacreon. Flow are conditions there?" he concluded anxiously. 

"Sire," mumbled Toran, "I bring no complaints." 

"That is gratifying. I will commend my viceroy." 

Toran looked helplessly at Ebling Mis, whose brusque voice rose. "Sire, we have been told that 
it will require your permission for us to visit the Imperial University Library on Trantor." 

"Trantor?" questioned the emperor, mildly, "Trantor?" 

Then a look of puzzled pain crossed his thin face. "Trantor?" he whispered. "I remember now. I 
am making plans now to return there with a flood of ships at my back. You shall come with me. 
Together we will destroy the rebel, Gilmer. Together we shall restore the empire!" 

His bent back had straightened. His voice had strengthened. For a moment his eyes were hard. 
Then, he blinked and said softly, "But Gilmer is dead. I seem to remember - Yes. Yes! Gilmer 
is dead! Trantor is dead - For a moment, it seemed - Where was it you said you came from?" 

Magnifico whispered to Bayta, "Is this really an emperor? For somehow I thought emperors 
were greater and wiser than ordinary men." 

Bayta motioned him quiet. She said, "If your imperial majesty would but sign an order permitting 
us to go to Trantor, it would avail greatly the common cause." 

"To Trantor?" The emperor was blank and uncomprehending. 

"Sire, the Viceroy of Anacreon, in whose name we speak, sends word that Gilmer is yet alive-" 
"Alive! Alive!" thundered Dagobert. "Where? It will be war!" 

"Your imperial majesty, it must not yet be known. His whereabouts are uncertain. The viceroy 
sends us to acquaint you of the fact, and it is only on Trantor that we may find his hiding place. 
Once discovered-" 

"Yes, yes - Fie must be found-" The old emperor doddered to the wall and touched the little 
photocell with a trembling finger. Fie muttered, after an ineffectual pause, "My servants do not 
come. I can not wait for them." 

Fie was scribbling on a blank sheet, and ended with a flourished "D." Fie said, "Gilmer will yet 
learn the power of his emperor. Where was it you came from? Anacreon? What are the 
conditions there? Is the name of the emperor powerful?" 

Bayta took the paper from his loose fingers, "Your imperial majesty is beloved by the people. 
Your love for them is widely known." 



"I shall have to visit my good people of Anacreon, but my doctor says ... I don't remember what 
he says, but-" He looked up, his old gray eyes sharp, "Were you saying something of Gilmer?" 

"No, your imperial majesty." 

"He shall not advance further. Go back and tell your people that. Trantor shall hold! My father 
leads the fleet now, and the rebel vermin Gilmer shall freeze in space with his regicidal rabble." 

He staggered into a seat and his eyes were blank once more. "What was I saying?" 

Toran rose and bowed low, "Your imperial majesty has been kind to us, but the time allotted us 
for an audience is over. " 

For a moment, Dagobert IX looked like an emperor indeed as he rose and stood stiff-backed 
while, one by one, his visitors retreated backward through the door 

-to where twenty armed men intervened and locked a circle about them. 

A hand-weapon flashed- 

To Bayta, consciousness returned sluggishly, but without the "Where am I?" sensation. She 
remembered clearly the odd old man who called himself emperor, and the other men who 
waited outside. The arthritic tingle in her finger joints meant a stun pistol. 

She kept her eyes closed, and listened with painful attention to the voices. 

There were two of them. One was slow and cautious, with a slyness beneath the surface 
obsequity. The other was hoarse and thick, almost sodden, and blurted out in viscous spurts. 
Bayta liked neither. 

The thick voice was predominant. 

Bayta caught the last words, "He will live forever, that old madman. It wearies me. It annoys 
me. Commason, I will have it. I grow older, too." 

"Your highness, let us first see of what use these people are. It may be we shall have sources 
of strength other than your father still provides." 

The thick voice was lost in a bubbling whisper. Bayta caught only the phrase, " -the girl-" but 
the other, fawning voice was a nasty, low, running chuckle followed by a comradely, 
near-patronizing, "Dagobert, you do not age. They lie who say you are not a youth of twenty." 

They laughed together, and Bayta's blood was an icy trickle. Dagobert - your highness - The 
old emperor had spoken of a headstrong son, and the implication of the whispers now beat 
dully upon her. But such things didn't happen to people in real life— 

Toran's voice broke upon her in a slow, hard current of cursing. 

She opened her eyes, and Toran's, which were upon her, showed open relief. He said, fiercely, 
"This banditry will be answered by the emperor. Release us." 

It dawned upon Bayta that her wrists and ankles were fastened to wall and floor by a tight 



attraction field. 


Thick Voice approached Toran. He was paunchy, his lower eyelids puffed darkly, and his hair 
was thinning out. There was a gay feather in his peaked hat, and the edging of his doublet was 
embroidered with silvery metal-foam. 

He sneered with a heavy amusement. "The emperor? The poor, mad emperor?" 

"I have his pass. No subject may hinder our freedom." 

"But I am no subject, space-garbage. I am the regent and crown prince and am to be 
addressed as such. As for my poor silly father, it amuses him to see visitors occasionally. And 
we humor him. It tickles his mock-imperial fancy. But, of course, it has no other meaning." 

And then he was before Bayta, and she looked up at him contemptuously. He leaned close and 
his breath was overpoweringly minted. 

He said, "Her eyes suit well, Commason - she is even prettier with them open. I think she'll do. 
It will be an exotic dish for a jaded taste, eh?" 

There was a futile surge upwards on Toran's part, which the crown prince ignored and Bayta 
felt the iciness travel outward to the skin. Ebling Mis was still out; head lolling weakly upon his 
chest, but, with a sensation of surprise, Bayta noted that Magnifico's eyes were open, sharply 
open, as though awake for many minutes. Those large brown eyes swiveled towards Bayta and 
stared at her out of a doughy face. 

He whimpered, and nodded with his head towards the crown prince, "That one has my 
Visi-Sonor." 

The crown prince turned sharply toward the new voice, "This is yours, monster?" He swung the 
instrument from his shoulder where it had hung, suspended by its green strap, unnoticed by 
Bayta. 

He fingered it clumsily, tried to sound a chord and got nothing for his pains, "Can you play it, 
monster?" 

Magnifico nodded once. 

Toran said suddenly, "You've rifled a ship of the Foundation. If the emperor will not avenge, the 
Foundation will." 

It was the other, Commason, who answered slowly, "What Foundation? Or is the Mule no 
longer the Mule?" 

There was no answer to that. The prince's grin showed large uneven teeth. The clown's binding 
field was broken and he was nudged ungently to his feet. The Visi-Sonor was thrust into his 
hand. 

"Play for us, monster," said the prince. "Play us a serenade of love and beauty for our foreign 
lady here. Tell her that my father's country prison is no palace, but that I can take her to one 
where she can swim in rose water - and know what a prince's love is. Sing of a prince's love, 



monster. 


He placed one thick thigh upon a marble table and swung a leg idly, while his fatuous smiling 
stare swept Bayta into a silent rage. Toran's sinews strained against the field, in painful, 
perspiring effort. Ebling Mis stirred and moaned. 

Magnifico gasped, "My fingers are of useless stiffness-" 

"Play, monster!" roared the prince. The lights dimmed at a gesture to Commason and in the 
dimness he crossed his arms and waited. 

Magnifico drew his fingers in rapid, rhythmic jumps from end to end of the multikeyed 
instrument - and a sharp, gliding rainbow of light jumped across the room. A low, soft tone 
sounded - throbbing, tearful. It lifted in sad laughter, and underneath it there sounded a dull 
tolling. 

The darkness seemed to intensify and grow thick. Music reached Bayta through the muffled 
folds of invisible blankets. Gleaming light reached her from the depths as though a single 
candle glowed at the bottom of a pit. 

Automatically, her eyes strained. The light brightened, but remained blurred. It moved fuzzily, in 
confused color, and the music was suddenly brassy, evil - flourishing in high crescendo. The 
light flickered quickly, in swift motion to the wicked rhythm. Something writhed within the light. 
Something with poisonous metallic scales writhed and yawned. And the music writhed and 
yawned with it. 

Bayta struggled with a strange emotion and then caught herself in a mental gasp. Almost, it 
reminded her of the time in the Time Vault, of those last days on Haven. It was that horrible, 
cloying, clinging spiderweb of horror and despair. She shrunk beneath it oppressed. 

The music dinned upon her, laughing horribly, and the writhing terror at the wrong end of the 
telescope in the small circle of light was lost as she turned feverishly away. Her forehead was 
wet and cold. 

The music died. It must have lasted fifteen minutes, and a vast pleasure at its absence flooded 
Bayta. Light glared, and Magnifico's face was close to hers, sweaty, wild-eyed, lugubrious. 

"My lady," he gasped, "how fare you?" 

"Well enough," she whispered, "but why did you play like that?" 

She became aware of the others in the room. Toran and Mis were limp and helpless against 
the wall, but her eyes skimmed over them. There was the prince, lying strangely still at the foot 
of the table. There was Commason, moaning wildly through an open, drooling mouth. 

Commason flinched, and yelled mindlessly, as Magnifico took a step towards him. 

Magnifico turned, and with a leap, turned the others loose. 

Toran lunged upwards and with eager, taut fists seized the landowner by the neck, "You come 
with us. We'll want you - to make sure we get to our ship." 



Two hours later, in the ship's kitchen, Bayta served a walloping homemade pie, and Magnifico 
celebrated the return to space by attacking it with a magnificent disregard of table manners. 

"Good, Magnifico?" 

"Um-m-m-m!" 

"Magnifico?" 

"Yes, my lady?" 

"What was it you played back there?" 

The clown writhed, "I ... I'd rather not say. I learned it once, and the Visi-Sonor is of an effect 
upon the nervous system most profound. Surely, it was an evil thing, and not for your sweet 
innocence, my lady." 

"Oh, now, come, Magnifico. I'm not as innocent as that. Don't flatter so. Did I see anything like 
what f/7eysaw?" 

"I hope not. I played it for them only. If you saw, it was but the rim of it - from afar." 

"And that was enough. Do you know you knocked the prince out?" 

Magnifico spoke grimly through a large, muffling piece of pie. "I killed h\rr\, my lady." 

"What?" She swallowed, painfully. 

"He was dead when I stopped, or I would have continued. I cared not for Commason. His 
greatest threat was death or torture. But, my lady, this prince looked upon you wickedly, and-" 
he choked in a mixture of indignation and embarrassment. 

Bayta felt strange thoughts come and repressed them sternly. "Magnifico, you've got a gallant 
soul." 

"Oh, my lady." He bent a red nose into his pie, but, somehow did not eat. 

Ebling Mis stared out the port. Trantor was near - its metallic shine fearfully bright. Toran was 
standing there, too. 

He said with dull bitterness, "We've come for nothing, Ebling. The Mule's man precedes us." 

Ebling Mis rubbed his forehead with a hand that seemed shriveled out of its former plumpness. 
His voice was an abstracted mutter. 

Toran was annoyed. "I say those people know the Foundation has fallen. I say-" 

"Eh?" Mis looked up, puzzled. Then, he placed a gentle hand upon Toran's wrist, in complete 
oblivion of any previous conversation, "Toran, I ... I've been looking at Trantor. Do you know ... I 
have the queerest feeling ... ever since we arrived on Neotrantor. It's an urge, a driving urge 
that's pushing and pushing inside. Toran, I can do it; I know I can do it. Things are becoming 
clear in my mind - they have never been so clear." 



Toran stared - and shrugged. The words brought him no confidence. 

He said, tentatively, "Mis?" 

"Yes?" 

"You didn't see a ship come down on Neotrantor as we left?" 

Consideration was brief. "No." 

"I did. Imagination, I suppose, but it could have been that Filian ship." 

"The one with Captain Han Pritcher on it?" 

"The one with space knows who upon it. Magnifico's information - It followed us here, Mis." 
Ebling Mis said nothing, 

Toran said strenuously, "is there anything wrong with you? Aren't you well?" 

Mis's eyes were thoughtful, luminous, and strange. He did not answer. 


23. THE RUINS OF TRANTOR 

The location of an objective upon the great world of Trantor presents a problem unique in the 
Galaxy. There are no continents or oceans to locate from a thousand miles distance. There are 
no rivers, lakes, and islands to catch sight of through the cloud rifts. 

The metal-covered world was - had been - one colossal city, and only the old Imperial palace 
could be identified readily from outer space by a stranger. The Bayta circled the world at almost 
air-car height in repeated painful search. 

From polar regions, where the icy coating of the metal spires were somber evidence of the 
breakdown or neglect of the weather-conditioning machinery, they worked southwards. 
Occasionally they could experiment with the correlations -(or presumable correlations)- 
between what they saw and what the inadequate map obtained at Neotrantor showed. 

But it was unmistakable when it came. The gap in the metal coat of the planet was fifty miles. 
The unusual greenery spread over hundreds of square miles, inclosing the mighty grace of the 
ancient Imperial residences. 

The Bayta hovered and slowly oriented itself. There were only the huge supercauseways to 
guide them. Long straight arrows on the map, smooth, gleaming ribbons there below them. 

What the map indicated to be the University area was reached by dead reckoning, and upon 
the flat area of what once must have been a busy landing-field, the ship lowered itself. 

It was only as they submerged into the welter of metal that the smooth beauty apparent from 
the air dissolved into the broken, twisted near-wreckage that had been left in the wake of the 
Sack. Spires were truncated, smooth walls gouted and twisted, and just for an instant there was 



the glimpse of a shaven area of earth - perhaps several hundred acres in extent - dark and 
plowed. 

Lee Senter waited as the ship settled downward cautiously. It was a strange ship, not from 
Neotrantor, and inwardly he sighed. Strange ships and confused dealings with the men of outer 
space could mean the end of the short days of peace, a return to the old grandiose times of 
death and battle. Senter was leader of the group; the old books were in his charge and he had 
read of those old days. He did not want them. 

Perhaps ten minutes spent themselves as the strange ship came down to nestle upon the 
flatness, but long memories telescoped themselves in that time. There was first the great farm 
of his childhood - that remained in his mind merely as busy crowds of people. Then there was 
the trek of the young families to new lands. He was ten, then; an only child, puzzled, and 
frightened. 

Then the new buildings; the great metal slabs to be uprooted and tom aside; the exposed soil 
to be turned, and freshened, and invigorated; neighboring buildings to be tom down and 
leveled; others to be transformed to living quarters. 

There were crops to be grown and harvested; peaceful relations with neighboring farms to be 
established- 

There was growth and expansion, and the quiet efficiency of self-rule. There was the coming of 
a new generation of hard, little youngsters born to the soil. There was the great day when he 
was chosen leader of the Group and for the first time since his eighteenth birthday he did not 
shave and saw the first stubble of his Leader's Beard appear. 

And now the Galaxy might intrude and put an end to the brief idyll of isolation- 

The ship landed. He watched wordlessly as the port opened. Four emerged, cautious and 
watchful. There were three men, varied, old, young, thin and beaked. And a woman striding 
among them like an equal. His hand left the two glassy black tufts of his beard as he stepped 
forward. 

He gave the universal gesture of peace. Both hands were before him; hard, calloused palms 
upward. 

The young man approached two steps and duplicated the gesture. "I come in peace." 

The accent was strange, but the words were understandable, and welcome. He replied, deeply, 
"In peace be it. You are welcome to the hospitality of the Group. Are you hungry? You shall eat. 
Are you thirsty? You shall drink." 

Slowly, the reply came, "We thank you for your kindness, and shall bear good report of your 
Group when we return to our world." 

A queer answer, but good. Behind him, the men of the Group were smiling, and from the 
recesses of the surrounding structures, the women emerged. 

In his own quarters, he removed the locked, mirror-walled box from its hidden place, and 



offered each of the guests the long, plump cigars that were reserved for great occasions. 

Before the woman, he hesitated. She had taken a seat among the men. The strangers 
evidently allowed, even expected, such effrontery. Stiffly, he offered the box. 

She accepted one with a smile, and drew in its aromatic smoke, with all the relish one could 
expect. Lee Senter repressed a scandalized emotion. 

The stiff conversation, in advance of the meal, touched politely upon the subject of fanning on 
Trantor. 

It was the old man who asked, "What about hydroponics? Surely, for such a world as Trantor, 
hydroponics would be the answer." 

Senter shook his head slowly. He felt uncertain. His knowledge was the unfamiliar matter of the 
books he had read, "Artificial fanning in chemicals, I think? No, not on Trantor. This 
hydroponics requires a world of industy - for instance, a great chemical industry. And in war or 
disaster, when industry breaks down, the people starve. Nor can all foods be grown artificially. 
Some lose their food value. The soil is cheaper, still better - always more dependable." 

"And your food supply is sufficient?" 

"Sufficient; perhaps monotonous. We have fowl that supply eggs, and milk-yielders for our dairy 
products - but our meat supply rests upon our foreign trade." 

"Trade." The young man seemed roused to sudden interest. "You trade then. But what do you 
export?" 

"Metal," was the curt answer. "Look for yourself. We have an infinite supply, ready processed. 
They come from Neotrantor with ships, demolish an indicated area-increasing our growing 
space - and leave us in exchange meat, canned fruit, food concentrates, farm machinery and 
so on. They carry off the metal and both sides profit." 

They feasted on bread and cheese, and a vegetable stew that was unreservedly delicious. It 
was over the dessert of frosted fruit, the only imported item on the menu, that, for the first time, 
the Outlanders became other than mere guests. The young man produced a map of Trantor. 

Calmly, Lee Senter studied it. He listened - and said gravely, "The University Grounds are a 
static area. We farmers do not grow crops on it. We do not, by preference, even enter it. It is 
one of our few relics of another time we would keep undisturbed. " 

"We are seekers after knowledge. We would disturb nothing. Our ship would be our hostage." 
The old man offered this - eagerly, feverishly. 

"I can take you there then," said Senter. 

That night the strangers slept, and that night Lee Senter sent a message to Neotrantor. 



24. CONVERT 

The thin life of Trantor trickled to nothing when they entered among the wide-spaced buildings 
of the University grounds. There was a solemn and lonely silence over it. 

The strangers of the Foundation knew nothing of the swirling days and nights of the bloody 
Sack that had left the University untouched. They knew nothing of the time after the collapse of 
the Imperial power, when the students, with their borrowed weapons, and their pale-faced 
inexperienced bravery, formed a protective volunteer army to protect the central shrine of the 
science of the Galaxy. They knew nothing of the Seven Days Fight, and the armistice that kept 
the University free, when even the Imperial palace clanged with the boots of Gilmer and his 
soldiers, during the short interval of their rule. 

Those of the Foundation, approaching for the first time, realized only that in a world of transition 
from a gutted old to a strenuous new this area was a quiet, graceful museum-piece of ancient 
greatness. 

They were intruders in a sense. The brooding emptiness rejected them. The academic 
atmosphere seemed still to live and to stir angrily at the disturbance. 

The library was a deceptively small building which broadened out vastly underground into a 
mammoth volume of silence and reverie. Ebling Mis paused before the elaborate murals of the 
reception room. 

Fie whispered - one had to whisper here: "I think we passed the catalog rooms back a way. I'll 
stop there." 

His forehead was flushed, his hand trembling, "I mustn't be disturbed, Toran. Will you bring my 
meals down to me?" 

"Anything you say. We'll do all we can to help. Do you want us to work under you-" 

"No. I must be alone-" 

"You think you will get what you want." 

And Ebling Mis replied with a soft certainty, "I know I will!" 

Toran and Bayta came closer to "setting up housekeeping" in normal fashion than at any time 
in their year of married life. It was a strange sort of "housekeeping." They lived in the middle of 
grandeur with an inappropriate simplicity. Their food was drawn largely from Lee Senter's farm 
and was paid for in the little nuclear gadgets that may be found on any Trader's ship. 

Magnifico taught himself how to use the projectors in the library reading room, and sat over 
adventure novels and romances to the point where he was almost as forgetful of meals and 
sleep as was Ebling Mis. 

Ebling himself was completely buried. Fie had insisted on a hammock being slung up for him in 
the Psychology Reference Room. His face grew thin and white. His vigor of speech was lost 
and his favorite curses had died a mild death. There were times when the recognition of either 



Toran or Bayta seemed a struggle. 

He was more himself with Magnifico who brought him his meals and often sat watching him for 
hours at a time, with a queer, fascinated absorption, as the aging psychologist transcribed 
endless equations, cross-referred to endless book-films, scurried endlessly about in a wild 
mental effort towards an end he alone saw. 

Toran came upon her in the darkened room, and said sharply, "Bayta!" 

Bayta started guiltily. "Yes? You want me, Torie?" 

"Sure I want you. What in Space are you sitting there for? You've been acting all wrong since 
we got to Trantor. What's the matter with you?" 

"Oh, Torie, stop," she said, wearily. 

And "Oh, Torie, stop!" he mimicked impatiently. Then, with sudden softness, "Won't you tell me 
what's wrong, Bay? Something's bothering you." 

"No! Nothing is, Torie. If you keep on just nagging and nagging, you'll have me mad. I'm just — 
thinking." 

"Thinking about what?" 

"About nothing. Well, about the Mule, and Haven, and the Foundation, and everything. About 
Ebling Mis and whether he'll find anything about the Second Foundation, and whether it will 
help us when he does find it - and a million other things. Are you satisfied?" Her voice was 
agitated. 

"If you're just brooding, do you mind stopping? It isn't pleasant and it doesn't help the situation." 
Bayta got to her feet and smiled weakly. "All right. I'm happy. See, I'm smiling and jolly. " 
Magnifico's voice was an agitated cry outside. "My lady-" 

"What is it? Come-" 

Bayta's voice choked off sharply when the opening door framed the large, hard-faced- 
"Pritcher," cried Toran. 

Bayta gasped, "Captain! How did you find us?" 

Han Pritcher stepped inside. His voice was clear and level, and utterly dead of feeling, "My rank 
is colonel now - under the Mule." 

"Under the ... Mule!" Toran's voice trailed off. They formed a tableau there, the three. 

Magnifico stared wildly and shrank behind Toran. Nobody stopped to notice him. 

Bayta said, her hands trembling in each other's tight grasp, "You are arresting us? You have 
really gone over to them?" 



The colonel replied quickly, "I have not come to arrest you. My instructions make no mention of 
you. With regard to you, I am free, and I choose to exercise our old friendship, if you will let 
me." 

Toran's face was a twisted suppression of fury, "How did you find us? You were in the Filian 
ship, then? You followed us?" 

The wooden lack of expression on Pritcher's face might have flickered in embarrassment. "I 
was on the Filian ship! I met you in the first place ... well ... by chance." 

"It is a chance that is mathematically impossible." 

"No. Simply rather improbable, so my statement will have to stand. In any case, you admitted to 
the. Filians - there is, of course, no such nation as Filia actually - that you were heading for the 
Trantor sector, and since the Mule already had his contacts upon Neotrantor, it was easy to 
have you detained there. Unfortunately, you got away before I arrived, but not long before. I 
had time to have the farms on Trantor ordered to report your arrival. It was done and I am here. 
May I sit down? I come in friendliness, believe me. 

He sat. Toran bent his head and thought futilely. With a numbed lack of emotion, Bayta 
prepared tea. 

Toran looked up harshly. "Well, what are you waiting for - colonel? What's your friendship? If 
it's not arrest, what is it then? Protective custody? Call in your men and give your orders." 

Patiently, Pritcher shook his head. "No, Toran. I come of my own will to speak to you, to 
persuade you of the uselessness of what you are doing. If I fail I shall leave. That is all." 

"That is all? Well, then peddle your propaganda, give us your speech, and leave. I don't want 
any tea, Bayta." 

Pritcher accepted a cup, with a grave word of thanks. He looked at Toran with a clear strength 
as he sipped lightly. Then he said, "The Mule is a mutant. He can not be beaten in the very 
nature of the mutation-" 

"Why? What is the mutation?" asked Toran, with sour humor. "I suppose you'll tell us now, eh?" 

"Yes, I will. Your knowledge won't hurt him. You see - he is capable of adjusting the emotional 
balance of human beings. It sounds like a little trick, but it's quite unbeatable." 

Bayta broke in, "The emotional balance?" She frowned, "Won't you explain that? I don't quite 
understand." 

"I mean that it is an easy matter for him to instill into a capable general, say, the emotion of 
utter loyalty to the Mule and complete belief in the Mule's victory. His generals are emotionally 
controlled. They can not betray him; they can not weaken - and the control is permanent. His 
most capable enemies become his most faithful subordinates, The warlord of Kalgan 
surrenders his planet and becomes his viceroy for the Foundation." 

"And you," added Bayta, bitterly, "betray your cause and become Mule's envoy to Trantor. I 
see!" 



"I haven't finished. The Mule's gift works in reverse even more effectively. Despair is an 
emotion! At the crucial moment, keymen on the Foundation - keymen on Haven - despaired. 
Their worlds fell without too much struggle." 

"Do you mean to say," demanded Bayta, tensely, "that the feeling I had in the Time Vault was 
the Mule juggling my emotional control." 

"Mine, too. Everyone's. How was it on Haven towards the end?" 

Bayta turned away. 

Colonel Pritcher continued earnestly, "As it works for worlds, so it works for individuals. Can 
you fight a force which can make you surrender willingly when it so desires; can make you a 
faithful servant when it so desires?" 

Toran said slowly, "How do I know this is the truth?" 

"Can you explain the fall of the Foundation and of Haven otherwise? Can you explain my 
conversion otherwise? Think, man! What have you - or I - or the whole Galaxy accomplished 
against the Mule in all this time? What one little thing?" 

Toran felt the challenge, "By the Galaxy, I can!" With a sudden touch of fierce satisfaction, he 
shouted, "Your wonderful Mule had contacts with Neotrantor you say that were to have 
detained us, eh? Those contacts are dead or worse. We killed the crown prince and left the 
other a whimpering idiot. The Mule did not stop us there, and that much has been undone." 

"Why, no, not at all. Those weren't our men. The crown prince was a wine-soaked mediocrity. 
The other man, Commason, is phenomenally stupid. He was a power on his world but that 
didn't prevent him from being vicious, evil, and completely incompetent. We had nothing really 
to do with them. They were, in a sense, merely feints-" 

"It was they who detained us, or tried." 

"Again, no. Commason had a personal slave - a man called Inchney. Detention was his policy. 
He is old, but will serve our temporary purpose. You would not have killed him, you see." 

Bayta whirled on him. She had not touched her own tea. "But, by your very statement, your own 
emotions have been tampered with. You've got faith and belief in the Mule, an unnatural, a 
diseased faith in the Mule. Of what value are your opinions? You've lost all power of objective 
thought." 

"You are wrong." Slowly, the colonel shook his head. "Only my emotions are fixed. My reason 
is as it always was. It may be influenced in a certain direction by my conditioned emotions, but 
it is not forced. And there are some things I can see more clearly now that I am freed of my 
earlier emotional trend. 

"I can see that the Mule's program is an intelligent and worthy one. In the time since I have 
been - converted, I have followed his career from its start seven years ago. With his mutant 
mental power, he began by winning over a condottiere and his band. With that - and his power 
- he won a planet. With that - and his power - he extended his grip until he could tackle the 



warlord of Kalgan. Each step followed the other logically. With Kalgan in his pocket, he had a 
first-class fleet, and with that - and his power - he could attack the Foundation. 

"The Foundation is the key. It is the greatest area of industrial concentration in the Galaxy, and 
now that the nuclear techniques of the Foundation are in his hands, he is the actual master of 
the Galaxy. With those techniques - and his power - he can force the remnants of the Empire 
to acknowledge his rule, and eventually - with the death of the old emperor, who is mad and 
not long for this world - to crown him emperor. Fie will then have the name as well as the fact. 
With that - and his power - where is the world in the Galaxy that can oppose him? 

"In these last seven years, he has established a new Empire. In seven years, in other words, he 
will have accomplished what all Seldon's psychohistory could not have done in less than an 
additional seven hundred. The Galaxy will have peace and order at last. 

"And you could not stop it - any more than you could stop a planet's rush with your shoulders." 

A long silence followed Pritcher's speech. What remained of his tea had grown cold. Fie 
emptied his cup, filled it again, and drained it slowly. Toran bit viciously at a thumbnail. Bayta's 
face was cold, and distant, and white. 

Then Bayta said in a thin voice, "We are not convinced. If the Mule wishes us to be, let him 
come here and condition us himself. You fought him until the last moment of your conversion, I 
imagine, didn't you?" 

"I did," said Colonel Pritcher, solemnly. 

"Then allow us the same privilege." 

Colonel Pritcher arose. With a crisp air of finality, he said, "Then I leave. As I said earlier, my 
mission at present concerns you in no way. Therefore, I don't think it will be necessary to report 
your presence here. That is not too great a kindness. If the Mule wishes you stopped, he no 
doubt has other men assigned to the job, and you will be stopped. But, for what it is worth, I 
shall not contribute more than my requirement." 

"Thank you," said Bayta faintly. 

"As for Magnifico. Where is he? Come out, Magnifico, I won't hurt you-" 

"What about him?" demanded Bayta, with sudden animation. 

"Nothing. My instructions make no mention of him, either. I have heard that he is searched for, 
but the Mule will find him when the time suits him. I shall say nothing. Will you shake hands?" 

Bayta shook her head. Toran glared his frustrated contempt. 

There was the slightest lowering of the colonel's iron shoulders. Fie strode to the door, turned 
and said: 

"One last thing. Don't think I am not aware of the source of your stubbornness. It is known that 
you search for the Second Foundation. The Mule, in his time, will take his measures. Nothing 
will help you - But I knew you in other times; perhaps there is something in my conscience that 



urged me to this; at any rate, I tried to help you and remove you from the final danger before it 
was too late. Good-by." 

He saluted sharply - and was gone. 

Bayta turned to a silent Toran, and whispered, "They even know about the Second 
Foundation." 

In the recesses of the library, Ebling Mis, unaware of all, crouched under the one spark of light 
amid the murky spaces and mumbled triumphantly to himself. 


25. DEATH OF A PSYCHOLOGIST 

After that there were only two weeks left to the life of Ebling Mis. 

And in those two weeks, Bayta was with him three times. The first time was on the night after 
the evening upon which they saw Colonel Pritcher. The second was one week later. And the 
third was again a week later - on the last day - the day Mis died. 

First, there was the night of Colonel Pritcher's evening, the first hour of which was spent by a 
stricken pair in a brooding, unmerry merry-go-round. 

Bayta said, "Torie, let's tell Ebling." 

Toran said dully, "Think he can help?" 

"We're only two. We've got to take some of the weight off. Maybe he can help." 

Toran said, "He's changed. He's lost weight. He's a little feathery; a little woolly." His fingers 
groped in air, metaphorically. "Sometimes, I don't think he'll help us muchever. Sometimes, I 
don't think anything will help." 

"Don't!" Bayta's voice caught and escaped a break, "Torie, don't! When you say that, I think the 
Mule's getting us. Let's tell Ebling, Torie - now!" 

Ebling Mis raised his head from the long desk, and bleared at them as they approached. His 
thinning hair was scuffed up, his lips made sleepy, smacking sounds. 

"Eh?" he said. "Someone want me?" 

Bayta bent to her knees, "Did we wake you? Shall we leave?" 

"Leave? Who is it? Bayta? No, no, stay! Aren't there chairs? I saw them-" His finger pointed 
vaguely. 

Toran pushed two ahead of him. Bayta sat down and took one of the psychologist's flaccid 
hands in hers. "May we talk to you, Doctor?" She rarely used the title. 

"Is something wrong?" A little sparkle returned to his abstracted eyes. His sagging cheeks 
regained a touch of color. "Is something wrong?" 



Bayta said, "Captain Pritcher has been here. Let me talk, Torie. You remember Captain 
Pritcher, Doctor?" 

"Yes- Yes-" His fingers pinched his lips and released them. "Tall man. Democrat." 

"Yes, he. He's discovered the Mule's mutation. He was here, Doctor, and told us." 

"But that is nothing new. The Mule's mutation is straightened out." In honest astonishment, 
"Haven't I told you? Have I forgotten to tell you?" 

"Forgotten to tell us what?" put in Toran, quickly. 

"About the Mule's mutation, of course. He tampers with emotions. Emotional control! I haven't 
told you? Now what made me forget?" Slowly, he sucked in his under lip and considered. 

Then, slowly, life crept into his voice and his eyelids lifted wide, as though his sluggish brain 
had slid onto a well-greased single track. He spoke in a dream, looking between the two 
listeners rather than at them. "It is really so simple. It requires no specialized knowledge. In the 
mathematics of psychohistory, of course, it works out promptly, in a third-level equation 
involving no more - Never mind that. It can be put into ordinary words - roughly - and have it 
make sense, which isn't usual with psychohistorical phenomena. 

"Ask yourselves - What can upset Hari Seldon's careful scheme of history, eh?" He peered 
from one to the other with a mild, questioning anxiety. "What were Seldon's original 
assumptions? First, that there would be no fundamental change in human society over the next 
thousand years. 

"For instance, suppose there were a major change in the Galaxy's technology, such as finding 
a new principle for the utilization of energy, or perfecting the study of electronic neurobiology. 
Social changes would render Seldon's original equations obsolete. But that hasn't happened, 
has it now?" 

"Or suppose that a new weapon were to be invented by forces outside the Foundation, capable 
of withstanding all the Foundation's armaments. That might cause a ruinous deviation, though 
less certainly. But even that hasn't happened. The Mule's Nuclear Field-Depressor was a 
clumsy weapon and could be countered. And that was the only novelty he presented, poor as it 
was. 

"But there was a second assumption, a more subtle one! Seldon assumed that human reaction 
to stimuli would remain constant. Granted that the first assumption held true, then the second 
must have broken down! Some factor must be twisting and distorting the emotional responses 
of human beings or Seldon couldn't have failed and the Foundation couldn't have fallen. And 
what factor but the Mule? 

"Am I right? Is there a flaw in the reasoning?" 

Bayta's plump hand patted his gently. "No flaw, Ebling." 

Mis was joyful, like a child. "This and more comes so easily. I tell you I wonder sometimes what 
is going on inside me. I seem to recall the time when so much was a mystery to me and now 



things are so clear. Problems are absent. I come across what might be one, and somehow, 
inside me, I see and understand. And my guesses, my theories seem always to be borne out. 
There's a drive in me ... always onward ... so that I can't stop ... and I don't want to eat or sleep 
... but always go on ... and on ... and on-" 

His voice was a whisper; his wasted, blue-veined hand rested tremblingly upon his forehead. 
There was a frenzy in his eyes that faded and went out. 

He said more quietly, "Then I never told you about the Mule's mutant powers, did I? But then ... 
did you say you knew about it?" 

"It was Captain Pritcher, Ebling," said Bayta. "Remember?" 

"He told you?" There was a tinge of outrage in his tone. "But how did he find out?" 

"He's been conditioned by the Mule. He's a colonel now, a Mule's man. He came to advise us 
to surrender to the Mule, and he told us - what you told us." 

"Then the Mule knows we're here? I must hurry - Where's Magnifico? Isn't he with you?" 
"Magnifico's sleeping," said Toran, impatiently. "It's past midnight, you know." 

"It is? Then - Was I sleeping when you came in?" 

"You were," said Bayta decisively, "and you're not going back to work, either. You're getting into 
bed. Come on, Torie, help me. And you stop pushing at me, Ebling, because it's just your luck I 
don't shove you under a shower first. Pull off his shoes, Torie, and tomorrow you come down 
here and drag him out into the open air before he fades completely away. Look at you, Ebling, 
you'll be growing cobwebs. Are you hungry?" 

Ebling Mis shook his head and looked up from his cot in a peevish confusion. "I want you to 
send Magnifico down tomorrow," he muttered. 

Bayta tucked the sheet around his neck. "You'll have me down tomorrow, with washed clothes. 
You're going to take a good bath, and then get out and visit the farm and feel a little sun on 
you." 

"I won't do it," said Mis weakly. "You hear me? I'm too busy." 

His sparse hair spread out on the pillow like a silver fringe about his head. His voice was a 
confidential whisper. "You want that Second Foundation, don't you?" 

Toran turned quickly and squatted down on the cot beside him. "What about the Second 
Foundation, Ebling?" 

The psychologist freed an arm from beneath the sheet and his tired fingers clutched at Toran's 
sleeve. "The Foundations were established at a great Psychological Convention presided over 
by Hari Seldon. Toran, I have located the published minutes of that Convention. Twenty-five fat 
films. I have already looked through various summaries." 


Well? 



"Well, do you know that it is very easy to find from them the exact location of the First 
Foundation, if you know anything at all about psychohistory. It is frequently referred to, when 
you understand the equations. But Toran, nobody mentions the Second Foundation, There has 
been no reference to it anywhere." 

Toran's eyebrows pulled into a frown. "It doesn't exist?" 

"Of course it exists," cried Mis, angrily, "who said it didn't? But there's less talk of it. Its 
significance - and all about it - are better hidden, better obscured. Don't you see? It's the more 
important of the two. It's the critical one; the one that counts! And I've got the minutes of the 
Seldon Convention. The Mule hasn't won yet-" 

Quietly, Bayta turned the lights down. "Go to sleep!" 

Without speaking, Toran and Bayta made their way up to their own quarters. 

The next day, Ebling Mis bathed and dressed himself, saw the sun of Trantor and felt the wind 
of Trantor for the last time. At the end of the day he was once again submerged in the gigantic 
recesses of the library, and never emerged thereafter. 

In the week that followed, life settled again into its groove. The sun of Neotrantor was a calm, 
bright star in Trantor's night sky. The farm was busy with its spring planting. The University 
grounds were silent in their desertion. The Galaxy seemed empty. The Mule might never have 
existed. 

Bayta was thinking that as she watched Toran light his cigar carefully and look up at the 
sections of blue sky visible between the swarming metal spires that encircled the horizon. 

"It's a nice day," he said. 

"Yes, it is. Flave you everything mentioned on the list, Torie?" 

"Sure. Half pound butter, dozen eggs, string beans - Got it all down here, Bay. I'll have it right." 

"Good. And make sure the vegetables are of the last harvest and not museum relics. Did you 
see Magnifico anywhere, by the way?" 

"Not since breakfast. Guess he's down with Ebling, watching a book-film." 

"All right. Don't waste any time, because I'll need the eggs for dinner." 

Toran left with a backward smile and a wave of the hand. 

Bayta turned away as Toran slid out of sight among the maze of metal. She hesitated before 
the kitchen door, about-faced slowly, and entered the colonnade leading to the elevator that 
burrowed down into the recesses. 

Ebling Mis was there, head bent down over the eyepieces of the projector, motionless, a 
frozen, questing body. Near him sat Magnifico, screwed up into a chair, eyes sharp and 
watching - a bundle of slatty limbs with a nose emphasizing his scrawny face. 

Bayta said softly, "Magnifico-" 



Magnifico scrambled to his feet. His voice was an eager whisper. "My lady!" 

"Magnifico," said Bayta, "Toran has left for the farm and won't be back for a while. Would you 
be a good boy and go out after him with a message that I'll write for you?" 

"Gladly, my lady. My small services are but too eagerly yours, for the tiny uses you can put 
them to." 

She was alone with Ebling Mis, who had not moved. Firmly, she placed her hand upon his 
shoulder. "Ebling-" 

The psychologist started, with a peevish cry, "What is it?" He wrinkled his eyes. "Is it you, 
Bayta? Where's Magnifico?" 

"I sent him away. I want to be alone with you for a while." She enunciated her words with 
exaggerated distinctness. "I want to talk to you, Ebling." 

The psychologist made a move to return to his projector, but her hand on his shoulder was firm. 
She felt the bone under the sleeve clearly. The flesh seemed to have fairly melted away since 
their arrival on Trantor. His face was thin, yellowish, and bore a half-week stubble. His 
shoulders were visibly stooped, even in a sitting position. 

Bayta said, "Magnifico isn't bothering you, is he, Ebling? He seems to be down here night and 
day." 

"No, no, no! Not at all. Why, I don't mind him. He is silent and never disturbs me. Sometimes he 
carries the films back and forth for me; seems to know what I want without my speaking. Just 
let him be." 

"Very well - but, Ebling, doesn't he make you wonder? Do you hear me, Ebling? Doesn't he 
make you wonder?" 

She jerked a chair close to his and stared at him as though to pull the answer out of his eyes. 
Ebling Mis shook his head. "No. What do you mean?" 

"I mean that Colonel Pritcher and you both say the Mule can condition the emotions of human 
beings. But are you sure of it? Isn't Magnifico himself a flaw in the theory?" 

There was silence. 

Bayta repressed a strong desire to shake the psychologist. "What's wrong with you, Ebling? 
Magnifico was the Mule's clown. Why wasn't he conditioned to love and faith? Why should he, 
of all those in contact with the Mule, hate him so. 

"But ... but he was conditioned. Certainly, Bay!" He seemed to gather certainty as he spoke. 

"Do you suppose that the Mule treats his clown the way he treats his generals? He needs faith 
and loyalty in the latter, but in his clown he needs only fear. Didn't you ever notice that 
Magnifico's continual state of panic is pathological in nature? Do you suppose it is natural for a 
human being to be as frightened as that all the time? Fear to such an extent becomes comic. It 
was probably comic to the Mule - and helpful, too, since it obscured what help we might have 



gotten earlier from Magnifico." 

Bayta said, "You mean Magnifico's information about the Mule was false?" 

"it was misleading. It was colored by pathological fear. The Mule is not the physical giant 
Magnifico thinks. He is more probably an ordinary man outside his mental powers. But if it 
amused him to appear a superman to poor Magnifico-" The psychologist shrugged. "In any 
case, Magnifico's information is no longer of importance." 

"What is, then?" 

But Mis shook himself loose and returned to his projector. 

"What is, then?" she repeated. "The Second Foundation?" 

The psychologist's eyes jerked towards her. "Have I told you anything about that? I don't 
remember telling you anything. I'm not ready yet. What have I told you?" 

"Nothing," said Bayta, intensely. "Oh, Galaxy, you've told me nothing, but I wish you would 
because I'm deathly tired. When will it be over?" 

Ebling Mis peered at her, vaguely rueful, "Well, now, my ... my dear, I did not mean to hurt you. 

I forget sometimes ... who my friends are. Sometimes it seems to me that I must not talk of all 
this. There's a need for secrecy - but from the Mule, not from you, my dear." He patted her 
shoulder with a weak amiability. 

She said, "What about the Second Foundation?" 

His voice was automatically a whisper, thin and sibilant. "Do you know the thoroughness with 
which Seldon covered his traces? The proceedings of the Seldon Convention would have been 
of no use to me at a as little as a month ago, before this strange insight came. Even now, it 
seems - tenuous. The papers put out by the Convention are often apparently unrelated; always 
obscure. More than once I wondered if the members of the Convention, themselves, knew all 
that was in Seldon's mind. Sometimes I think he used the Convention only as a gigantic front, 
and single-handed erected the structure-" 

"Of the Foundations?" urged Bayta. 

"Of the Second Foundation! Our Foundation was simple. But the Second Foundation was only 
a name. It was mentioned, but if there was any elaboration, it was hidden deep in the 
mathematics. There is still much I don't even begin to understand, but for seven days, the bits 
have been clumping together into a vague picture. 

"Foundation Number One was a world of physical scientists. It represented a concentration of 
the dying science of the Galaxy under the conditions necessary to make it live again. No 
psychologists were included. It was a peculiar distortion, and must have had a purpose. The 
usual explanation was that Seldon's psychohistory worked best where the individual working 
units - human beings - had no knowledge of what was coming, and could therefore react 
naturally to all situations. Do you follow me, my dear-" 


Yes, doctor. 



"Then listen carefully. Foundation Number Two was a world of mental scientists. It was the 
mirror image of our world. Psychology, not physics, was king." Triumphantly. "You see?" 

"I don't." 

"But think, Bayta, use your head. Hari Seldon knew that his psychohistory could predict only 
probabilities, and not certainties. There was always a margin of error, and as time passed that 
margin increases in geometric progression. Seldon would naturally guard as well as he could 
against it. Our Foundation was scientifically vigorous. It could conquer armies and weapons. It 
could pit force against force. But what of the mental attack of a mutant such as the Mule?" 

"That would be for the psychologists of the Second Foundation!" Bayta felt excitement rising 
within her. 

"Yes, yes, yes! Certainly!" 

"But they have done nothing so far." 

"Flow do you know they haven't?" 

Bayta considered that, "I don't. Do you have evidence that they have?" 

"No. There are many factors I know nothing of. The Second Foundation could not have been 
established full-grown, any more than we were. We developed slowly and grew in strength; 
they must have also. The stars know at what stage their strength is now. Are they strong 
enough to fight the Mule? Are they aware of the danger in the first place? Flave they capable 
leaders?" 

"But if they follow Seldon's plan, then the Mule must be beaten by the Second Foundation." 

"Ah," and Ebling Mis's thin face wrinkled thoughtfully, "is it that again? But the Second 
Foundation was a more difficult job than the First. Its complexity is hugely greater; and 
consequently so is its possibility of error. And if the Second Foundation should not beat the 
Mule, it is bad - ultimately bad. It is the end, may be, of the human race as we know it." 

"No. 

"Yes. If the Mule's descendants inherit his mental powers - You see? Flomo sapiens could not 
compete. There would be a new dominant race - a new aristocracy - with homo sapiens 
demoted to slave labor as an inferior race. Isn't that so?" 

"Yes, that is so." 

"And even if by some chance the Mule did not establish a dynasty, he would still establish a 
distorted new Empire upheld by his personal power only. It would die with his death; the Galaxy 
would be left where it was before he came, except that there would no longer be Foundations 
around which a real and healthy Second Empire could coalesce. It would mean thousands of 
years of barbarism. It would mean no end in sight." 


What can we do? Can we warn the Second Foundation? 



"We must, or they may go under through ignorance, which we can not risk. But there is no way 
of warning them." 

"No way?" 

"I don't know where they are located. They are 'at the other end of the Galaxy' but that is all, 
and there are millions of worlds to choose from." 

"But, Ebling, don't they say?" She pointed vaguely at the films that covered the table. 

"No, they don't. Not where I can find it - yet. The secrecy must mean something. There must 
be a reason-" A puzzled expression returned to his eyes. "But I wish you'd leave. I have 
wasted enough time, and it's growing short - it's growing short." 

He tore away, petulant and frowning. 

Magnifico's soft step approached. "Your husband is home, my lady." 

Ebling Mis did not greet the clown. He was back at his projector. 

That evening Toran, having listened, spoke, "And you think he's really right, Bay? You think he 
isn't-" He hesitated. 

"He is right, Torie. He's sick, I know that. The change that's come over him, the loss in weight, 
the way he speaks - he's sick. But as soon as the subject of the Mule or the Second 
Foundation, or anything he is working on, comes up, listen to him. He is lucid and clear as the 
sky of outer space. He knows what he's talking about. I believe him." 

"Then there's hope." It was half a question. 

"I ... I haven't worked it out. Maybe! Maybe not! I'm carrying a blaster from now on." The 
shiny-barreled weapon was in her hand as she spoke. "Just in case, Torie, just in case." 

"In case what?" 

Bayta laughed with a touch of hysteria, "Never mind. Maybe I'm a little crazy, too - like Ebling 
Mis." 

Ebling Mis at that time had seven days to live, and the seven days slipped by, one after the 
other, quietly. 

To Toran, there was a quality of stupor about them. The warming days and the dull silence 
covered him with lethargy. All life seemed to have lost its quality of action, and changed into an 
infinite sea of hibernation. 

Mis was a hidden entity whose burrowing work produced nothing and did not make itself 
known. He had barricaded himself. Neither Toran nor Bayta could see him. Only Magnifico's 
go-between characteristics were evidence of his existence. Magnifico, grown silent and 
thoughtful, with his tiptoed trays of food and his still, watchful witness in the gloom. 

Bayta was more and more a creature of herself. The vivacity died, the self-assured competence 
wavered. She, too, sought her own worried, absorbed company, and once Toran bad come 



upon her, fingering her blaster. She had put it away quickly, forced a smile. 

"What are you doing with it, Bay?" 

"Holding it. Is that a crime?" 

"You'll blow your fool head off." 

"Then I'll blow it off. Small loss!" 

Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood. He 
shrugged, and left her. 

On the last day, Magnifico scampered breathless into their presence. He clutched at them, 
frightened. "The learned doctor calls for you. He is not well." 

And he wasn't well. He was in bed, his eyes unnaturally large, unnaturally bright. He was dirty, 
unrecognizable. 

"Ebling!" cried Bayta. 

"Let me speak," croaked the psychologist, lifting his weight to a thin elbow with an effort. "Let 
me speak. I am finished; the work I pass on to you. I have kept no notes; the scrap-figures I 
have destroyed. No other must know. All must remain in your minds." 

"Magnifico," said Bayta, with rough directness. "Go upstairs!" 

Reluctantly, the clown rose and took a backward step. His sad eyes were on Mis. 

Mis gestured weakly, "He won't matter; let him stay. Stay, Magnifico." 

The clown sat down quickly. Bayta gazed at the floor. 

Slowly, slowly, her lower lip caught in her teeth. 

Mis said, in a hoarse whisper, "I am convinced the Second Foundation can win, if it is not 
caught prematurely by the Mule. It has kept itself secret; the secrecy must be upheld; it has a 
purpose. You must go there; your information is vital ... may make all the difference. Do you 
hear me?" 

Toran cried in near-agony, "Yes, yes! Tell us how to get there, Ebling? Where is it?" 

"I can tell you," said the faint voice. 

He never did. 

Bayta, face frozen white, lifted her blaster and shot, with an echoing clap of noise. From the 
waist upward, Mis was not, and a ragged hole was in the wall behind. From numb fingers, 
Bayta's blaster dropped to the floor. 



26. END OF THE SEARCH 

There was not a word to be said. The echoes of the blast rolled away into the outer rooms and 
rumbled downward into a hoarse, dying whisper. Before its death, it had muffled the sharp 
clamor of Bayta's falling blaster, smothered Magnifico's high-pitched cry, drowned out Toran's 
inarticulate roar. 

There was a silence of agony. 

Bayta's head was bent into obscurity. A droplet caught the light as it fell. Bayta had never wept 
since her childhood. 

Toran's muscles almost cracked in their spasm, but he did not relax - he felt as if he would 
never unclench his teeth again. Magnifico's face was a faded, lifeless mask. 

Finally, from between teeth still tight, Toran choked out in an unrecognizable voice, "You're a 
Mule's woman, then. He got to you!" 

Bayta looked up, and her mouth twisted with a painful merriment, "/, a Mule's woman? That's 
ironic." 

She smiled - a brittle effort - and tossed her hair back. Slowly, her voice verged back to the 
normal, or something near it. "It's over, Toran; I can talk now. How much I will survive, I don't 
know. But I can start talking-" 

Toran's tension had broken of its own weight and faded into a flaccid dullness, "Talk about 
what, Bay? What's there to talk about?" 

"About the calamity that's followed us. We've remarked about it before, Torie. Don't you 
remember? How defeat has always bitten at our heels and never actually managed to nip us? 
We were on the Foundation, and it collapsed while the Independent Traders still fought - but 
we got out in time to go to Haven. We were on Haven, and it collapsed while the others still 
fought - and again we got out in time. We went to Neotrantor, and by now it's undoubtedly 
joined the Mule." 

Toran listened and shook his head, "I don't understand." 

"Torie, such things don't happen in real life. You and I are insignificant people; we don't fall from 
one vortex of politics into another continuously for the space of a year - unless we carry the 
vortex with us. Unless we carry the source of infection with us! Now do you see?" 

Toran's lips tightened. His glance fixed horribly upon the bloody remnants of what had once 
been a human, and his eyes sickened. 

"Let's get out of here, Bay. Let's get out into the open." 

It was cloudy outside. The wind scudded about them in drab spurts and disordered Bayta's hair. 
Magnifico had crept after them and now he hovered at the edge of their conversation. 

Toran said tightly, "You killed Ebling Mis because you believed him to be the focus of 



infection?" Something in her eyes struck him. He whispered, "He was the Mule?" He did not - 
could not - believe the implications of his own words. 

Bayta laughed sharply, "Poor Ebling the Mule? Galaxy, no! I couldn't have killed him if he were 
the Mule. He would have detected the emotion accompanying the move and changed it for me 
to love, devotion, adoration, terror, whatever he pleased. No, I killed Ebling because he was not 
the Mule. I killed him because he knew where the Second Foundation was, and in two seconds 
would have told the Mule the secret." 

"Would have told the Mule the secret," Toran repeated stupidly. "Told the Mule-" 

And then he emitted a sharp cry, and turned to stare in horror at the clown, who might have 
been crouching unconscious there for the apparent understanding he had of what he heard. 

"Not Magnifico?" Toran whispered the question. 

"Listen!" said Bayta. "Do you remember what happened on Neotrantor? Oh, think for yourself, 
Torie-" 

But he shook his head and mumbled at her. 

She went on, wearily, "A man died on Neotrantor. A man died with no one touching him. Isn't 
that true? Magnifico played on his Visi-Sonor and when he was finished, the crown prince was 
dead. Now isn't that strange? Isn't it queer that a creature afraid of everything, apparently 
helpless with terror, has the capacity to kill at will." 

"The music and the light-effects," said Toran, "have a profound emotional effect-" 

"Yes, an emotional effect. A pretty big one. Emotional effects happen to be the Mule's specialty. 
That, I suppose, can be considered a coincidence. And a creature who can kill by suggestion is 
so full of fright. Well, the Mule tampered with his mind, supposedly, so that can be explained. 
But, Toran, I caught a little of that Visi-Sonor selection that killed the crown prince. Just a little - 
but it was enough to give me that same feeling of despair I had in the Time Vault and on 
Haven. Toran, I can't mistake that particular feeling." 

Toran's face was darkening. "I ... felt it, too. I forgot. I never thought-" 

"It was then that it first occurred to me. It was just a vague feeling - intuition, if you like. I had 
nothing to go on. And then Pritcher told us of the Mule and his mutation, and it was clear in a 
moment. It was the Mule who had created the despair in the Time Vault; it was Magnifico who 
had created the despair on Neotrantor. It was the same emotion. Therefore, the Mule and 
Magnifico were the same person. Doesn't it work out nicely, Torie? Isn't it just like an axiom in 
geometry - things equal to the same thing are equal to each other?" 

She was at the edge of hysteria, but dragged herself back to sobriety by main force. She 
continued, "The discovery scared me to death. If Magnifico were the Mule, he could know my 
emotions - and cure them for his own purposes. I dared not let him know. I avoided him. 

Luckily, he avoided me also; he was too interested in Ebling Mis. I planned killing Mis before he 
could talk. I planned it secretly - as secretly as I could - so secretly I didn't dare tell it to myself. 



"If I could have killed the Mule himself - But I couldn't take the chance. He would have noticed, 
and I would have lost everything." 

She seemed drained of emotion. 

Toran said harshly and with finality, "It's impossible. Look at the miserable creature. He the 
Mule? He doesn't even hear what we're saying." 

But when his eyes followed his pointing finger, Magnifico was erect and alert, his eyes sharp 
and darkly bright. His voice was without a trace of an accent, "I hear her, my friend. It is merely 
that I have been sitting here and brooding on the fact that with all my cleverness and 
forethought I could make a mistake, and lose so much." 

Toran stumbled backward as if afraid the clown might touch him or that his breath might 
contaminate him. 

Magnifico nodded, and answered the unspoken question. "I am the Mule." 

He seemed no longer a grotesque; his pipestem limbs, his beak of a nose lost their 
humor-compelling qualities. His fear was gone; his bearing was firm. 

He was in command of the situation with an ease born of usage. 

He said, tolerantly, "Seat yourselves. Go ahead; you might as well sprawl out and make 
yourselves comfortable. The game's over, and I'd like to tell you a story. It's a weakness of 
mine - I want people to understand me." 

And his eyes as he looked at Bayta were still the old, soft sad brown ones of Magnifico, the 
clown. 

"There is nothing really to my childhood," he began, plunging bodily into quick, impatient 
speech, "that I care to remember. Perhaps you can understand that. My meagerness is 
glandular; my nose I was born with. It was not possible for me to lead a normal childhood. My 
mother died before she saw me. I do not know my father. I grew up haphazard, wounded and 
tortured in mind, full of self-pity and hatred of others. I was known then as a queer child. All 
avoided me; most out of dislike; some out of fear. Queer incidents occurred - Well, never mind! 
Enough happened to enable Captain Pritcher, in his investigation of my childhood to realize 
that I was a mutant, which was more than / ever realized until I was in my twenties." 

Toran and Bayta listened distantly. The wash of his voice broke over them, seated on the 
ground as they were, unheeded almost. The clown - or the Mule - paced before them with little 
steps, speaking downward to his own folded arms. 

"The whole notion of my unusual power seems to have broken on me so slowly, in such 
sluggish steps. Even toward the end, I couldn't believe it. To me, men's minds are dials, with 
pointers that indicate the prevailing emotion. It is a poor picture, but how else can I explain it? 
Slowly, I learned that I could reach into those minds and turn the pointer to the spot I wished, 
that I could nail it there forever. And then it took even longer to realize that others couldn't. 

"But the consciousness of power came, and with it, the desire to make up for the miserable 



position of my earlier life. Maybe you can understand it. Maybe you can try to understand it. It 
isn't easy to be a freak - to have a mind and an understanding and be a freak. Laughter and 
cruelty! To be different! To be an outsider! 

"You've never been through it!" 

Magnifico looked up to the sky and teetered on the balls of his feet and reminisced stonily, "But 
I eventually did learn, and I decided that the Galaxy and I could take turns. Come, they had had 
their innings, and I had been patient about it - for twenty-two years. My turn! It would be up to 
the rest of you to take it! And the odds would be fair enough for the Galaxy. One of me! 
Quadrillions of them!" 

He paused to glance at Bayta swiftly. "But I had a weakness. I was nothing in myself. If I could 
gain power, it could only be by means of others. Success came to me through middlemen. 
Always! It was as Pritcher said. Through a pirate, I obtained my first asteroidal base of 
operations. Through an industrialist I got my first foothold on a planet. Through a variety of 
others ending with the warlord of Kalgan, I won Kalgan itself and got a navy. After that, it was 
the Foundation - and you two come into the story. 

"The Foundation," he said, softly, "was the most difficult task I had met. To beat it, I would have 
to win over, break down, or render useless an extraordinary proportion of its ruling class. I 
could have done it from scratch - but a short cut was possible, and I looked for it. After all, if a 
strong man can lift five hundred pounds, it does not mean that he is eager to do so 
continuously. My emotional control is not an easy task, I prefer not to use it, where not fully 
necessary. So I accepted allies in my first attack upon the Foundation. 

"As my clown, I looked for the agent, or agents, of the Foundation that must inevitably have 
been sent to Kalgan to investigate my humble self. I know now it was Han Pritcher I was 
looking for. By a stroke of fortune, I found you instead. I am a telepath, but not a complete one, 
and, my lady, you were from the Foundation. I was led astray by that. It was not fatal for 
Pritcher joined us afterward, but it was the starting point of an error that was fatal." 

Toran stirred for the first time. He spoke in an outraged tone, "Hold on, now. You mean that 
when I outfaced that lieutenant on Kalgan with only a stun pistol, and rescued you - that you 
had emotionally-controlled me into it." He was spluttering. "You mean I've been tampered with 
all along." 

A thin smile played on Magnifico's face. "Why not? You don't think it's likely? Ask yourself then 
- Would you have risked death for a strange grotesque you had never seen before, if you had 
been in your right mind? I imagine you were surprised at events in cold after-blood." 

"Yes," said Bayta, distantly, "he was. It's quite plain." 

"As it was," continued the Mule, "Toran was in no danger. The lieutenant had his own strict 
instructions to let us go. So the three of us and Pritcher went to the Foundation - and see how 
my campaign shaped itself instantly. When Pritcher was court-martialed and we were present, I 
was busy. The military judges of that trial later commanded their squadrons in the war. They 
surrendered rather easily, and my Navy won the battle of Horleggor, and other lesser affairs. 



"Through Pritcher, I met Dr. Mis, who brought me a Visi-Sonor, entirely of his own accord, and 
simplified my task immensely. Only it wasn't entirely of his own accord." 

Bayta interrupted, "Those concerts! I've been trying to fit them in. Now I see." 

"Yes," said Magnifico, "the Visi-Sonor acts as a focusing device. In a way, it is a primitive 
device for emotional control in itself. With it, I can handle people in quantity and single people 
more intensively. The concerts I gave on Terminus before it fell and Haven before it fell 
contributed to the general defeatism. I might have made the crown prince of Neotrantor very 
sick without the Visi-Sonor, but I could not have killed him. You see? 

"But it was Ebling Mis who was my most important find. He might have been-" Magnifico said it 
with chagrin, then hurried on, "There is a special facet to emotional control you do not know 
about. Intuition or insight or hunch-tendency, whatever you wish to call it, can be treated as an 
emotion. At least, I can treat it so. You don't understand it, do you?" 

He waited for no negative, "The human mind works at low efficiency. Twenty percent is the 
figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power it is termed a hunch, 
or insight, or intuition. I found early that I could induce a continual use of high brain-efficiency. It 
is a killing process for the person affected, but it is useful. The nuclear field-depressor which I 
used in the war against the Foundation was the result of high-pressuring a Kalgan technician. 
Again I work through others. 

"Ebling Mis was the bull's-eye. His potentialities were high, and I needed him. Even before my 
war with the Foundation had opened, I had already sent delegates to negotiate with the Empire. 
It was at that time I began my search for the Second Foundation. Naturally, I didn't find it. 
Naturally, I knew that I must find it - and Ebling Mis was the answer. With his mind at high 
efficiency, he might possibly have duplicated the work of Hari Seldon. 

"Partly, he did. I drove him to the utter limit. The process was ruthless, but had to be completed. 
He was dying at the end, but he lived-" Again, his chagrin interrupted him. "He would have 
lived long enough. Together, we three could have gone onward to the Second Foundation. It 
would have been the last battle - but for my mistake." 

Toran stirred his voice to hardness, "Why do you stretch it out so? What was your mistake, and 
... and have done with your speech." 

"Why, your wife was the mistake. Your wife was an unusual person. I had never met her like 
before in my life. I ... I-" Quite suddenly, Magnifico's voice broke. He recovered with difficulty. 
There was a grimness about him as he continued. "She liked me without my having to juggle 
her emotions. She was neither repelled by me nor amused by me. She liked me! 

"Don't you understand? Can't you see what that would mean to me? Never before had anyone 
- Well, I ... cherished that. My own emotions played me false, though I was master of all others. 
I stayed out of her mind, you see; I did not tamper with it. I cherished the natural feeling too 
greatly. It was my mistake - the first. 

"You, Toran, were under control. You never suspected me; never questioned me; never saw 
anything peculiar or strange about me. As for instance, when the 'Filian' ship stopped us. They 



knew our location, by the way, because I was in communication with them, as I've remained in 
communication with my generals at all times. When they stopped us, I was taken aboard to 
adjust Han Pritcher, who was on it as a prisoner. When I left, he was a colonel, a Mule's man, 
and in command. The whole procedure was too open even for you, Toran. Yet you accepted 
my explanation of the matter, which was full of fallacies. See what I mean?" 

Toran grimaced, and challenged him, "How did you retain communications with your generals?" 

"There was no difficulty to it. Hyperwave transmitters are easy to handle and eminently 
portable. Nor could I be detected in a real sense! Anyone who did catch me in the act would 
leave me with a slice gapped out of his memory. It happened, on occasion. 

"On Neotrantor, my own foolish emotions betrayed me again. Bayta was not under my control, 
but even so might never have suspected me if I had kept my head about the crown prince. His 
intentions towards Bayta - annoyed me. 

"I killed him. It was a foolish gesture. An unobtrusive flight would have served as well. 

"And still your suspicions would not have been certainties, if I had stopped Pritcher in his 
well-intentioned babbling, or paid less attention to Mis and more to you-" He shrugged. 

"That's the end of it?" asked Bayta. 

"That's the end." 

"What now, then?" 

"I'll continue with my program. That I'll find another as adequately brained and trained as Ebling 
Mis in these degenerate days, I doubt. I shall have to search for the Second Foundation 
otherwise. In a sense you have defeated me." 

And now Bayta was upon her feet, triumphant. "In a sense? Only in a sense? We have 
defeated you entirely! All your victories outside the Foundation count for nothing, since the 
Galaxy is a barbarian vacuum now. The Foundation itself is only a minor victory, since it wasn't 
meant to stop your variety of crisis. It's the Second Foundation you must beat - the Second 
Foundation - and it's the Second Foundation that will defeat you. Your only chance was to 
locate it and strike it before it was prepared. You won't do that now. Every minute from now on, 
they will be readier for you. At this moment, at this moment, the machinery may have started. 
You'll know - when it strikes you, and your short term of power will be over, and you'll be just 
another strutting conqueror, flashing quickly and meanly across the bloody face of history." 

She was breathing hard, nearly gasping in her vehemence, "And we've defeated you, Toran 
and I. I am satisfied to die." 

But the Mule's sad, brown eyes were the sad, brown, loving eyes of Magnifico. "I won't kill you 
or your husband. It is, after all, impossible for you two to hurt me further; and killing you won't 
bring back Ebling Mis. My mistakes were my own, and I take responsibility for them. Your 
husband and yourself may leave! Go in peace, for the sake of what I call - friendship." 

Then, with a sudden touch of pride, "And meanwhile I am still the Mule, the most powerful man 



in the Galaxy. I shall still defeat the Second Foundation." 

And Bayta shot her last arrow with a firm, calm certitude, "You won't! I have faith in the wisdom 
of Seldon yet. You shall be the last ruler of your dynasty, as well as the first." 

Something caught Magnifico. "Of my dynasty? Yes, I had thought of that, often. That I might 
establish a dynasty. That I might have a suitable consort." 

Bayta suddenly caught the meaning of the look in his eyes and froze horribly. 

Magnifico shook his head. "I sense your revulsion, but that's silly. If things were otherwise, I 
could make you happy very easily. It would be an artificial ecstasy, but there would be no 
difference between it and the genuine emotion. But things are not otherwise. I call myself the 
Mule - but not because of my strength - obviously-" 

He left them, never looking back. 




ASIMOV 


SECOND FOUNDATION 




SECOND FOUNDATION 
ISAAC ASIMOV 


Contents 

PROLOGUE 

PART I SEARCH BY THE MULE 

1 . TWO MEN AND THE MULE 

First Interlude 

2. TWO MEN WITHOUT THE MULE 

Second Interlude 

3. TWO MEN AND A PEASANT 

Third Interlude 

4. TWO MEN AND THE ELDERS 

Fourth Interlude 

5. ONE MAN AND THE MULE 

6. ONE MAN, THE MULE - AND ANOTHER 

Last Interlude 

PART II SEARCH BY THE FOUNDATION 

7. ARCADIA 

8. SELDON'S PLAN 

9. THE CONSPIRATORS 

10. APPROACHING CRISIS 

1 1 . STOWAWAY 

12. LORD 


13. LADY 


14. ANXIETY 

15. THROUGH THE GRID 

16. BEGINNING OF WAR 

1 7. WAR 

18. GHOST OF A WORLD 

19. END OF WAR 

20. "I KNOW..." 

21 . THE ANSWER THAT SATISFIED 

22. THE ANSWER THAT WAS TRUE 


Prologue 

The First Galactic Empire had endured for tens of thousands of years. It had included all the 
planets of the Galaxy in a centralized rule, sometimes tyrannical, sometimes benevolent, 
always orderly. Human beings had forgotten that any other form of existence could be. 

All except Hari Seldon. 

Hari Seldon was the last great scientist of the First Empire. It was he who brought the science 
of psycho-history to its full development. Psycho-history was the quintessence of sociology, it 
was the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations. 

The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reactions of human mobs, Seldon found, 
could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the greater the accuracy that could be 
achieved. And the size of the human masses that Seldon worked with was no less than the 
population of the Galaxy which in his time was numbered in the quintillions. 

It was Seldon, then, who foresaw, against all common sense and popular belief, that the 
brilliant Empire which seemed so strong was in a state of irremediable decay and decline. He 
foresaw (or he solved his equations and interpreted its symbols, which amounts to the same 
thing) that left to itself, the Galaxy would pass through a thirty thousand year period of misery 
and anarchy before a unified government would rise once more. 

He set about to remedy the situation, to bring about a state of affairs that would restore peace 
and civilization in a single thousand of years. Carefully, he set up two colonies of scientists that 
he called "Foundations." With deliberate intention, he set them up "at opposite ends of the 
Galaxy." One Foundation was set up in the full daylight of publicity. The existence of the other, 


the Second Foundation, was drowned in silence. 

In Foundation (Gnome, 1951) and Foundation and Empire (Gnome, 1952) are told the first 
three centuries of the history of the First Foundation. It began as a small community of 
Encyclopedists lost in the emptiness of the outer periphery of the Galaxy. Periodically, it faced 
a crisis in which the variables of human intercourse, of the social and economic currents of the 
time constricted about it. Its freedom to move lay along only one certain line and when it moved 
in that direction, a new horizon of development opened before it. All had been planned by Hari 
Seldon, long dead now. 

The First Foundation, with its superior science, took over the barbarized planets that 
surrounded it. It faced the anarchic Warlords that broke away from the dying Empire and beat 
them. It faced the remnant of the Empire itself under its last strong Emperor and its last strong 
General and beat it. 

Then it faced something which Hari Seldon could not foresee, the overwhelming power of a 
single human being, a Mutant. The creature known as the Mule was born with the ability to 
mold men's emotions and to shape their minds. His bitterest opponents were made into his 
devoted servants. Armies could not, would not fight him. Before him, the First Foundation fell 
and Seldon's schemes lay partly in ruins. 

There was left the mysterious Second Foundation, the goal of all searches. The Mule must find 
it to make his conquest of the Galaxy complete. The faithful of what was left of the First 
Foundation must find it for quite another reason. But where was it? That no one knew. 

This, then, is the story of the search for the Second Foundation! 


PART I 

SEARCH BY THE MULE 


1 

Two Men and the Mule 

THE MULE It was after the fall of the First Foundation that the constructive aspects of the 
Mule's regime took shape. After the definite break-up at the first Galactic Empire, it was he who 
first presented history with a unified volume at space truly imperial in scope. The earlier 
commercial empire at the fallen Foundation had been diverse and loosely knit, despite the 
impalpable backing at the predictions of psycho-history. It was not to be compared with the 
tightly controlled 'Union of Worlds' under the Mule, comprising as it did, one-tenth the volume of 





the Galaxy and one-fifteenth of its population. Particularly during the era of the so-called 
Search.... 

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA * 

* All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 1 1 6th 
Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with 
permission of the publishers. 

There is much more that the Encyclopedia has to say on the subject of the Mule and his Empire 
but almost all of it is not germane to the issue at immediate hand, and most of it is considerably 
too dry for our purposes in any case. Mainly, the article concerns itself at this point with the 
economic conditions that led to the rise of the "First Citizen of the Union" - the Mule's official 
title - and with the economic consequences thereof. 

If, at any time, the writer of the article is mildly astonished at the colossal haste with which the 
Mule rose from nothing to vast dominion in five years, he conceals it. If he is further surprised at 
the sudden cessation of expansion in favor of a five-year consolidation of territory, he hides the 
fact. 

We therefore abandon the Encyclopedia and continue on our own path for our own purposes 
and take up the history of the Great Interregnum - between the First and Second Galactic 
Empires - at the end of that five years of consolidation. 

Politically, the Union is quiet. Economically, it is prosperous. Few would care to exchange the 
peace of the Mule's steady grip for the chaos that had preceded, On the worlds that five years 
previously had known the Foundation, there might be a nostalgic regret, but no more. The 
Foundation's leaders were dead, where useless; and Converted, where useful. 

And of the Converted, the most useful was Flan Pritcher, now lieutenant general. 

In the days of the Foundation, Flan Pritcher had been a captain and a member of the 
underground Democratic Opposition. When the Foundation fell to the Mule without a fight, 
Pritcher fought the Mule. Until, that is, he was Converted. 

The Conversion was not the ordinary one brought on by the power of superior reason. Flan 
Pritcher know that well enough. Fie had been changed because the Mule was a mutant with 
mental powers quite capable of adjusting the conditions of ordinary humans to suit himself. But 
that satisfied him completely. That was as it should be. The very contentment with the 
Conversion was a prime symptom of it, but Flan Pritcher was no longer even curious about the 
matter. 

And now that he was returning from his fifth major expedition into the boundlessness of the 
Galaxy outside the Union, it was with something approaching artless joy that the veteran 
spaceman and Intelligence agent considered his approaching audience with the "First Citizen." 
FHis hard face, gouged out of a dark, grainless wood that did not seem to be capable of smiling 
without cracking, didn't show it - but the outward indications were unnecessary. The Mule could 
see the emotions within, down to the smallest, much as an ordinary man could see the twitch of 
an eyebrow. 



Pritcher left his air car at the old vice-regal hangars and entered the palace grounds on foot as 
was required. He walked one mile along the arrowed highway - which was empty and silent. 
Pritcher knew that over the square miles of Palace grounds, there was not one guard, not one 
soldier, not one armed man. 

The Mule had need of no protection. 

The Mule was his own best, all-powerful protector. 

Pritcher's footsteps beat softly in his own cars, as the palace reared its gleaming, incredibly 
light and incredibly strong metallic walls before him in the daring, overblown, near-hectic arches 
that characterized the architecture of the Late Empire. It brooded strongly over the empty 
grounds, over the crowded city on the horizon. 

Within the palace was that one man - by himself - on whose inhuman mental attributes 
depended the new aristocracy, and the whole structure of the Union. 

The huge, smooth door swung massively open at the general's approach, and he entered. He 
stepped on to the wide, sweeping ramp that moved upward under him. He rose swiftly in the 
noiseless elevator. He stood before the small plain door of the Mule's own room in the highest 
glitter of the palace spires. 

It opened- 

Bail Channis was young, and Bail Channis was Unconverted. That is, in plainer language, his 
emotional make-up had been unadjusted by the Mule. It remained exactly as it had been 
formed by the original shape of its heredity and the subsequent modifications of his 
environment. And that satisfied him, too. 

At not quite thirty, he was in marvelously good odor in the capital. He was handsome and 
quick-witted - therefore successful in society. He was intelligent and self-possessed - therefore 
successful with the Mule. And he was thoroughly pleased at both successes. 

And now, for the first time, the Mule had summoned him to personal audience. 

His legs carried him down the long, glittering highway that led tautly to the sponge-aluminum 
spires that had been once the residence of the viceroy of Kalgan, who ruled under the old 
emperors; and that had been later the residence of the independent Princes of Kalgan, who 
ruled in their own name; and that was now the residence of the First Citizen of the Union, who 
ruled over an empire of his own. 

Channis hummed softly to himself. He did not doubt what this was all about. The Second 
Foundation, naturally! That all-embracing bogey, the mere consideration of which had thrown 
the Mule back from his policy of limitless expansion into static caution. The official term was - 
"consolidation." 

Now there were rumors - you couldn't stop rumors. The Mule was to begin the offensive once 
more. The Mule had discovered the whereabouts of the Second Foundation, and would attack 
The Mule had come to an agreement with the Second Foundation and divided the Galaxy. The 
Mule had decided the Second Foundation did not exist and would take over all the Galaxy. 



No use listing all the varieties one heard in the anterooms. It was not even the first time such 
rumors had circulated. But now they seemed to have more body in them, and all the free, 
expansive Souls Who thrived on war, military adventure, and political chaos and withered in 
times of stability and stagnant peace were joyful. 

Bail Channis was one of these. He did not fear the mysterious Second Foundation. For that 
matter, he did not fear the Mule, and boasted of it. Some, perhaps, who disapproved of one at 
once so young and so well-off, waited darkly for the reckoning with the gay ladies' man who 
employed his wit openly at the expense of the Mule's physical appearance and sequestered 
life. None dared join him and few dared laugh, but when nothing happened to him, his 
reputation rose accordingly. 

Channis was improvising words to the tune he was humming. Nonsense words with the 
recurrent refrain: "Second Foundation threatens the Nation and all of Creation." 

He was at the palace. 

The huge, smooth door swung massively open at his approach and he entered. He stepped on 
to the wide, sweeping ramp that moved upward under him. He rose swiftly in the noiseless 
elevator. He stood before the small plain door of the Mule's own room in the highest glitter of 
the palace spires. 

It opened- 

The man who had no name other than the Mule, and no title other than First Citizen looked out 
through the one-way transparency of the wall to the light and lofty city on the horizon. 

In the darkening twilight, the stars were emerging, and not one but owed allegiance to him. 

He smiled with fleeting bitterness at the thought. The allegiance they owed was to a personality 
few had ever seen. 

He was not a man to look at, the Mule - not a man to look at without derision. Not more than 
one hundred and twenty pounds was stretched out into his five-foot-eight length. His limbs were 
bony stalks that jutted out of his scrawniness in graceless angularity. And his thin face was 
nearly drowned out in the prominence of a fleshy beak that thrust three inches outward. 

Only his eyes played false with the general farce that was the Mule. In their softness - a 
strange softness for the Galaxy's greatest conqueror - sadness was never entirely subdued. 

In the city was to be found all the gaiety of a luxurious capital on a luxurious world. He might 
have established his capital on the Foundation, the strongest of his now-conquered enemies, 
but it was far out on the very rim of the Galaxy. Kalgan, more centrally located, with a long 
tradition as aristocracy's playground, suited him better - strategically. 

But in its traditional gaiety, enhanced by unheard-of prosperity, he found no peace. 

They feared him and obeyed him and, perhaps, even respected him - from a goodly distance. 
But who could look at him without contempt? Only those he had Converted. And of what value 
was their artificial loyalty? It lacked flavor. He might have adopted titles, and enforced ritual and 



invented elaborations, but even that would have changed nothing. Better - or at least, no worse 

- to be simply the First Citizen - and to hide himself. 

There was a sudden surge of rebellion within him - strong and brutal. Not a portion of the 
Galaxy must be denied him, For five years he had remained silent and buried here on Kalgan 
because of the eternal, misty, space-ridden menace of the unseen, unheard, unknown Second 
Foundation. Fie was thirty-two. Not old - but he felt old. His body, whatever its mutant mental 
powers, was physically weak. 

Every star! Every star he could see - and every star he couldnt see. It must all be his! 

Revenge on all. On a humanity of which he wasn't a part. On a Galaxy in which he didn't fit. 

The cool, overhead warning light flickered. Fie could follow the progress of the man who had 
entered the palace, and simultaneously, as though his mutant sense had been enhanced and 
sensitized in the lonely twilight, he felt the wash of emotional content touch the fibers of his 
brain. 

Fie recognized the identity without an effort. It was Pritcher. 

Captain Pritcher of the one-time Foundation. The Captain Pritcher who had been ignored and 
passed over by the bureaucrats of that decaying government. The Captain Pritcher whose job 
as petty spy he had wiped out and whom he had lifted from its slime. The Captain Pritcher 
whom he had made first colonel and then general; whose scope of activity he had made 
Galaxywide. 

The now-General Pritcher who was, iron rebel though he began, completely loyal. And yet with 
all that, not loyal because of benefits gained, not loyal out of gratitude, not loyal as a fair return 

- but loyal only through the artifice of Conversion. 

The Mule was conscious of that strong unalterable surface layer of loyalty and love that colored 
every swirl and eddy of the emotionality of Flan Pritcher - the layer he had himself implanted 
five years before. Far underneath there were the original traces of stubborn individuality, 
impatience of rule, idealism - but even he, himself, could scarcely detect them any longer. 

The door behind him opened, and he turned. The transparency of the wall faded to opacity, and 
the purple evening light gave way to the whitely blazing glow of atomic power. 

Flan Pritcher took the seat indicated. There was neither bowing, nor kneeling nor the use of 
honorifics in private audiences with the Mule. The Mule was merely "First Citizen." Fie was 
addressed as "sir." You sat in his presence, and you could turn your back on him if it so 
happened that you did. 

To Flan Pritcher this was all evidence of the sure and confident power of the man. Fie was 
warmly satisfied with it. 

The Mule said: "Your final report reached me yesterday. I can't deny that I find it somewhat 
depressing, Pritcher." 

The general's eyebrows closed upon each other: "Yes, I imagine so - but I don't see to what 



other conclusions I could have come. There just isn't any Second Foundation, sir." 

Arid the Mule considered and then slowly shook his head, as he had done many a time before: 
"There's the evidence of Ebling Mis. There is always the evidence of Ebling Mis." 

It was not a new story. Pritcher said without qualification: "Mis may have been the greatest 
psychologist of the Foundation, but he was a baby compared to Hari Seldon. At the time he 
was investigating Seldon's works, he was under the artificial stimulation of your own brain 
control. You may have pushed him too far. Fie might have been wrong. Sir, he must have been 
wrong." 

The Mule sighed, his lugubrious face thrust forward on its thin stalk of a neck. "If only he had 
lived another minute. Fie was on the point of telling me where the Second Foundation was. Fie 
knew, I'm telling you. I need not have retreated. I need not have waited and waited. So much 
time lost. Five years gone for nothing." 

Pritcher could not have been censorious over the weak longing of his ruler; his controlled 
mental make-up forbade that. Fie was disturbed instead; vaguely uneasy. Fie said: "But what 
alternative explanation can there possibly be, sir? Five times I've gone out. You yourself have 
plotted the routes. And I've left no asteroid unturned. It was three hundred years ago that FHari 
Seldon of the old Empire supposedly established two Foundations to act as nuclei of a new 
Empire to replace the dying old one. One hundred years after Seldon, the First Foundation - 
the one we know so well - was known through all the Periphery. One hundred fifty years after 
Seldon - at the time of the last battle with the old Empire - it was known throughout the Galaxy. 
And now it's three hundred years - and where should this mysterious Second be? In no eddy of 
the Galactic stream has it been heard of." 

"Ebling Mis said it kept itself secret. Only secrecy can turn its weakness to strength." 

"Secrecy as deep as this is past possibility without nonexistence as well." 

The Mule looked up, large eyes sharp and wary. "No. It does exist." A bony finger pointed 
sharply. "There is going to be a slight change in tactics." 

Pritcher frowned. "You plan to leave yourself? I would scarcely advise it." 

"No, of course not. You will have to go out once again - one last time. But with another in joint 
command." 

There was a silence, and Pritcher's voice was hard, "Who, Sir?" 

"There's a young man here in Kalgan. Bail Channis." 

"I've never heard of him, Sir." 

"No, I imagine not. But he's got an agile mind, he's ambitious - and he's not Converted." 

Pritcher's long jaw trembled for a bare instant, "I fail to see the advantage in that." 

"There is one, Pritcher. You're a resourceful and experienced man. You have given me good 
service. But you are Converted. Your motivation is simply an enforced and helpless loyalty to 

-

Title: The Island of Doctor Moreau

Author: H. G. Wells

Release Date: October 14, 2004 [EBook #159]
[Last updated: May 26, 2012]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU ***

 

This etext was created by Judith Boss, of Omaha, Nebraska, from the
Garden City Publishing Company, 1896 edition, and first posted in
August, 1994. Minor corrections made by Andrew Sly in October, 2004.

 

 

The Island of Doctor Moreau
by H. G. Wells
Contents

INTRODUCTION
I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE “LADY VAIN”
II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE
III. THE STRANGE FACE
IV. AT THE SCHOONER'S RAIL
V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO
VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN
VII. THE LOCKED DOOR
VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA
IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST
X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN
XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN
XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW
XIII. THE PARLEY
XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS
XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK
XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD
XVII. A CATASTROPHE
XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU
XIX. MONTGOMERY'S BANK HOLIDAY
XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK
XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK
XXII. THE MAN ALONE
INTRODUCTION.
ON February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1° S. and longitude 107° W.

On January the Fifth, 1888—that is eleven months and four days after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ S. and longitude 101° W. in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha. He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented. Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment of his escape from the Lady Vain. His case was discussed among psychologists at the time as a curious instance of the lapse of memory consequent upon physical and mental stress. The following narrative was found among his papers by the undersigned, his nephew and heir, but unaccompanied by any definite request for publication.

The only island known to exist in the region in which my uncle was picked up is Noble's Isle, a small volcanic islet and uninhabited. It was visited in 1891 by H. M. S. Scorpion. A party of sailors then landed, but found nothing living thereon except certain curious white moths, some hogs and rabbits, and some rather peculiar rats. So that this narrative is without confirmation in its most essential particular. With that understood, there seems no harm in putting this strange story before the public in accordance, as I believe, with my uncle's intentions. There is at least this much in its behalf: my uncle passed out of human knowledge about latitude 5° S. and longitude 105° E., and reappeared in the same part of the ocean after a space of eleven months. In some way he must have lived during the interval. And it seems that a schooner called the Ipecacuanha with a drunken captain, John Davies, did start from Africa with a puma and certain other animals aboard in January, 1887, that the vessel was well known at several ports in the South Pacific, and that it finally disappeared from those seas (with a considerable amount of copra aboard), sailing to its unknown fate from Bayna in December, 1887, a date that tallies entirely with my uncle's story.

CHARLES EDWARD PRENDICK.

(The Story written by Edward Prendick.)

I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE “LADY VAIN.”
I DO not propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning the loss of the Lady Vain. As everyone knows, she collided with a derelict when ten days out from Callao. The longboat, with seven of the crew, was picked up eighteen days after by H. M. gunboat Myrtle, and the story of their terrible privations has become quite as well known as the far more horrible Medusa case. But I have to add to the published story of the Lady Vain another, possibly as horrible and far stranger. It has hitherto been supposed that the four men who were in the dingey perished, but this is incorrect. I have the best of evidence for this assertion: I was one of the four men.

But in the first place I must state that there never were four men in the dingey,—the number was three. Constans, who was “seen by the captain to jump into the gig,”{1} luckily for us and unluckily for himself did not reach us. He came down out of the tangle of ropes under the stays of the smashed bowsprit, some small rope caught his heel as he let go, and he hung for a moment head downward, and then fell and struck a block or spar floating in the water. We pulled towards him, but he never came up.

{1} Daily News, March 17, 1887.

I say luckily for us he did not reach us, and I might almost say luckily for himself; for we had only a small beaker of water and some soddened ship's biscuits with us, so sudden had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any disaster. We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned (though it seems they were not), and we tried to hail them. They could not have heard us, and the next morning when the drizzle cleared,—which was not until past midday,—we could see nothing of them. We could not stand up to look about us, because of the pitching of the boat. The two other men who had escaped so far with me were a man named Helmar, a passenger like myself, and a seaman whose name I don't know,—a short sturdy man, with a stammer.

We drifted famishing, and, after our water had come to an end, tormented by an intolerable thirst, for eight days altogether. After the second day the sea subsided slowly to a glassy calm. It is quite impossible for the ordinary reader to imagine those eight days. He has not, luckily for himself, anything in his memory to imagine with. After the first day we said little to one another, and lay in our places in the boat and stared at the horizon, or watched, with eyes that grew larger and more haggard every day, the misery and weakness gaining upon our companions. The sun became pitiless. The water ended on the fourth day, and we were already thinking strange things and saying them with our eyes; but it was, I think, the sixth before Helmar gave voice to the thing we had all been thinking. I remember our voices were dry and thin, so that we bent towards one another and spared our words. I stood out against it with all my might, was rather for scuttling the boat and perishing together among the sharks that followed us; but when Helmar said that if his proposal was accepted we should have drink, the sailor came round to him.

I would not draw lots however, and in the night the sailor whispered to Helmar again and again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife in my hand, though I doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight; and in the morning I agreed to Helmar's proposal, and we handed halfpence to find the odd man. The lot fell upon the sailor; but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, and attacked Helmar with his hands. They grappled together and almost stood up. I crawled along the boat to them, intending to help Helmar by grasping the sailor's leg; but the sailor stumbled with the swaying of the boat, and the two fell upon the gunwale and rolled overboard together. They sank like stones. I remember laughing at that, and wondering why I laughed. The laugh caught me suddenly like a thing from without.

I lay across one of the thwarts for I know not how long, thinking that if I had the strength I would drink sea-water and madden myself to die quickly. And even as I lay there I saw, with no more interest than if it had been a picture, a sail come up towards me over the sky-line. My mind must have been wandering, and yet I remember all that happened, quite distinctly. I remember how my head swayed with the seas, and the horizon with the sail above it danced up and down; but I also remember as distinctly that I had a persuasion that I was dead, and that I thought what a jest it was that they should come too late by such a little to catch me in my body.

For an endless period, as it seemed to me, I lay with my head on the thwart watching the schooner (she was a little ship, schooner-rigged fore and aft) come up out of the sea. She kept tacking to and fro in a widening compass, for she was sailing dead into the wind. It never entered my head to attempt to attract attention, and I do not remember anything distinctly after the sight of her side until I found myself in a little cabin aft. There's a dim half-memory of being lifted up to the gangway, and of a big round countenance covered with freckles and surrounded with red hair staring at me over the bulwarks. I also had a disconnected impression of a dark face, with extraordinary eyes, close to mine; but that I thought was a nightmare, until I met it again. I fancy I recollect some stuff being poured in between my teeth; and that is all.

II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE.
THE cabin in which I found myself was small and rather untidy. A youngish man with flaxen hair, a bristly straw-coloured moustache, and a dropping nether lip, was sitting and holding my wrist. For a minute we stared at each other without speaking. He had watery grey eyes, oddly void of expression. Then just overhead came a sound like an iron bedstead being knocked about, and the low angry growling of some large animal. At the same time the man spoke. He repeated his question,—“How do you feel now?”

I think I said I felt all right. I could not recollect how I had got there. He must have seen the question in my face, for my voice was inaccessible to me.

“You were picked up in a boat, starving. The name on the boat was the Lady Vain, and there were spots of blood on the gunwale.”

At the same time my eye caught my hand, so thin that it looked like a dirty skin-purse full of loose bones, and all the business of the boat came back to me.

“Have some of this,” said he, and gave me a dose of some scarlet stuff, iced.

It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger.

“You were in luck,” said he, “to get picked up by a ship with a medical man aboard.” He spoke with a slobbering articulation, with the ghost of a lisp.

“What ship is this?” I said slowly, hoarse from my long silence.

“It's a little trader from Arica and Callao. I never asked where she came from in the beginning,—out of the land of born fools, I guess. I'm a passenger myself, from Arica. The silly ass who owns her,—he's captain too, named Davies,—he's lost his certificate, or something. You know the kind of man,—calls the thing the Ipecacuanha, of all silly, infernal names; though when there's much of a sea without any wind, she certainly acts according.”

(Then the noise overhead began again, a snarling growl and the voice of a human being together. Then another voice, telling some “Heaven-forsaken idiot” to desist.)

“You were nearly dead,” said my interlocutor. “It was a very near thing, indeed. But I've put some stuff into you now. Notice your arm's sore? Injections. You've been insensible for nearly thirty hours.”

I thought slowly. (I was distracted now by the yelping of a number of dogs.) “Am I eligible for solid food?” I asked.

“Thanks to me,” he said. “Even now the mutton is boiling.”

“Yes,” I said with assurance; “I could eat some mutton.”

“But,” said he with a momentary hesitation, “you know I'm dying to hear of how you came to be alone in that boat. Damn that howling!” I thought I detected a certain suspicion in his eyes.

He suddenly left the cabin, and I heard him in violent controversy with some one, who seemed to me to talk gibberish in response to him. The matter sounded as though it ended in blows, but in that I thought my ears were mistaken. Then he shouted at the dogs, and returned to the cabin.

“Well?” said he in the doorway. “You were just beginning to tell me.”

I told him my name, Edward Prendick, and how I had taken to Natural History as a relief from the dulness of my comfortable independence.

He seemed interested in this. “I've done some science myself. I did my Biology at University College,—getting out the ovary of the earthworm and the radula of the snail, and all that. Lord! It's ten years ago. But go on! go on! tell me about the boat.”

He was evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story, which I told in concise sentences enough, for I felt horribly weak; and when it was finished he reverted at once to the topic of Natural History and his own biological studies. He began to question me closely about Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street. “Is Caplatzi still flourishing? What a shop that was!” He had evidently been a very ordinary medical student, and drifted incontinently to the topic of the music halls. He told me some anecdotes.

“Left it all,” he said, “ten years ago. How jolly it all used to be! But I made a young ass of myself,—played myself out before I was twenty-one. I daresay it's all different now. But I must look up that ass of a cook, and see what he's done to your mutton.”

The growling overhead was renewed, so suddenly and with so much savage anger that it startled me. “What's that?” I called after him, but the door had closed. He came back again with the boiled mutton, and I was so excited by the appetising smell of it that I forgot the noise of the beast that had troubled me.

After a day of alternate sleep and feeding I was so far recovered as to be able to get from my bunk to the scuttle, and see the green seas trying to keep pace with us. I judged the schooner was running before the wind. Montgomery—that was the name of the flaxen-haired man—came in again as I stood there, and I asked him for some clothes. He lent me some duck things of his own, for those I had worn in the boat had been thrown overboard. They were rather loose for me, for he was large and long in his limbs. He told me casually that the captain was three-parts drunk in his own cabin. As I assumed the clothes, I began asking him some questions about the destination of the ship. He said the ship was bound to Hawaii, but that it had to land him first.

“Where?” said I.

“It's an island, where I live. So far as I know, it hasn't got a name.”

He stared at me with his nether lip dropping, and looked so wilfully stupid of a sudden that it came into my head that he desired to avoid my questions. I had the discretion to ask no more.

III. THE STRANGE FACE.
WE left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing our way. He was standing on the ladder with his back to us, peering over the combing of the hatchway. He was, I could see, a misshapen man, short, broad, and clumsy, with a crooked back, a hairy neck, and a head sunk between his shoulders. He was dressed in dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair. I heard the unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he ducked back,—coming into contact with the hand I put out to fend him off from myself. He turned with animal swiftness.

In some indefinable way the black face thus flashed upon me shocked me profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one. The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were blood-shot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils. There was a curious glow of excitement in his face.

“Confound you!” said Montgomery. “Why the devil don't you get out of the way?”

The black-faced man started aside without a word. I went on up the companion, staring at him instinctively as I did so. Montgomery stayed at the foot for a moment. “You have no business here, you know,” he said in a deliberate tone. “Your place is forward.”

The black-faced man cowered. “They—won't have me forward.” He spoke slowly, with a queer, hoarse quality in his voice.

“Won't have you forward!” said Montgomery, in a menacing voice. “But I tell you to go!” He was on the brink of saying something further, then looked up at me suddenly and followed me up the ladder.

I had paused half way through the hatchway, looking back, still astonished beyond measure at the grotesque ugliness of this black-faced creature. I had never beheld such a repulsive and extraordinary face before, and yet—if the contradiction is credible—I experienced at the same time an odd feeling that in some way I had already encountered exactly the features and gestures that now amazed me. Afterwards it occurred to me that probably I had seen him as I was lifted aboard; and yet that scarcely satisfied my suspicion of a previous acquaintance. Yet how one could have set eyes on so singular a face and yet have forgotten the precise occasion, passed my imagination.

Montgomery's movement to follow me released my attention, and I turned and looked about me at the flush deck of the little schooner. I was already half prepared by the sounds I had heard for what I saw. Certainly I never beheld a deck so dirty. It was littered with scraps of carrot, shreds of green stuff, and indescribable filth. Fastened by chains to the mainmast were a number of grisly staghounds, who now began leaping and barking at me, and by the mizzen a huge puma was cramped in a little iron cage far too small even to give it turning room. Farther under the starboard bulwark were some big hutches containing a number of rabbits, and a solitary llama was squeezed in a mere box of a cage forward. The dogs were muzzled by leather straps. The only human being on deck was a gaunt and silent sailor at the wheel.

The patched and dirty spankers were tense before the wind, and up aloft the little ship seemed carrying every sail she had. The sky was clear, the sun midway down the western sky; long waves, capped by the breeze with froth, were running with us. We went past the steersman to the taffrail, and saw the water come foaming under the stern and the bubbles go dancing and vanishing in her wake. I turned and surveyed the unsavoury length of the ship.

“Is this an ocean menagerie?” said I.

“Looks like it,” said Montgomery.

“What are these beasts for? Merchandise, curios? Does the captain think he is going to sell them somewhere in the South Seas?”

“It looks like it, doesn't it?” said Montgomery, and turned towards the wake again.

Suddenly we heard a yelp and a volley of furious blasphemy from the companion hatchway, and the deformed man with the black face came up hurriedly. He was immediately followed by a heavy red-haired man in a white cap. At the sight of the former the staghounds, who had all tired of barking at me by this time, became furiously excited, howling and leaping against their chains. The black hesitated before them, and this gave the red-haired man time to come up with him and deliver a tremendous blow between the shoulder-blades. The poor devil went down like a felled ox, and rolled in the dirt among the furiously excited dogs. It was lucky for him that they were muzzled. The red-haired man gave a yawp of exultation and stood staggering, and as it seemed to me in serious danger of either going backwards down the companion hatchway or forwards upon his victim.

So soon as the second man had appeared, Montgomery had started forward. “Steady on there!” he cried, in a tone of remonstrance. A couple of sailors appeared on the forecastle. The black-faced man, howling in a singular voice rolled about under the feet of the dogs. No one attempted to help him. The brutes did their best to worry him, butting their muzzles at him. There was a quick dance of their lithe grey-figured bodies over the clumsy, prostrate figure. The sailors forward shouted, as though it was admirable sport. Montgomery gave an angry exclamation, and went striding down the deck, and I followed him. The black-faced man scrambled up and staggered forward, going and leaning over the bulwark by the main shrouds, where he remained, panting and glaring over his shoulder at the dogs. The red-haired man laughed a satisfied laugh.

“Look here, Captain,” said Montgomery, with his lisp a little accentuated, gripping the elbows of the red-haired man, “this won't do!”

I stood behind Montgomery. The captain came half round, and regarded him with the dull and solemn eyes of a drunken man. “Wha' won't do?” he said, and added, after looking sleepily into Montgomery's face for a minute, “Blasted Sawbones!”

With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after two ineffectual attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side pockets.

“That man's a passenger,” said Montgomery. “I'd advise you to keep your hands off him.”

“Go to hell!” said the captain, loudly. He suddenly turned and staggered towards the side. “Do what I like on my own ship,” he said.

I think Montgomery might have left him then, seeing the brute was drunk; but he only turned a shade paler, and followed the captain to the bulwarks.

“Look you here, Captain,” he said; “that man of mine is not to be ill-treated. He has been hazed ever since he came aboard.”

For a minute, alcoholic fumes kept the captain speechless. “Blasted Sawbones!” was all he considered necessary.

I could see that Montgomery had one of those slow, pertinacious tempers that will warm day after day to a white heat, and never again cool to forgiveness; and I saw too that this quarrel had been some time growing. “The man's drunk,” said I, perhaps officiously; “you'll do no good.”

Montgomery gave an ugly twist to his dropping lip. “He's always drunk. Do you think that excuses his assaulting his passengers?”

“My ship,” began the captain, waving his hand unsteadily towards the cages, “was a clean ship. Look at it now!” It was certainly anything but clean. “Crew,” continued the captain, “clean, respectable crew.”

“You agreed to take the beasts.”

“I wish I'd never set eyes on your infernal island. What the devil—want beasts for on an island like that? Then, that man of yours—understood he was a man. He's a lunatic; and he hadn't no business aft. Do you think the whole damned ship belongs to you?”

“Your sailors began to haze the poor devil as soon as he came aboard.”

“That's just what he is—he's a devil! an ugly devil! My men can't stand him. I can't stand him. None of us can't stand him. Nor you either!”

Montgomery turned away. “You leave that man alone, anyhow,” he said, nodding his head as he spoke.

But the captain meant to quarrel now. He raised his voice. “If he comes this end of the ship again I'll cut his insides out, I tell you. Cut out his blasted insides! Who are you, to tell me what I'm to do? I tell you I'm captain of this ship,—captain and owner. I'm the law here, I tell you,—the law and the prophets. I bargained to take a man and his attendant to and from Arica, and bring back some animals. I never bargained to carry a mad devil and a silly Sawbones, a—”

Well, never mind what he called Montgomery. I saw the latter take a step forward, and interposed. “He's drunk,” said I. The captain began some abuse even fouler than the last. “Shut up!” I said, turning on him sharply, for I had seen danger in Montgomery's white face. With that I brought the downpour on myself.

However, I was glad to avert what was uncommonly near a scuffle, even at the price of the captain's drunken ill-will. I do not think I have ever heard quite so much vile language come in a continuous stream from any man's lips before, though I have frequented eccentric company enough. I found some of it hard to endure, though I am a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told the captain to “shut up” I had forgotten that I was merely a bit of human flotsam, cut off from my resources and with my fare unpaid; a mere casual dependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the ship. He reminded me of it with considerable vigour; but at any rate I prevented a fight.

IV. AT THE SCHOONER'S RAIL.
THAT night land was sighted after sundown, and the schooner hove to. Montgomery intimated that was his destination. It was too far to see any details; it seemed to me then simply a low-lying patch of dim blue in the uncertain blue-grey sea. An almost vertical streak of smoke went up from it into the sky. The captain was not on deck when it was sighted. After he had vented his wrath on me he had staggered below, and I understand he went to sleep on the floor of his own cabin. The mate practically assumed the command. He was the gaunt, taciturn individual we had seen at the wheel. Apparently he was in an evil temper with Montgomery. He took not the slightest notice of either of us. We dined with him in a sulky silence, after a few ineffectual efforts on my part to talk. It struck me too that the men regarded my companion and his animals in a singularly unfriendly manner. I found Montgomery very reticent about his purpose with these creatures, and about his destination; and though I was sensible of a growing curiosity as to both, I did not press him.

We remained talking on the quarter deck until the sky was thick with stars. Except for an occasional sound in the yellow-lit forecastle and a movement of the animals now and then, the night was very still. The puma lay crouched together, watching us with shining eyes, a black heap in the corner of its cage. Montgomery produced some cigars. He talked to me of London in a tone of half-painful reminiscence, asking all kinds of questions about changes that had taken place. He spoke like a man who had loved his life there, and had been suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it. I gossiped as well as I could of this and that. All the time the strangeness of him was shaping itself in my mind; and as I talked I peered at his odd, pallid face in the dim light of the binnacle lantern behind me. Then I looked out at the darkling sea, where in the dimness his little island was hidden.

This man, it seemed to me, had come out of Immensity merely to save my life. To-morrow he would drop over the side, and vanish again out of my existence. Even had it been under commonplace circumstances, it would have made me a trifle thoughtful; but in the first place was the singularity of an educated man living on this unknown little island, and coupled with that the extraordinary nature of his luggage. I found myself repeating the captain's question. What did he want with the beasts? Why, too, had he pretended they were not his when I had remarked about them at first? Then, again, in his personal attendant there was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly. These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the man. They laid hold of my imagination, and hampered my tongue.

Towards midnight our talk of London died away, and we stood side by side leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts. It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and I began upon my gratitude.

“If I may say it,” said I, after a time, “you have saved my life.”

“Chance,” he answered. “Just chance.”

“I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent.”

“Thank no one. You had the need, and I had the knowledge; and I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen. I was bored and wanted something to do. If I'd been jaded that day, or hadn't liked your face, well—it's a curious question where you would have been now!”

This damped my mood a little. “At any rate,” I began.

“It's a chance, I tell you,” he interrupted, “as everything is in a man's life. Only the asses won't see it! Why am I here now, an outcast from civilisation, instead of being a happy man enjoying all the pleasures of London? Simply because eleven years ago—I lost my head for ten minutes on a foggy night.”

He stopped. “Yes?” said I.

“That's all.”

We relapsed into silence. Presently he laughed. “There's something in this starlight that loosens one's tongue. I'm an ass, and yet somehow I would like to tell you.”

“Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping to myself—if that's it.”

He was on the point of beginning, and then shook his head, doubtfully.

“Don't,” said I. “It is all the same to me. After all, it is better to keep your secret. There's nothing gained but a little relief if I respect your confidence. If I don't—well?”

He grunted undecidedly. I felt I had him at a disadvantage, had caught him in the mood of indiscretion; and to tell the truth I was not curious to learn what might have driven a young medical student out of London. I have an imagination. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away. Over the taffrail leant a silent black figure, watching the stars. It was Montgomery's strange attendant. It looked over its shoulder quickly with my movement, then looked away again.

It may seem a little thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden blow to me. The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel. The creature's face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness of the stern towards this illumination, and I saw that the eyes that glanced at me shone with a pale-green light. I did not know then that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes. The thing came to me as stark inhumanity. That black figure with its eyes of fire struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind. Then the effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail against the starlight, and I found Montgomery was speaking to me.

“I'm thinking of turning in, then,” said he, “if you've had enough of this.”

I answered him incongruously. We went below, and he wished me good-night at the door of my cabin.

That night I had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning moon rose late. Its light struck a ghostly white beam across my cabin, and made an ominous shape on the planking by my bunk. Then the staghounds woke, and began howling and baying; so that I dreamt fitfully, and scarcely slept until the approach of dawn.

V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO.
IN the early morning (it was the second morning after my recovery, and I believe the fourth after I was picked up), I awoke through an avenue of tumultuous dreams,—dreams of guns and howling mobs,—and became sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round, and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and went on deck.

As I came up the ladder I saw against the flushed sky—for the sun was just rising—the broad back and red hair of the captain, and over his shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on to the mizzen spanker-boom.

The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom of its little cage.

“Overboard with 'em!” bawled the captain. “Overboard with 'em! We'll have a clean ship soon of the whole bilin' of 'em.”

He stood in my way, so that I had perforce to tap his shoulder to come on deck. He came round with a start, and staggered back a few paces to stare at me. It needed no expert eye to tell that the man was still drunk.

“Hullo!” said he, stupidly; and then with a light coming into his eyes, “Why, it's Mister—Mister?”

“Prendick,” said I.

“Prendick be damned!” said he. “Shut-up,—that's your name. Mister Shut-up.”

It was no good answering the brute; but I certainly did not expect his next move. He held out his hand to the gangway by which Montgomery stood talking to a massive grey-haired man in dirty-blue flannels, who had apparently just come aboard.

“That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!” roared the captain.

Montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up,—that's what I mean! Overboard, Mister Shut-up,—and sharp! We're cleaning the ship out,—cleaning the whole blessed ship out; and overboard you go!”

I stared at him dumfounded. Then it occurred to me that it was exactly the thing I wanted. The lost prospect of a journey as sole passenger with this quarrelsome sot was not one to mourn over. I turned towards Montgomery.

“Can't have you,” said Montgomery's companion, concisely.

“You can't have me!” said I, aghast. He had the squarest and most resolute face I ever set eyes upon.

“Look here,” I began, turning to the captain.

“Overboard!” said the captain. “This ship aint for beasts and cannibals and worse than beasts, any more. Overboard you go, Mister Shut-up. If they can't have you, you goes overboard. But, anyhow, you go—with your friends. I've done with this blessed island for evermore, amen! I've had enough of it.”

“But, Montgomery,” I appealed.

He distorted his lower lip, and nodded his head hopelessly at the grey-haired man beside him, to indicate his powerlessness to help me.

“I'll see to you, presently,” said the captain.

Then began a curious three-cornered altercation. Alternately I appealed to one and another of the three men,—first to the grey-haired man to let me land, and then to the drunken captain to keep me aboard. I even bawled entreaties to the sailors. Montgomery said never a word, only shook his head. “You're going overboard, I tell you,” was the captain's refrain. “Law be damned! I'm king here.” At last I must confess my voice suddenly broke in the middle of a vigorous threat. I felt a gust of hysterical petulance, and went aft and stared dismally at nothing.

Meanwhile the sailors progressed rapidly with the task of unshipping the packages and caged animals. A large launch, with two standing lugs, lay under the lee of the schooner; and into this the strange assortment of goods were swung. I did not then see the hands from the island that were receiving the packages, for the hull of the launch was hidden from me by the side of the schooner. Neither Montgomery nor his companion took the slightest notice of me, but busied themselves in assisting and directing the four or five sailors who were unloading the goods. The captain went forward interfering rather than assisting. I was alternately despairful and desperate. Once or twice as I stood waiting there for things to accomplish themselves, I could not resist an impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary. I felt all the wretcheder for the lack of a breakfast. Hunger and a lack of blood-corpuscles take all the manhood from a man. I perceived pretty clearly that I had not the stamina either to resist what the captain chose to do to expel me, or to force myself upon Montgomery and his companion. So I waited passively upon fate; and the work of transferring Montgomery's possessions to the launch went on as if I did not exist.

Presently that work was finished, and then came a struggle. I was hauled, resisting weakly enough, to the gangway. Even then I noticed the oddness of the brown faces of the men who were with Montgomery in the launch; but the launch was now fully laden, and was shoved off hastily. A broadening gap of green water appeared under me, and I pushed back with all my strength to avoid falling headlong. The hands in the launch shouted derisively, and I heard Montgomery curse at them; and then the captain, the mate, and one of the seamen helping him, ran me aft towards the stern.

The dingey of the Lady Vain had been towing behind; it was half full of water, had no oars, and was quite unvictualled. I refused to go aboard her, and flung myself full length on the deck. In the end, they swung me into her by a rope (for they had no stern ladder), and then they cut me adrift. I drifted slowly from the schooner. In a kind of stupor I watched all hands take to the rigging, and slowly but surely she came round to the wind; the sails fluttered, and then bellied out as the wind came into them. I stared at her weather-beaten side heeling steeply towards me; and then she passed out of my range of view.

I did not turn my head to follow her. At first I could scarcely believe what had happened. I crouched in the bottom of the dingey, stunned, and staring blankly at the vacant, oily sea. Then I realised that I was in that little hell of mine again, now half swamped; and looking back over the gunwale, I saw the schooner standing away from me, with the red-haired captain mocking at me over the taffrail, and turning towards the island saw the launch growing smaller as she approached the beach.

Abruptly the cruelty of this desertion became clear to me. I had no means of reaching the land unless I should chance to drift there. I was still weak, you must remember, from my exposure in the boat; I was empty and very faint, or I should have had more heart. But as it was I suddenly began to sob and weep, as I had never done since I was a little child. The tears ran down my face. In a passion of despair I struck with my fists at the water in the bottom of the boat, and kicked savagely at the gunwale. I prayed aloud for God to let me die.

VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.
BUT the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly; and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and return towards me. She was heavily laden, and I could make out as she drew nearer Montgomery's white-haired, broad-shouldered companion sitting cramped up with the dogs and several packing-cases in the stern sheets. This individual stared fixedly at me without moving or speaking. The black-faced cripple was glaring at me as fixedly in the bows near the puma. There were three other men besides,—three strange brutish-looking fellows, at whom the staghounds were snarling savagely. Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat by me, and rising, caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me, for there was no room aboard.

I had recovered from my hysterical phase by this time and answered his hail, as he approached, bravely enough. I told him the dingey was nearly swamped, and he reached me a piggin. I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats. For some time I was busy baling.

It was not until I had got the water under (for the water in the dingey had been shipped; the boat was perfectly sound) that I had leisure to look at the people in the launch again.

The white-haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly, but with an expression, as I now fancied, of some perplexity. When my eyes met his, he looked down at the staghound that sat between his knees. He was a powerfully-built man, as I have said, with a fine forehead and rather heavy features; but his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which often comes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouth at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution. He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear.

From him my eyes travelled to his three men; and a strange crew they were. I saw only their faces, yet there was something in their faces—I knew not what—that gave me a queer spasm of disgust. I looked steadily at them, and the impression did not pass, though I failed to see what had occasioned it. They seemed to me then to be brown men; but their limbs were oddly swathed in some thin, dirty, white stuff down even to the fingers and feet: I have never seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East. They wore turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfin faces at me,—faces with protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes. They had lank black hair, almost like horsehair, and seemed as they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen. The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height, sat a head below any one of the three. I found afterwards that really none were taller than myself; but their bodies were abnormally long, and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted. At any rate, they were an amazingly ugly gang, and over the heads of them under the forward lug peered the black face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark. As I stared at them, they met my gaze; and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stare, and looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred to me that I was perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to the island we were approaching.

It was low, and covered with thick vegetation,—chiefly a kind of palm, that was new to me. From one point a thin white thread of vapour rose slantingly to an immense height, and then frayed out like a down feather. We were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either hand by a low promontory. The beach was of dull-grey sand, and sloped steeply up to a ridge, perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea-level, and irregularly set with trees and undergrowth. Half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish stone, which I found subsequently was built partly of coral and partly of pumiceous lava. Two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure. A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge. I fancied while we were still far off that I saw some other and very grotesque-looking creatures scuttle into the bushes upon the slope; but I saw nothing of these as we drew nearer. This man was of a moderate size, and with a black negroid face. He had a large, almost lipless, mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet, and bow-legs, and stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us. He was dressed like Montgomery and his white-haired companion, in jacket and trousers of blue serge. As we came still nearer, this individual began to run to and fro on the beach, making the most grotesque movements.

At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the launch sprang up, and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs. Montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavated in the beach. Then the man on the beach hastened towards us. This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch just long enough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat. I heard the bows ground in the sand, staved the dingey off the rudder of the big boat with my piggin, and freeing the painter, landed. The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements, scrambled out upon the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo, assisted by the man on the beach. I was struck especially by the curious movements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen,—not stiff they were, but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they were jointed in the wrong place. The dogs were still snarling, and strained at their chains after these men, as the white-haired man landed with them. The three big fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural tones, and the man who had waited for us on the beach began chattering to them excitedly—a foreign language, as I fancied—as they laid hands on some bales piled near the stern. Somewhere I had heard such a voice before, and I could not think where. The white-haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six dogs, and bawling orders over their din. Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder, landed likewise, and all set to work at unloading. I was too faint, what with my long fast and the sun beating down on my bare head, to offer any assistance.

Presently the white-haired man seemed to recollect my presence, and came up to me.

“You look,” said he, “as though you had scarcely breakfasted.” His little eyes were a brilliant black under his heavy brows. “I must apologise for that. Now you are our guest, we must make you comfortable,—though you are uninvited, you know.” He looked keenly into my face. “Montgomery says you are an educated man, Mr. Prendick; says you know something of science. May I ask what that signifies?”

I told him I had spent some years at the Royal College of Science, and had done some researches in biology under Huxley. He raised his eyebrows slightly at that.

“That alters the case a little, Mr. Prendick,” he said, with a trifle more respect in his manner. “As it happens, we are biologists here. This is a biological station—of a sort.” His eye rested on the men in white who were busily hauling the puma, on rollers, towards the walled yard. “I and Montgomery, at least,” he added. Then, “When you will be able to get away, I can't say. We're off the track to anywhere. We see a ship once in a twelve-month or so.”

He left me abruptly, and went up the beach past this group, and I think entered the enclosure. The other two men were with Montgomery, erecting a pile of smaller packages on a low-wheeled truck. The llama was still on the launch with the rabbit hutches; the staghounds were still lashed to the thwarts. The pile of things completed, all three men laid hold of the truck and began shoving the ton-weight or so upon it after the puma. Presently Montgomery left them, and coming back to me held out his hand.

“I'm glad,” said he, “for my own part. That captain was a silly ass. He'd have made things lively for you.”

“It was you,” said I, “that saved me again.”

“That depends. You'll find this island an infernally rum place, I promise you. I'd watch my goings carefully, if I were you. He—” He hesitated, and seemed to alter his mind about what was on his lips. “I wish you'd help me with these rabbits,” he said.

His procedure with the rabbits was singular. I waded in with him, and helped him lug one of the hutches ashore. No sooner was that done than he opened the door of it, and tilting the thing on one end turned its living contents out on the ground. They fell in a struggling heap one on the top of the other. He clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off with that hopping run of theirs, fifteen or twenty of them I should think, up the beach.

“Increase and multiply, my friends,” said Montgomery. “Replenish the island. Hitherto we've had a certain lack of meat here.”

As I watched them disappearing, the white-haired man returned with a brandy-flask and some biscuits. “Something to go on with, Prendick,” said he, in a far more familiar tone than before. I made no ado, but set to work on the biscuits at once, while the white-haired man helped Montgomery to release about a score more of the rabbits. Three big hutches, however, went up to the house with the puma. The brandy I did not touch, for I have been an abstainer from my birth.

VII. THE LOCKED DOOR.
THE reader will perhaps understand that at first everything was so strange about me, and my position was the outcome of such unexpected adventures, that I had no discernment of the relative strangeness of this or that thing. I followed the llama up the beach, and was overtaken by Montgomery, who asked me not to enter the stone enclosure. I noticed then that the puma in its cage and the pile of packages had been placed outside the entrance to this quadrangle.

I turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded, run out again, and was being beached, and the white-haired man was walking towards us. He addressed Montgomery.

“And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest. What are we to do with him?”

“He knows something of science,” said Montgomery.

“I'm itching to get to work again—with this new stuff,” said the white-haired man, nodding towards the enclosure. His eyes grew brighter.

“I daresay you are,” said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial tone.

“We can't send him over there, and we can't spare the time to build him a new shanty; and we certainly can't take him into our confidence just yet.”

“I'm in your hands,” said I. I had no idea of what he meant by “over there.”

“I've been thinking of the same things,” Montgomery answered. “There's my room with the outer door—”

“That's it,” said the elder man, promptly, looking at Montgomery; and all three of us went towards the enclosure. “I'm sorry to make a mystery, Mr. Prendick; but you'll remember you're uninvited. Our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kind of Blue-Beard's chamber, in fact. Nothing very dreadful, really, to a sane man; but just now, as we don't know you—”

“Decidedly,” said I, “I should be a fool to take offence at any want of confidence.”

He twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile—he was one of those saturnine people who smile with the corners of the mouth down,—and bowed his acknowledgment of my complaisance. The main entrance to the enclosure was passed; it was a heavy wooden gate, framed in iron and locked, with the cargo of the launch piled outside it, and at the corner we came to a small doorway I had not previously observed. The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys from the pocket of his greasy blue jacket, opened this door, and entered. His keys, and the elaborate locking-up of the place even while it was still under his eye, struck me as peculiar. I followed him, and found myself in a small apartment, plainly but not uncomfortably furnished and with its inner door, which was slightly ajar, opening into a paved courtyard. This inner door Montgomery at once closed. A hammock was slung across the darker corner of the room, and a small unglazed window defended by an iron bar looked out towards the sea.

This the white-haired man told me was to be my apartment; and the inner door, which “for fear of accidents,” he said, he would lock on the other side, was my limit inward. He called my attention to a convenient deck-chair before the window, and to an array of old books, chiefly, I found, surgical works and editions of the Latin and Greek classics (languages I cannot read with any comfort), on a shelf near the hammock. He left the room by the outer door, as if to avoid opening the inner one again.

“We usually have our meals in here,” said Montgomery, and then, as if in doubt, went out after the other. “Moreau!” I heard him call, and for the moment I do not think I noticed. Then as I handled the books on the shelf it came up in consciousness: Where had I heard the name of Moreau before? I sat down before the window, took out the biscuits that still remained to me, and ate them with an excellent appetite. Moreau!

Through the window I saw one of those unaccountable men in white, lugging a packing-case along the beach. Presently the window-frame hid him. Then I heard a key inserted and turned in the lock behind me. After a little while I heard through the locked door the noise of the staghounds, that had now been brought up from the beach. They were not barking, but sniffing and growling in a curious fashion. I could hear the rapid patter of their feet, and Montgomery's voice soothing them.

I was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two men regarding the contents of the place, and for some time I was thinking of that and of the unaccountable familiarity of the name of Moreau; but so odd is the human memory that I could not then recall that well-known name in its proper connection. From that my thoughts went to the indefinable queerness of the deformed man on the beach. I never saw such a gait, such odd motions as he pulled at the box. I recalled that none of these men had spoken to me, though most of them I had found looking at me at one time or another in a peculiarly furtive manner, quite unlike the frank stare of your unsophisticated savage. Indeed, they had all seemed remarkably taciturn, and when they did speak, endowed with very uncanny voices. What was wrong with them? Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery's ungainly attendant.

Just as I was thinking of him he came in. He was now dressed in white, and carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon. I could hardly repress a shuddering recoil as he came, bending amiably, and placed the tray before me on the table. Then astonishment paralysed me. Under his stringy black locks I saw his ear; it jumped upon me suddenly close to my face. The man had pointed ears, covered with a fine brown fur!

“Your breakfast, sair,” he said.

I stared at his face without attempting to answer him. He turned and went towards the door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder. I followed him out with my eyes; and as I did so, by some odd trick of unconscious cerebration, there came surging into my head the phrase, “The Moreau Hollows”—was it? “The Moreau—” Ah! It sent my memory back ten years. “The Moreau Horrors!” The phrase drifted loose in my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a little buff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made one shiver and creep. Then I remembered distinctly all about it. That long-forgotten pamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind. I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty,—a prominent and masterful physiologist, well-known in scientific circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directness in discussion.

Was this the same Moreau? He had published some very astonishing facts in connection with the transfusion of blood, and in addition was known to be doing valuable work on morbid growths. Then suddenly his career was closed. He had to leave England. A journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacity of laboratory-assistant, with the deliberate intention of making sensational exposures; and by the help of a shocking accident (if it was an accident), his gruesome pamphlet became notorious. On the day of its publication a wretched dog, flayed and otherwise mutilated, escaped from Moreau's house. It was in the silly season, and a prominent editor, a cousin of the temporary laboratory-assistant, appealed to the conscience of the nation. It was not the first time that conscience has turned against the methods of research. The doctor was simply howled out of the country. It may be that he deserved to be; but I still think that the tepid support of his fellow-investigators and his desertion by the great body of scientific workers was a shameful thing. Yet some of his experiments, by the journalist's account, were wantonly cruel. He might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoning his investigations; but he apparently preferred the latter, as most men would who have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research. He was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interest to consider.

I felt convinced that this must be the same man. Everything pointed to it. It dawned upon me to what end the puma and the other animals—which had now been brought with other luggage into the enclosure behind the house—were destined; and a curious faint odour, the halitus of something familiar, an odour that had been in the background of my consciousness hitherto, suddenly came forward into the forefront of my thoughts. It was the antiseptic odour of the dissecting-room. I heard the puma growling through the wall, and one of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck.

Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was nothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy; and by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous eyes of Montgomery's attendant came back again before me with the sharpest definition. I stared before me out at the green sea, frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other strange memories of the last few days chase one another through my mind.

What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island, a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men?

VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.
MONTGOMERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion about one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work to come.

“Moreau!” said I. “I know that name.”

“The devil you do!” said he. “What an ass I was to mention it to you! I might have thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inkling of our—mysteries. Whiskey?”

“No, thanks; I'm an abstainer.”

“I wish I'd been. But it's no use locking the door after the steed is stolen. It was that infernal stuff which led to my coming here,—that, and a foggy night. I thought myself in luck at the time, when Moreau offered to get me off. It's queer—”

“Montgomery,” said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, “why has your man pointed ears?”

“Damn!” he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at me for a moment, and then repeated, “Pointed ears?”

“Little points to them,” said I, as calmly as possible, with a catch in my breath; “and a fine black fur at the edges?”

He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation. “I was under the impression—that his hair covered his ears.”

“I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to me on the table. And his eyes shine in the dark.”

By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question. “I always thought,” he said deliberately, with a certain accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, “that there was something the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them. What were they like?”

I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence. Still, I could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar. “Pointed,” I said; “rather small and furry,—distinctly furry. But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever set eyes on.”

A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us. Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince.

“Yes?” he said.

“Where did you pick up the creature?”

“San Francisco. He's an ugly brute, I admit. Half-witted, you know. Can't remember where he came from. But I'm used to him, you know. We both are. How does he strike you?”

“He's unnatural,” I said. “There's something about him—don't think me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little sensation, a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me. It's a touch—of the diabolical, in fact.”

Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. “Rum!” he said. “I can't see it.” He resumed his meal. “I had no idea of it,” he said, and masticated. “The crew of the schooner must have felt it the same. Made a dead set at the poor devil. You saw the captain?”

Suddenly the puma howled again, this time more painfully. Montgomery swore under his breath. I had half a mind to attack him about the men on the beach. Then the poor brute within gave vent to a series of short, sharp cries.

“Your men on the beach,” said I; “what race are they?”

“Excellent fellows, aren't they?” said he, absentmindedly, knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply.

I said no more. There was another outcry worse than the former. He looked at me with his dull grey eyes, and then took some more whiskey. He tried to draw me into a discussion about alcohol, professing to have saved my life with it. He seemed anxious to lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him. I answered him distractedly.

Presently our meal came to an end; the misshapen monster with the pointed ears cleared the remains away, and Montgomery left me alone in the room again. All the time he had been in a state of ill-concealed irritation at the noise of the vivisected puma. He had spoken of his odd want of nerve, and left me to the obvious application.

I found myself that the cries were singularly irritating, and they grew in depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on. They were painful at first, but their constant resurgence at last altogether upset my balance. I flung aside a crib of Horace I had been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my lips, and to pace the room. Presently I got to stopping my ears with my fingers.

The emotional appeal of those yells grew upon me steadily, grew at last to such an exquisite expression of suffering that I could stand it in that confined room no longer. I stepped out of the door into the slumberous heat of the late afternoon, and walking past the main entrance—locked again, I noticed—turned the corner of the wall.

The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe—I have thought since—I could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us. But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion, blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot of the house in the chequered wall.

IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST.
I STRODE through the undergrowth that clothed the ridge behind the house, scarcely heeding whither I went; passed on through the shadow of a thick cluster of straight-stemmed trees beyond it, and so presently found myself some way on the other side of the ridge, and descending towards a streamlet that ran through a narrow valley. I paused and listened. The distance I had come, or the intervening masses of thicket, deadened any sound that might be coming from the enclosure. The air was still. Then with a rustle a rabbit emerged, and went scampering up the slope before me. I hesitated, and sat down in the edge of the shade.

The place was a pleasant one. The rivulet was hidden by the luxuriant vegetation of the banks save at one point, where I caught a triangular patch of its glittering water. On the farther side I saw through a bluish haze a tangle of trees and creepers, and above these again the luminous blue of the sky. Here and there a splash of white or crimson marked the blooming of some trailing epiphyte. I let my eyes wander over this scene for a while, and then began to turn over in my mind again the strange peculiarities of Montgomery's man. But it was too hot to think elaborately, and presently I fell into a tranquil state midway between dozing and waking.

From this I was aroused, after I know not how long, by a rustling amidst the greenery on the other side of the stream. For a moment I could see nothing but the waving summits of the ferns and reeds. Then suddenly upon the bank of the stream appeared something—at first I could not distinguish what it was. It bowed its round head to the water, and began to drink. Then I saw it was a man, going on all-fours like a beast. He was clothed in bluish cloth, and was of a copper-coloured hue, with black hair. It seemed that grotesque ugliness was an invariable character of these islanders. I could hear the suck of the water at his lips as he drank.

I leant forward to see him better, and a piece of lava, detached by my hand, went pattering down the slope. He looked up guiltily, and his eyes met mine. Forthwith he scrambled to his feet, and stood wiping his clumsy hand across his mouth and regarding me. His legs were scarcely half the length of his body. So, staring one another out of countenance, we remained for perhaps the space of a minute. Then, stopping to look back once or twice, he slunk off among the bushes to the right of me, and I heard the swish of the fronds grow faint in the distance and die away. Long after he had disappeared, I remained sitting up staring in the direction of his retreat. My drowsy tranquillity had gone.

I was startled by a noise behind me, and turning suddenly saw the flapping white tail of a rabbit vanishing up the slope. I jumped to my feet. The apparition of this grotesque, half-bestial creature had suddenly populated the stillness of the afternoon for me. I looked around me rather nervously, and regretted that I was unarmed. Then I thought that the man I had just seen had been clothed in bluish cloth, had not been naked as a savage would have been; and I tried to persuade myself from that fact that he was after all probably a peaceful character, that the dull ferocity of his countenance belied him.

Yet I was greatly disturbed at the apparition. I walked to the left along the slope, turning my head about and peering this way and that among the straight stems of the trees. Why should a man go on all-fours and drink with his lips? Presently I heard an animal wailing again, and taking it to be the puma, I turned about and walked in a direction diametrically opposite to the sound. This led me down to the stream, across which I stepped and pushed my way up through the undergrowth beyond.

I was startled by a great patch of vivid scarlet on the ground, and going up to it found it to be a peculiar fungus, branched and corrugated like a foliaceous lichen, but deliquescing into slime at the touch; and then in the shadow of some luxuriant ferns I came upon an unpleasant thing,—the dead body of a rabbit covered with shining flies, but still warm and with the head torn off. I stopped aghast at the sight of the scattered blood. Here at least was one visitor to the island disposed of! There were no traces of other violence about it. It looked as though it had been suddenly snatched up and killed; and as I stared at the little furry body came the difficulty of how the thing had been done. The vague dread that had been in my mind since I had seen the inhuman face of the man at the stream grew distincter as I stood there. I began to realise the hardihood of my expedition among these unknown people. The thicket about me became altered to my imagination. Every shadow became something more than a shadow,—became an ambush; every rustle became a threat. Invisible things seemed watching me. I resolved to go back to the enclosure on the beach. I suddenly turned away and thrust myself violently, possibly even frantically, through the bushes, anxious to get a clear space about me again.

I stopped just in time to prevent myself emerging upon an open space. It was a kind of glade in the forest, made by a fall; seedlings were already starting up to struggle for the vacant space; and beyond, the dense growth of stems and twining vines and splashes of fungus and flowers closed in again. Before me, squatting together upon the fungoid ruins of a huge fallen tree and still unaware of my approach, were three grotesque human figures. One was evidently a female; the other two were men. They were naked, save for swathings of scarlet cloth about the middle; and their skins were of a dull pinkish-drab colour, such as I had seen in no savages before. They had fat, heavy, chinless faces, retreating foreheads, and a scant bristly hair upon their heads. I never saw such bestial-looking creatures.

They were talking, or at least one of the men was talking to the other two, and all three had been too closely interested to heed the rustling of my approach. They swayed their heads and shoulders from side to side. The speaker's words came thick and sloppy, and though I could hear them distinctly I could not distinguish what he said. He seemed to me to be reciting some complicated gibberish. Presently his articulation became shriller, and spreading his hands he rose to his feet. At that the others began to gibber in unison, also rising to their feet, spreading their hands and swaying their bodies in rhythm with their chant. I noticed then the abnormal shortness of their legs, and their lank, clumsy feet. All three began slowly to circle round, raising and stamping their feet and waving their arms; a kind of tune crept into their rhythmic recitation, and a refrain,—“Aloola,” or “Balloola,” it sounded like. Their eyes began to sparkle, and their ugly faces to brighten, with an expression of strange pleasure. Saliva dripped from their lipless mouths.

Suddenly, as I watched their grotesque and unaccountable gestures, I perceived clearly for the first time what it was that had offended me, what had given me the two inconsistent and conflicting impressions of utter strangeness and yet of the strangest familiarity. The three creatures engaged in this mysterious rite were human in shape, and yet human beings with the strangest air about them of some familiar animal. Each of these creatures, despite its human form, its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form, had woven into it—into its movements, into the expression of its countenance, into its whole presence—some now irresistible suggestion of a hog, a swinish taint, the unmistakable mark of the beast.

I stood overcome by this amazing realisation and then the most horrible questionings came rushing into my mind. They began leaping in the air, first one and then the other, whooping and grunting. Then one slipped, and for a moment was on all-fours,—to recover, indeed, forthwith. But that transitory gleam of the true animalism of these monsters was enough.

I turned as noiselessly as possible, and becoming every now and then rigid with the fear of being discovered, as a branch cracked or a leaf rustled, I pushed back into the bushes. It was long before I grew bolder, and dared to move freely. My only idea for the moment was to get away from these foul beings, and I scarcely noticed that I had emerged upon a faint pathway amidst the trees. Then suddenly traversing a little glade, I saw with an unpleasant start two clumsy legs among the trees, walking with noiseless footsteps parallel with my course, and perhaps thirty yards away from me. The head and upper part of the body were hidden by a tangle of creeper. I stopped abruptly, hoping the creature did not see me. The feet stopped as I did. So nervous was I that I controlled an impulse to headlong flight with the utmost difficulty. Then looking hard, I distinguished through the interlacing network the head and body of the brute I had seen drinking. He moved his head. There was an emerald flash in his eyes as he glanced at me from the shadow of the trees, a half-luminous colour that vanished as he turned his head again. He was motionless for a moment, and then with a noiseless tread began running through the green confusion. In another moment he had vanished behind some bushes. I could not see him, but I felt that he had stopped and was watching me again.

What on earth was he,—man or beast? What did he want with me? I had no weapon, not even a stick. Flight would be madness. At any rate the Thing, whatever it was, lacked the courage to attack me. Setting my teeth hard, I walked straight towards him. I was anxious not to show the fear that seemed chilling my backbone. I pushed through a tangle of tall white-flowered bushes, and saw him twenty paces beyond, looking over his shoulder at me and hesitating. I advanced a step or two, looking steadfastly into his eyes.

“Who are you?” said I.

He tried to meet my gaze. “No!” he said suddenly, and turning went bounding away from me through the undergrowth. Then he turned and stared at me again. His eyes shone brightly out of the dusk under the trees.

My heart was in my mouth; but I felt my only chance was bluff, and walked steadily towards him. He turned again, and vanished into the dusk. Once more I thought I caught the glint of his eyes, and that was all.

For the first time I realised how the lateness of the hour might affect me. The sun had set some minutes since, the swift dusk of the tropics was already fading out of the eastern sky, and a pioneer moth fluttered silently by my head. Unless I would spend the night among the unknown dangers of the mysterious forest, I must hasten back to the enclosure. The thought of a return to that pain-haunted refuge was extremely disagreeable, but still more so was the idea of being overtaken in the open by darkness and all that darkness might conceal. I gave one more look into the blue shadows that had swallowed up this odd creature, and then retraced my way down the slope towards the stream, going as I judged in the direction from which I had come.

I walked eagerly, my mind confused with many things, and presently found myself in a level place among scattered trees. The colourless clearness that comes after the sunset flush was darkling; the blue sky above grew momentarily deeper, and the little stars one by one pierced the attenuated light; the interspaces of the trees, the gaps in the further vegetation, that had been hazy blue in the daylight, grew black and mysterious. I pushed on. The colour vanished from the world. The tree-tops rose against the luminous blue sky in inky silhouette, and all below that outline melted into one formless blackness. Presently the trees grew thinner, and the shrubby undergrowth more abundant. Then there was a desolate space covered with a white sand, and then another expanse of tangled bushes. I did not remember crossing the sand-opening before. I began to be tormented by a faint rustling upon my right hand. I thought at first it was fancy, for whenever I stopped there was silence, save for the evening breeze in the tree-tops. Then when I turned to hurry on again there was an echo to my footsteps.

I turned away from the thickets, keeping to the more open ground, and endeavouring by sudden turns now and then to surprise something in the act of creeping upon me. I saw nothing, and nevertheless my sense of another presence grew steadily. I increased my pace, and after some time came to a slight ridge, crossed it, and turned sharply, regarding it steadfastly from the further side. It came out black and clear-cut against the darkling sky; and presently a shapeless lump heaved up momentarily against the sky-line and vanished again. I felt assured now that my tawny-faced antagonist was stalking me once more; and coupled with that was another unpleasant realisation, that I had lost my way.

For a time I hurried on hopelessly perplexed, and pursued by that stealthy approach. Whatever it was, the Thing either lacked the courage to attack me, or it was waiting to take me at some disadvantage. I kept studiously to the open. At times I would turn and listen; and presently I had half persuaded myself that my pursuer had abandoned the chase, or was a mere creation of my disordered imagination. Then I heard the sound of the sea. I quickened my footsteps almost into a run, and immediately there was a stumble in my rear.

I turned suddenly, and stared at the uncertain trees behind me. One black shadow seemed to leap into another. I listened, rigid, and heard nothing but the creep of the blood in my ears. I thought that my nerves were unstrung, and that my imagination was tricking me, and turned resolutely towards the sound of the sea again.

In a minute or so the trees grew thinner, and I emerged upon a bare, low headland running out into the sombre water. The night was calm and clear, and the reflection of the growing multitude of the stars shivered in the tranquil heaving of the sea. Some way out, the wash upon an irregular band of reef shone with a pallid light of its own. Westward I saw the zodiacal light mingling with the yellow brilliance of the evening star. The coast fell away from me to the east, and westward it was hidden by the shoulder of the cape. Then I recalled the fact that Moreau's beach lay to the west.

A twig snapped behind me, and there was a rustle. I turned, and stood facing the dark trees. I could see nothing—or else I could see too much. Every dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar suggestion of alert watchfulness. So I stood for perhaps a minute, and then, with an eye to the trees still, turned westward to cross the headland; and as I moved, one among the lurking shadows moved to follow me.

My heart beat quickly. Presently the broad sweep of a bay to the westward became visible, and I halted again. The noiseless shadow halted a dozen yards from me. A little point of light shone on the further bend of the curve, and the grey sweep of the sandy beach lay faint under the starlight. Perhaps two miles away was that little point of light. To get to the beach I should have to go through the trees where the shadows lurked, and down a bushy slope.

I could see the Thing rather more distinctly now. It was no animal, for it stood erect. At that I opened my mouth to speak, and found a hoarse phlegm choked my voice. I tried again, and shouted, “Who is there?” There was no answer. I advanced a step. The Thing did not move, only gathered itself together. My foot struck a stone. That gave me an idea. Without taking my eyes off the black form before me, I stooped and picked up this lump of rock; but at my motion the Thing turned abruptly as a dog might have done, and slunk obliquely into the further darkness. Then I recalled a schoolboy expedient against big dogs, and twisted the rock into my handkerchief, and gave this a turn round my wrist. I heard a movement further off among the shadows, as if the Thing was in retreat. Then suddenly my tense excitement gave way; I broke into a profuse perspiration and fell a-trembling, with my adversary routed and this weapon in my hand.

It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through the trees and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach. At last I did it at a run; and as I emerged from the thicket upon the sand, I heard some other body come crashing after me. At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began running along the sand. Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft feet in pursuit. I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace. Some dim, black things about three or four times the size of rabbits went running or hopping up from the beach towards the bushes as I passed.

So long as I live, I shall remember the terror of that chase. I ran near the water's edge, and heard every now and then the splash of the feet that gained upon me. Far away, hopelessly far, was the yellow light. All the night about us was black and still. Splash, splash, came the pursuing feet, nearer and nearer. I felt my breath going, for I was quite out of training; it whooped as I drew it, and I felt a pain like a knife at my side. I perceived the Thing would come up with me long before I reached the enclosure, and, desperate and sobbing for my breath, I wheeled round upon it and struck at it as it came up to me,—struck with all my strength. The stone came out of the sling of the handkerchief as I did so. As I turned, the Thing, which had been running on all-fours, rose to its feet, and the missile fell fair on its left temple. The skull rang loud, and the animal-man blundered into me, thrust me back with its hands, and went staggering past me to fall headlong upon the sand with its face in the water; and there it lay still.

I could not bring myself to approach that black heap. I left it there, with the water rippling round it, under the still stars, and giving it a wide berth pursued my way towards the yellow glow of the house; and presently, with a positive effect of relief, came the pitiful moaning of the puma, the sound that had originally driven me out to explore this mysterious island. At that, though I was faint and horribly fatigued, I gathered together all my strength, and began running again towards the light. I thought I heard a voice calling me.

X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN.
AS I drew near the house I saw that the light shone from the open door of my room; and then I heard coming from out of the darkness at the side of that orange oblong of light, the voice of Montgomery shouting, “Prendick!” I continued running. Presently I heard him again. I replied by a feeble “Hullo!” and in another moment had staggered up to him.

“Where have you been?” said he, holding me at arm's length, so that the light from the door fell on my face. “We have both been so busy that we forgot you until about half an hour ago.” He led me into the room and sat me down in the deck chair. For awhile I was blinded by the light. “We did not think you would start to explore this island of ours without telling us,” he said; and then, “I was afraid—But—what—Hullo!”

My last remaining strength slipped from me, and my head fell forward on my chest. I think he found a certain satisfaction in giving me brandy.

“For God's sake,” said I, “fasten that door.”

“You've been meeting some of our curiosities, eh?” said he.

He locked the door and turned to me again. He asked me no questions, but gave me some more brandy and water and pressed me to eat. I was in a state of collapse. He said something vague about his forgetting to warn me, and asked me briefly when I left the house and what I had seen.

I answered him as briefly, in fragmentary sentences. “Tell me what it all means,” said I, in a state bordering on hysterics.

“It's nothing so very dreadful,” said he. “But I think you have had about enough for one day.” The puma suddenly gave a sharp yell of pain. At that he swore under his breath. “I'm damned,” said he, “if this place is not as bad as Gower Street, with its cats.”

“Montgomery,” said I, “what was that thing that came after me? Was it a beast or was it a man?”

“If you don't sleep to-night,” he said, “you'll be off your head to-morrow.”

I stood up in front of him. “What was that thing that came after me?” I asked.

He looked me squarely in the eyes, and twisted his mouth askew. His eyes, which had seemed animated a minute before, went dull. “From your account,” said he, “I'm thinking it was a bogle.”

I felt a gust of intense irritation, which passed as quickly as it came. I flung myself into the chair again, and pressed my hands on my forehead. The puma began once more.

Montgomery came round behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Look here, Prendick,” he said, “I had no business to let you drift out into this silly island of ours. But it's not so bad as you feel, man. Your nerves are worked to rags. Let me give you something that will make you sleep. That—will keep on for hours yet. You must simply get to sleep, or I won't answer for it.”

I did not reply. I bowed forward, and covered my face with my hands. Presently he returned with a small measure containing a dark liquid. This he gave me. I took it unresistingly, and he helped me into the hammock.

When I awoke, it was broad day. For a little while I lay flat, staring at the roof above me. The rafters, I observed, were made out of the timbers of a ship. Then I turned my head, and saw a meal prepared for me on the table. I perceived that I was hungry, and prepared to clamber out of the hammock, which, very politely anticipating my intention, twisted round and deposited me upon all-fours on the floor.

I got up and sat down before the food. I had a heavy feeling in my head, and only the vaguest memory at first of the things that had happened over night. The morning breeze blew very pleasantly through the unglazed window, and that and the food contributed to the sense of animal comfort which I experienced. Presently the door behind me—the door inward towards the yard of the enclosure—opened. I turned and saw Montgomery's face.

“All right,” said he. “I'm frightfully busy.” And he shut the door.

Afterwards I discovered that he forgot to re-lock it. Then I recalled the expression of his face the previous night, and with that the memory of all I had experienced reconstructed itself before me. Even as that fear came back to me came a cry from within; but this time it was not the cry of a puma. I put down the mouthful that hesitated upon my lips, and listened. Silence, save for the whisper of the morning breeze. I began to think my ears had deceived me.

After a long pause I resumed my meal, but with my ears still vigilant. Presently I heard something else, very faint and low. I sat as if frozen in my attitude. Though it was faint and low, it moved me more profoundly than all that I had hitherto heard of the abominations behind the wall. There was no mistake this time in the quality of the dim, broken sounds; no doubt at all of their source. For it was groaning, broken by sobs and gasps of anguish. It was no brute this time; it was a human being in torment!

As I realised this I rose, and in three steps had crossed the room, seized the handle of the door into the yard, and flung it open before me.

“Prendick, man! Stop!” cried Montgomery, intervening.

A startled deerhound yelped and snarled. There was blood, I saw, in the sink,—brown, and some scarlet—and I smelt the peculiar smell of carbolic acid. Then through an open doorway beyond, in the dim light of the shadow, I saw something bound painfully upon a framework, scarred, red, and bandaged; and then blotting this out appeared the face of old Moreau, white and terrible. In a moment he had gripped me by the shoulder with a hand that was smeared red, had twisted me off my feet, and flung me headlong back into my own room. He lifted me as though I was a little child. I fell at full length upon the floor, and the door slammed and shut out the passionate intensity of his face. Then I heard the key turn in the lock, and Montgomery's voice in expostulation.

“Ruin the work of a lifetime,” I heard Moreau say.

“He does not understand,” said Montgomery. and other things that were inaudible.

“I can't spare the time yet,” said Moreau.

The rest I did not hear. I picked myself up and stood trembling, my mind a chaos of the most horrible misgivings. Could it be possible, I thought, that such a thing as the vivisection of men was carried on here? The question shot like lightning across a tumultuous sky; and suddenly the clouded horror of my mind condensed into a vivid realisation of my own danger.

XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.
IT came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that the outer door of my room was still open to me. I was convinced now, absolutely assured, that Moreau had been vivisecting a human being. All the time since I had heard his name, I had been trying to link in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism of the islanders with his abominations; and now I thought I saw it all. The memory of his work on the transfusion of blood recurred to me. These creatures I had seen were the victims of some hideous experiment. These sickening scoundrels had merely intended to keep me back, to fool me with their display of confidence, and presently to fall upon me with a fate more horrible than death,—with torture; and after torture the most hideous degradation it is possible to conceive,—to send me off a lost soul, a beast, to the rest of their Comus rout.

I looked round for some weapon. Nothing. Then with an inspiration I turned over the deck chair, put my foot on the side of it, and tore away the side rail. It happened that a nail came away with the wood, and projecting, gave a touch of danger to an otherwise petty weapon. I heard a step outside, and incontinently flung open the door and found Montgomery within a yard of it. He meant to lock the outer door! I raised this nailed stick of mine and cut at his face; but he sprang back. I hesitated a moment, then turned and fled, round the corner of the house. “Prendick, man!” I heard his astonished cry, “don't be a silly ass, man!”

Another minute, thought I, and he would have had me locked in, and as ready as a hospital rabbit for my fate. He emerged behind the corner, for I heard him shout, “Prendick!” Then he began to run after me, shouting things as he ran. This time running blindly, I went northeastward in a direction at right angles to my previous expedition. Once, as I went running headlong up the beach, I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him. I ran furiously up the slope, over it, then turning eastward along a rocky valley fringed on either side with jungle I ran for perhaps a mile altogether, my chest straining, my heart beating in my ears; and then hearing nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling upon the verge of exhaustion, I doubled sharply back towards the beach as I judged, and lay down in the shelter of a canebrake. There I remained for a long time, too fearful to move, and indeed too fearful even to plan a course of action. The wild scene about me lay sleeping silently under the sun, and the only sound near me was the thin hum of some small gnats that had discovered me. Presently I became aware of a drowsy breathing sound, the soughing of the sea upon the beach.

After about an hour I heard Montgomery shouting my name, far away to the north. That set me thinking of my plan of action. As I interpreted it then, this island was inhabited only by these two vivisectors and their animalised victims. Some of these no doubt they could press into their service against me if need arose. I knew both Moreau and Montgomery carried revolvers; and, save for a feeble bar of deal spiked with a small nail, the merest mockery of a mace, I was unarmed.

So I lay still there, until I began to think of food and drink; and at that thought the real hopelessness of my position came home to me. I knew no way of getting anything to eat. I was too ignorant of botany to discover any resort of root or fruit that might lie about me; I had no means of trapping the few rabbits upon the island. It grew blanker the more I turned the prospect over. At last in the desperation of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I had encountered. I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them. In turn I recalled each one I had seen, and tried to draw some augury of assistance from my memory.

Then suddenly I heard a staghound bay, and at that realised a new danger. I took little time to think, or they would have caught me then, but snatching up my nailed stick, rushed headlong from my hiding-place towards the sound of the sea. I remember a growth of thorny plants, with spines that stabbed like pen-knives. I emerged bleeding and with torn clothes upon the lip of a long creek opening northward. I went straight into the water without a minute's hesitation, wading up the creek, and presently finding myself kneedeep in a little stream. I scrambled out at last on the westward bank, and with my heart beating loudly in my ears, crept into a tangle of ferns to await the issue. I heard the dog (there was only one) draw nearer, and yelp when it came to the thorns. Then I heard no more, and presently began to think I had escaped.

The minutes passed; the silence lengthened out, and at last after an hour of security my courage began to return to me. By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror and despair. I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me capable of daring anything. I had even a certain wish to encounter Moreau face to face; and as I had waded into the water, I remembered that if I were too hard pressed at least one path of escape from torment still lay open to me,—they could not very well prevent my drowning myself. I had half a mind to drown myself then; but an odd wish to see the whole adventure out, a queer, impersonal, spectacular interest in myself, restrained me. I stretched my limbs, sore and painful from the pricks of the spiny plants, and stared around me at the trees; and, so suddenly that it seemed to jump out of the green tracery about it, my eyes lit upon a black face watching me. I saw that it was the simian creature who had met the launch upon the beach. He was clinging to the oblique stem of a palm-tree. I gripped my stick, and stood up facing him. He began chattering. “You, you, you,” was all I could distinguish at first. Suddenly he dropped from the tree, and in another moment was holding the fronds apart and staring curiously at me.

I did not feel the same repugnance towards this creature which I had experienced in my encounters with the other Beast Men. “You,” he said, “in the boat.” He was a man, then,—at least as much of a man as Montgomery's attendant,—for he could talk.

“Yes,” I said, “I came in the boat. From the ship.”

“Oh!” he said, and his bright, restless eyes travelled over me, to my hands, to the stick I carried, to my feet, to the tattered places in my coat, and the cuts and scratches I had received from the thorns. He seemed puzzled at something. His eyes came back to my hands. He held his own hand out and counted his digits slowly, “One, two, three, four, five—eigh?”

I did not grasp his meaning then; afterwards I was to find that a great proportion of these Beast People had malformed hands, lacking sometimes even three digits. But guessing this was in some way a greeting, I did the same thing by way of reply. He grinned with immense satisfaction. Then his swift roving glance went round again; he made a swift movement—and vanished. The fern fronds he had stood between came swishing together.

I pushed out of the brake after him, and was astonished to find him swinging cheerfully by one lank arm from a rope of creepers that looped down from the foliage overhead. His back was to me.

“Hullo!” said I.

He came down with a twisting jump, and stood facing me.

“I say,” said I, “where can I get something to eat?”

“Eat!” he said. “Eat Man's food, now.” And his eye went back to the swing of ropes. “At the huts.”

“But where are the huts?”

“Oh!”

“I'm new, you know.”

At that he swung round, and set off at a quick walk. All his motions were curiously rapid. “Come along,” said he.

I went with him to see the adventure out. I guessed the huts were some rough shelter where he and some more of these Beast People lived. I might perhaps find them friendly, find some handle in their minds to take hold of. I did not know how far they had forgotten their human heritage.

My ape-like companion trotted along by my side, with his hands hanging down and his jaw thrust forward. I wondered what memory he might have in him. “How long have you been on this island?” said I.

“How long?” he asked; and after having the question repeated, he held up three fingers.

The creature was little better than an idiot. I tried to make out what he meant by that, and it seems I bored him. After another question or two he suddenly left my side and went leaping at some fruit that hung from a tree. He pulled down a handful of prickly husks and went on eating the contents. I noted this with satisfaction, for here at least was a hint for feeding. I tried him with some other questions, but his chattering, prompt responses were as often as not quite at cross purposes with my question. Some few were appropriate, others quite parrot-like.

I was so intent upon these peculiarities that I scarcely noticed the path we followed. Presently we came to trees, all charred and brown, and so to a bare place covered with a yellow-white incrustation, across which a drifting smoke, pungent in whiffs to nose and eyes, went drifting. On our right, over a shoulder of bare rock, I saw the level blue of the sea. The path coiled down abruptly into a narrow ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of blackish scoriae. Into this we plunged.

It was extremely dark, this passage, after the blinding sunlight reflected from the sulphurous ground. Its walls grew steep, and approached each other. Blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes. My conductor stopped suddenly. “Home!” said he, and I stood in a floor of a chasm that was at first absolutely dark to me. I heard some strange noises, and thrust the knuckles of my left hand into my eyes. I became aware of a disagreeable odor, like that of a monkey's cage ill-cleaned. Beyond, the rock opened again upon a gradual slope of sunlit greenery, and on either hand the light smote down through narrow ways into the central gloom.

XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW.
THEN something cold touched my hand. I started violently, and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead and slow gestures.

As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me more distinctly. The little sloth-like creature was standing and staring at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow passage between high walls of lava, a crack in the knotted rock, and on either side interwoven heaps of sea-mat, palm-fans, and reeds leaning against the rock formed rough and impenetrably dark dens. The winding way up the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide, and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit-pulp and other refuse, which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place.

The little pink sloth-creature was still blinking at me when my Ape-man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens, and beckoned me in. As he did so a slouching monster wriggled out of one of the places, further up this strange street, and stood up in featureless silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me. I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I had come; and then, determined to go through with the adventure, I gripped my nailed stick about the middle and crawled into the little evil-smelling lean-to after my conductor.

It was a semi-circular space, shaped like the half of a bee-hive; and against the rocky wall that formed the inner side of it was a pile of variegated fruits, cocoa-nuts among others. Some rough vessels of lava and wood stood about the floor, and one on a rough stool. There was no fire. In the darkest corner of the hut sat a shapeless mass of darkness that grunted “Hey!” as I came in, and my Ape-man stood in the dim light of the doorway and held out a split cocoa-nut to me as I crawled into the other corner and squatted down. I took it, and began gnawing it, as serenely as possible, in spite of a certain trepidation and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den. The little pink sloth-creature stood in the aperture of the hut, and something else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring over its shoulder.

“Hey!” came out of the lump of mystery opposite. “It is a man.”

“It is a man,” gabbled my conductor, “a man, a man, a five-man, like me.”

“Shut up!” said the voice from the dark, and grunted. I gnawed my cocoa-nut amid an impressive stillness.

I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing.

“It is a man,” the voice repeated. “He comes to live with us?”

It was a thick voice, with something in it—a kind of whistling overtone—that struck me as peculiar; but the English accent was strangely good.

The Ape-man looked at me as though he expected something. I perceived the pause was interrogative. “He comes to live with you,” I said.

“It is a man. He must learn the Law.”

I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black, a vague outline of a hunched-up figure. Then I noticed the opening of the place was darkened by two more black heads. My hand tightened on my stick.

The thing in the dark repeated in a louder tone, “Say the words.” I had missed its last remark. “Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law,” it repeated in a kind of sing-song.

I was puzzled.

“Say the words,” said the Ape-man, repeating, and the figures in the doorway echoed this, with a threat in the tone of their voices.

I realised that I had to repeat this idiotic formula; and then began the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoning a mad litany, line by line, and I and the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to side in the oddest way, and beat their hands upon their knees; and I followed their example. I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world. That dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here and there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and chanting,

“Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

“Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

“Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

“Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

“Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”

And so from the prohibition of these acts of folly, on to the prohibition of what I thought then were the maddest, most impossible, and most indecent things one could well imagine. A kind of rhythmic fervour fell on all of us; we gabbled and swayed faster and faster, repeating this amazing Law. Superficially the contagion of these brutes was upon me, but deep down within me the laughter and disgust struggled together. We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the chant swung round to a new formula.

“His is the House of Pain.

“His is the Hand that makes.

“His is the Hand that wounds.

“His is the Hand that heals.”

And so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible gibberish to me about Him, whoever he might be. I could have fancied it was a dream, but never before have I heard chanting in a dream.

“His is the lightning flash,” we sang. “His is the deep, salt sea.”

A horrible fancy came into my head that Moreau, after animalising these men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself. However, I was too keenly aware of white teeth and strong claws about me to stop my chanting on that account.

“His are the stars in the sky.”

At last that song ended. I saw the Ape-man's face shining with perspiration; and my eyes being now accustomed to the darkness, I saw more distinctly the figure in the corner from which the voice came. It was the size of a man, but it seemed covered with a dull grey hair almost like a Skye-terrier. What was it? What were they all? Imagine yourself surrounded by all the most horrible cripples and maniacs it is possible to conceive, and you may understand a little of my feelings with these grotesque caricatures of humanity about me.

“He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man—like me,” said the Ape-man.

I held out my hands. The grey creature in the corner leant forward.

“Not to run on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?” he said.

He put out a strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering disgust that it was like the face of neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of grey hair, with three shadowy over-archings to mark the eyes and mouth.

“He has little nails,” said this grisly creature in his hairy beard. “It is well.”

He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick.

“Eat roots and herbs; it is His will,” said the Ape-man.

“I am the Sayer of the Law,” said the grey figure. “Here come all that be new to learn the Law. I sit in the darkness and say the Law.”

“It is even so,” said one of the beasts in the doorway.

“Evil are the punishments of those who break the Law. None escape.”

“None escape,” said the Beast Folk, glancing furtively at one another.

“None, none,” said the Ape-man,—“none escape. See! I did a little thing, a wrong thing, once. I jabbered, jabbered, stopped talking. None could understand. I am burnt, branded in the hand. He is great. He is good!”

“None escape,” said the grey creature in the corner.

“None escape,” said the Beast People, looking askance at one another.

“For every one the want that is bad,” said the grey Sayer of the Law. “What you will want we do not know; we shall know. Some want to follow things that move, to watch and slink and wait and spring; to kill and bite, bite deep and rich, sucking the blood. It is bad. ‘Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?’”

“None escape,” said a dappled brute standing in the doorway.

“For every one the want is bad,” said the grey Sayer of the Law. “Some want to go tearing with teeth and hands into the roots of things, snuffing into the earth. It is bad.”

“None escape,” said the men in the door.

“Some go clawing trees; some go scratching at the graves of the dead; some go fighting with foreheads or feet or claws; some bite suddenly, none giving occasion; some love uncleanness.”

“None escape,” said the Ape-man, scratching his calf.

“None escape,” said the little pink sloth-creature.

“Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore learn the Law. Say the words.”

And incontinently he began again the strange litany of the Law, and again I and all these creatures began singing and swaying. My head reeled with this jabbering and the close stench of the place; but I kept on, trusting to find presently some chance of a new development.

“Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”

We were making such a noise that I noticed nothing of a tumult outside, until some one, who I think was one of the two Swine Men I had seen, thrust his head over the little pink sloth-creature and shouted something excitedly, something that I did not catch. Incontinently those at the opening of the hut vanished; my Ape-man rushed out; the thing that had sat in the dark followed him (I only observed that it was big and clumsy, and covered with silvery hair), and I was left alone. Then before I reached the aperture I heard the yelp of a staghound.

In another moment I was standing outside the hovel, my chair-rail in my hand, every muscle of me quivering. Before me were the clumsy backs of perhaps a score of these Beast People, their misshapen heads half hidden by their shoulder-blades. They were gesticulating excitedly. Other half-animal faces glared interrogation out of the hovels. Looking in the direction in which they faced, I saw coming through the haze under the trees beyond the end of the passage of dens the dark figure and awful white face of Moreau. He was holding the leaping staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery revolver in hand.

For a moment I stood horror-struck. I turned and saw the passage behind me blocked by another heavy brute, with a huge grey face and twinkling little eyes, advancing towards me. I looked round and saw to the right of me and a half-dozen yards in front of me a narrow gap in the wall of rock through which a ray of light slanted into the shadows.

“Stop!” cried Moreau as I strode towards this, and then, “Hold him!”

At that, first one face turned towards me and then others. Their bestial minds were happily slow. I dashed my shoulder into a clumsy monster who was turning to see what Moreau meant, and flung him forward into another. I felt his hands fly round, clutching at me and missing me. The little pink sloth-creature dashed at me, and I gashed down its ugly face with the nail in my stick and in another minute was scrambling up a steep side pathway, a kind of sloping chimney, out of the ravine. I heard a howl behind me, and cries of “Catch him!” “Hold him!” and the grey-faced creature appeared behind me and jammed his huge bulk into the cleft. “Go on! go on!” they howled. I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out upon the sulphur on the westward side of the village of the Beast Men.

That gap was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney, slanting obliquely upward, must have impeded the nearer pursuers. I ran over the white space and down a steep slope, through a scattered growth of trees, and came to a low-lying stretch of tall reeds, through which I pushed into a dark, thick undergrowth that was black and succulent under foot. As I plunged into the reeds, my foremost pursuers emerged from the gap. I broke my way through this undergrowth for some minutes. The air behind me and about me was soon full of threatening cries. I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope, then the crashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling crash of a branch. Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey. The staghound yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and Montgomery shouting in the same direction. I turned sharply to the right. It seemed to me even then that I heard Montgomery shouting for me to run for my life.

Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet; but I was desperate and went headlong into it, struggled through kneedeep, and so came to a winding path among tall canes. The noise of my pursuers passed away to my left. In one place three strange, pink, hopping animals, about the size of cats, bolted before my footsteps. This pathway ran up hill, across another open space covered with white incrustation, and plunged into a canebrake again. Then suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep-walled gap, which came without warning, like the ha-ha of an English park,—turned with an unexpected abruptness. I was still running with all my might, and I never saw this drop until I was flying headlong through the air.

I fell on my forearms and head, among thorns, and rose with a torn ear and bleeding face. I had fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist which drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow streamlet from which this mist came meandering down the centre. I was astonished at this thin fog in the full blaze of daylight; but I had no time to stand wondering then. I turned to my right, down-stream, hoping to come to the sea in that direction, and so have my way open to drown myself. It was only later I found that I had dropped my nailed stick in my fall.

Presently the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelessly I stepped into the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly, for the water was almost boiling. I noticed too there was a thin sulphurous scum drifting upon its coiling water. Almost immediately came a turn in the ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon. The nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets. I saw my death before me; but I was hot and panting, with the warm blood oozing out on my face and running pleasantly through my veins. I felt more than a touch of exultation too, at having distanced my pursuers. It was not in me then to go out and drown myself yet. I stared back the way I had come.

I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small insects that hopped among the thorns, the air was absolutely still. Then came the yelp of a dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering, the snap of a whip, and voices. They grew louder, then fainter again. The noise receded up the stream and faded away. For a while the chase was over; but I knew now how much hope of help for me lay in the Beast People.

XIII. A PARLEY.
I TURNED again and went on down towards the sea. I found the hot stream broadened out to a shallow, weedy sand, in which an abundance of crabs and long-bodied, many-legged creatures started from my footfall. I walked to the very edge of the salt water, and then I felt I was safe. I turned and stared, arms akimbo, at the thick green behind me, into which the steamy ravine cut like a smoking gash. But, as I say, I was too full of excitement and (a true saying, though those who have never known danger may doubt it) too desperate to die.

Then it came into my head that there was one chance before me yet. While Moreau and Montgomery and their bestial rabble chased me through the island, might I not go round the beach until I came to their enclosure,—make a flank march upon them, in fact, and then with a rock lugged out of their loosely-built wall, perhaps, smash in the lock of the smaller door and see what I could find (knife, pistol, or what not) to fight them with when they returned? It was at any rate something to try.

So I turned to the westward and walked along by the water's edge. The setting sun flashed his blinding heat into my eyes. The slight Pacific tide was running in with a gentle ripple. Presently the shore fell away southward, and the sun came round upon my right hand. Then suddenly, far in front of me, I saw first one and then several figures emerging from the bushes,—Moreau, with his grey staghound, then Montgomery, and two others. At that I stopped.

They saw me, and began gesticulating and advancing. I stood watching them approach. The two Beast Men came running forward to cut me off from the undergrowth, inland. Montgomery came, running also, but straight towards me. Moreau followed slower with the dog.

At last I roused myself from my inaction, and turning seaward walked straight into the water. The water was very shallow at first. I was thirty yards out before the waves reached to my waist. Dimly I could see the intertidal creatures darting away from my feet.

“What are you doing, man?” cried Montgomery.

I turned, standing waist deep, and stared at them. Montgomery stood panting at the margin of the water. His face was bright-red with exertion, his long flaxen hair blown about his head, and his dropping nether lip showed his irregular teeth. Moreau was just coming up, his face pale and firm, and the dog at his hand barked at me. Both men had heavy whips. Farther up the beach stared the Beast Men.

“What am I doing? I am going to drown myself,” said I.

Montgomery and Moreau looked at each other. “Why?” asked Moreau.

“Because that is better than being tortured by you.”

“I told you so,” said Montgomery, and Moreau said something in a low tone.

“What makes you think I shall torture you?” asked Moreau.

“What I saw,” I said. “And those—yonder.”

“Hush!” said Moreau, and held up his hand.

“I will not,” said I. “They were men: what are they now? I at least will not be like them.”

I looked past my interlocutors. Up the beach were M'ling, Montgomery's attendant, and one of the white-swathed brutes from the boat. Farther up, in the shadow of the trees, I saw my little Ape-man, and behind him some other dim figures.

“Who are these creatures?” said I, pointing to them and raising my voice more and more that it might reach them. “They were men, men like yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial taint,—men whom you have enslaved, and whom you still fear.

“You who listen,” I cried, pointing now to Moreau and shouting past him to the Beast Men,—“You who listen! Do you not see these men still fear you, go in dread of you? Why, then, do you fear them? You are many—”

“For God's sake,” cried Montgomery, “stop that, Prendick!”

“Prendick!” cried Moreau.

They both shouted together, as if to drown my voice; and behind them lowered the staring faces of the Beast Men, wondering, their deformed hands hanging down, their shoulders hunched up. They seemed, as I fancied, to be trying to understand me, to remember, I thought, something of their human past.

I went on shouting, I scarcely remember what,—that Moreau and Montgomery could be killed, that they were not to be feared: that was the burden of what I put into the heads of the Beast People. I saw the green-eyed man in the dark rags, who had met me on the evening of my arrival, come out from among the trees, and others followed him, to hear me better. At last for want of breath I paused.

“Listen to me for a moment,” said the steady voice of Moreau; “and then say what you will.”

“Well?” said I.

He coughed, thought, then shouted: “Latin, Prendick! bad Latin, schoolboy Latin; but try and understand. Hi non sunt homines; sunt animalia qui nos habemus—vivisected. A humanising process. I will explain. Come ashore.”

I laughed. “A pretty story,” said I. “They talk, build houses. They were men. It's likely I'll come ashore.”

“The water just beyond where you stand is deep—and full of sharks.”

“That's my way,” said I. “Short and sharp. Presently.”

“Wait a minute.” He took something out of his pocket that flashed back the sun, and dropped the object at his feet. “That's a loaded revolver,” said he. “Montgomery here will do the same. Now we are going up the beach until you are satisfied the distance is safe. Then come and take the revolvers.”

“Not I! You have a third between you.”

“I want you to think over things, Prendick. In the first place, I never asked you to come upon this island. If we vivisected men, we should import men, not beasts. In the next, we had you drugged last night, had we wanted to work you any mischief; and in the next, now your first panic is over and you can think a little, is Montgomery here quite up to the character you give him? We have chased you for your good. Because this island is full of inimical phenomena. Besides, why should we want to shoot you when you have just offered to drown yourself?”

“Why did you set—your people onto me when I was in the hut?”

“We felt sure of catching you, and bringing you out of danger. Afterwards we drew away from the scent, for your good.”

I mused. It seemed just possible. Then I remembered something again. “But I saw,” said I, “in the enclosure—”

“That was the puma.”

“Look here, Prendick,” said Montgomery, “you're a silly ass! Come out of the water and take these revolvers, and talk. We can't do anything more than we could do now.”

I will confess that then, and indeed always, I distrusted and dreaded Moreau; but Montgomery was a man I felt I understood.

“Go up the beach,” said I, after thinking, and added, “holding your hands up.”

“Can't do that,” said Montgomery, with an explanatory nod over his shoulder. “Undignified.”

“Go up to the trees, then,” said I, “as you please.”

“It's a damned silly ceremony,” said Montgomery.

Both turned and faced the six or seven grotesque creatures, who stood there in the sunlight, solid, casting shadows, moving, and yet so incredibly unreal. Montgomery cracked his whip at them, and forthwith they all turned and fled helter-skelter into the trees; and when Montgomery and Moreau were at a distance I judged sufficient, I waded ashore, and picked up and examined the revolvers. To satisfy myself against the subtlest trickery, I discharged one at a round lump of lava, and had the satisfaction of seeing the stone pulverised and the beach splashed with lead. Still I hesitated for a moment.

“I'll take the risk,” said I, at last; and with a revolver in each hand I walked up the beach towards them.

“That's better,” said Moreau, without affectation. “As it is, you have wasted the best part of my day with your confounded imagination.” And with a touch of contempt which humiliated me, he and Montgomery turned and went on in silence before me.

The knot of Beast Men, still wondering, stood back among the trees. I passed them as serenely as possible. One started to follow me, but retreated again when Montgomery cracked his whip. The rest stood silent—watching. They may once have been animals; but I never before saw an animal trying to think.

XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.
“AND now, Prendick, I will explain,” said Doctor Moreau, so soon as we had eaten and drunk. “I must confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you. The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan't do,—even at some personal inconvenience.”

He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his white, dexterous-looking fingers. The light of the swinging lamp fell on his white hair; he stared through the little window out at the starlight. I sat as far away from him as possible, the table between us and the revolvers to hand. Montgomery was not present. I did not care to be with the two of them in such a little room.

“You admit that the vivisected human being, as you called it, is, after all, only the puma?” said Moreau. He had made me visit that horror in the inner room, to assure myself of its inhumanity.

“It is the puma,” I said, “still alive, but so cut and mutilated as I pray I may never see living flesh again. Of all vile—”

“Never mind that,” said Moreau; “at least, spare me those youthful horrors. Montgomery used to be just the same. You admit that it is the puma. Now be quiet, while I reel off my physiological lecture to you.”

And forthwith, beginning in the tone of a man supremely bored, but presently warming a little, he explained his work to me. He was very simple and convincing. Now and then there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Presently I found myself hot with shame at our mutual positions.

The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals, humanised animals,—triumphs of vivisection.

“You forget all that a skilled vivisector can do with living things,” said Moreau. “For my own part, I'm puzzled why the things I have done here have not been done before. Small efforts, of course, have been made,—amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions. Of course you know a squint may be induced or cured by surgery? Then in the case of excisions you have all kinds of secondary changes, pigmentary disturbances, modifications of the passions, alterations in the secretion of fatty tissue. I have no doubt you have heard of these things?”

“Of course,” said I. “But these foul creatures of yours—”

“All in good time,” said he, waving his hand at me; “I am only beginning. Those are trivial cases of alteration. Surgery can do better things than that. There is building up as well as breaking down and changing. You have heard, perhaps, of a common surgical operation resorted to in cases where the nose has been destroyed: a flap of skin is cut from the forehead, turned down on the nose, and heals in the new position. This is a kind of grafting in a new position of part of an animal upon itself. Grafting of freshly obtained material from another animal is also possible,—the case of teeth, for example. The grafting of skin and bone is done to facilitate healing: the surgeon places in the middle of the wound pieces of skin snipped from another animal, or fragments of bone from a victim freshly killed. Hunter's cock-spur—possibly you have heard of that—flourished on the bull's neck; and the rhinoceros rats of the Algerian zouaves are also to be thought of,—monsters manufactured by transferring a slip from the tail of an ordinary rat to its snout, and allowing it to heal in that position.”

“Monsters manufactured!” said I. “Then you mean to tell me—”

“Yes. These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes. To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining in knowledge as I go. I see you look horrified, and yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it. It is not simply the outward form of an animal which I can change. The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an enduring modification,—of which vaccination and other methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood,—with which subject, indeed, I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,—some vestiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them in ‘L'Homme qui Rit.’—But perhaps my meaning grows plain now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another; to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth; to modify the articulations of its limbs; and, indeed, to change it in its most intimate structure.

“And yet this extraordinary branch of knowledge has never been sought as an end, and systematically, by modern investigators until I took it up! Some such things have been hit upon in the last resort of surgery; most of the kindred evidence that will recur to your mind has been demonstrated as it were by accident,—by tyrants, by criminals, by the breeders of horses and dogs, by all kinds of untrained clumsy-handed men working for their own immediate ends. I was the first man to take up this question armed with antiseptic surgery, and with a really scientific knowledge of the laws of growth. Yet one would imagine it must have been practised in secret before. Such creatures as the Siamese Twins—And in the vaults of the Inquisition. No doubt their chief aim was artistic torture, but some at least of the inquisitors must have had a touch of scientific curiosity.”

“But,” said I, “these things—these animals talk!”

He said that was so, and proceeded to point out that the possibility of vivisection does not stop at a mere physical metamorphosis. A pig may be educated. The mental structure is even less determinate than the bodily. In our growing science of hypnotism we find the promise of a possibility of superseding old inherent instincts by new suggestions, grafting upon or replacing the inherited fixed ideas. Very much indeed of what we call moral education, he said, is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion. And the great difference between man and monkey is in the larynx, he continued,—in the incapacity to frame delicately different sound-symbols by which thought could be sustained. In this I failed to agree with him, but with a certain incivility he declined to notice my objection. He repeated that the thing was so, and continued his account of his work.

I asked him why he had taken the human form as a model. There seemed to me then, and there still seems to me now, a strange wickedness for that choice.

He confessed that he had chosen that form by chance. “I might just as well have worked to form sheep into llamas and llamas into sheep. I suppose there is something in the human form that appeals to the artistic turn of mind more powerfully than any animal shape can. But I've not confined myself to man-making. Once or twice—” He was silent, for a minute perhaps. “These years! How they have slipped by! And here I have wasted a day saving your life, and am now wasting an hour explaining myself!”

“But,” said I, “I still do not understand. Where is your justification for inflicting all this pain? The only thing that could excuse vivisection to me would be some application—”

“Precisely,” said he. “But, you see, I am differently constituted. We are on different platforms. You are a materialist.”

“I am not a materialist,” I began hotly.

“In my view—in my view. For it is just this question of pain that parts us. So long as visible or audible pain turns you sick; so long as your own pains drive you; so long as pain underlies your propositions about sin,—so long, I tell you, you are an animal, thinking a little less obscurely what an animal feels. This pain—”

I gave an impatient shrug at such sophistry.

“Oh, but it is such a little thing! A mind truly opened to what science has to teach must see that it is a little thing. It may be that save in this little planet, this speck of cosmic dust, invisible long before the nearest star could be attained—it may be, I say, that nowhere else does this thing called pain occur. But the laws we feel our way towards—Why, even on this earth, even among living things, what pain is there?”

As he spoke he drew a little penknife from his pocket, opened the smaller blade, and moved his chair so that I could see his thigh. Then, choosing the place deliberately, he drove the blade into his leg and withdrew it.

“No doubt,” he said, “you have seen that before. It does not hurt a pin-prick. But what does it show? The capacity for pain is not needed in the muscle, and it is not placed there,—is but little needed in the skin, and only here and there over the thigh is a spot capable of feeling pain. Pain is simply our intrinsic medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us. Not all living flesh is painful; nor is all nerve, not even all sensory nerve. There's no taint of pain, real pain, in the sensations of the optic nerve. If you wound the optic nerve, you merely see flashes of light,—just as disease of the auditory nerve merely means a humming in our ears. Plants do not feel pain, nor the lower animals; it's possible that such animals as the starfish and crayfish do not feel pain at all. Then with men, the more intelligent they become, the more intelligently they will see after their own welfare, and the less they will need the goad to keep them out of danger. I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out of existence by evolution sooner or later. Did you? And pain gets needless.

“Then I am a religious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be. It may be, I fancy, that I have seen more of the ways of this world's Maker than you,—for I have sought his laws, in my way, all my life, while you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies. And I tell you, pleasure and pain have nothing to do with heaven or hell. Pleasure and pain—bah! What is your theologian's ecstasy but Mahomet's houri in the dark? This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,—the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust.

“You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is the only way I ever heard of true research going. I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer, and got a fresh question. Was this possible or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him! You cannot imagine the strange, colourless delight of these intellectual desires! The thing before you is no longer an animal, a fellow-creature, but a problem! Sympathetic pain,—all I know of it I remember as a thing I used to suffer from years ago. I wanted—it was the one thing I wanted—to find out the extreme limit of plasticity in a living shape.”

“But,” said I, “the thing is an abomination—”

“To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter,” he continued. “The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature. I have gone on, not heeding anything but the question I was pursuing; and the material has—dripped into the huts yonder. It is nearly eleven years since we came here, I and Montgomery and six Kanakas. I remember the green stillness of the island and the empty ocean about us, as though it was yesterday. The place seemed waiting for me.

“The stores were landed and the house was built. The Kanakas founded some huts near the ravine. I went to work here upon what I had brought with me. There were some disagreeable things happened at first. I began with a sheep, and killed it after a day and a half by a slip of the scalpel. I took another sheep, and made a thing of pain and fear and left it bound up to heal. It looked quite human to me when I had finished it; but when I went to it I was discontented with it. It remembered me, and was terrified beyond imagination; and it had no more than the wits of a sheep. The more I looked at it the clumsier it seemed, until at last I put the monster out of its misery. These animals without courage, these fear-haunted, pain-driven things, without a spark of pugnacious energy to face torment,—they are no good for man-making.

“Then I took a gorilla I had; and upon that, working with infinite care and mastering difficulty after difficulty, I made my first man. All the week, night and day, I moulded him. With him it was chiefly the brain that needed moulding; much had to be added, much changed. I thought him a fair specimen of the negroid type when I had finished him, and he lay bandaged, bound, and motionless before me. It was only when his life was assured that I left him and came into this room again, and found Montgomery much as you are. He had heard some of the cries as the thing grew human,—cries like those that disturbed you so. I didn't take him completely into my confidence at first. And the Kanakas too, had realised something of it. They were scared out of their wits by the sight of me. I got Montgomery over to me—in a way; but I and he had the hardest job to prevent the Kanakas deserting. Finally they did; and so we lost the yacht. I spent many days educating the brute,—altogether I had him for three or four months. I taught him the rudiments of English; gave him ideas of counting; even made the thing read the alphabet. But at that he was slow, though I've met with idiots slower. He began with a clean sheet, mentally; had no memories left in his mind of what he had been. When his scars were quite healed, and he was no longer anything but painful and stiff, and able to converse a little, I took him yonder and introduced him to the Kanakas as an interesting stowaway.

“They were horribly afraid of him at first, somehow,—which offended me rather, for I was conceited about him; but his ways seemed so mild, and he was so abject, that after a time they received him and took his education in hand. He was quick to learn, very imitative and adaptive, and built himself a hovel rather better, it seemed to me, than their own shanties. There was one among the boys a bit of a missionary, and he taught the thing to read, or at least to pick out letters, and gave him some rudimentary ideas of morality; but it seems the beast's habits were not all that is desirable.

“I rested from work for some days after this, and was in a mind to write an account of the whole affair to wake up English physiology. Then I came upon the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering at two of the Kanakas who had been teasing him. I threatened him, told him the inhumanity of such a proceeding, aroused his sense of shame, and came home resolved to do better before I took my work back to England. I have been doing better. But somehow the things drift back again: the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again. But I mean to do better things still. I mean to conquer that. This puma--

“But that's the story. All the Kanaka boys are dead now; one fell overboard of the launch, and one died of a wounded heel that he poisoned in some way with plant-juice. Three went away in the yacht, and I suppose and hope were drowned. The other one—was killed. Well, I have replaced them. Montgomery went on much as you are disposed to do at first, and then--

“What became of the other one?” said I, sharply,—“the other Kanaka who was killed?”

“The fact is, after I had made a number of human creatures I made a Thing—” He hesitated.

“Yes?” said I.

“It was killed.”

“I don't understand,” said I; “do you mean to say—”

“It killed the Kanaka—yes. It killed several other things that it caught. We chased it for a couple of days. It only got loose by accident—I never meant it to get away. It wasn't finished. It was purely an experiment. It was a limbless thing, with a horrible face, that writhed along the ground in a serpentine fashion. It was immensely strong, and in infuriating pain. It lurked in the woods for some days, until we hunted it; and then it wriggled into the northern part of the island, and we divided the party to close in upon it. Montgomery insisted upon coming with me. The man had a rifle; and when his body was found, one of the barrels was curved into the shape of an S and very nearly bitten through. Montgomery shot the thing. After that I stuck to the ideal of humanity—except for little things.”

He became silent. I sat in silence watching his face.

“So for twenty years altogether—counting nine years in England—I have been going on; and there is still something in everything I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it; but always I fall short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now, almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and the claws,—painful things, that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is something that I cannot touch, somewhere—I cannot determine where—in the seat of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst forth suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear. These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you so soon as you began to observe them; but to me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. It's afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface and stares out at me. But I will conquer yet! Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning pain, I say, ‘This time I will burn out all the animal; this time I will make a rational creature of my own!’ After all, what is ten years? Men have been a hundred thousand in the making.” He thought darkly. “But I am drawing near the fastness. This puma of mine—” After a silence, “And they revert. As soon as my hand is taken from them the beast begins to creep back, begins to assert itself again.” Another long silence.

“Then you take the things you make into those dens?” said I.

“They go. I turn them out when I begin to feel the beast in them, and presently they wander there. They all dread this house and me. There is a kind of travesty of humanity over there. Montgomery knows about it, for he interferes in their affairs. He has trained one or two of them to our service. He's ashamed of it, but I believe he half likes some of those beasts. It's his business, not mine. They only sicken me with a sense of failure. I take no interest in them. I fancy they follow in the lines the Kanaka missionary marked out, and have a kind of mockery of a rational life, poor beasts! There's something they call the Law. Sing hymns about ‘all thine.’ They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull herbs—marry even. But I can see through it all, see into their very souls, and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish, anger and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.—Yet they're odd; complex, like everything else alive. There is a kind of upward striving in them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion, part waste curiosity. It only mocks me. I have some hope of this puma. I have worked hard at her head and brain--

“And now,” said he, standing up after a long gap of silence, during which we had each pursued our own thoughts, “what do you think? Are you in fear of me still?”

I looked at him, and saw but a white-faced, white-haired man, with calm eyes. Save for his serenity, the touch almost of beauty that resulted from his set tranquillity and his magnificent build, he might have passed muster among a hundred other comfortable old gentlemen. Then I shivered. By way of answer to his second question, I handed him a revolver with either hand.

“Keep them,” he said, and snatched at a yawn. He stood up, stared at me for a moment, and smiled. “You have had two eventful days,” said he. “I should advise some sleep. I'm glad it's all clear. Good-night.” He thought me over for a moment, then went out by the inner door.

I immediately turned the key in the outer one. I sat down again; sat for a time in a kind of stagnant mood, so weary, emotionally, mentally, and physically, that I could not think beyond the point at which he had left me. The black window stared at me like an eye. At last with an effort I put out the light and got into the hammock. Very soon I was asleep.

XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK.
I WOKE early. Moreau's explanation stood before my mind, clear and definite, from the moment of my awakening. I got out of the hammock and went to the door to assure myself that the key was turned. Then I tried the window-bar, and found it firmly fixed. That these man-like creatures were in truth only bestial monsters, mere grotesque travesties of men, filled me with a vague uncertainty of their possibilities which was far worse than any definite fear.

A tapping came at the door, and I heard the glutinous accents of M'ling speaking. I pocketed one of the revolvers (keeping one hand upon it), and opened to him.

“Good-morning, sair,” he said, bringing in, in addition to the customary herb-breakfast, an ill-cooked rabbit. Montgomery followed him. His roving eye caught the position of my arm and he smiled askew.

The puma was resting to heal that day; but Moreau, who was singularly solitary in his habits, did not join us. I talked with Montgomery to clear my ideas of the way in which the Beast Folk lived. In particular, I was urgent to know how these inhuman monsters were kept from falling upon Moreau and Montgomery and from rending one another. He explained to me that the comparative safety of Moreau and himself was due to the limited mental scope of these monsters. In spite of their increased intelligence and the tendency of their animal instincts to reawaken, they had certain fixed ideas implanted by Moreau in their minds, which absolutely bounded their imaginations. They were really hypnotised; had been told that certain things were impossible, and that certain things were not to be done, and these prohibitions were woven into the texture of their minds beyond any possibility of disobedience or dispute.

Certain matters, however, in which old instinct was at war with Moreau's convenience, were in a less stable condition. A series of propositions called the Law (I had already heard them recited) battled in their minds with the deep-seated, ever-rebellious cravings of their animal natures. This Law they were ever repeating, I found, and ever breaking. Both Montgomery and Moreau displayed particular solicitude to keep them ignorant of the taste of blood; they feared the inevitable suggestions of that flavour. Montgomery told me that the Law, especially among the feline Beast People, became oddly weakened about nightfall; that then the animal was at its strongest; that a spirit of adventure sprang up in them at the dusk, when they would dare things they never seemed to dream about by day. To that I owed my stalking by the Leopard-man, on the night of my arrival. But during these earlier days of my stay they broke the Law only furtively and after dark; in the daylight there was a general atmosphere of respect for its multifarious prohibitions.

And here perhaps I may give a few general facts about the island and the Beast People. The island, which was of irregular outline and lay low upon the wide sea, had a total area, I suppose, of seven or eight square miles.{2} It was volcanic in origin, and was now fringed on three sides by coral reefs; some fumaroles to the northward, and a hot spring, were the only vestiges of the forces that had long since originated it. Now and then a faint quiver of earthquake would be sensible, and sometimes the ascent of the spire of smoke would be rendered tumultuous by gusts of steam; but that was all. The population of the island, Montgomery informed me, now numbered rather more than sixty of these strange creations of Moreau's art, not counting the smaller monstrosities which lived in the undergrowth and were without human form. Altogether he had made nearly a hundred and twenty; but many had died, and others—like the writhing Footless Thing of which he had told me—had come by violent ends. In answer to my question, Montgomery said that they actually bore offspring, but that these generally died. When they lived, Moreau took them and stamped the human form upon them. There was no evidence of the inheritance of their acquired human characteristics. The females were less numerous than the males, and liable to much furtive persecution in spite of the monogamy the Law enjoined.

{2} This description corresponds in every respect to Noble's Isle. — C. E. P.

It would be impossible for me to describe these Beast People in detail; my eye has had no training in details, and unhappily I cannot sketch. Most striking, perhaps, in their general appearance was the disproportion between the legs of these creatures and the length of their bodies; and yet—so relative is our idea of grace—my eye became habituated to their forms, and at last I even fell in with their persuasion that my own long thighs were ungainly. Another point was the forward carriage of the head and the clumsy and inhuman curvature of the spine. Even the Ape-man lacked that inward sinuous curve of the back which makes the human figure so graceful. Most had their shoulders hunched clumsily, and their short forearms hung weakly at their sides. Few of them were conspicuously hairy, at least until the end of my time upon the island.

The next most obvious deformity was in their faces, almost all of which were prognathous, malformed about the ears, with large and protuberant noses, very furry or very bristly hair, and often strangely-coloured or strangely-placed eyes. None could laugh, though the Ape-man had a chattering titter. Beyond these general characters their heads had little in common; each preserved the quality of its particular species: the human mark distorted but did not hide the leopard, the ox, or the sow, or other animal or animals, from which the creature had been moulded. The voices, too, varied exceedingly. The hands were always malformed; and though some surprised me by their unexpected human appearance, almost all were deficient in the number of the digits, clumsy about the finger-nails, and lacking any tactile sensibility.

The two most formidable Animal Men were my Leopard-man and a creature made of hyena and swine. Larger than these were the three bull-creatures who pulled in the boat. Then came the silvery-hairy-man, who was also the Sayer of the Law, M'ling, and a satyr-like creature of ape and goat. There were three Swine-men and a Swine-woman, a mare-rhinoceros-creature, and several other females whose sources I did not ascertain. There were several wolf-creatures, a bear-bull, and a Saint-Bernard-man. I have already described the Ape-man, and there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling) old woman made of vixen and bear, whom I hated from the beginning. She was said to be a passionate votary of the Law. Smaller creatures were certain dappled youths and my little sloth-creature. But enough of this catalogue.

At first I had a shivering horror of the brutes, felt all too keenly that they were still brutes; but insensibly I became a little habituated to the idea of them, and moreover I was affected by Montgomery's attitude towards them. He had been with them so long that he had come to regard them as almost normal human beings. His London days seemed a glorious, impossible past to him. Only once in a year or so did he go to Arica to deal with Moreau's agent, a trader in animals there. He hardly met the finest type of mankind in that seafaring village of Spanish mongrels. The men aboard-ship, he told me, seemed at first just as strange to him as the Beast Men seemed to me,—unnaturally long in the leg, flat in the face, prominent in the forehead, suspicious, dangerous, and cold-hearted. In fact, he did not like men: his heart had warmed to me, he thought, because he had saved my life. I fancied even then that he had a sneaking kindness for some of these metamorphosed brutes, a vicious sympathy with some of their ways, but that he attempted to veil it from me at first.

M'ling, the black-faced man, Montgomery's attendant, the first of the Beast Folk I had encountered, did not live with the others across the island, but in a small kennel at the back of the enclosure. The creature was scarcely so intelligent as the Ape-man, but far more docile, and the most human-looking of all the Beast Folk; and Montgomery had trained it to prepare food, and indeed to discharge all the trivial domestic offices that were required. It was a complex trophy of Moreau's horrible skill,—a bear, tainted with dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his creatures. It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion. Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey, kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees. But whether he treated it well or ill, it loved nothing so much as to be near him.

I say I became habituated to the Beast People, that a thousand things which had seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became natural and ordinary to me. I suppose everything in existence takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings. Montgomery and Moreau were too peculiar and individual to keep my general impressions of humanity well defined. I would see one of the clumsy bovine-creatures who worked the launch treading heavily through the undergrowth, and find myself asking, trying hard to recall, how he differed from some really human yokel trudging home from his mechanical labours; or I would meet the Fox-bear woman's vulpine, shifty face, strangely human in its speculative cunning, and even imagine I had met it before in some city byway.

Yet every now and then the beast would flash out upon me beyond doubt or denial. An ugly-looking man, a hunch-backed human savage to all appearance, squatting in the aperture of one of the dens, would stretch his arms and yawn, showing with startling suddenness scissor-edged incisors and sabre-like canines, keen and brilliant as knives. Or in some narrow pathway, glancing with a transitory daring into the eyes of some lithe, white-swathed female figure, I would suddenly see (with a spasmodic revulsion) that she had slit-like pupils, or glancing down note the curving nail with which she held her shapeless wrap about her. It is a curious thing, by the bye, for which I am quite unable to account, that these weird creatures—the females, I mean—had in the earlier days of my stay an instinctive sense of their own repulsive clumsiness, and displayed in consequence a more than human regard for the decency and decorum of extensive costume.

XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD.
MY inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread of my story.

After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across the island to see the fumarole and the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters I had blundered on the previous day. Both of us carried whips and loaded revolvers. While going through a leafy jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit squealing. We stopped and listened, but we heard no more; and presently we went on our way, and the incident dropped out of our minds. Montgomery called my attention to certain little pink animals with long hind-legs, that went leaping through the undergrowth. He told me they were creatures made of the offspring of the Beast People, that Moreau had invented. He had fancied they might serve for meat, but a rabbit-like habit of devouring their young had defeated this intention. I had already encountered some of these creatures,—once during my moonlight flight from the Leopard-man, and once during my pursuit by Moreau on the previous day. By chance, one hopping to avoid us leapt into the hole caused by the uprooting of a wind-blown tree; before it could extricate itself we managed to catch it. It spat like a cat, scratched and kicked vigorously with its hind-legs, and made an attempt to bite; but its teeth were too feeble to inflict more than a painless pinch. It seemed to me rather a pretty little creature; and as Montgomery stated that it never destroyed the turf by burrowing, and was very cleanly in its habits, I should imagine it might prove a convenient substitute for the common rabbit in gentlemen's parks.

We also saw on our way the trunk of a tree barked in long strips and splintered deeply. Montgomery called my attention to this. “Not to claw bark of trees, that is the Law,” he said. “Much some of them care for it!” It was after this, I think, that we met the Satyr and the Ape-man. The Satyr was a gleam of classical memory on the part of Moreau,—his face ovine in expression, like the coarser Hebrew type; his voice a harsh bleat, his nether extremities Satanic. He was gnawing the husk of a pod-like fruit as he passed us. Both of them saluted Montgomery.

“Hail,” said they, “to the Other with the Whip!”

“There's a Third with a Whip now,” said Montgomery. “So you'd better mind!”

“Was he not made?” said the Ape-man. “He said—he said he was made.”

The Satyr-man looked curiously at me. “The Third with the Whip, he that walks weeping into the sea, has a thin white face.”

“He has a thin long whip,” said Montgomery.

“Yesterday he bled and wept,” said the Satyr. “You never bleed nor weep. The Master does not bleed or weep.”

“Ollendorffian beggar!” said Montgomery, “you'll bleed and weep if you don't look out!”

“He has five fingers, he is a five-man like me,” said the Ape-man.

“Come along, Prendick,” said Montgomery, taking my arm; and I went on with him.

The Satyr and the Ape-man stood watching us and making other remarks to each other.

“He says nothing,” said the Satyr. “Men have voices.”

“Yesterday he asked me of things to eat,” said the Ape-man. “He did not know.”

Then they spoke inaudible things, and I heard the Satyr laughing.

It was on our way back that we came upon the dead rabbit. The red body of the wretched little beast was rent to pieces, many of the ribs stripped white, and the backbone indisputably gnawed.

At that Montgomery stopped. “Good God!” said he, stooping down, and picking up some of the crushed vertebrae to examine them more closely. “Good God!” he repeated, “what can this mean?”

“Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits,” I said after a pause. “This backbone has been bitten through.”

He stood staring, with his face white and his lip pulled askew. “I don't like this,” he said slowly.

“I saw something of the same kind,” said I, “the first day I came here.”

“The devil you did! What was it?”

“A rabbit with its head twisted off.”

“The day you came here?”

“The day I came here. In the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure, when I went out in the evening. The head was completely wrung off.”

He gave a long, low whistle.

“And what is more, I have an idea which of your brutes did the thing. It's only a suspicion, you know. Before I came on the rabbit I saw one of your monsters drinking in the stream.”

“Sucking his drink?”

“Yes.”

“‘Not to suck your drink; that is the Law.’ Much the brutes care for the Law, eh? when Moreau's not about!”

“It was the brute who chased me.”

“Of course,” said Montgomery; “it's just the way with carnivores. After a kill, they drink. It's the taste of blood, you know.—What was the brute like?” he continued. “Would you know him again?” He glanced about us, standing astride over the mess of dead rabbit, his eyes roving among the shadows and screens of greenery, the lurking-places and ambuscades of the forest that bounded us in. “The taste of blood,” he said again.

He took out his revolver, examined the cartridges in it and replaced it. Then he began to pull at his dropping lip.

“I think I should know the brute again,” I said. “I stunned him. He ought to have a handsome bruise on the forehead of him.”

“But then we have to prove that he killed the rabbit,” said Montgomery. “I wish I'd never brought the things here.”

I should have gone on, but he stayed there thinking over the mangled rabbit in a puzzle-headed way. As it was, I went to such a distance that the rabbit's remains were hidden.

“Come on!” I said.

Presently he woke up and came towards me. “You see,” he said, almost in a whisper, “they are all supposed to have a fixed idea against eating anything that runs on land. If some brute has by any accident tasted blood—”

We went on some way in silence. “I wonder what can have happened,” he said to himself. Then, after a pause again: “I did a foolish thing the other day. That servant of mine—I showed him how to skin and cook a rabbit. It's odd—I saw him licking his hands—It never occurred to me.”

Then: “We must put a stop to this. I must tell Moreau.”

He could think of nothing else on our homeward journey.

Moreau took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I need scarcely say that I was affected by their evident consternation.

“We must make an example,” said Moreau. “I've no doubt in my own mind that the Leopard-man was the sinner. But how can we prove it? I wish, Montgomery, you had kept your taste for meat in hand, and gone without these exciting novelties. We may find ourselves in a mess yet, through it.”

“I was a silly ass,” said Montgomery. “But the thing's done now; and you said I might have them, you know.”

“We must see to the thing at once,” said Moreau. “I suppose if anything should turn up, M'ling can take care of himself?”

“I'm not so sure of M'ling,” said Montgomery. “I think I ought to know him.”

In the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and M'ling went across the island to the huts in the ravine. We three were armed; M'ling carried the little hatchet he used in chopping firewood, and some coils of wire. Moreau had a huge cowherd's horn slung over his shoulder.

“You will see a gathering of the Beast People,” said Montgomery. “It is a pretty sight!”

Moreau said not a word on the way, but the expression of his heavy, white-fringed face was grimly set.

We crossed the ravine down which smoked the stream of hot water, and followed the winding pathway through the canebrakes until we reached a wide area covered over with a thick, powdery yellow substance which I believe was sulphur. Above the shoulder of a weedy bank the sea glittered. We came to a kind of shallow natural amphitheatre, and here the four of us halted. Then Moreau sounded the horn, and broke the sleeping stillness of the tropical afternoon. He must have had strong lungs. The hooting note rose and rose amidst its echoes, to at last an ear-penetrating intensity.

“Ah!” said Moreau, letting the curved instrument fall to his side again.

Immediately there was a crashing through the yellow canes, and a sound of voices from the dense green jungle that marked the morass through which I had run on the previous day. Then at three or four points on the edge of the sulphurous area appeared the grotesque forms of the Beast People hurrying towards us. I could not help a creeping horror, as I perceived first one and then another trot out from the trees or reeds and come shambling along over the hot dust. But Moreau and Montgomery stood calmly enough; and, perforce, I stuck beside them.

First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal for all that he cast a shadow and tossed the dust with his hoofs. After him from the brake came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; then appeared the Swine-woman and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant, quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the Law,—“His is the Hand that wounds; His is the Hand that heals,” and so forth. As soon as they had approached within a distance of perhaps thirty yards they halted, and bowing on knees and elbows began flinging the white dust upon their heads.

Imagine the scene if you can! We three blue-clad men, with our misshapen black-faced attendant, standing in a wide expanse of sunlit yellow dust under the blazing blue sky, and surrounded by this circle of crouching and gesticulating monstrosities,—some almost human save in their subtle expression and gestures, some like cripples, some so strangely distorted as to resemble nothing but the denizens of our wildest dreams; and, beyond, the reedy lines of a canebrake in one direction, a dense tangle of palm-trees on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts, and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

“Sixty-two, sixty-three,” counted Moreau. “There are four more.”

“I do not see the Leopard-man,” said I.

Presently Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound of it all the Beast People writhed and grovelled in the dust. Then, slinking out of the canebrake, stooping near the ground and trying to join the dust-throwing circle behind Moreau's back, came the Leopard-man. The last of the Beast People to arrive was the little Ape-man. The earlier animals, hot and weary with their grovelling, shot vicious glances at him.

“Cease!” said Moreau, in his firm, loud voice; and the Beast People sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping.

“Where is the Sayer of the Law?” said Moreau, and the hairy-grey monster bowed his face in the dust.

“Say the words!” said Moreau.

Forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side and dashing up the sulphur with their hands,—first the right hand and a puff of dust, and then the left,—began once more to chant their strange litany. When they reached, “Not to eat Flesh or Fish, that is the Law,” Moreau held up his lank white hand.

“Stop!” he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all.

I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming. I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever believed them to be men.

“That Law has been broken!” said Moreau.

“None escape,” from the faceless creature with the silvery hair. “None escape,” repeated the kneeling circle of Beast People.

“Who is he?” cried Moreau, and looked round at their faces, cracking his whip. I fancied the Hyena-swine looked dejected, so too did the Leopard-man. Moreau stopped, facing this creature, who cringed towards him with the memory and dread of infinite torment.

“Who is he?” repeated Moreau, in a voice of thunder.

“Evil is he who breaks the Law,” chanted the Sayer of the Law.

Moreau looked into the eyes of the Leopard-man, and seemed to be dragging the very soul out of the creature.

“Who breaks the Law—” said Moreau, taking his eyes off his victim, and turning towards us (it seemed to me there was a touch of exultation in his voice).

“Goes back to the House of Pain,” they all clamoured,—“goes back to the House of Pain, O Master!”

“Back to the House of Pain,—back to the House of Pain,” gabbled the Ape-man, as though the idea was sweet to him.

“Do you hear?” said Moreau, turning back to the criminal, “my friend—Hullo!”

For the Leopard-man, released from Moreau's eye, had risen straight from his knees, and now, with eyes aflame and his huge feline tusks flashing out from under his curling lips, leapt towards his tormentor. I am convinced that only the madness of unendurable fear could have prompted this attack. The whole circle of threescore monsters seemed to rise about us. I drew my revolver. The two figures collided. I saw Moreau reeling back from the Leopard-man's blow. There was a furious yelling and howling all about us. Every one was moving rapidly. For a moment I thought it was a general revolt. The furious face of the Leopard-man flashed by mine, with M'ling close in pursuit. I saw the yellow eyes of the Hyena-swine blazing with excitement, his attitude as if he were half resolved to attack me. The Satyr, too, glared at me over the Hyena-swine's hunched shoulders. I heard the crack of Moreau's pistol, and saw the pink flash dart across the tumult. The whole crowd seemed to swing round in the direction of the glint of fire, and I too was swung round by the magnetism of the movement. In another second I was running, one of a tumultuous shouting crowd, in pursuit of the escaping Leopard-man.

That is all I can tell definitely. I saw the Leopard-man strike Moreau, and then everything spun about me until I was running headlong. M'ling was ahead, close in pursuit of the fugitive. Behind, their tongues already lolling out, ran the Wolf-women in great leaping strides. The Swine folk followed, squealing with excitement, and the two Bull-men in their swathings of white. Then came Moreau in a cluster of the Beast People, his wide-brimmed straw hat blown off, his revolver in hand, and his lank white hair streaming out. The Hyena-swine ran beside me, keeping pace with me and glancing furtively at me out of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and shouting behind us.

The Leopard-man went bursting his way through the long canes, which sprang back as he passed, and rattled in M'ling's face. We others in the rear found a trampled path for us when we reached the brake. The chase lay through the brake for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into a dense thicket, which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in a crowd together,—fronds flicking into our faces, ropy creepers catching us under the chin or gripping our ankles, thorny plants hooking into and tearing cloth and flesh together.

“He has gone on all-fours through this,” panted Moreau, now just ahead of me.

“None escape,” said the Wolf-bear, laughing into my face with the exultation of hunting. We burst out again among rocks, and saw the quarry ahead running lightly on all-fours and snarling at us over his shoulder. At that the Wolf Folk howled with delight. The Thing was still clothed, and at a distance its face still seemed human; but the carriage of its four limbs was feline, and the furtive droop of its shoulder was distinctly that of a hunted animal. It leapt over some thorny yellow-flowering bushes, and was hidden. M'ling was halfway across the space.

Most of us now had lost the first speed of the chase, and had fallen into a longer and steadier stride. I saw as we traversed the open that the pursuit was now spreading from a column into a line. The Hyena-swine still ran close to me, watching me as it ran, every now and then puckering its muzzle with a snarling laugh. At the edge of the rocks the Leopard-man, realising that he was making for the projecting cape upon which he had stalked me on the night of my arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth; but Montgomery had seen the manoeuvre, and turned him again. So, panting, tumbling against rocks, torn by brambles, impeded by ferns and reeds, I helped to pursue the Leopard-man who had broken the Law, and the Hyena-swine ran, laughing savagely, by my side. I staggered on, my head reeling and my heart beating against my ribs, tired almost to death, and yet not daring to lose sight of the chase lest I should be left alone with this horrible companion. I staggered on in spite of infinite fatigue and the dense heat of the tropical afternoon.

At last the fury of the hunt slackened. We had pinned the wretched brute into a corner of the island. Moreau, whip in hand, marshalled us all into an irregular line, and we advanced now slowly, shouting to one another as we advanced and tightening the cordon about our victim. He lurked noiseless and invisible in the bushes through which I had run from him during that midnight pursuit.

“Steady!” cried Moreau, “steady!” as the ends of the line crept round the tangle of undergrowth and hemmed the brute in.

“Ware a rush!” came the voice of Montgomery from beyond the thicket.

I was on the slope above the bushes; Montgomery and Moreau beat along the beach beneath. Slowly we pushed in among the fretted network of branches and leaves. The quarry was silent.

“Back to the House of Pain, the House of Pain, the House of Pain!” yelped the voice of the Ape-man, some twenty yards to the right.

When I heard that, I forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had inspired in me. I heard the twigs snap and the boughs swish aside before the heavy tread of the Horse-rhinoceros upon my right. Then suddenly through a polygon of green, in the half darkness under the luxuriant growth, I saw the creature we were hunting. I halted. He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass, his luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder regarding me.

It may seem a strange contradiction in me,—I cannot explain the fact,—but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realised again the fact of its humanity. In another moment other of its pursuers would see it, and it would be overpowered and captured, to experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure. Abruptly I slipped out my revolver, aimed between its terror-struck eyes, and fired. As I did so, the Hyena-swine saw the Thing, and flung itself upon it with an eager cry, thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck. All about me the green masses of the thicket were swaying and cracking as the Beast People came rushing together. One face and then another appeared.

“Don't kill it, Prendick!” cried Moreau. “Don't kill it!” and I saw him stooping as he pushed through under the fronds of the big ferns.

In another moment he had beaten off the Hyena-swine with the handle of his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous Beast People, and particularly M'ling, from the still quivering body. The hairy-grey Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals, in their animal ardour, jostled me to get a nearer view.

“Confound you, Prendick!” said Moreau. “I wanted him.”

“I'm sorry,” said I, though I was not. “It was the impulse of the moment.” I felt sick with exertion and excitement. Turning, I pushed my way out of the crowding Beast People and went on alone up the slope towards the higher part of the headland. Under the shouted directions of Moreau I heard the three white-swathed Bull-men begin dragging the victim down towards the water.

It was easy now for me to be alone. The Beast People manifested a quite human curiosity about the dead body, and followed it in a thick knot, sniffing and growling at it as the Bull-men dragged it down the beach. I went to the headland and watched the bull-men, black against the evening sky as they carried the weighted dead body out to sea; and like a wave across my mind came the realisation of the unspeakable aimlessness of things upon the island. Upon the beach among the rocks beneath me were the Ape-man, the Hyena-swine, and several other of the Beast People, standing about Montgomery and Moreau. They were all still intensely excited, and all overflowing with noisy expressions of their loyalty to the Law; yet I felt an absolute assurance in my own mind that the Hyena-swine was implicated in the rabbit-killing. A strange persuasion came upon me, that, save for the grossness of the line, the grotesqueness of the forms, I had here before me the whole balance of human life in miniature, the whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate in its simplest form. The Leopard-man had happened to go under: that was all the difference. Poor brute!

Poor brutes! I began to see the viler aspect of Moreau's cruelty. I had not thought before of the pain and trouble that came to these poor victims after they had passed from Moreau's hands. I had shivered only at the days of actual torment in the enclosure. But now that seemed to me the lesser part. Before, they had been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence, begun in an agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau—and for what? It was the wantonness of it that stirred me.

Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathised at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully. They were wretched in themselves; the old animal hate moved them to trouble one another; the Law held them back from a brief hot struggle and a decisive end to their natural animosities.

In those days my fear of the Beast People went the way of my personal fear for Moreau. I fell indeed into a morbid state, deep and enduring, and alien to fear, which has left permanent scars upon my mind. I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island. A blind Fate, a vast pitiless mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence and I, Moreau (by his passion for research), Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels. But this condition did not come all at once: I think indeed that I anticipate a little in speaking of it now.

XVII. A CATASTROPHE.
SCARCELY six weeks passed before I had lost every feeling but dislike and abhorrence for this infamous experiment of Moreau's. My one idea was to get away from these horrible caricatures of my Maker's image, back to the sweet and wholesome intercourse of men. My fellow-creatures, from whom I was thus separated, began to assume idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory. My first friendship with Montgomery did not increase. His long separation from humanity, his secret vice of drunkenness, his evident sympathy with the Beast People, tainted him to me. Several times I let him go alone among them. I avoided intercourse with them in every possible way. I spent an increasing proportion of my time upon the beach, looking for some liberating sail that never appeared,—until one day there fell upon us an appalling disaster, which put an altogether different aspect upon my strange surroundings.

It was about seven or eight weeks after my landing,—rather more, I think, though I had not troubled to keep account of the time,—when this catastrophe occurred. It happened in the early morning—I should think about six. I had risen and breakfasted early, having been aroused by the noise of three Beast Men carrying wood into the enclosure.

After breakfast I went to the open gateway of the enclosure, and stood there smoking a cigarette and enjoying the freshness of the early morning. Moreau presently came round the corner of the enclosure and greeted me. He passed by me, and I heard him behind me unlock and enter his laboratory. So indurated was I at that time to the abomination of the place, that I heard without a touch of emotion the puma victim begin another day of torture. It met its persecutor with a shriek, almost exactly like that of an angry virago.

Then suddenly something happened,—I do not know what, to this day. I heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall, and turning saw an awful face rushing upon me,—not human, not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed with red branching scars, red drops starting out upon it, and the lidless eyes ablaze. I threw up my arm to defend myself from the blow that flung me headlong with a broken forearm; and the great monster, swathed in lint and with red-stained bandages fluttering about it, leapt over me and passed. I rolled over and over down the beach, tried to sit up, and collapsed upon my broken arm. Then Moreau appeared, his massive white face all the more terrible for the blood that trickled from his forehead. He carried a revolver in one hand. He scarcely glanced at me, but rushed off at once in pursuit of the puma.

I tried the other arm and sat up. The muffled figure in front ran in great striding leaps along the beach, and Moreau followed her. She turned her head and saw him, then doubling abruptly made for the bushes. She gained upon him at every stride. I saw her plunge into them, and Moreau, running slantingly to intercept her, fired and missed as she disappeared. Then he too vanished in the green confusion. I stared after them, and then the pain in my arm flamed up, and with a groan I staggered to my feet. Montgomery appeared in the doorway, dressed, and with his revolver in his hand.

“Great God, Prendick!” he said, not noticing that I was hurt, “that brute's loose! Tore the fetter out of the wall! Have you seen them?” Then sharply, seeing I gripped my arm, “What's the matter?”

“I was standing in the doorway,” said I.

He came forward and took my arm. “Blood on the sleeve,” said he, and rolled back the flannel. He pocketed his weapon, felt my arm about painfully, and led me inside. “Your arm is broken,” he said, and then, “Tell me exactly how it happened—what happened?”

I told him what I had seen; told him in broken sentences, with gasps of pain between them, and very dexterously and swiftly he bound my arm meanwhile. He slung it from my shoulder, stood back and looked at me.

“You'll do,” he said. “And now?”

He thought. Then he went out and locked the gates of the enclosure. He was absent some time.

I was chiefly concerned about my arm. The incident seemed merely one more of many horrible things. I sat down in the deck chair, and I must admit swore heartily at the island. The first dull feeling of injury in my arm had already given way to a burning pain when Montgomery reappeared. His face was rather pale, and he showed more of his lower gums than ever.

“I can neither see nor hear anything of him,” he said. “I've been thinking he may want my help.” He stared at me with his expressionless eyes. “That was a strong brute,” he said. “It simply wrenched its fetter out of the wall.” He went to the window, then to the door, and there turned to me. “I shall go after him,” he said. “There's another revolver I can leave with you. To tell you the truth, I feel anxious somehow.”

He obtained the weapon, and put it ready to my hand on the table; then went out, leaving a restless contagion in the air. I did not sit long after he left, but took the revolver in hand and went to the doorway.

The morning was as still as death. Not a whisper of wind was stirring; the sea was like polished glass, the sky empty, the beach desolate. In my half-excited, half-feverish state, this stillness of things oppressed me. I tried to whistle, and the tune died away. I swore again,—the second time that morning. Then I went to the corner of the enclosure and stared inland at the green bush that had swallowed up Moreau and Montgomery. When would they return, and how? Then far away up the beach a little grey Beast Man appeared, ran down to the water's edge and began splashing about. I strolled back to the doorway, then to the corner again, and so began pacing to and fro like a sentinel upon duty. Once I was arrested by the distant voice of Montgomery bawling, “Coo-ee—Moreau!” My arm became less painful, but very hot. I got feverish and thirsty. My shadow grew shorter. I watched the distant figure until it went away again. Would Moreau and Montgomery never return? Three sea-birds began fighting for some stranded treasure.

Then from far away behind the enclosure I heard a pistol-shot. A long silence, and then came another. Then a yelling cry nearer, and another dismal gap of silence. My unfortunate imagination set to work to torment me. Then suddenly a shot close by. I went to the corner, startled, and saw Montgomery,—his face scarlet, his hair disordered, and the knee of his trousers torn. His face expressed profound consternation. Behind him slouched the Beast Man, M'ling, and round M'ling's jaws were some queer dark stains.

“Has he come?” said Montgomery.

“Moreau?” said I. “No.”

“My God!” The man was panting, almost sobbing. “Go back in,” he said, taking my arm. “They're mad. They're all rushing about mad. What can have happened? I don't know. I'll tell you, when my breath comes. Where's some brandy?”

Montgomery limped before me into the room and sat down in the deck chair. M'ling flung himself down just outside the doorway and began panting like a dog. I got Montgomery some brandy-and-water. He sat staring in front of him at nothing, recovering his breath. After some minutes he began to tell me what had happened.

He had followed their track for some way. It was plain enough at first on account of the crushed and broken bushes, white rags torn from the puma's bandages, and occasional smears of blood on the leaves of the shrubs and undergrowth. He lost the track, however, on the stony ground beyond the stream where I had seen the Beast Man drinking, and went wandering aimlessly westward shouting Moreau's name. Then M'ling had come to him carrying a light hatchet. M'ling had seen nothing of the puma affair; had been felling wood, and heard him calling. They went on shouting together. Two Beast Men came crouching and peering at them through the undergrowth, with gestures and a furtive carriage that alarmed Montgomery by their strangeness. He hailed them, and they fled guiltily. He stopped shouting after that, and after wandering some time farther in an undecided way, determined to visit the huts.

He found the ravine deserted.

Growing more alarmed every minute, he began to retrace his steps. Then it was he encountered the two Swine-men I had seen dancing on the night of my arrival; blood-stained they were about the mouth, and intensely excited. They came crashing through the ferns, and stopped with fierce faces when they saw him. He cracked his whip in some trepidation, and forthwith they rushed at him. Never before had a Beast Man dared to do that. One he shot through the head; M'ling flung himself upon the other, and the two rolled grappling. M'ling got his brute under and with his teeth in its throat, and Montgomery shot that too as it struggled in M'ling's grip. He had some difficulty in inducing M'ling to come on with him. Thence they had hurried back to me. On the way, M'ling had suddenly rushed into a thicket and driven out an under-sized Ocelot-man, also blood-stained, and lame through a wound in the foot. This brute had run a little way and then turned savagely at bay, and Montgomery—with a certain wantonness, I thought—had shot him.

“What does it all mean?” said I.

He shook his head, and turned once more to the brandy.

XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU.
WHEN I saw Montgomery swallow a third dose of brandy, I took it upon myself to interfere. He was already more than half fuddled. I told him that some serious thing must have happened to Moreau by this time, or he would have returned before this, and that it behoved us to ascertain what that catastrophe was. Montgomery raised some feeble objections, and at last agreed. We had some food, and then all three of us started.

It is possibly due to the tension of my mind, at the time, but even now that start into the hot stillness of the tropical afternoon is a singularly vivid impression. M'ling went first, his shoulder hunched, his strange black head moving with quick starts as he peered first on this side of the way and then on that. He was unarmed; his axe he had dropped when he encountered the Swine-man. Teeth were his weapons, when it came to fighting. Montgomery followed with stumbling footsteps, his hands in his pockets, his face downcast; he was in a state of muddled sullenness with me on account of the brandy. My left arm was in a sling (it was lucky it was my left), and I carried my revolver in my right. Soon we traced a narrow path through the wild luxuriance of the island, going northwestward; and presently M'ling stopped, and became rigid with watchfulness. Montgomery almost staggered into him, and then stopped too. Then, listening intently, we heard coming through the trees the sound of voices and footsteps approaching us.

“He is dead,” said a deep, vibrating voice.

“He is not dead; he is not dead,” jabbered another.

“We saw, we saw,” said several voices.

“Hullo!” suddenly shouted Montgomery, “Hullo, there!”

“Confound you!” said I, and gripped my pistol.

There was a silence, then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation, first here, then there, and then half-a-dozen faces appeared,—strange faces, lit by a strange light. M'ling made a growling noise in his throat. I recognised the Ape-man: I had indeed already identified his voice, and two of the white-swathed brown-featured creatures I had seen in Montgomery's boat. With these were the two dappled brutes and that grey, horribly crooked creature who said the Law, with grey hair streaming down its cheeks, heavy grey eyebrows, and grey locks pouring off from a central parting upon its sloping forehead,—a heavy, faceless thing, with strange red eyes, looking at us curiously from amidst the green.

For a space no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccoughed, “Who—said he was dead?”

The Monkey-man looked guiltily at the hairy-grey Thing. “He is dead,” said this monster. “They saw.”

There was nothing threatening about this detachment, at any rate. They seemed awestricken and puzzled.

“Where is he?” said Montgomery.

“Beyond,” and the grey creature pointed.

“Is there a Law now?” asked the Monkey-man. “Is it still to be this and that? Is he dead indeed?”

“Is there a Law?” repeated the man in white. “Is there a Law, thou Other with the Whip?”

“He is dead,” said the hairy-grey Thing. And they all stood watching us.

“Prendick,” said Montgomery, turning his dull eyes to me. “He's dead, evidently.”

I had been standing behind him during this colloquy. I began to see how things lay with them. I suddenly stepped in front of Montgomery and lifted up my voice:—“Children of the Law,” I said, “he is not dead!” M'ling turned his sharp eyes on me. “He has changed his shape; he has changed his body,” I went on. “For a time you will not see him. He is—there,” I pointed upward, “where he can watch you. You cannot see him, but he can see you. Fear the Law!”

I looked at them squarely. They flinched.

“He is great, he is good,” said the Ape-man, peering fearfully upward among the dense trees.

“And the other Thing?” I demanded.

“The Thing that bled, and ran screaming and sobbing,—that is dead too,” said the grey Thing, still regarding me.

“That's well,” grunted Montgomery.

“The Other with the Whip—” began the grey Thing.

“Well?” said I.

“Said he was dead.”

But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying Moreau's death. “He is not dead,” he said slowly, “not dead at all. No more dead than I am.”

“Some,” said I, “have broken the Law: they will die. Some have died. Show us now where his old body lies,—the body he cast away because he had no more need of it.”

“It is this way, Man who walked in the Sea,” said the grey Thing.

And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult of ferns and creepers and tree-stems towards the northwest. Then came a yelling, a crashing among the branches, and a little pink homunculus rushed by us shrieking. Immediately after appeared a monster in headlong pursuit, blood-bedabbled, who was amongst us almost before he could stop his career. The grey Thing leapt aside. M'ling, with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck aside. Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run. I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, into its ugly face. I saw its features vanish in a flash: its face was driven in. Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him, fell headlong beside him and pulled him sprawling upon itself in its death-agony.

I found myself alone with M'ling, the dead brute, and the prostrate man. Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at the shattered Beast Man beside him. It more than half sobered him. He scrambled to his feet. Then I saw the grey Thing returning cautiously through the trees.

“See,” said I, pointing to the dead brute, “is the Law not alive? This came of breaking the Law.”

He peered at the body. “He sends the Fire that kills,” said he, in his deep voice, repeating part of the Ritual. The others gathered round and stared for a space.

At last we drew near the westward extremity of the island. We came upon the gnawed and mutilated body of the puma, its shoulder-bone smashed by a bullet, and perhaps twenty yards farther found at last what we sought. Moreau lay face downward in a trampled space in a canebrake. One hand was almost severed at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood. His head had been battered in by the fetters of the puma. The broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood. His revolver we could not find. Montgomery turned him over. Resting at intervals, and with the help of the seven Beast People (for he was a heavy man), we carried Moreau back to the enclosure. The night was darkling. Twice we heard unseen creatures howling and shrieking past our little band, and once the little pink sloth-creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again. But we were not attacked again. At the gates of the enclosure our company of Beast People left us, M'ling going with the rest. We locked ourselves in, and then took Moreau's mangled body into the yard and laid it upon a pile of brushwood. Then we went into the laboratory and put an end to all we found living there.

XIX. MONTGOMERY'S “BANK HOLIDAY.”
WHEN this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten, Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussed our position for the first time. It was then near midnight. He was almost sober, but greatly disturbed in his mind. He had been strangely under the influence of Moreau's personality: I do not think it had ever occurred to him that Moreau could die. This disaster was the sudden collapse of the habits that had become part of his nature in the ten or more monotonous years he had spent on the island. He talked vaguely, answered my questions crookedly, wandered into general questions.

“This silly ass of a world,” he said; “what a muddle it all is! I haven't had any life. I wonder when it's going to begin. Sixteen years being bullied by nurses and schoolmasters at their own sweet will; five in London grinding hard at medicine, bad food, shabby lodgings, shabby clothes, shabby vice, a blunder,—I didn't know any better,—and hustled off to this beastly island. Ten years here! What's it all for, Prendick? Are we bubbles blown by a baby?”

It was hard to deal with such ravings. “The thing we have to think of now,” said I, “is how to get away from this island.”

“What's the good of getting away? I'm an outcast. Where am I to join on? It's all very well for you, Prendick. Poor old Moreau! We can't leave him here to have his bones picked. As it is—And besides, what will become of the decent part of the Beast Folk?”

“Well,” said I, “that will do to-morrow. I've been thinking we might make the brushwood into a pyre and burn his body—and those other things. Then what will happen with the Beast Folk?”

“I don't know. I suppose those that were made of beasts of prey will make silly asses of themselves sooner or later. We can't massacre the lot—can we? I suppose that's what your humanity would suggest? But they'll change. They are sure to change.”

He talked thus inconclusively until at last I felt my temper going.

“Damnation!” he exclaimed at some petulance of mine; “can't you see I'm in a worse hole than you are?” And he got up, and went for the brandy. “Drink!” he said returning, “you logic-chopping, chalky-faced saint of an atheist, drink!”

“Not I,” said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellow paraffine flare, as he drank himself into a garrulous misery.

I have a memory of infinite tedium. He wandered into a maudlin defence of the Beast People and of M'ling. M'ling, he said, was the only thing that had ever really cared for him. And suddenly an idea came to him.

“I'm damned!” said he, staggering to his feet and clutching the brandy bottle.

By some flash of intuition I knew what it was he intended. “You don't give drink to that beast!” I said, rising and facing him.

“Beast!” said he. “You're the beast. He takes his liquor like a Christian. Come out of the way, Prendick!”

“For God's sake,” said I.

“Get—out of the way!” he roared, and suddenly whipped out his revolver.

“Very well,” said I, and stood aside, half-minded to fall upon him as he put his hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thought of my useless arm. “You've made a beast of yourself,—to the beasts you may go.”

He flung the doorway open, and stood half facing me between the yellow lamp-light and the pallid glare of the moon; his eye-sockets were blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows.

“You're a solemn prig, Prendick, a silly ass! You're always fearing and fancying. We're on the edge of things. I'm bound to cut my throat to-morrow. I'm going to have a damned Bank Holiday to-night.” He turned and went out into the moonlight. “M'ling!” he cried; “M'ling, old friend!”

Three dim creatures in the silvery light came along the edge of the wan beach,—one a white-wrapped creature, the other two blotches of blackness following it. They halted, staring. Then I saw M'ling's hunched shoulders as he came round the corner of the house.

“Drink!” cried Montgomery, “drink, you brutes! Drink and be men! Damme, I'm the cleverest. Moreau forgot this; this is the last touch. Drink, I tell you!” And waving the bottle in his hand he started off at a kind of quick trot to the westward, M'ling ranging himself between him and the three dim creatures who followed.

I went to the doorway. They were already indistinct in the mist of the moonlight before Montgomery halted. I saw him administer a dose of the raw brandy to M'ling, and saw the five figures melt into one vague patch.

“Sing!” I heard Montgomery shout,—“sing all together, ‘Confound old Prendick!’ That's right; now again, ‘Confound old Prendick!’”

The black group broke up into five separate figures, and wound slowly away from me along the band of shining beach. Each went howling at his own sweet will, yelping insults at me, or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded. Presently I heard Montgomery's voice shouting, “Right turn!” and they passed with their shouts and howls into the blackness of the landward trees. Slowly, very slowly, they receded into silence.

The peaceful splendour of the night healed again. The moon was now past the meridian and travelling down the west. It was at its full, and very bright riding through the empty blue sky. The shadow of the wall lay, a yard wide and of inky blackness, at my feet. The eastward sea was a featureless grey, dark and mysterious; and between the sea and the shadow the grey sands (of volcanic glass and crystals) flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds. Behind me the paraffine lamp flared hot and ruddy.

Then I shut the door, locked it, and went into the enclosure where Moreau lay beside his latest victims,—the staghounds and the llama and some other wretched brutes,—with his massive face calm even after his terrible death, and with the hard eyes open, staring at the dead white moon above. I sat down upon the edge of the sink, and with my eyes upon that ghastly pile of silvery light and ominous shadows began to turn over my plans. In the morning I would gather some provisions in the dingey, and after setting fire to the pyre before me, push out into the desolation of the high sea once more. I felt that for Montgomery there was no help; that he was, in truth, half akin to these Beast Folk, unfitted for human kindred.

I do not know how long I sat there scheming. It must have been an hour or so. Then my planning was interrupted by the return of Montgomery to my neighbourhood. I heard a yelling from many throats, a tumult of exultant cries passing down towards the beach, whooping and howling, and excited shrieks that seemed to come to a stop near the water's edge. The riot rose and fell; I heard heavy blows and the splintering smash of wood, but it did not trouble me then. A discordant chanting began.

My thoughts went back to my means of escape. I got up, brought the lamp, and went into a shed to look at some kegs I had seen there. Then I became interested in the contents of some biscuit-tins, and opened one. I saw something out of the tail of my eye,—a red figure,—and turned sharply.

Behind me lay the yard, vividly black-and-white in the moonlight, and the pile of wood and faggots on which Moreau and his mutilated victims lay, one over another. They seemed to be gripping one another in one last revengeful grapple. His wounds gaped, black as night, and the blood that had dripped lay in black patches upon the sand. Then I saw, without understanding, the cause of my phantom,—a ruddy glow that came and danced and went upon the wall opposite. I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection of my flickering lamp, and turned again to the stores in the shed. I went on rummaging among them, as well as a one-armed man could, finding this convenient thing and that, and putting them aside for to-morrow's launch. My movements were slow, and the time passed quickly. Insensibly the daylight crept upon me.

The chanting died down, giving place to a clamour; then it began again, and suddenly broke into a tumult. I heard cries of, “More! more!” a sound like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek. The quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrested my attention. I went out into the yard and listened. Then cutting like a knife across the confusion came the crack of a revolver.

I rushed at once through my room to the little doorway. As I did so I heard some of the packing-cases behind me go sliding down and smash together with a clatter of glass on the floor of the shed. But I did not heed these. I flung the door open and looked out.

Up the beach by the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining up sparks into the indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggled a mass of black figures. I heard Montgomery call my name. I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver in hand. I saw the pink tongue of Montgomery's pistol lick out once, close to the ground. He was down. I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air. I heard some one cry, “The Master!” The knotted black struggle broke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down. The crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me, up the beach. In my excitement I fired at their retreating backs as they disappeared among the bushes. Then I turned to the black heaps upon the ground.

Montgomery lay on his back, with the hairy-grey Beast-man sprawling across his body. The brute was dead, but still gripping Montgomery's throat with its curving claws. Near by lay M'ling on his face and quite still, his neck bitten open and the upper part of the smashed brandy-bottle in his hand. Two other figures lay near the fire,—the one motionless, the other groaning fitfully, every now and then raising its head slowly, then dropping it again.

I caught hold of the grey man and pulled him off Montgomery's body; his claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I dragged him away. Montgomery was dark in the face and scarcely breathing. I splashed sea-water on his face and pillowed his head on my rolled-up coat. M'ling was dead. The wounded creature by the fire—it was a Wolf-brute with a bearded grey face—lay, I found, with the fore part of its body upon the still glowing timber. The wretched thing was injured so dreadfully that in mercy I blew its brains out at once. The other brute was one of the Bull-men swathed in white. He too was dead. The rest of the Beast People had vanished from the beach.

I went to Montgomery again and knelt beside him, cursing my ignorance of medicine. The fire beside me had sunk down, and only charred beams of timber glowing at the central ends and mixed with a grey ash of brushwood remained. I wondered casually where Montgomery had got his wood. Then I saw that the dawn was upon us. The sky had grown brighter, the setting moon was becoming pale and opaque in the luminous blue of the day. The sky to the eastward was rimmed with red.

Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round, sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched roof caught. I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw. A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.

I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the crash I had heard. When I had rushed out to Montgomery's assistance, I had overturned the lamp.

The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosure stared me in the face. My mind came back to my plan of flight, and turning swiftly I looked to see where the two boats lay upon the beach. They were gone! Two axes lay upon the sands beside me; chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashes of the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn. Montgomery had burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our return to mankind!

A sudden convulsion of rage shook me. I was almost moved to batter his foolish head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet. Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that my wrath vanished. He groaned, and opened his eyes for a minute. I knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened his eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine. The lids fell.

“Sorry,” he said presently, with an effort. He seemed trying to think. “The last,” he murmured, “the last of this silly universe. What a mess—”

I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I thought some drink might revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to bring drink at hand. He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold. I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse. He was dead; and even as he died a line of white heat, the limb of the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay, splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into a weltering tumult of dazzling light. It fell like a glory upon his death-shrunken face.

I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him, and stood up. Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea, the awful solitude upon which I had already suffered so much; behind me the island, hushed under the dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen. The enclosure, with all its provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily, with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash. The heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling low over the distant tree-tops towards the huts in the ravine. Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these five dead bodies.

Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders, protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive, unfriendly eyes and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures.

XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.
I FACED these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed now,—literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm. In my pocket was a revolver with two empty chambers. Among the chips scattered about the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats. The tide was creeping in behind me. There was nothing for it but courage. I looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters. They avoided my eyes, and their quivering nostrils investigated the bodies that lay beyond me on the beach. I took half-a-dozen steps, picked up the blood-stained whip that lay beneath the body of the Wolf-man, and cracked it. They stopped and stared at me.

“Salute!” said I. “Bow down!”

They hesitated. One bent his knees. I repeated my command, with my heart in my mouth, and advanced upon them. One knelt, then the other two.

I turned and walked towards the dead bodies, keeping my face towards the three kneeling Beast Men, very much as an actor passing up the stage faces the audience.

“They broke the Law,” said I, putting my foot on the Sayer of the Law. “They have been slain,—even the Sayer of the Law; even the Other with the Whip. Great is the Law! Come and see.”

“None escape,” said one of them, advancing and peering.

“None escape,” said I. “Therefore hear and do as I command.” They stood up, looking questioningly at one another.

“Stand there,” said I.

I picked up the hatchets and swung them by their heads from the sling of my arm; turned Montgomery over; picked up his revolver still loaded in two chambers, and bending down to rummage, found half-a-dozen cartridges in his pocket.

“Take him,” said I, standing up again and pointing with the whip; “take him, and carry him out and cast him into the sea.”

They came forward, evidently still afraid of Montgomery, but still more afraid of my cracking red whip-lash; and after some fumbling and hesitation, some whip-cracking and shouting, they lifted him gingerly, carried him down to the beach, and went splashing into the dazzling welter of the sea.

“On!” said I, “on! Carry him far.”

They went in up to their armpits and stood regarding me.

“Let go,” said I; and the body of Montgomery vanished with a splash. Something seemed to tighten across my chest.

“Good!” said I, with a break in my voice; and they came back, hurrying and fearful, to the margin of the water, leaving long wakes of black in the silver. At the water's edge they stopped, turning and glaring into the sea as though they presently expected Montgomery to arise therefrom and exact vengeance.

“Now these,” said I, pointing to the other bodies.

They took care not to approach the place where they had thrown Montgomery into the water, but instead, carried the four dead Beast People slantingly along the beach for perhaps a hundred yards before they waded out and cast them away.

As I watched them disposing of the mangled remains of M'ling, I heard a light footfall behind me, and turning quickly saw the big Hyena-swine perhaps a dozen yards away. His head was bent down, his bright eyes were fixed upon me, his stumpy hands clenched and held close by his side. He stopped in this crouching attitude when I turned, his eyes a little averted.

For a moment we stood eye to eye. I dropped the whip and snatched at the pistol in my pocket; for I meant to kill this brute, the most formidable of any left now upon the island, at the first excuse. It may seem treacherous, but so I was resolved. I was far more afraid of him than of any other two of the Beast Folk. His continued life was I knew a threat against mine.

I was perhaps a dozen seconds collecting myself. Then cried I, “Salute! Bow down!”

His teeth flashed upon me in a snarl. “Who are you that I should—”

Perhaps a little too spasmodically I drew my revolver, aimed quickly and fired. I heard him yelp, saw him run sideways and turn, knew I had missed, and clicked back the cock with my thumb for the next shot. But he was already running headlong, jumping from side to side, and I dared not risk another miss. Every now and then he looked back at me over his shoulder. He went slanting along the beach, and vanished beneath the driving masses of dense smoke that were still pouring out from the burning enclosure. For some time I stood staring after him. I turned to my three obedient Beast Folk again and signalled them to drop the body they still carried. Then I went back to the place by the fire where the bodies had fallen and kicked the sand until all the brown blood-stains were absorbed and hidden.

I dismissed my three serfs with a wave of the hand, and went up the beach into the thickets. I carried my pistol in my hand, my whip thrust with the hatchets in the sling of my arm. I was anxious to be alone, to think out the position in which I was now placed. A dreadful thing that I was only beginning to realise was, that over all this island there was now no safe place where I could be alone and secure to rest or sleep. I had recovered strength amazingly since my landing, but I was still inclined to be nervous and to break down under any great stress. I felt that I ought to cross the island and establish myself with the Beast People, and make myself secure in their confidence. But my heart failed me. I went back to the beach, and turning eastward past the burning enclosure, made for a point where a shallow spit of coral sand ran out towards the reef. Here I could sit down and think, my back to the sea and my face against any surprise. And there I sat, chin on knees, the sun beating down upon my head and unspeakable dread in my mind, plotting how I could live on against the hour of my rescue (if ever rescue came). I tried to review the whole situation as calmly as I could, but it was difficult to clear the thing of emotion.

I began turning over in my mind the reason of Montgomery's despair. “They will change,” he said; “they are sure to change.” And Moreau, what was it that Moreau had said? “The stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again.” Then I came round to the Hyena-swine. I felt sure that if I did not kill that brute, he would kill me. The Sayer of the Law was dead: worse luck. They knew now that we of the Whips could be killed even as they themselves were killed. Were they peering at me already out of the green masses of ferns and palms over yonder, watching until I came within their spring? Were they plotting against me? What was the Hyena-swine telling them? My imagination was running away with me into a morass of unsubstantial fears.

My thoughts were disturbed by a crying of sea-birds hurrying towards some black object that had been stranded by the waves on the beach near the enclosure. I knew what that object was, but I had not the heart to go back and drive them off. I began walking along the beach in the opposite direction, designing to come round the eastward corner of the island and so approach the ravine of the huts, without traversing the possible ambuscades of the thickets.

Perhaps half a mile along the beach I became aware of one of my three Beast Folk advancing out of the landward bushes towards me. I was now so nervous with my own imaginings that I immediately drew my revolver. Even the propitiatory gestures of the creature failed to disarm me. He hesitated as he approached.

“Go away!” cried I.

There was something very suggestive of a dog in the cringing attitude of the creature. It retreated a little way, very like a dog being sent home, and stopped, looking at me imploringly with canine brown eyes.

“Go away,” said I. “Do not come near me.”

“May I not come near you?” it said.

“No; go away,” I insisted, and snapped my whip. Then putting my whip in my teeth, I stooped for a stone, and with that threat drove the creature away.

So in solitude I came round by the ravine of the Beast People, and hiding among the weeds and reeds that separated this crevice from the sea I watched such of them as appeared, trying to judge from their gestures and appearance how the death of Moreau and Montgomery and the destruction of the House of Pain had affected them. I know now the folly of my cowardice. Had I kept my courage up to the level of the dawn, had I not allowed it to ebb away in solitary thought, I might have grasped the vacant sceptre of Moreau and ruled over the Beast People. As it was I lost the opportunity, and sank to the position of a mere leader among my fellows.

Towards noon certain of them came and squatted basking in the hot sand. The imperious voices of hunger and thirst prevailed over my dread. I came out of the bushes, and, revolver in hand, walked down towards these seated figures. One, a Wolf-woman, turned her head and stared at me, and then the others. None attempted to rise or salute me. I felt too faint and weary to insist, and I let the moment pass.

“I want food,” said I, almost apologetically, and drawing near.

“There is food in the huts,” said an Ox-boar-man, drowsily, and looking away from me.

I passed them, and went down into the shadow and odours of the almost deserted ravine. In an empty hut I feasted on some specked and half-decayed fruit; and then after I had propped some branches and sticks about the opening, and placed myself with my face towards it and my hand upon my revolver, the exhaustion of the last thirty hours claimed its own, and I fell into a light slumber, hoping that the flimsy barricade I had erected would cause sufficient noise in its removal to save me from surprise.

XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK.
IN this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island of Doctor Moreau. When I awoke, it was dark about me. My arm ached in its bandages. I sat up, wondering at first where I might be. I heard coarse voices talking outside. Then I saw that my barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood clear. My revolver was still in my hand.

I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together close beside me. I held my breath, trying to see what it was. It began to move slowly, interminably. Then something soft and warm and moist passed across my hand. All my muscles contracted. I snatched my hand away. A cry of alarm began and was stifled in my throat. Then I just realised what had happened sufficiently to stay my fingers on the revolver.

“Who is that?” I said in a hoarse whisper, the revolver still pointed.

“I—Master.”

“Who are you?”

“They say there is no Master now. But I know, I know. I carried the bodies into the sea, O Walker in the Sea! the bodies of those you slew. I am your slave, Master.”

“Are you the one I met on the beach?” I asked.

“The same, Master.”

The Thing was evidently faithful enough, for it might have fallen upon me as I slept. “It is well,” I said, extending my hand for another licking kiss. I began to realise what its presence meant, and the tide of my courage flowed. “Where are the others?” I asked.

“They are mad; they are fools,” said the Dog-man. “Even now they talk together beyond there. They say, ‘The Master is dead. The Other with the Whip is dead. That Other who walked in the Sea is as we are. We have no Master, no Whips, no House of Pain, any more. There is an end. We love the Law, and will keep it; but there is no Pain, no Master, no Whips for ever again.’ So they say. But I know, Master, I know.”

I felt in the darkness, and patted the Dog-man's head. “It is well,” I said again.

“Presently you will slay them all,” said the Dog-man.

“Presently,” I answered, “I will slay them all,—after certain days and certain things have come to pass. Every one of them save those you spare, every one of them shall be slain.”

“What the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills,” said the Dog-man with a certain satisfaction in his voice.

“And that their sins may grow,” I said, “let them live in their folly until their time is ripe. Let them not know that I am the Master.”

“The Master's will is sweet,” said the Dog-man, with the ready tact of his canine blood.

“But one has sinned,” said I. “Him I will kill, whenever I may meet him. When I say to you, ‘That is he,’ see that you fall upon him. And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together.”

For a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of the Dog-man. Then I followed and stood up, almost in the exact spot where I had been when I had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me. But now it was night, and all the miasmatic ravine about me was black; and beyond, instead of a green, sunlit slope, I saw a red fire, before which hunched, grotesque figures moved to and fro. Farther were the thick trees, a bank of darkness, fringed above with the black lace of the upper branches. The moon was just riding up on the edge of the ravine, and like a bar across its face drove the spire of vapour that was for ever streaming from the fumaroles of the island.

“Walk by me,” said I, nerving myself; and side by side we walked down the narrow way, taking little heed of the dim Things that peered at us out of the huts.

None about the fire attempted to salute me. Most of them disregarded me, ostentatiously. I looked round for the Hyena-swine, but he was not there. Altogether, perhaps twenty of the Beast Folk squatted, staring into the fire or talking to one another.

“He is dead, he is dead! the Master is dead!” said the voice of the Ape-man to the right of me. “The House of Pain—there is no House of Pain!”

“He is not dead,” said I, in a loud voice. “Even now he watches us!”

This startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me.

“The House of Pain is gone,” said I. “It will come again. The Master you cannot see; yet even now he listens among you.”

“True, true!” said the Dog-man.

They were staggered at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.

“The Man with the Bandaged Arm speaks a strange thing,” said one of the Beast Folk.

“I tell you it is so,” I said. “The Master and the House of Pain will come again. Woe be to him who breaks the Law!”

They looked curiously at one another. With an affectation of indifference I began to chop idly at the ground in front of me with my hatchet. They looked, I noticed, at the deep cuts I made in the turf.

Then the Satyr raised a doubt. I answered him. Then one of the dappled things objected, and an animated discussion sprang up round the fire. Every moment I began to feel more convinced of my present security. I talked now without the catching in my breath, due to the intensity of my excitement, that had troubled me at first. In the course of about an hour I had really convinced several of the Beast Folk of the truth of my assertions, and talked most of the others into a dubious state. I kept a sharp eye for my enemy the Hyena-swine, but he never appeared. Every now and then a suspicious movement would startle me, but my confidence grew rapidly. Then as the moon crept down from the zenith, one by one the listeners began to yawn (showing the oddest teeth in the light of the sinking fire), and first one and then another retired towards the dens in the ravine; and I, dreading the silence and darkness, went with them, knowing I was safer with several of them than with one alone.

In this manner began the longer part of my sojourn upon this Island of Doctor Moreau. But from that night until the end came, there was but one thing happened to tell save a series of innumerable small unpleasant details and the fretting of an incessant uneasiness. So that I prefer to make no chronicle for that gap of time, to tell only one cardinal incident of the ten months I spent as an intimate of these half-humanised brutes. There is much that sticks in my memory that I could write,—things that I would cheerfully give my right hand to forget; but they do not help the telling of the story.

In the retrospect it is strange to remember how soon I fell in with these monsters' ways, and gained my confidence again. I had my quarrels with them of course, and could show some of their teeth-marks still; but they soon gained a wholesome respect for my trick of throwing stones and for the bite of my hatchet. And my Saint-Bernard-man's loyalty was of infinite service to me. I found their simple scale of honour was based mainly on the capacity for inflicting trenchant wounds. Indeed, I may say—without vanity, I hope—that I held something like pre-eminence among them. One or two, whom in a rare access of high spirits I had scarred rather badly, bore me a grudge; but it vented itself chiefly behind my back, and at a safe distance from my missiles, in grimaces.

The Hyena-swine avoided me, and I was always on the alert for him. My inseparable Dog-man hated and dreaded him intensely. I really believe that was at the root of the brute's attachment to me. It was soon evident to me that the former monster had tasted blood, and gone the way of the Leopard-man. He formed a lair somewhere in the forest, and became solitary. Once I tried to induce the Beast Folk to hunt him, but I lacked the authority to make them co-operate for one end. Again and again I tried to approach his den and come upon him unaware; but always he was too acute for me, and saw or winded me and got away. He too made every forest pathway dangerous to me and my ally with his lurking ambuscades. The Dog-man scarcely dared to leave my side.

In the first month or so the Beast Folk, compared with their latter condition, were human enough, and for one or two besides my canine friend I even conceived a friendly tolerance. The little pink sloth-creature displayed an odd affection for me, and took to following me about. The Monkey-man bored me, however; he assumed, on the strength of his five digits, that he was my equal, and was for ever jabbering at me,—jabbering the most arrant nonsense. One thing about him entertained me a little: he had a fantastic trick of coining new words. He had an idea, I believe, that to gabble about names that meant nothing was the proper use of speech. He called it “Big Thinks” to distinguish it from “Little Thinks,” the sane every-day interests of life. If ever I made a remark he did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to say it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it, with a word wrong here or there, to all the milder of the Beast People. He thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible. I invented some very curious “Big Thinks” for his especial use. I think now that he was the silliest creature I ever met; he had developed in the most wonderful way the distinctive silliness of man without losing one jot of the natural folly of a monkey.

This, I say, was in the earlier weeks of my solitude among these brutes. During that time they respected the usage established by the Law, and behaved with general decorum. Once I found another rabbit torn to pieces,—by the Hyena-swine, I am assured,—but that was all. It was about May when I first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage, a growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk. My Monkey-man's jabber multiplied in volume but grew less and less comprehensible, more and more simian. Some of the others seemed altogether slipping their hold upon speech, though they still understood what I said to them at that time. (Can you imagine language, once clear-cut and exact, softening and guttering, losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again?) And they walked erect with an increasing difficulty. Though they evidently felt ashamed of themselves, every now and then I would come upon one or another running on toes and finger-tips, and quite unable to recover the vertical attitude. They held things more clumsily; drinking by suction, feeding by gnawing, grew commoner every day. I realised more keenly than ever what Moreau had told me about the “stubborn beast-flesh.” They were reverting, and reverting very rapidly.

Some of them—the pioneers in this, I noticed with some surprise, were all females—began to disregard the injunction of decency, deliberately for the most part. Others even attempted public outrages upon the institution of monogamy. The tradition of the Law was clearly losing its force. I cannot pursue this disagreeable subject.

My Dog-man imperceptibly slipped back to the dog again; day by day he became dumb, quadrupedal, hairy. I scarcely noticed the transition from the companion on my right hand to the lurching dog at my side.

As the carelessness and disorganisation increased from day to day, the lane of dwelling places, at no time very sweet, became so loathsome that I left it, and going across the island made myself a hovel of boughs amid the black ruins of Moreau's enclosure. Some memory of pain, I found, still made that place the safest from the Beast Folk.

It would be impossible to detail every step of the lapsing of these monsters,—to tell how, day by day, the human semblance left them; how they gave up bandagings and wrappings, abandoned at last every stitch of clothing; how the hair began to spread over the exposed limbs; how their foreheads fell away and their faces projected; how the quasi-human intimacy I had permitted myself with some of them in the first month of my loneliness became a shuddering horror to recall.

The change was slow and inevitable. For them and for me it came without any definite shock. I still went among them in safety, because no jolt in the downward glide had released the increasing charge of explosive animalism that ousted the human day by day. But I began to fear that soon now that shock must come. My Saint-Bernard-brute followed me to the enclosure every night, and his vigilance enabled me to sleep at times in something like peace. The little pink sloth-thing became shy and left me, to crawl back to its natural life once more among the tree-branches. We were in just the state of equilibrium that would remain in one of those “Happy Family” cages which animal-tamers exhibit, if the tamer were to leave it for ever.

Of course these creatures did not decline into such beasts as the reader has seen in zoological gardens,—into ordinary bears, wolves, tigers, oxen, swine, and apes. There was still something strange about each; in each Moreau had blended this animal with that. One perhaps was ursine chiefly, another feline chiefly, another bovine chiefly; but each was tainted with other creatures,—a kind of generalised animalism appearing through the specific dispositions. And the dwindling shreds of the humanity still startled me every now and then,—a momentary recrudescence of speech perhaps, an unexpected dexterity of the fore-feet, a pitiful attempt to walk erect.

I too must have undergone strange changes. My clothes hung about me as yellow rags, through whose rents showed the tanned skin. My hair grew long, and became matted together. I am told that even now my eyes have a strange brightness, a swift alertness of movement.

At first I spent the daylight hours on the southward beach watching for a ship, hoping and praying for a ship. I counted on the Ipecacuanha returning as the year wore on; but she never came. Five times I saw sails, and thrice smoke; but nothing ever touched the island. I always had a bonfire ready, but no doubt the volcanic reputation of the island was taken to account for that.

It was only about September or October that I began to think of making a raft. By that time my arm had healed, and both my hands were at my service again. At first, I found my helplessness appalling. I had never done any carpentry or such-like work in my life, and I spent day after day in experimental chopping and binding among the trees. I had no ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith to make ropes; none of the abundant creepers seemed limber or strong enough, and with all my litter of scientific education I could not devise any way of making them so. I spent more than a fortnight grubbing among the black ruins of the enclosure and on the beach where the boats had been burnt, looking for nails and other stray pieces of metal that might prove of service. Now and then some Beast-creature would watch me, and go leaping off when I called to it. There came a season of thunder-storms and heavy rain, which greatly retarded my work; but at last the raft was completed.

I was delighted with it. But with a certain lack of practical sense which has always been my bane, I had made it a mile or more from the sea; and before I had dragged it down to the beach the thing had fallen to pieces. Perhaps it is as well that I was saved from launching it; but at the time my misery at my failure was so acute that for some days I simply moped on the beach, and stared at the water and thought of death.

I did not, however, mean to die, and an incident occurred that warned me unmistakably of the folly of letting the days pass so,—for each fresh day was fraught with increasing danger from the Beast People.

I was lying in the shade of the enclosure wall, staring out to sea, when I was startled by something cold touching the skin of my heel, and starting round found the little pink sloth-creature blinking into my face. He had long since lost speech and active movement, and the lank hair of the little brute grew thicker every day and his stumpy claws more askew. He made a moaning noise when he saw he had attracted my attention, went a little way towards the bushes and looked back at me.

At first I did not understand, but presently it occurred to me that he wished me to follow him; and this I did at last,—slowly, for the day was hot. When we reached the trees he clambered into them, for he could travel better among their swinging creepers than on the ground. And suddenly in a trampled space I came upon a ghastly group. My Saint-Bernard-creature lay on the ground, dead; and near his body crouched the Hyena-swine, gripping the quivering flesh with its misshapen claws, gnawing at it, and snarling with delight. As I approached, the monster lifted its glaring eyes to mine, its lips went trembling back from its red-stained teeth, and it growled menacingly. It was not afraid and not ashamed; the last vestige of the human taint had vanished. I advanced a step farther, stopped, and pulled out my revolver. At last I had him face to face.

The brute made no sign of retreat; but its ears went back, its hair bristled, and its body crouched together. I aimed between the eyes and fired. As I did so, the Thing rose straight at me in a leap, and I was knocked over like a ninepin. It clutched at me with its crippled hand, and struck me in the face. Its spring carried it over me. I fell under the hind part of its body; but luckily I had hit as I meant, and it had died even as it leapt. I crawled out from under its unclean weight and stood up trembling, staring at its quivering body. That danger at least was over; but this, I knew was only the first of the series of relapses that must come.

I burnt both of the bodies on a pyre of brushwood; but after that I saw that unless I left the island my death was only a question of time. The Beast People by that time had, with one or two exceptions, left the ravine and made themselves lairs according to their taste among the thickets of the island. Few prowled by day, most of them slept, and the island might have seemed deserted to a new-comer; but at night the air was hideous with their calls and howling. I had half a mind to make a massacre of them; to build traps, or fight them with my knife. Had I possessed sufficient cartridges, I should not have hesitated to begin the killing. There could now be scarcely a score left of the dangerous carnivores; the braver of these were already dead. After the death of this poor dog of mine, my last friend, I too adopted to some extent the practice of slumbering in the daytime in order to be on my guard at night. I rebuilt my den in the walls of the enclosure, with such a narrow opening that anything attempting to enter must necessarily make a considerable noise. The creatures had lost the art of fire too, and recovered their fear of it. I turned once more, almost passionately now, to hammering together stakes and branches to form a raft for my escape.

I found a thousand difficulties. I am an extremely unhandy man (my schooling was over before the days of Slöjd); but most of the requirements of a raft I met at last in some clumsy, circuitous way or other, and this time I took care of the strength. The only insurmountable obstacle was that I had no vessel to contain the water I should need if I floated forth upon these untravelled seas. I would have even tried pottery, but the island contained no clay. I used to go moping about the island trying with all my might to solve this one last difficulty. Sometimes I would give way to wild outbursts of rage, and hack and splinter some unlucky tree in my intolerable vexation. But I could think of nothing.

And then came a day, a wonderful day, which I spent in ecstasy. I saw a sail to the southwest, a small sail like that of a little schooner; and forthwith I lit a great pile of brushwood, and stood by it in the heat of it, and the heat of the midday sun, watching. All day I watched that sail, eating or drinking nothing, so that my head reeled; and the Beasts came and glared at me, and seemed to wonder, and went away. It was still distant when night came and swallowed it up; and all night I toiled to keep my blaze bright and high, and the eyes of the Beasts shone out of the darkness, marvelling. In the dawn the sail was nearer, and I saw it was the dirty lug-sail of a small boat. But it sailed strangely. My eyes were weary with watching, and I peered and could not believe them. Two men were in the boat, sitting low down,—one by the bows, the other at the rudder. The head was not kept to the wind; it yawed and fell away.

As the day grew brighter, I began waving the last rag of my jacket to them; but they did not notice me, and sat still, facing each other. I went to the lowest point of the low headland, and gesticulated and shouted. There was no response, and the boat kept on her aimless course, making slowly, very slowly, for the bay. Suddenly a great white bird flew up out of the boat, and neither of the men stirred nor noticed it; it circled round, and then came sweeping overhead with its strong wings outspread.

Then I stopped shouting, and sat down on the headland and rested my chin on my hands and stared. Slowly, slowly, the boat drove past towards the west. I would have swum out to it, but something—a cold, vague fear—kept me back. In the afternoon the tide stranded the boat, and left it a hundred yards or so to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure. The men in it were dead, had been dead so long that they fell to pieces when I tilted the boat on its side and dragged them out. One had a shock of red hair, like the captain of the Ipecacuanha, and a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat.

As I stood beside the boat, three of the Beasts came slinking out of the bushes and sniffing towards me. One of my spasms of disgust came upon me. I thrust the little boat down the beach and clambered on board her. Two of the brutes were Wolf-beasts, and came forward with quivering nostrils and glittering eyes; the third was the horrible nondescript of bear and bull. When I saw them approaching those wretched remains, heard them snarling at one another and caught the gleam of their teeth, a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion. I turned my back upon them, struck the lug and began paddling out to sea. I could not bring myself to look behind me.

I lay, however, between the reef and the island that night, and the next morning went round to the stream and filled the empty keg aboard with water. Then, with such patience as I could command, I collected a quantity of fruit, and waylaid and killed two rabbits with my last three cartridges. While I was doing this I left the boat moored to an inward projection of the reef, for fear of the Beast People.

XXII. THE MAN ALONE.
IN the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind from the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and finer line against the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me, hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating hosts of the stars. The sea was silent, the sky was silent. I was alone with the night and silence.

So I drifted for three days, eating and drinking sparingly, and meditating upon all that had happened to me,—not desiring very greatly then to see men again. One unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle: no doubt my discoverers thought me a madman.

It is strange, but I felt no desire to return to mankind. I was only glad to be quit of the foulness of the Beast People. And on the third day I was picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco. Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story, judging that solitude and danger had made me mad; and fearing their opinion might be that of others, I refrained from telling my adventure further, and professed to recall nothing that had happened to me between the loss of the Lady Vain and the time when I was picked up again,—the space of a year.

I had to act with the utmost circumspection to save myself from the suspicion of insanity. My memory of the Law, of the two dead sailors, of the ambuscades of the darkness, of the body in the canebrake, haunted me; and, unnatural as it seems, with my return to mankind came, instead of that confidence and sympathy I had expected, a strange enhancement of the uncertainty and dread I had experienced during my stay upon the island. No one would believe me; I was almost as queer to men as I had been to the Beast People. I may have caught something of the natural wildness of my companions. They say that terror is a disease, and anyhow I can witness that for several years now a restless fear has dwelt in my mind,—such a restless fear as a half-tamed lion cub may feel.

My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade myself that the men and women I met were not also another Beast People, animals half wrought into the outward image of human souls, and that they would presently begin to revert,—to show first this bestial mark and then that. But I have confided my case to a strangely able man,—a man who had known Moreau, and seemed half to credit my story; a mental specialist,—and he has helped me mightily, though I do not expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me. At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale. I know this is an illusion; that these seeming men and women about me are indeed men and women,—men and women for ever, perfectly reasonable creatures, full of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated from instinct and the slaves of no fantastic Law,—beings altogether different from the Beast Folk. Yet I shrink from them, from their curious glances, their inquiries and assistance, and long to be away from them and alone. For that reason I live near the broad free downland, and can escape thither when this shadow is over my soul; and very sweet is the empty downland then, under the wind-swept sky.

When I lived in London the horror was well-nigh insupportable. I could not get away from men: their voices came through windows; locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would go out into the streets to fight with my delusion, and prowling women would mew after me; furtive, craving men glance jealously at me; weary, pale workers go coughing by me with tired eyes and eager paces, like wounded deer dripping blood; old people, bent and dull, pass murmuring to themselves; and, all unheeding, a ragged tail of gibing children. Then I would turn aside into some chapel,—and even there, such was my disturbance, it seemed that the preacher gibbered “Big Thinks,” even as the Ape-man had done; or into some library, and there the intent faces over the books seemed but patient creatures waiting for prey. Particularly nauseous were the blank, expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses; they seemed no more my fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be, so that I did not dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone. And even it seemed that I too was not a reasonable creature, but only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in its brain which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken with gid.

This is a mood, however, that comes to me now, I thank God, more rarely. I have withdrawn myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spend my days surrounded by wise books,—bright windows in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men. I see few strangers, and have but a small household. My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry, and I spend many of the clear nights in the study of astronomy. There is—though I do not know how there is or why there is—a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope. I hope, or I could not live.

And so, in hope and solitude, my story ends.

EDWARD PRENDICK.

NOTE. The substance of the chapter entitled “Doctor Moreau explains,” which contains the essential idea of the story, appeared as a middle article in the Saturday Review in January, 1895. This is the only portion of this story that has been previously published, and it has been entirely recast to adapt it to the narrative form.

 

 

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