"'THE WORLD SET FREE\n\nH.G. WELLS\n\n\nWe Are All Things That Make And Pass,\nStriving Upon A Hidden Mission,\nOut To The Open Sea.\n\n\nTO\n\nFrederick Soddy\'s\n\n\'Interpretation Of Radium\'\n\nThis Story, Which Owes Long Passages To The Eleventh Chapter Of That\nBook, Acknowledges And Inscribes Itself\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nTHE WORLD SET FREE was written in 1913 and published early in 1914, and\nit is the latest of a series of three fantasias of possibility, stories\nwhich all turn on the possible developments in the future of some\ncontemporary force or group of forces. The World Set Free was written\nunder the immediate shadow of the Great War. Every intelligent person in\nthe world felt that disaster was impending and knew no way of averting\nit, but few of us realised in the earlier half of 1914 how near the\ncrash was to us. The reader will be amused to find that here it is put\noff until the year 1956. He may naturally want to know the reason for\nwhat will seem now a quite extraordinary delay. As a prophet, the author\nmust confess he has always been inclined to be rather a slow prophet.\nThe war aeroplane in the world of reality, for example, beat the\nforecast in Anticipations by about twenty years or so. I suppose a\ndesire not to shock the sceptical reader\'s sense of use and wont and\nperhaps a less creditable disposition to hedge, have something to do\nwith this dating forward of one\'s main events, but in the particular\ncase of The World Set Free there was, I think, another motive in holding\nthe Great War back, and that was to allow the chemist to get well\nforward with his discovery of the release of atomic energy. 1956--or for\nthat matter 2056--may be none too late for that crowning revolution in\nhuman potentialities. And apart from this procrastination of over forty\nyears, the guess at the opening phase of the war was fairly lucky; the\nforecast of an alliance of the Central Empires, the opening campaign\nthrough the Netherlands, and the despatch of the British Expeditionary\nForce were all justified before the book had been published six months.\nAnd the opening section of Chapter the Second remains now, after the\nreality has happened, a fairly adequate diagnosis of the essentials of\nthe matter. One happy hit (in Chapter the Second, Section 2), on which\nthe writer may congratulate himself, is the forecast that under modern\nconditions it would be quite impossible for any great general to emerge\nto supremacy and concentrate the enthusiasm of the armies of either\nside. There could be no Alexanders or Napoleons. And we soon heard the\nscientific corps muttering, \'These old fools,\' exactly as it is here\nforetold.\n\nThese, however, are small details, and the misses in the story far\noutnumber the hits. It is the main thesis which is still of interest\nnow; the thesis that because of the development of scientific knowledge,\nseparate sovereign states and separate sovereign empires are no longer\npossible in the world, that to attempt to keep on with the old system\nis to heap disaster upon disaster for mankind and perhaps to destroy\nour race altogether. The remaining interest of this book now is the\nsustained validity of this thesis and the discussion of the possible\nending of war on the earth. I have supposed a sort of epidemic of sanity\nto break out among the rulers of states and the leaders of mankind. I\nhave represented the native common sense of the French mind and of\nthe English mind--for manifestly King Egbert is meant to be \'God\'s\nEnglishman\'--leading mankind towards a bold and resolute effort of\nsalvage and reconstruction. Instead of which, as the school book\nfootnotes say, compare to-day\'s newspaper. Instead of a frank and\nhonourable gathering of leading men, Englishman meeting German and\nFrenchman Russian, brothers in their offences and in their disaster,\nupon the hills of Brissago, beheld in Geneva at the other end of\nSwitzerland a poor little League of (Allied) Nations (excluding the\nUnited States, Russia, and most of the \'subject peoples\' of the world),\nmeeting obscurely amidst a world-wide disregard to make impotent\ngestures at the leading problems of the debacle. Either the disaster has\nnot been vast enough yet or it has not been swift enough to inflict the\nnecessary moral shock and achieve the necessary moral revulsion. Just as\nthe world of 1913 was used to an increasing prosperity and thought that\nincrease would go on for ever, so now it would seem the world is growing\naccustomed to a steady glide towards social disintegration, and thinks\nthat that too can go on continually and never come to a final bump.\nSo soon do use and wont establish themselves, and the most flaming and\nthunderous of lessons pale into disregard.\n\nThe question whether a Leblanc is still possible, the question whether\nit is still possible to bring about an outbreak of creative sanity in\nmankind, to avert this steady glide to destruction, is now one of the\nmost urgent in the world. It is clear that the writer is temperamentally\ndisposed to hope that there is such a possibility. But he has to\nconfess that he sees few signs of any such breadth of understanding and\nsteadfastness of will as an effectual effort to turn the rush of human\naffairs demands. The inertia of dead ideas and old institutions carries\nus on towards the rapids. Only in one direction is there any plain\nrecognition of the idea of a human commonweal as something overriding\nany national and patriotic consideration, and that is in the working\nclass movement throughout the world. And labour internationalism is\nclosely bound up with conceptions of a profound social revolution. If\nworld peace is to be attained through labour internationalism, it will\nhave to be attained at the price of the completest social and economic\nreconstruction and by passing through a phase of revolution that will\ncertainly be violent, that may be very bloody, which may be prolonged\nthrough a long period, and may in the end fail to achieve anything but\nsocial destruction. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is in the\nlabour class, and the labour class alone, that any conception of a world\nrule and a world peace has so far appeared. The dream of The World Set\nFree, a dream of highly educated and highly favoured leading and ruling\nmen, voluntarily setting themselves to the task of reshaping the world,\nhas thus far remained a dream.\n\nH. G. WELLS.\n\nEASTON GLEBE, DUNMOW, 1921.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPRELUDE THE SUN SNARERS\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST THE NEW SOURCE OF ENERGY\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND THE LAST WAR\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD THE ENDING OF WAR\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH THE NEW PHASE\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH THE LAST DAYS OF MARCUS KARENIN\n\n\n\n\nPRELUDE\n\nTHE SUN SNARERS\n\nSection 1\n\nTHE history of mankind is the history of the attainment of external\npower. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal. From the outset of his\nterrestrial career we find him supplementing the natural strength and\nbodily weapons of a beast by the heat of burning and the rough implement\nof stone. So he passed beyond the ape. From that he expands. Presently\nhe added to himself the power of the horse and the ox, he borrowed\nthe carrying strength of water and the driving force of the wind, he\nquickened his fire by blowing, and his simple tools, pointed first\nwith copper and then with iron, increased and varied and became more\nelaborate and efficient. He sheltered his heat in houses and made his\nway easier by paths and roads. He complicated his social relationships\nand increased his efficiency by the division of labour. He began to\nstore up knowledge. Contrivance followed contrivance, each making it\npossible for a man to do more. Always down the lengthening record,\nsave for a set-back ever and again, he is doing more.... A quarter of\na million years ago the utmost man was a savage, a being scarcely\narticulate, sheltering in holes in the rocks, armed with a rough-hewn\nflint or a fire-pointed stick, naked, living in small family groups,\nkilled by some younger man so soon as his first virile activity\ndeclined. Over most of the great wildernesses of earth you would have\nsought him in vain; only in a few temperate and sub-tropical river\nvalleys would you have found the squatting lairs of his little herds, a\nmale, a few females, a child or so.\n\nHe knew no future then, no kind of life except the life he led. He fled\nthe cave-bear over the rocks full of iron ore and the promise of sword\nand spear; he froze to death upon a ledge of coal; he drank water muddy\nwith the clay that would one day make cups of porcelain; he chewed the\near of wild wheat he had plucked and gazed with a dim speculation in his\neyes at the birds that soared beyond his reach. Or suddenly he became\naware of the scent of another male and rose up roaring, his roars\nthe formless precursors of moral admonitions. For he was a great\nindividualist, that original, he suffered none other than himself.\n\nSo through the long generations, this heavy precursor, this ancestor of\nall of us, fought and bred and perished, changing almost imperceptibly.\n\nYet he changed. That keen chisel of necessity which sharpened the\ntiger\'s claw age by age and fined down the clumsy Orchippus to the swift\ngrace of the horse, was at work upon him--is at work upon him still.\nThe clumsier and more stupidly fierce among him were killed soonest and\noftenest; the finer hand, the quicker eye, the bigger brain, the better\nbalanced body prevailed; age by age, the implements were a little better\nmade, the man a little more delicately adjusted to his possibilities. He\nbecame more social; his herd grew larger; no longer did each man kill\nor drive out his growing sons; a system of taboos made them tolerable\nto him, and they revered him alive and soon even after he was dead, and\nwere his allies against the beasts and the rest of mankind. (But they\nwere forbidden to touch the women of the tribe, they had to go out and\ncapture women for themselves, and each son fled from his stepmother and\nhid from her lest the anger of the Old Man should be roused. All the\nworld over, even to this day, these ancient inevitable taboos can be\ntraced.) And now instead of caves came huts and hovels, and the fire was\nbetter tended and there were wrappings and garments; and so aided, the\ncreature spread into colder climates, carrying food with him, storing\nfood--until sometimes the neglected grass-seed sprouted again and gave a\nfirst hint of agriculture.\n\nAnd already there were the beginnings of leisure and thought.\n\nMan began to think. There were times when he was fed, when his lusts and\nhis fears were all appeased, when the sun shone upon the squatting-place\nand dim stirrings of speculation lit his eyes. He scratched upon a bone\nand found resemblance and pursued it and began pictorial art, moulded\nthe soft, warm clay of the river brink between his fingers, and found a\npleasure in its patternings and repetitions, shaped it into the form of\nvessels, and found that it would hold water. He watched the streaming\nriver, and wondered from what bountiful breast this incessant water\ncame; he blinked at the sun and dreamt that perhaps he might snare it\nand spear it as it went down to its resting-place amidst the distant\nhills. Then he was roused to convey to his brother that once indeed he\nhad done so--at least that some one had done so--he mixed that perhaps\nwith another dream almost as daring, that one day a mammoth had been\nbeset; and therewith began fiction--pointing a way to achievement--and\nthe august prophetic procession of tales.\n\nFor scores and hundreds of centuries, for myriads of generations that\nlife of our fathers went on. From the beginning to the ripening of that\nphase of human life, from the first clumsy eolith of rudely chipped\nflint to the first implements of polished stone, was two or three\nthousand centuries, ten or fifteen thousand generations. So slowly,\nby human standards, did humanity gather itself together out of the dim\nintimations of the beast. And that first glimmering of speculation, that\nfirst story of achievement, that story-teller bright-eyed and flushed\nunder his matted hair, gesticulating to his gaping, incredulous\nlistener, gripping his wrist to keep him attentive, was the most\nmarvellous beginning this world has ever seen. It doomed the mammoths,\nand it began the setting of that snare that shall catch the sun.\n\nSection 2\n\nThat dream was but a moment in a man\'s life, whose proper business it\nseemed was to get food and kill his fellows and beget after the manner\nof all that belongs to the fellowship of the beasts. About him, hidden\nfrom him by the thinnest of veils, were the untouched sources of Power,\nwhose magnitude we scarcely do more than suspect even to-day, Power that\ncould make his every conceivable dream come real. But the feet of the\nrace were in the way of it, though he died blindly unknowing.\n\nAt last, in the generous levels of warm river valleys, where food is\nabundant and life very easy, the emerging human overcoming his earlier\njealousies, becoming, as necessity persecuted him less urgently, more\nsocial and tolerant and amenable, achieved a larger community. There\nbegan a division of labour, certain of the older men specialised in\nknowledge and direction, a strong man took the fatherly leadership in\nwar, and priest and king began to develop their roles in the opening\ndrama of man\'s history. The priest\'s solicitude was seed-time and\nharvest and fertility, and the king ruled peace and war. In a hundred\nriver valleys about the warm, temperate zone of the earth there\nwere already towns and temples, a score of thousand years ago. They\nflourished unrecorded, ignoring the past and unsuspicious of the future,\nfor as yet writing had still to begin.\n\nVery slowly did man increase his demand upon the illimitable wealth\nof Power that offered itself on every hand to him. He tamed certain\nanimals, he developed his primordially haphazard agriculture into a\nritual, he added first one metal to his resources and then another,\nuntil he had copper and tin and iron and lead and gold and silver to\nsupplement his stone, he hewed and carved wood, made pottery, paddled\ndown his river until he came to the sea, discovered the wheel and made\nthe first roads. But his chief activity for a hundred centuries and\nmore, was the subjugation of himself and others to larger and larger\nsocieties. The history of man is not simply the conquest of external\npower; it is first the conquest of those distrusts and fiercenesses,\nthat self-concentration and intensity of animalism, that tie his hands\nfrom taking his inheritance. The ape in us still resents association.\nFrom the dawn of the age of polished stone to the achievement of the\nPeace of the World, man\'s dealings were chiefly with himself and his\nfellow man, trading, bargaining, law-making, propitiating, enslaving,\nconquering, exterminating, and every little increment in Power, he\nturned at once and always turns to the purposes of this confused\nelaborate struggle to socialise. To incorporate and comprehend his\nfellow men into a community of purpose became the last and greatest of\nhis instincts. Already before the last polished phase of the stone\nage was over he had become a political animal. He made astonishingly\nfar-reaching discoveries within himself, first of counting and then of\nwriting and making records, and with that his town communities began to\nstretch out to dominion; in the valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, and\nthe great Chinese rivers, the first empires and the first written laws\nhad their beginnings. Men specialised for fighting and rule as soldiers\nand knights. Later, as ships grew seaworthy, the Mediterranean which had\nbeen a barrier became a highway, and at last out of a tangle of pirate\npolities came the great struggle of Carthage and Rome. The history\nof Europe is the history of the victory and breaking up of the Roman\nEmpire. Every ascendant monarch in Europe up to the last, aped Caesar\nand called himself Kaiser or Tsar or Imperator or Kasir-i-Hind. Measured\nby the duration of human life it is a vast space of time between that\nfirst dynasty in Egypt and the coming of the aeroplane, but by the scale\nthat looks back to the makers of the eoliths, it is all of it a story of\nyesterday.\n\nNow during this period of two hundred centuries or more, this period\nof the warring states, while men\'s minds were chiefly preoccupied by\npolitics and mutual aggression, their progress in the acquirement of\nexternal Power was slow--rapid in comparison with the progress of the\nold stone age, but slow in comparison with this new age of systematic\ndiscovery in which we live. They did not very greatly alter the weapons\nand tactics of warfare, the methods of agriculture, seamanship, their\nknowledge of the habitable globe, or the devices and utensils of\ndomestic life between the days of the early Egyptians and the days when\nChristopher Columbus was a child. Of course, there were inventions and\nchanges, but there were also retrogressions; things were found out and\nthen forgotten again; it was, on the whole, a progress, but it contained\nno steps; the peasant life was the same, there were already priests and\nlawyers and town craftsmen and territorial lords and rulers, doctors,\nwise women, soldiers and sailors in Egypt and China and Assyria and\nsouth-eastern Europe at the beginning of that period, and they were\ndoing much the same things and living much the same life as they were in\nEurope in A.D. 1500. The English excavators of the year A.D. 1900\ncould delve into the remains of Babylon and Egypt and disinter legal\ndocuments, domestic accounts, and family correspondence that they could\nread with the completest sympathy. There were great religious and\nmoral changes throughout the period, empires and republics replaced one\nanother, Italy tried a vast experiment in slavery, and indeed slavery\nwas tried again and again and failed and failed and was still to be\ntested again and rejected again in the New World; Christianity and\nMohammedanism swept away a thousand more specialised cults, but\nessentially these were progressive adaptations of mankind to\nmaterial conditions that must have seemed fixed for ever. The idea of\nrevolutionary changes in the material conditions of life would have been\nentirely strange to human thought through all that time.\n\nYet the dreamer, the story-teller, was there still, waiting for his\nopportunity amidst the busy preoccupations, the comings and goings, the\nwars and processions, the castle building and cathedral building, the\narts and loves, the small diplomacies and incurable feuds, the crusades\nand trading journeys of the middle ages. He no longer speculated\nwith the untrammelled freedom of the stone-age savage; authoritative\nexplanations of everything barred his path; but he speculated with a\nbetter brain, sat idle and gazed at circling stars in the sky and mused\nupon the coin and crystal in his hand. Whenever there was a certain\nleisure for thought throughout these times, then men were to be found\ndissatisfied with the appearances of things, dissatisfied with the\nassurances of orthodox belief, uneasy with a sense of unread symbols\nin the world about them, questioning the finality of scholastic wisdom.\nThrough all the ages of history there were men to whom this whisper had\ncome of hidden things about them. They could no longer lead ordinary\nlives nor content themselves with the common things of this world once\nthey had heard this voice. And mostly they believed not only that all\nthis world was as it were a painted curtain before things unguessed at,\nbut that these secrets were Power. Hitherto Power had come to men by\nchance, but now there were these seekers seeking, seeking among rare and\ncurious and perplexing objects, sometimes finding some odd utilisable\nthing, sometimes deceiving themselves with fancied discovery, sometimes\npretending to find. The world of every day laughed at these eccentric\nbeings, or found them annoying and ill-treated them, or was seized\nwith fear and made saints and sorcerers and warlocks of them, or with\ncovetousness and entertained them hopefully; but for the greater part\nheeded them not at all. Yet they were of the blood of him who had first\ndreamt of attacking the mammoth; every one of them was of his blood and\ndescent; and the thing they sought, all unwittingly, was the snare that\nwill some day catch the sun.\n\nSection 3\n\nSuch a man was that Leonardo da Vinci, who went about the court of\nSforza in Milan in a state of dignified abstraction. His common-place\nbooks are full of prophetic subtlety and ingenious anticipations of\nthe methods of the early aviators. Durer was his parallel and Roger\nBacon--whom the Franciscans silenced--of his kindred. Such a man again\nin an earlier city was Hero of Alexandria, who knew of the power of\nsteam nineteen hundred years before it was first brought into use.\nAnd earlier still was Archimedes of Syracuse, and still earlier the\nlegendary Daedalus of Cnossos. All up and down the record of history\nwhenever there was a little leisure from war and brutality the seekers\nappeared. And half the alchemists were of their tribe.\n\nWhen Roger Bacon blew up his first batch of gunpowder one might have\nsupposed that men would have gone at once to the explosive engine. But\nthey could see nothing of the sort. They were not yet beginning to think\nof seeing things; their metallurgy was all too poor to make such\nengines even had they thought of them. For a time they could not make\ninstruments sound enough to stand this new force even for so rough a\npurpose as hurling a missile. Their first guns had barrels of coopered\ntimber, and the world waited for more than five hundred years before the\nexplosive engine came.\n\nEven when the seekers found, it was at first a long journey before the\nworld could use their findings for any but the roughest, most obvious\npurposes. If man in general was not still as absolutely blind to the\nunconquered energies about him as his paleolithic precursor, he was at\nbest purblind.\n\nSection 4\n\nThe latent energy of coal and the power of steam waited long on the\nverge of discovery, before they began to influence human lives.\n\nThere were no doubt many such devices as Hero\'s toys devised and\nforgotten, time after time, in courts and palaces, but it needed that\ncoal should be mined and burning with plenty of iron at hand before it\ndawned upon men that here was something more than a curiosity. And it is\nto be remarked that the first recorded suggestion for the use of steam\nwas in war; there is an Elizabethan pamphlet in which it is proposed to\nfire shot out of corked iron bottles full of heated water. The mining\nof coal for fuel, the smelting of iron upon a larger scale than men had\never done before, the steam pumping engine, the steam-engine and the\nsteam-boat, followed one another in an order that had a kind of logical\nnecessity. It is the most interesting and instructive chapter in\nthe history of the human intelligence, the history of steam from its\nbeginning as a fact in human consciousness to the perfection of the\ngreat turbine engines that preceded the utilisation of intra-molecular\npower. Nearly every human being must have seen steam, seen it\nincuriously for many thousands of years; the women in particular were\nalways heating water, boiling it, seeing it boil away, seeing the lids\nof vessels dance with its fury; millions of people at different times\nmust have watched steam pitching rocks out of volcanoes like cricket\nballs and blowing pumice into foam, and yet you may search the whole\nhuman record through, letters, books, inscriptions, pictures, for any\nglimmer of a realisation that here was force, here was strength to\nborrow and use.... Then suddenly man woke up to it, the railways spread\nlike a network over the globe, the ever enlarging iron steamships began\ntheir staggering fight against wind and wave.\n\nSteam was the first-comer in the new powers, it was the beginning of the\nAge of Energy that was to close the long history of the Warring States.\n\nBut for a long time men did not realise the importance of this novelty.\nThey would not recognise, they were not able to recognise that anything\nfundamental had happened to their immemorial necessities. They called\nthe steam-engine the \'iron horse\' and pretended that they had made the\nmost partial of substitutions. Steam machinery and factory production\nwere visibly revolutionising the conditions of industrial production,\npopulation was streaming steadily in from the country-side and\nconcentrating in hitherto unthought-of masses about a few city centres,\nfood was coming to them over enormous distances upon a scale that\nmade the one sole precedent, the corn ships of imperial Rome, a petty\nincident; and a huge migration of peoples between Europe and Western\nAsia and America was in Progress, and--nobody seems to have realised\nthat something new had come into human life, a strange swirl different\naltogether from any previous circling and mutation, a swirl like the\nswirl when at last the lock gates begin to open after a long phase of\naccumulating water and eddying inactivity....\n\nThe sober Englishman at the close of the nineteenth century could sit\nat his breakfast-table, decide between tea from Ceylon or coffee from\nBrazil, devour an egg from France with some Danish ham, or eat a New\nZealand chop, wind up his breakfast with a West Indian banana, glance at\nthe latest telegrams from all the world, scrutinise the prices current\nof his geographically distributed investments in South Africa, Japan,\nand Egypt, and tell the two children he had begotten (in the place of\nhis father\'s eight) that he thought the world changed very little. They\nmust play cricket, keep their hair cut, go to the old school he had gone\nto, shirk the lessons he had shirked, learn a few scraps of Horace and\nVirgil and Homer for the confusion of cads, and all would be well with\nthem....\n\nSection 5\n\nElectricity, though it was perhaps the earlier of the two to be studied,\ninvaded the common life of men a few decades after the exploitation of\nsteam. To electricity also, in spite of its provocative nearness all\nabout him, mankind had been utterly blind for incalculable ages. Could\nanything be more emphatic than the appeal of electricity for attention?\nIt thundered at man\'s ears, it signalled to him in blinding flashes,\noccasionally it killed him, and he could not see it as a thing that\nconcerned him enough to merit study. It came into the house with the cat\non any dry day and crackled insinuatingly whenever he stroked her fur.\nIt rotted his metals when he put them together.... There is no single\nrecord that any one questioned why the cat\'s fur crackles or why hair\nis so unruly to brush on a frosty day, before the sixteenth century.\nFor endless years man seems to have done his very successful best not to\nthink about it at all; until this new spirit of the Seeker turned itself\nto these things.\n\nHow often things must have been seen and dismissed as unimportant,\nbefore the speculative eye and the moment of vision came! It was\nGilbert, Queen Elizabeth\'s court physician, who first puzzled his brains\nwith rubbed amber and bits of glass and silk and shellac, and so began\nthe quickening of the human mind to the existence of this universal\npresence. And even then the science of electricity remained a mere\nlittle group of curious facts for nearly two hundred years, connected\nperhaps with magnetism--a mere guess that--perhaps with the lightning.\nFrogs\' legs must have hung by copper hooks from iron railings and\ntwitched upon countless occasions before Galvani saw them. Except\nfor the lightning conductor, it was 250 years after Gilbert before\nelectricity stepped out of the cabinet of scientific curiosities into\nthe life of the common man.... Then suddenly, in the half-century\nbetween 1880 and 1930, it ousted the steam-engine and took over\ntraction, it ousted every other form of household heating,\nabolished distance with the perfected wireless telephone and the\ntelephotograph....\n\nSection 6\n\nAnd there was an extraordinary mental resistance to discovery and\ninvention for at least a hundred years after the scientific revolution\nhad begun. Each new thing made its way into practice against a\nscepticism that amounted at times to hostility. One writer upon these\nsubjects gives a funny little domestic conversation that happened, he\nsays, in the year 1898, within ten years, that is to say, of the time\nwhen the first aviators were fairly on the wing. He tells us how he sat\nat his desk in his study and conversed with his little boy.\n\nHis little boy was in profound trouble. He felt he had to speak very\nseriously to his father, and as he was a kindly little boy he did not\nwant to do it too harshly.\n\nThis is what happened.\n\n\'I wish, Daddy,\' he said, coming to his point, \'that you wouldn\'t write\nall this stuff about flying. The chaps rot me.\'\n\n\'Yes!\' said his father.\n\n\'And old Broomie, the Head I mean, he rots me. Everybody rots me.\'\n\n\'But there is going to be flying--quite soon.\'\n\nThe little boy was too well bred to say what he thought of that.\n\'Anyhow,\' he said, \'I wish you wouldn\'t write about it.\'\n\n\'You\'ll fly--lots of times--before you die,\' the father assured him.\n\nThe little boy looked unhappy.\n\nThe father hesitated. Then he opened a drawer and took out a blurred and\nunder-developed photograph. \'Come and look at this,\' he said.\n\nThe little boy came round to him. The photograph showed a stream and\na meadow beyond, and some trees, and in the air a black, pencil-like\nobject with flat wings on either side of it. It was the first record of\nthe first apparatus heavier than air that ever maintained itself in the\nair by mechanical force. Across the margin was written: \'Here we go up,\nup, up--from S. P. Langley, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.\'\n\nThe father watched the effect of this reassuring document upon his son.\n\'Well?\' he said.\n\n\'That,\' said the schoolboy, after reflection, \'is only a model.\'\n\n\'Model to-day, man to-morrow.\'\n\nThe boy seemed divided in his allegiance. Then he decided for what he\nbelieved quite firmly to be omniscience. \'But old Broomie,\' he said, \'he\ntold all the boys in his class only yesterday, \"no man will ever fly.\"\nNo one, he says, who has ever shot grouse or pheasants on the wing would\never believe anything of the sort....\'\n\nYet that boy lived to fly across the Atlantic and edit his father\'s\nreminiscences.\n\nSection 7\n\nAt the close of the nineteenth century as a multitude of passages in the\nliterature of that time witness, it was thought that the fact that man\nhad at last had successful and profitable dealings with the steam that\nscalded him and the electricity that flashed and banged about the sky\nat him, was an amazing and perhaps a culminating exercise of his\nintelligence and his intellectual courage. The air of \'Nunc Dimittis\'\nsounds in same of these writings. \'The great things are discovered,\'\nwrote Gerald Brown in his summary of the nineteenth century. \'For us\nthere remains little but the working out of detail.\' The spirit of\nthe seeker was still rare in the world; education was unskilled,\nunstimulating, scholarly, and but little valued, and few people even\nthen could have realised that Science was still but the flimsiest of\ntrial sketches and discovery scarcely beginning. No one seems to have\nbeen afraid of science and its possibilities. Yet now where there had\nbeen but a score or so of seekers, there were many thousands, and\nfor one needle of speculation that had been probing the curtain of\nappearances in 1800, there were now hundreds. And already Chemistry,\nwhich had been content with her atoms and molecules for the better part\nof a century, was preparing herself for that vast next stride that was\nto revolutionise the whole life of man from top to bottom.\n\nOne realises how crude was the science of that time when one considers\nthe case of the composition of air. This was determined by that\nstrange genius and recluse, that man of mystery, that disembowelled\nintelligence, Henry Cavendish, towards the end of the eighteenth\ncentury. So far as he was concerned the work was admirably done.\nHe separated all the known ingredients of the air with a precision\naltogether remarkable; he even put it upon record that he had some doubt\nabout the purity of the nitrogen. For more than a hundred years his\ndetermination was repeated by chemists all the world over, his apparatus\nwas treasured in London, he became, as they used to say, \'classic,\' and\nalways, at every one of the innumerable repetitions of his experiment,\nthat sly element argon was hiding among the nitrogen (and with a little\nhelium and traces of other substances, and indeed all the hints\nthat might have led to the new departures of the twentieth-century\nchemistry), and every time it slipped unobserved through the\nprofessorial fingers that repeated his procedure.\n\nIs it any wonder then with this margin of inaccuracy, that up to the\nvery dawn of the twentieth-century scientific discovery was still rather\na procession of happy accidents than an orderly conquest of nature?\n\nYet the spirit of seeking was spreading steadily through the world. Even\nthe schoolmaster could not check it. For the mere handful who grew up to\nfeel wonder and curiosity about the secrets of nature in the nineteenth\ncentury, there were now, at the beginning of the twentieth, myriads\nescaping from the limitations of intellectual routine and the habitual\nlife, in Europe, in America, North and South, in Japan, in China, and\nall about the world.\n\nIt was in 1910 that the parents of young Holsten, who was to be called\nby a whole generation of scientific men, \'the greatest of European\nchemists,\' were staying in a villa near Santo Domenico, between Fiesole\nand Florence. He was then only fifteen, but he was already distinguished\nas a mathematician and possessed by a savage appetite to understand. He\nhad been particularly attracted by the mystery of phosphorescence and\nits apparent unrelatedness to every other source of light. He was\nto tell afterwards in his reminiscences how he watched the fireflies\ndrifting and glowing among the dark trees in the garden of the villa\nunder the warm blue night sky of Italy; how he caught and kept them in\ncages, dissected them, first studying the general anatomy of insects\nvery elaborately, and how he began to experiment with the effect of\nvarious gases and varying temperature upon their light. Then the chance\npresent of a little scientific toy invented by Sir William Crookes, a\ntoy called the spinthariscope, on which radium particles impinge upon\nsulphide of zinc and make it luminous, induced him to associate the two\nsets of phenomena. It was a happy association for his inquiries. It was\na rare and fortunate thing, too, that any one with the mathematical gift\nshould have been taken by these curiosities.\n\nSection 8\n\nAnd while the boy Holsten was mooning over his fireflies at Fiesole,\na certain professor of physics named Rufus was giving a course of\nafternoon lectures upon Radium and Radio-Activity in Edinburgh.\nThey were lectures that had attracted a very considerable amount of\nattention. He gave them in a small lecture-theatre that had become more\nand more congested as his course proceeded. At his concluding discussion\nit was crowded right up to the ceiling at the back, and there people\nwere standing, standing without any sense of fatigue, so fascinating\ndid they find his suggestions. One youngster in particular, a\nchuckle-headed, scrub-haired lad from the Highlands, sat hugging his\nknee with great sand-red hands and drinking in every word, eyes aglow,\ncheeks flushed, and ears burning.\n\n\'And so,\' said the professor, \'we see that this Radium, which seemed\nat first a fantastic exception, a mad inversion of all that was most\nestablished and fundamental in the constitution of matter, is really at\none with the rest of the elements. It does noticeably and forcibly\nwhat probably all the other elements are doing with an imperceptible\nslowness. It is like the single voice crying aloud that betrays the\nsilent breathing multitude in the darkness. Radium is an element that\nis breaking up and flying to pieces. But perhaps all elements are doing\nthat at less perceptible rates. Uranium certainly is; thorium--the stuff\nof this incandescent gas mantle--certainly is; actinium. I feel that we\nare but beginning the list. And we know now that the atom, that once\nwe thought hard and impenetrable, and indivisible and final\nand--lifeless--lifeless, is really a reservoir of immense energy. That\nis the most wonderful thing about all this work. A little while ago\nwe thought of the atoms as we thought of bricks, as solid building\nmaterial, as substantial matter, as unit masses of lifeless stuff,\nand behold! these bricks are boxes, treasure boxes, boxes full of the\nintensest force. This little bottle contains about a pint of uranium\noxide; that is to say, about fourteen ounces of the element uranium. It\nis worth about a pound. And in this bottle, ladies and gentlemen, in the\natoms in this bottle there slumbers at least as much energy as we could\nget by burning a hundred and sixty tons of coal. If at a word, in one\ninstant I could suddenly release that energy here and now it would blow\nus and everything about us to fragments; if I could turn it into the\nmachinery that lights this city, it could keep Edinburgh brightly lit\nfor a week. But at present no man knows, no man has an inkling of how\nthis little lump of stuff can be made to hasten the release of its\nstore. It does release it, as a burn trickles. Slowly the uranium\nchanges into radium, the radium changes into a gas called the radium\nemanation, and that again to what we call radium A, and so the process\ngoes on, giving out energy at every stage, until at last we reach the\nlast stage of all, which is, so far as we can tell at present, lead. But\nwe cannot hasten it.\'\n\n\'I take ye, man,\' whispered the chuckle-headed lad, with his red hands\ntightening like a vice upon his knee. \'I take ye, man. Go on! Oh, go\non!\'\n\nThe professor went on after a little pause. \'Why is the change gradual?\'\nhe asked. \'Why does only a minute fraction of the radium disintegrate\nin any particular second? Why does it dole itself out so slowly and\nso exactly? Why does not all the uranium change to radium and all\nthe radium change to the next lowest thing at once? Why this decay by\ndriblets; why not a decay en masse? . . . Suppose presently we find it\nis possible to quicken that decay?\'\n\nThe chuckle-headed lad nodded rapidly. The wonderful inevitable idea was\ncoming. He drew his knee up towards his chin and swayed in his seat with\nexcitement. \'Why not?\' he echoed, \'why not?\'\n\nThe professor lifted his forefinger.\n\n\'Given that knowledge,\' he said, \'mark what we should be able to do! We\nshould not only be able to use this uranium and thorium; not only should\nwe have a source of power so potent that a man might carry in his hand\nthe energy to light a city for a year, fight a fleet of battleships, or\ndrive one of our giant liners across the Atlantic; but we should also\nhave a clue that would enable us at last to quicken the process of\ndisintegration in all the other elements, where decay is still so slow\nas to escape our finest measurements. Every scrap of solid matter in the\nworld would become an available reservoir of concentrated force. Do you\nrealise, ladies and gentlemen, what these things would mean for us?\'\n\nThe scrub head nodded. \'Oh! go on. Go on.\'\n\n\'It would mean a change in human conditions that I can only compare to\nthe discovery of fire, that first discovery that lifted man above the\nbrute. We stand to-day towards radio-activity as our ancestor stood\ntowards fire before he had learnt to make it. He knew it then only as\na strange thing utterly beyond his control, a flare on the crest of the\nvolcano, a red destruction that poured through the forest. So it is that\nwe know radio-activity to-day. This--this is the dawn of a new day in\nhuman living. At the climax of that civilisation which had its beginning\nin the hammered flint and the fire-stick of the savage, just when it\nis becoming apparent that our ever-increasing needs cannot be borne\nindefinitely by our present sources of energy, we discover suddenly the\npossibility of an entirely new civilisation. The energy we need for our\nvery existence, and with which Nature supplies us still so grudgingly,\nis in reality locked up in inconceivable quantities all about us. We\ncannot pick that lock at present, but----\'\n\nHe paused. His voice sank so that everybody strained a little to hear\nhim.\n\n\'----we will.\'\n\nHe put up that lean finger again, his solitary gesture.\n\n\'And then,\' he said....\n\n\'Then that perpetual struggle for existence, that perpetual struggle to\nlive on the bare surplus of Nature\'s energies will cease to be the lot\nof Man. Man will step from the pinnacle of this civilisation to the\nbeginning of the next. I have no eloquence, ladies and gentlemen, to\nexpress the vision of man\'s material destiny that opens out before me. I\nsee the desert continents transformed, the poles no longer wildernesses\nof ice, the whole world once more Eden. I see the power of man reach out\namong the stars....\'\n\nHe stopped abruptly with a catching of the breath that many an actor or\norator might have envied.\n\nThe lecture was over, the audience hung silent for a few seconds,\nsighed, became audible, stirred, fluttered, prepared for dispersal. More\nlight was turned on and what had been a dim mass of figures became a\nbright confusion of movement. Some of the people signalled to friends,\nsome crowded down towards the platform to examine the lecturer\'s\napparatus and make notes of his diagrams. But the chuckle-headed lad\nwith the scrub hair wanted no such detailed frittering away of the\nthoughts that had inspired him. He wanted to be alone with them; he\nelbowed his way out almost fiercely, he made himself as angular and\nbony as a cow, fearing lest some one should speak to him, lest some one\nshould invade his glowing sphere of enthusiasm.\n\nHe went through the streets with a rapt face, like a saint who sees\nvisions. He had arms disproportionately long, and ridiculous big feet.\n\nHe must get alone, get somewhere high out of all this crowding of\ncommonness, of everyday life.\n\nHe made his way to the top of Arthur\'s Seat, and there he sat for a long\ntime in the golden evening sunshine, still, except that ever and again\nhe whispered to himself some precious phrase that had stuck in his mind.\n\n\'If,\' he whispered, \'if only we could pick that lock....\'\n\nThe sun was sinking over the distant hills. Already it was shorn of its\nbeams, a globe of ruddy gold, hanging over the great banks of cloud that\nwould presently engulf it.\n\n\'Eh!\' said the youngster. \'Eh!\'\n\nHe seemed to wake up at last out of his entrancement, and the red\nsun was there before his eyes. He stared at it, at first without\nintelligence, and then with a gathering recognition. Into his mind\ncame a strange echo of that ancestral fancy, that fancy of a Stone Age\nsavage, dead and scattered bones among the drift two hundred thousand\nyears ago.\n\n\'Ye auld thing,\' he said--and his eyes were shining, and he made a kind\nof grabbing gesture with his hand; \'ye auld red thing.... We\'ll have ye\nYET.\'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST\n\nTHE NEW SOURCE OF ENERGY\n\nSection 1\n\nThe problem which was already being mooted by such scientific men as\nRamsay, Rutherford, and Soddy, in the very beginning of the twentieth\ncentury, the problem of inducing radio-activity in the heavier elements\nand so tapping the internal energy of atoms, was solved by a wonderful\ncombination of induction, intuition, and luck by Holsten so soon as\nthe year 1933. From the first detection of radio-activity to its first\nsubjugation to human purpose measured little more than a quarter of\na century. For twenty years after that, indeed, minor difficulties\nprevented any striking practical application of his success, but the\nessential thing was done, this new boundary in the march of human\nprogress was crossed, in that year. He set up atomic disintegration in a\nminute particle of bismuth; it exploded with great violence into a heavy\ngas of extreme radio-activity, which disintegrated in its turn in the\ncourse of seven days, and it was only after another year\'s work that he\nwas able to show practically that the last result of this rapid release\nof energy was gold. But the thing was done--at the cost of a blistered\nchest and an injured finger, and from the moment when the invisible\nspeck of bismuth flashed into riving and rending energy, Holsten knew\nthat he had opened a way for mankind, however narrow and dark it might\nstill be, to worlds of limitless power. He recorded as much in the\nstrange diary biography he left the world, a diary that was up to that\nparticular moment a mass of speculations and calculations, and which\nsuddenly became for a space an amazingly minute and human record of\nsensations and emotions that all humanity might understand.\n\nHe gives, in broken phrases and often single words, it is true, but none\nthe less vividly for that, a record of the twenty-four hours following\nthe demonstration of the correctness of his intricate tracery of\ncomputations and guesses. \'I thought I should not sleep,\' he writes--the\nwords he omitted are supplied in brackets--(on account of) \'pain in\n(the) hand and chest and (the) wonder of what I had done.... Slept like\na child.\'\n\nHe felt strange and disconcerted the next morning; he had nothing to do,\nhe was living alone in apartments in Bloomsbury, and he decided to go\nup to Hampstead Heath, which he had known when he was a little boy as a\nbreezy playground. He went up by the underground tube that was then\nthe recognised means of travel from one part of London to another, and\nwalked up Heath Street from the tube station to the open heath. He\nfound it a gully of planks and scaffoldings between the hoardings of\nhouse-wreckers. The spirit of the times had seized upon that narrow,\nsteep, and winding thoroughfare, and was in the act of making it\ncommodious and interesting, according to the remarkable ideals of\nNeo-Georgian aestheticism. Such is the illogical quality of humanity\nthat Holsten, fresh from work that was like a petard under the seat\nof current civilisation, saw these changes with regret. He had come up\nHeath Street perhaps a thousand times, had known the windows of all the\nlittle shops, spent hours in the vanished cinematograph theatre, and\nmarvelled at the high-flung early Georgian houses upon the westward\nbank of that old gully of a thoroughfare; he felt strange with all these\nfamiliar things gone. He escaped at last with a feeling of relief from\nthis choked alley of trenches and holes and cranes, and emerged upon the\nold familiar scene about the White Stone Pond. That, at least, was very\nmuch as it used to be.\n\nThere were still the fine old red-brick houses to left and right of\nhim; the reservoir had been improved by a portico of marble, the\nwhite-fronted inn with the clustering flowers above its portico still\nstood out at the angle of the ways, and the blue view to Harrow Hill\nand Harrow spire, a view of hills and trees and shining waters and\nwind-driven cloud shadows, was like the opening of a great window to\nthe ascending Londoner. All that was very reassuring. There was the same\nstrolling crowd, the same perpetual miracle of motors dodging through\nit harmlessly, escaping headlong into the country from the Sabbatical\nstuffiness behind and below them. There was a band still, a women\'s\nsuffrage meeting--for the suffrage women had won their way back to the\ntolerance, a trifle derisive, of the populace again--socialist orators,\npoliticians, a band, and the same wild uproar of dogs, frantic with the\ngladness of their one blessed weekly release from the back yard and\nthe chain. And away along the road to the Spaniards strolled a vast\nmultitude, saying, as ever, that the view of London was exceptionally\nclear that day.\n\nYoung Holsten\'s face was white. He walked with that uneasy affectation\nof ease that marks an overstrained nervous system and an under-exercised\nbody. He hesitated at the White Stone Pond whether to go to the left of\nit or the right, and again at the fork of the roads. He kept shifting\nhis stick in his hand, and every now and then he would get in the way of\npeople on the footpath or be jostled by them because of the uncertainty\nof his movements. He felt, he confesses, \'inadequate to ordinary\nexistence.\' He seemed to himself to be something inhuman and\nmischievous. All the people about him looked fairly prosperous, fairly\nhappy, fairly well adapted to the lives they had to lead--a week of work\nand a Sunday of best clothes and mild promenading--and he had launched\nsomething that would disorganise the entire fabric that held their\ncontentments and ambitions and satisfactions together. \'Felt like an\nimbecile who has presented a box full of loaded revolvers to a Creche,\'\nhe notes.\n\nHe met a man named Lawson, an old school-fellow, of whom history now\nknows only that he was red-faced and had a terrier. He and Holsten\nwalked together and Holsten was sufficiently pale and jumpy for Lawson\nto tell him he overworked and needed a holiday. They sat down at a\nlittle table outside the County Council house of Golders Hill Park and\nsent one of the waiters to the Bull and Bush for a couple of bottles of\nbeer, no doubt at Lawson\'s suggestion. The beer warmed Holsten\'s rather\ndehumanised system. He began to tell Lawson as clearly as he could to\nwhat his great discovery amounted. Lawson feigned attention, but indeed\nhe had neither the knowledge nor the imagination to understand. \'In\nthe end, before many years are out, this must eventually change war,\ntransit, lighting, building, and every sort of manufacture, even\nagriculture, every material human concern----\'\n\nThen Holsten stopped short. Lawson had leapt to his feet. \'Damn that\ndog!\' cried Lawson. \'Look at it now. Hi! Here! Phewoo--phewoo phewoo!\nCome HERE, Bobs! Come HERE!\'\n\nThe young scientific man, with his bandaged hand, sat at the green\ntable, too tired to convey the wonder of the thing he had sought so\nlong, his friend whistled and bawled for his dog, and the Sunday people\ndrifted about them through the spring sunshine. For a moment or so\nHolsten stared at Lawson in astonishment, for he had been too intent\nupon what he had been saying to realise how little Lawson had attended.\n\nThen he remarked, \'WELL!\' and smiled faintly, and--finished the tankard\nof beer before him.\n\nLawson sat down again. \'One must look after one\'s dog,\' he said, with a\nnote of apology. \'What was it you were telling me?\'\n\nSection 2\n\nIn the evening Holsten went out again. He walked to Saint Paul\'s\nCathedral, and stood for a time near the door listening to the evening\nservice. The candles upon the altar reminded him in some odd way of the\nfireflies at Fiesole. Then he walked back through the evening lights to\nWestminster. He was oppressed, he was indeed scared, by his sense of the\nimmense consequences of his discovery. He had a vague idea that night\nthat he ought not to publish his results, that they were premature, that\nsome secret association of wise men should take care of his work and\nhand it on from generation to generation until the world was riper for\nits practical application. He felt that nobody in all the thousands of\npeople he passed had really awakened to the fact of change, they trusted\nthe world for what it was, not to alter too rapidly, to respect their\ntrusts, their assurances, their habits, their little accustomed traffics\nand hard-won positions.\n\nHe went into those little gardens beneath the over-hanging, brightly-lit\nmasses of the Savoy Hotel and the Hotel Cecil. He sat down on a seat and\nbecame aware of the talk of the two people next to him. It was the\ntalk of a young couple evidently on the eve of marriage. The man was\ncongratulating himself on having regular employment at last; \'they like\nme,\' he said, \'and I like the job. If I work up--in\'r dozen years or\nso I ought to be gettin\' somethin\' pretty comfortable. That\'s the plain\nsense of it, Hetty. There ain\'t no reason whatsoever why we shouldn\'t\nget along very decently--very decently indeed.\'\n\nThe desire for little successes amidst conditions securely fixed! So it\nstruck upon Holsten\'s mind. He added in his diary, \'I had a sense of all\nthis globe as that....\'\n\nBy that phrase he meant a kind of clairvoyant vision of this populated\nworld as a whole, of all its cities and towns and villages, its high\nroads and the inns beside them, its gardens and farms and upland\npastures, its boatmen and sailors, its ships coming along the great\ncircles of the ocean, its time-tables and appointments and payments and\ndues as it were one unified and progressive spectacle. Sometimes such\nvisions came to him; his mind, accustomed to great generalisations and\nyet acutely sensitive to detail, saw things far more comprehensively\nthan the minds of most of his contemporaries. Usually the teeming sphere\nmoved on to its predestined ends and circled with a stately swiftness\non its path about the sun. Usually it was all a living progress that\naltered under his regard. But now fatigue a little deadened him to that\nincessancy of life, it seemed now just an eternal circling. He lapsed\nto the commoner persuasion of the great fixities and recurrencies of the\nhuman routine. The remoter past of wandering savagery, the inevitable\nchanges of to-morrow were veiled, and he saw only day and night,\nseed-time and harvest, loving and begetting, births and deaths, walks\nin the summer sunlight and tales by the winter fireside, the ancient\nsequence of hope and acts and age perennially renewed, eddying on for\never and ever, save that now the impious hand of research was raised to\noverthrow this drowsy, gently humming, habitual, sunlit spinning-top of\nman\'s existence....\n\nFor a time he forgot wars and crimes and hates and persecutions, famine\nand pestilence, the cruelties of beasts, weariness and the bitter wind,\nfailure and insufficiency and retrocession. He saw all mankind in terms\nof the humble Sunday couple upon the seat beside him, who schemed their\ninglorious outlook and improbable contentments. \'I had a sense of all\nthis globe as that.\'\n\nHis intelligence struggled against this mood and struggled for a time\nin vain. He reassured himself against the invasion of this disconcerting\nidea that he was something strange and inhuman, a loose wanderer\nfrom the flock returning with evil gifts from his sustained unnatural\nexcursions amidst the darknesses and phosphorescences beneath the\nfair surfaces of life. Man had not been always thus; the instincts and\ndesires of the little home, the little plot, was not all his nature;\nalso he was an adventurer, an experimenter, an unresting curiosity, an\ninsatiable desire. For a few thousand generations indeed he had tilled\nthe earth and followed the seasons, saying his prayers, grinding his\ncorn and trampling the October winepress, yet not for so long but that\nhe was still full of restless stirrings.\n\n\'If there have been home and routine and the field,\' thought Holsten,\n\'there have also been wonder and the sea.\'\n\nHe turned his head and looked up over the back of the seat at the great\nhotels above him, full of softly shaded lights and the glow and colour\nand stir of feasting. Might his gift to mankind mean simply more of\nthat? . . .\n\nHe got up and walked out of the garden, surveyed a passing tram-car,\nladen with warm light, against the deep blues of evening, dripping and\ntrailing long skirts of shining reflection; he crossed the Embankment\nand stood for a time watching the dark river and turning ever and again\nto the lit buildings and bridges. His mind began to scheme conceivable\nreplacements of all those clustering arrangements....\n\n\'It has begun,\' he writes in the diary in which these things are\nrecorded. \'It is not for me to reach out to consequences I cannot\nforesee. I am a part, not a whole; I am a little instrument in the\narmoury of Change. If I were to burn all these papers, before a score of\nyears had passed, some other man would be doing this. . .\n\nSection 3\n\nHolsten, before he died, was destined to see atomic energy dominating\nevery other source of power, but for some years yet a vast network of\ndifficulties in detail and application kept the new discovery from any\neffective invasion of ordinary life. The path from the laboratory to the\nworkshop is sometimes a tortuous one; electro-magnetic radiations\nwere known and demonstrated for twenty years before Marconi made them\npractically available, and in the same way it was twenty years before\ninduced radio-activity could be brought to practical utilisation. The\nthing, of course, was discussed very much, more perhaps at the time of\nits discovery than during the interval of technical adaptation, but with\nvery little realisation of the huge economic revolution that impended.\nWhat chiefly impressed the journalists of 1933 was the production of\ngold from bismuth and the realisation albeit upon unprofitable lines of\nthe alchemist\'s dreams; there was a considerable amount of discussion\nand expectation in that more intelligent section of the educated\npublics of the various civilised countries which followed scientific\ndevelopment; but for the most part the world went about its business--as\nthe inhabitants of those Swiss villages which live under the perpetual\nthreat of overhanging rocks and mountains go about their business--just\nas though the possible was impossible, as though the inevitable was\npostponed for ever because it was delayed.\n\nIt was in 1953 that the first Holsten-Roberts engine brought induced\nradio-activity into the sphere of industrial production, and its first\ngeneral use was to replace the steam-engine in electrical generating\nstations. Hard upon the appearance of this came the Dass-Tata\nengine--the invention of two among the brilliant galaxy of Bengali\ninventors the modernisation of Indian thought was producing at this\ntime--which was used chiefly for automobiles, aeroplanes, waterplanes,\nand such-like, mobile purposes. The American Kemp engine, differing\nwidely in principle but equally practicable, and the Krupp-Erlanger\ncame hard upon the heels of this, and by the autumn of 1954 a gigantic\nreplacement of industrial methods and machinery was in progress all\nabout the habitable globe. Small wonder was this when the cost, even of\nthese earliest and clumsiest of atomic engines, is compared with that\nof the power they superseded. Allowing for lubrication the Dass-Tata\nengine, once it was started cost a penny to run thirty-seven miles,\nand added only nine and quarter pounds to the weight of the carriage\nit drove. It made the heavy alcohol-driven automobile of the time\nridiculous in appearance as well as preposterously costly. For\nmany years the price of coal and every form of liquid fuel had been\nclambering to levels that made even the revival of the draft horse seem\na practicable possibility, and now with the abrupt relaxation of this\nstringency, the change in appearance of the traffic upon the world\'s\nroads was instantaneous. In three years the frightful armoured monsters\nthat had hooted and smoked and thundered about the world for four awful\ndecades were swept away to the dealers in old metal, and the highways\nthronged with light and clean and shimmering shapes of silvered steel.\nAt the same time a new impetus was given to aviation by the relatively\nenormous power for weight of the atomic engine, it was at last possible\nto add Redmayne\'s ingenious helicopter ascent and descent engine to the\nvertical propeller that had hitherto been the sole driving force of the\naeroplane without overweighting the machine, and men found themselves\npossessed of an instrument of flight that could hover or ascend or\ndescend vertically and gently as well as rush wildly through the air.\nThe last dread of flying vanished. As the journalists of the time\nphrased it, this was the epoch of the Leap into the Air. The new atomic\naeroplane became indeed a mania; every one of means was frantic to\npossess a thing so controllable, so secure and so free from the dust and\ndanger of the road, and in France alone in the year 1943 thirty thousand\nof these new aeroplanes were manufactured and licensed, and soared\nhumming softly into the sky.\n\nAnd with an equal speed atomic engines of various types invaded\nindustrialism. The railways paid enormous premiums for priority in the\ndelivery of atomic traction engines, atomic smelting was embarked\nupon so eagerly as to lead to a number of disastrous explosions due\nto inexperienced handling of the new power, and the revolutionary\ncheapening of both materials and electricity made the entire\nreconstruction of domestic buildings a matter merely dependent upon a\nreorganisation of the methods of the builder and the house-furnisher.\nViewed from the side of the new power and from the point of view of\nthose who financed and manufactured the new engines and material\nit required the age of the Leap into the Air was one of astonishing\nprosperity. Patent-holding companies were presently paying dividends\nof five or six hundred per cent. and enormous fortunes were made\nand fantastic wages earned by all who were concerned in the new\ndevelopments. This prosperity was not a little enhanced by the fact that\nin both the Dass-Tata and Holsten-Roberts engines one of the recoverable\nwaste products was gold--the former disintegrated dust of bismuth and\nthe latter dust of lead--and that this new supply of gold led quite\nnaturally to a rise in prices throughout the world.\n\nThis spectacle of feverish enterprise was productivity, this crowding\nflight of happy and fortunate rich people--every great city was as if\na crawling ant-hill had suddenly taken wing--was the bright side of the\nopening phase of the new epoch in human history. Beneath that brightness\nwas a gathering darkness, a deepening dismay. If there was a vast\ndevelopment of production there was also a huge destruction of values.\nThese glaring factories working night and day, these glittering\nnew vehicles swinging noiselessly along the roads, these flights of\ndragon-flies that swooped and soared and circled in the air, were indeed\nno more than the brightnesses of lamps and fires that gleam out when the\nworld sinks towards twilight and the night. Between these high lights\naccumulated disaster, social catastrophe. The coal mines were manifestly\ndoomed to closure at no very distant date, the vast amount of capital\ninvested in oil was becoming unsaleable, millions of coal miners, steel\nworkers upon the old lines, vast swarms of unskilled or under-skilled\nlabourers in innumerable occupations, were being flung out of employment\nby the superior efficiency of the new machinery, the rapid fall in\nthe cost of transit was destroying high land values at every centre\nof population, the value of existing house property had become\nproblematical, gold was undergoing headlong depreciation, all the\nsecurities upon which the credit of the world rested were slipping\nand sliding, banks were tottering, the stock exchanges were scenes of\nfeverish panic;--this was the reverse of the spectacle, these were the\nblack and monstrous under-consequences of the Leap into the Air.\n\nThere is a story of a demented London stockbroker running out into\nThreadneedle Street and tearing off his clothes as he ran. \'The Steel\nTrust is scrapping the whole of its plant,\' he shouted. \'The State\nRailways are going to scrap all their engines. Everything\'s going to\nbe scrapped--everything. Come and scrap the mint, you fellows, come and\nscrap the mint!\'\n\nIn the year 1955 the suicide rate for the United States of America\nquadrupled any previous record. There was an enormous increase also\nin violent crime throughout the world. The thing had come upon an\nunprepared humanity; it seemed as though human society was to be smashed\nby its own magnificent gains.\n\nFor there had been no foresight of these things. There had been no\nattempt anywhere even to compute the probable dislocations this flood\nof inexpensive energy would produce in human affairs. The world in these\ndays was not really governed at all, in the sense in which government\ncame to be understood in subsequent years. Government was a treaty,\nnot a design; it was forensic, conservative, disputatious, unseeing,\nunthinking, uncreative; throughout the world, except where the vestiges\nof absolutism still sheltered the court favourite and the trusted\nservant, it was in the hands of the predominant caste of lawyers,\nwho had an enormous advantage in being the only trained caste. Their\nprofessional education and every circumstance in the manipulation of the\nfantastically naive electoral methods by which they clambered to\npower, conspired to keep them contemptuous of facts, conscientiously\nunimaginative, alert to claim and seize advantages and suspicious of\nevery generosity. Government was an obstructive business of energetic\nfractions, progress went on outside of and in spite of public\nactivities, and legislation was the last crippling recognition of needs\nso clamorous and imperative and facts so aggressively established as\nto invade even the dingy seclusions of the judges and threaten the very\nexistence of the otherwise inattentive political machine.\n\nThe world was so little governed that with the very coming of plenty, in\nthe full tide of an incalculable abundance, when everything necessary\nto satisfy human needs and everything necessary to realise such will\nand purpose as existed then in human hearts was already at hand, one\nhas still to tell of hardship, famine, anger, confusion, conflict, and\nincoherent suffering. There was no scheme for the distribution of this\nvast new wealth that had come at last within the reach of men; there\nwas no clear conception that any such distribution was possible. As one\nattempts a comprehensive view of those opening years of the new age,\nas one measures it against the latent achievement that later years have\ndemonstrated, one begins to measure the blindness, the narrowness, the\ninsensate unimaginative individualism of the pre-atomic time. Under this\ntremendous dawn of power and freedom, under a sky ablaze with promise,\nin the very presence of science standing like some bountiful goddess\nover all the squat darknesses of human life, holding patiently in\nher strong arms, until men chose to take them, security, plenty, the\nsolution of riddles, the key of the bravest adventures, in her very\npresence, and with the earnest of her gifts in court, the world was to\nwitness such things as the squalid spectacle of the Dass-Tata patent\nlitigation.\n\nThere in a stuffy court in London, a grimy oblong box of a room, during\nthe exceptional heat of the May of 1956, the leading counsel of the day\nargued and shouted over a miserable little matter of more royalties\nor less and whether the Dass-Tata company might not bar the\nHolsten-Roberts\' methods of utilising the new power. The Dass-Tata\npeople were indeed making a strenuous attempt to secure a world monopoly\nin atomic engineering. The judge, after the manner of those times, sat\nraised above the court, wearing a preposterous gown and a foolish huge\nwig, the counsel also wore dirty-looking little wigs and queer black\ngowns over their usual costume, wigs and gowns that were held to be\nnecessary to their pleading, and upon unclean wooden benches stirred and\nwhispered artful-looking solicitors, busily scribbling reporters, the\nparties to the case, expert witnesses, interested people, and a jostling\nconfusion of subpoenaed persons, briefless young barristers (forming a\nstyle on the most esteemed and truculent examples) and casual eccentric\nspectators who preferred this pit of iniquity to the free sunlight\noutside. Every one was damply hot, the examining King\'s Counsel wiped\nthe perspiration from his huge, clean-shaven upper lip; and into this\natmosphere of grasping contention and human exhalations the daylight\nfiltered through a window that was manifestly dirty. The jury sat in a\ndouble pew to the left of the judge, looking as uncomfortable as frogs\nthat have fallen into an ash-pit, and in the witness-box lied the\nwould-be omnivorous Dass, under cross-examination....\n\nHolsten had always been accustomed to publish his results so soon as\nthey appeared to him to be sufficiently advanced to furnish a basis for\nfurther work, and to that confiding disposition and one happy flash of\nadaptive invention the alert Dass owed his claim....\n\nBut indeed a vast multitude of such sharp people were clutching,\npatenting, pre-empting, monopolising this or that feature of the\nnew development, seeking to subdue this gigantic winged power to the\npurposes of their little lusts and avarice. That trial is just one of\ninnumerable disputes of the same kind. For a time the face of the world\nfestered with patent legislation. It chanced, however, to have one oddly\ndramatic feature in the fact that Holsten, after being kept waiting\nabout the court for two days as a beggar might have waited at a rich\nman\'s door, after being bullied by ushers and watched by policemen, was\ncalled as a witness, rather severely handled by counsel, and told not to\n\'quibble\' by the judge when he was trying to be absolutely explicit.\n\nThe judge scratched his nose with a quill pen, and sneered at Holsten\'s\nastonishment round the corner of his monstrous wig. Holsten was a great\nman, was he? Well, in a law-court great men were put in their places.\n\n\'We want to know has the plaintiff added anything to this or hasn\'t he?\'\nsaid the judge, \'we don\'t want to have your views whether Sir Philip\nDass\'s improvements were merely superficial adaptations or whether\nthey were implicit in your paper. No doubt--after the manner of\ninventors--you think most things that were ever likely to be discovered\nare implicit in your papers. No doubt also you think too that most\nsubsequent additions and modifications are merely superficial. Inventors\nhave a way of thinking that. The law isn\'t concerned with that sort of\nthing. The law has nothing to do with the vanity of inventors. The law\nis concerned with the question whether these patent rights have the\nnovelty the plantiff claims for them. What that admission may or may not\nstop, and all these other things you are saying in your overflowing zeal\nto answer more than the questions addressed to you--none of these things\nhave anything whatever to do with the case in hand. It is a matter of\nconstant astonishment to me in this court to see how you scientific men,\nwith all your extraordinary claims to precision and veracity, wander\nand wander so soon as you get into the witness-box. I know no more\nunsatisfactory class of witness. The plain and simple question is, has\nSir Philip Dass made any real addition to existing knowledge and methods\nin this matter or has he not? We don\'t want to know whether they were\nlarge or small additions nor what the consequences of your admission may\nbe. That you will leave to us.\'\n\nHolsten was silent.\n\n\'Surely?\' said the judge, almost pityingly.\n\n\'No, he hasn\'t,\' said Holsten, perceiving that for once in his life he\nmust disregard infinitesimals.\n\n\'Ah!\' said the judge, \'now why couldn\'t you say that when counsel put\nthe question? . . .\'\n\nAn entry in Holsten\'s diary-autobiography, dated five days later, runs:\n\'Still amazed. The law is the most dangerous thing in this country. It\nis hundreds of years old. It hasn\'t an idea. The oldest of old bottles\nand this new wine, the most explosive wine. Something will overtake\nthem.\'\n\nSection 4\n\nThere was a certain truth in Holsten\'s assertion that the law was\n\'hundreds of years old.\' It was, in relation to current thought and\nwidely accepted ideas, an archaic thing. While almost all the material\nand methods of life had been changing rapidly and were now changing\nstill more rapidly, the law-courts and the legislatures of the world\nwere struggling desperately to meet modern demands with devices and\nprocedures, conceptions of rights and property and authority and\nobligation that dated from the rude compromises of relatively barbaric\ntimes. The horse-hair wigs and antic dresses of the British judges,\ntheir musty courts and overbearing manners, were indeed only the outward\nand visible intimations of profounder anachronisms. The legal and\npolitical organisation of the earth in the middle twentieth century was\nindeed everywhere like a complicated garment, outworn yet strong, that\nnow fettered the governing body that once it had protected.\n\nYet that same spirit of free-thinking and outspoken publication that in\nthe field of natural science had been the beginning of the conquest\nof nature, was at work throughout all the eighteenth and nineteenth\ncenturies preparing the spirit of the new world within the degenerating\nbody of the old. The idea of a greater subordination of individual\ninterests and established institutions to the collective future, is\ntraceable more and more clearly in the literature of those times,\nand movement after movement fretted itself away in criticism of and\nopposition to first this aspect and then that of the legal, social, and\npolitical order. Already in the early nineteenth century Shelley, with\nno scrap of alternative, is denouncing the established rulers of the\nworld as Anarchs, and the entire system of ideas and suggestions that\nwas known as Socialism, and more particularly its international side,\nfeeble as it was in creative proposals or any method of transition,\nstill witnesses to the growth of a conception of a modernised system\nof inter-relationships that should supplant the existing tangle of\nproprietary legal ideas.\n\nThe word \'Sociology\' was invented by Herbert Spencer, a popular writer\nupon philosophical subjects, who flourished about the middle of\nthe nineteenth century, but the idea of a state, planned as an\nelectric-traction system is planned, without reference to pre-existing\napparatus, upon scientific lines, did not take a very strong hold upon\nthe popular imagination of the world until the twentieth century. Then,\nthe growing impatience of the American people with the monstrous and\nsocially paralysing party systems that had sprung out of their absurd\nelectoral arrangements, led to the appearance of what came to be called\nthe \'Modern State\' movement, and a galaxy of brilliant writers, in\nAmerica, Europe, and the East, stirred up the world to the thought\nof bolder rearrangements of social interaction, property, employment,\neducation, and government, than had ever been contemplated before. No\ndoubt these Modern State ideas were very largely the reflection upon\nsocial and political thought of the vast revolution in material things\nthat had been in progress for two hundred years, but for a long time\nthey seemed to be having no more influence upon existing institutions\nthan the writings of Rousseau and Voltaire seemed to have had at the\ntime of the death of the latter. They were fermenting in men\'s minds,\nand it needed only just such social and political stresses as the coming\nof the atomic mechanisms brought about, to thrust them forward abruptly\ninto crude and startling realisation.\n\nSection 5\n\nFrederick Barnet\'s Wander Jahre is one of those autobiographical\nnovels that were popular throughout the third and fourth decades of the\ntwentieth century. It was published in 1970, and one must understand\nWander Jahre rather in a spiritual and intellectual than in a literal\nsense. It is indeed an allusive title, carrying the world back to the\nWilhelm Meister of Goethe, a century and a half earlier.\n\nIts author, Frederick Barnet, gives a minute and curious history of his\nlife and ideas between his nineteenth and his twenty-third birthdays. He\nwas neither a very original nor a very brilliant man, but he had a\ntrick of circumstantial writing; and though no authentic portrait was\nto survive for the information of posterity, he betrays by a score of\ncasual phrases that he was short, sturdy, inclined to be plump, with a\n\'rather blobby\' face, and full, rather projecting blue eyes. He belonged\nuntil the financial debacle of 1956 to the class of fairly prosperous\npeople, he was a student in London, he aeroplaned to Italy and then had\na pedestrian tour from Genoa to Rome, crossed in the air to Greece and\nEgypt, and came back over the Balkans and Germany. His family fortunes,\nwhich were largely invested in bank shares, coal mines, and house\nproperty, were destroyed. Reduced to penury, he sought to earn a living.\nHe suffered great hardship, and was then caught up by the war and had a\nyear of soldiering, first as an officer in the English infantry and then\nin the army of pacification. His book tells all these things so simply\nand at the same time so explicitly, that it remains, as it were, an eye\nby which future generations may have at least one man\'s vision of the\nyears of the Great Change.\n\nAnd he was, he tells us, a \'Modern State\' man \'by instinct\' from\nthe beginning. He breathed in these ideas in the class rooms and\nlaboratories of the Carnegie Foundation school that rose, a long and\ndelicately beautiful facade, along the South Bank of the Thames opposite\nthe ancient dignity of Somerset House. Such thought was interwoven with\nthe very fabric of that pioneer school in the educational renascence in\nEngland. After the customary exchange years in Heidelberg and Paris, he\nwent into the classical school of London University. The older so-called\n\'classical\' education of the British pedagogues, probably the most\nparalysing, ineffective, and foolish routine that ever wasted human\nlife, had already been swept out of this great institution in favour of\nmodern methods; and he learnt Greek and Latin as well as he had learnt\nGerman, Spanish, and French, so that he wrote and spoke them freely,\nand used them with an unconscious ease in his study of the foundation\ncivilisations of the European system to which they were the key. (This\nchange was still so recent that he mentions an encounter in Rome with\nan \'Oxford don\' who \'spoke Latin with a Wiltshire accent and manifest\ndiscomfort, wrote Greek letters with his tongue out, and seemed to think\na Greek sentence a charm when it was a quotation and an impropriety when\nit wasn\'t.\')\n\nBarnet saw the last days of the coal-steam engines upon the English\nrailways and the gradual cleansing of the London atmosphere as the\nsmoke-creating sea-coal fires gave place to electric heating. The\nbuilding of laboratories at Kensington was still in progress, and he\ntook part in the students\' riots that delayed the removal of the Albert\nMemorial. He carried a banner with \'We like Funny Statuary\' on one side,\nand on the other \'Seats and Canopies for Statues, Why should our Great\nDeparted Stand in the Rain?\' He learnt the rather athletic aviation of\nthose days at the University grounds at Sydenham, and he was fined for\nflying over the new prison for political libellers at Wormwood Scrubs,\n\'in a manner calculated to exhilarate the prisoners while at exercise.\'\nThat was the time of the attempted suppression of any criticism of the\npublic judicature and the place was crowded with journalists who had\nventured to call attention to the dementia of Chief Justice Abrahams.\nBarnet was not a very good aviator, he confesses he was always a little\nafraid of his machine--there was excellent reason for every one to\nbe afraid of those clumsy early types--and he never attempted steep\ndescents or very high flying. He also, he records, owned one of those\noil-driven motor-bicycles whose clumsy complexity and extravagant\nfilthiness still astonish the visitors to the museum of machinery at\nSouth Kensington. He mentions running over a dog and complains of the\nruinous price of \'spatchcocks\' in Surrey. \'Spatchcocks,\' it seems, was a\nslang term for crushed hens.\n\nHe passed the examinations necessary to reduce his military service to\na minimum, and his want of any special scientific or technical\nqualification and a certain precocious corpulence that handicapped his\naviation indicated the infantry of the line as his sphere of training.\nThat was the most generalised form of soldiering. The development of\nthe theory of war had been for some decades but little assisted by any\npractical experience. What fighting had occurred in recent years, had\nbeen fighting in minor or uncivilised states, with peasant or barbaric\nsoldiers and with but a small equipment of modern contrivances, and the\ngreat powers of the world were content for the most part to maintain\narmies that sustained in their broader organisation the traditions\nof the European wars of thirty and forty years before. There was the\ninfantry arm to which Barnet belonged and which was supposed to fight\non foot with a rifle and be the main portion of the army. There were\ncavalry forces (horse soldiers), having a ratio to the infantry that\nhad been determined by the experiences of the Franco-German war in 1871.\nThere was also artillery, and for some unexplained reason much of this\nwas still drawn by horses; though there were also in all the European\narmies a small number of motor-guns with wheels so constructed that they\ncould go over broken ground. In addition there were large developments\nof the engineering arm, concerned with motor transport, motor-bicycle\nscouting, aviation, and the like.\n\nNo first-class intelligence had been sought to specialise in and work\nout the problem of warfare with the new appliances and under modern\nconditions, but a succession of able jurists, Lord Haldane, Chief\nJustice Briggs, and that very able King\'s Counsel, Philbrick, had\nreconstructed the army frequently and thoroughly and placed it at last,\nwith the adoption of national service, upon a footing that would have\nseemed very imposing to the public of 1900. At any moment the British\nEmpire could now put a million and a quarter of arguable soldiers upon\nthe board of Welt-Politik. The traditions of Japan and the Central\nEuropean armies were more princely and less forensic; the Chinese still\nrefused resolutely to become a military power, and maintained a small\nstanding army upon the American model that was said, so far as it\nwent, to be highly efficient, and Russia, secured by a stringent\nadministration against internal criticism, had scarcely altered the\ndesign of a uniform or the organisation of a battery since the opening\ndecades of the century. Barnet\'s opinion of his military training was\nmanifestly a poor one, his Modern State ideas disposed him to regard it\nas a bore, and his common sense condemned it as useless. Moreover,\nhis habit of body made him peculiarly sensitive to the fatigues and\nhardships of service.\n\n\'For three days in succession we turned out before dawn and--for no\nearthly reason--without breakfast,\' he relates. \'I suppose that is\nto show us that when the Day comes the first thing will be to get us\nthoroughly uncomfortable and rotten. We then proceeded to Kriegspiel,\naccording to the mysterious ideas of those in authority over us. On\nthe last day we spent three hours under a hot if early sun getting\nover eight miles of country to a point we could have reached in a motor\nomnibus in nine minutes and a half--I did it the next day in that--and\nthen we made a massed attack upon entrenchments that could have shot us\nall about three times over if only the umpires had let them. Then came a\nlittle bayonet exercise, but I doubt if I am sufficiently a barbarian\nto stick this long knife into anything living. Anyhow in this battle I\nshouldn\'t have had a chance. Assuming that by some miracle I hadn\'t been\nshot three times over, I was far too hot and blown when I got up to the\nentrenchments even to lift my beastly rifle. It was those others would\nhave begun the sticking....\n\n\'For a time we were watched by two hostile aeroplanes; then our own\ncame up and asked them not to, and--the practice of aerial warfare still\nbeing unknown--they very politely desisted and went away and did dives\nand circles of the most charming description over the Fox Hills.\'\n\nAll Barnet\'s accounts of his military training were written in the same\nhalf-contemptuous, half-protesting tone. He was of opinion that his\nchances of participating in any real warfare were very slight, and\nthat, if after all he should participate, it was bound to be so entirely\ndifferent from these peace manoeuvres that his only course as a rational\nman would be to keep as observantly out of danger as he could until he\nhad learnt the tricks and possibilities of the new conditions. He states\nthis quite frankly. Never was a man more free from sham heroics.\n\nSection 6\n\nBarnet welcomed the appearance of the atomic engine with the zest of\nmasculine youth in all fresh machinery, and it is evident that for some\ntime he failed to connect the rush of wonderful new possibilities with\nthe financial troubles of his family. \'I knew my father was worried,\' he\nadmits. That cast the smallest of shadows upon his delighted departure\nfor Italy and Greece and Egypt with three congenial companions in one of\nthe new atomic models. They flew over the Channel Isles and Touraine,\nhe mentions, and circled about Mont Blanc--\'These new helicopters, we\nfound,\' he notes, \'had abolished all the danger and strain of sudden\ndrops to which the old-time aeroplanes were liable\'--and then he went on\nby way of Pisa, Paestum, Ghirgenti, and Athens, to visit the pyramids\nby moonlight, flying thither from Cairo, and to follow the Nile up\nto Khartum. Even by later standards, it must have been a very gleeful\nholiday for a young man, and it made the tragedy of his next experiences\nall the darker. A week after his return his father, who was a widower,\nannounced himself ruined, and committed suicide by means of an\nunscheduled opiate.\n\nAt one blow Barnet found himself flung out of the possessing, spending,\nenjoying class to which he belonged, penniless and with no calling by\nwhich he could earn a living. He tried teaching and some journalism, but\nin a little while he found himself on the underside of a world in which\nhe had always reckoned to live in the sunshine. For innumerable men such\nan experience has meant mental and spiritual destruction, but Barnet, in\nspite of his bodily gravitation towards comfort, showed himself when put\nto the test, of the more valiant modern quality. He was saturated with\nthe creative stoicism of the heroic times that were already dawning,\nand he took his difficulties and discomforts stoutly as his appointed\nmaterial, and turned them to expression.\n\nIndeed, in his book, he thanks fortune for them. \'I might have lived and\ndied,\' he says, \'in that neat fool\'s paradise of secure lavishness above\nthere. I might never have realised the gathering wrath and sorrow of the\nousted and exasperated masses. In the days of my own prosperity things\nhad seemed to me to be very well arranged.\' Now from his new point of\nview he was to find they were not arranged at all; that government was\na compromise of aggressions and powers and lassitudes, and law a\nconvention between interests, and that the poor and the weak, though\nthey had many negligent masters, had few friends.\n\n\'I had thought things were looked after,\' he wrote. \'It was with a kind\nof amazement that I tramped the roads and starved--and found that no one\nin particular cared.\'\n\nHe was turned out of his lodging in a backward part of London.\n\n\'It was with difficulty I persuaded my landlady--she was a needy widow,\npoor soul, and I was already in her debt--to keep an old box for me in\nwhich I had locked a few letters, keepsakes, and the like. She lived in\ngreat fear of the Public Health and Morality Inspectors, because she\nwas sometimes too poor to pay the customary tip to them, but at last she\nconsented to put it in a dark tiled place under the stairs, and then\nI went forth into the world--to seek first the luck of a meal and then\nshelter.\'\n\nHe wandered down into the thronging gayer parts of London, in which a\nyear or so ago he had been numbered among the spenders.\n\nLondon, under the Visible Smoke Law, by which any production of visible\nsmoke with or without excuse was punishable by a fine, had already\nceased to be the sombre smoke-darkened city of the Victorian time; it\nhad been, and indeed was, constantly being rebuilt, and its main\nstreets were already beginning to take on those characteristics that\ndistinguished them throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.\nThe insanitary horse and the plebeian bicycle had been banished from the\nroadway, which was now of a resilient, glass-like surface, spotlessly\nclean; and the foot passenger was restricted to a narrow vestige of the\nancient footpath on either side of the track and forbidden at the risk\nof a fine, if he survived, to cross the roadway. People descended from\ntheir automobiles upon this pavement and went through the lower shops to\nthe lifts and stairs to the new ways for pedestrians, the Rows, that\nran along the front of the houses at the level of the first story,\nand, being joined by frequent bridges, gave the newer parts of London a\ncuriously Venetian appearance. In some streets there were upper and even\nthird-story Rows. For most of the day and all night the shop windows\nwere lit by electric light, and many establishments had made, as it\nwere, canals of public footpaths through their premises in order to\nincrease their window space.\n\nBarnet made his way along this night-scene rather apprehensively since\nthe police had power to challenge and demand the Labour Card of any\nindigent-looking person, and if the record failed to show he was in\nemployment, dismiss him to the traffic pavement below.\n\nBut there was still enough of his former gentility about Barnet\'s\nappearance and bearing to protect him from this; the police, too, had\nother things to think of that night, and he was permitted to reach the\ngalleries about Leicester Square--that great focus of London life and\npleasure.\n\nHe gives a vivid description of the scene that evening. In the centre\nwas a garden raised on arches lit by festoons of lights and connected\nwith the Rows by eight graceful bridges, beneath which hummed the\ninterlacing streams of motor traffic, pulsating as the current\nalternated between east and west and north and south. Above rose great\nfrontages of intricate rather than beautiful reinforced porcelain,\nstudded with lights, barred by bold illuminated advertisements, and\nglowing with reflections. There were the two historical music halls of\nthis place, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, in which the municipal\nplayers revolved perpetually through the cycle of Shakespeare\'s plays,\nand four other great houses of refreshment and entertainment whose\npinnacles streamed up into the blue obscurity of the night. The south\nside of the square was in dark contrast to the others; it was still\nbeing rebuilt, and a lattice of steel bars surmounted by the frozen\ngestures of monstrous cranes rose over the excavated sites of vanished\nVictorian buildings.\n\nThis framework attracted Barnet\'s attention for a time to the exclusion\nof other interests. It was absolutely still, it had a dead rigidity, a\nstricken inaction, no one was at work upon it and all its machinery was\nquiet; but the constructor\'s globes of vacuum light filled its every\ninterstice with a quivering green moonshine and showed alert but\nmotionless--soldier sentinels!\n\nHe asked a passing stroller, and was told that the men had struck that\nday against the use of an atomic riveter that would have doubled the\nindividual efficiency and halved the number of steel workers.\n\n\'Shouldn\'t wonder if they didn\'t get chucking bombs,\' said Barnet\'s\ninformant, hovered for a moment, and then went on his way to the\nAlhambra music hall.\n\nBarnet became aware of an excitement in the newspaper kiosks at the\ncorners of the square. Something very sensational had been flashed upon\nthe transparencies. Forgetting for a moment his penniless condition, he\nmade his way over a bridge to buy a paper, for in those days the papers,\nwhich were printed upon thin sheets of metallic foil, were sold at\ndeterminate points by specially licensed purveyors. Half over, he\nstopped short at a change in the traffic below; and was astonished\nto see that the police signals were restricting vehicles to the half\nroadway. When presently he got within sight of the transparencies that\nhad replaced the placards of Victorian times, he read of the Great March\nof the Unemployed that was already in progress through the West End, and\nso without expenditure he was able to understand what was coming.\n\nHe watched, and his book describes this procession which the police\nhad considered it unwise to prevent and which had been spontaneously\norganised in imitation of the Unemployed Processions of earlier times.\nHe had expected a mob but there was a kind of sullen discipline about\nthe procession when at last it arrived. What seemed for a time\nan unending column of men marched wearily, marched with a kind of\nimplacable futility, along the roadway underneath him. He was, he says,\nmoved to join them, but instead he remained watching. They were a dingy,\nshabby, ineffective-looking multitude, for the most part incapable of\nany but obsolete and superseded types of labour. They bore a few banners\nwith the time-honoured inscription: \'Work, not Charity,\' but otherwise\ntheir ranks were unadorned.\n\nThey were not singing, they were not even talking, there was nothing\ntruculent nor aggressive in their bearing, they had no definite\nobjective they were just marching and showing themselves in the more\nprosperous parts of London. They were a sample of that great mass of\nunskilled cheap labour which the now still cheaper mechanical powers had\nsuperseded for evermore. They were being \'scrapped\'--as horses had been\n\'scrapped.\'\n\nBarnet leant over the parapet watching them, his mind quickened by\nhis own precarious condition. For a time, he says, he felt nothing but\ndespair at the sight; what should be done, what could be done for this\ngathering surplus of humanity? They were so manifestly useless--and\nincapable--and pitiful.\n\nWhat were they asking for?\n\nThey had been overtaken by unexpected things. Nobody had foreseen----\n\nIt flashed suddenly into his mind just what the multitudinous shambling\nenigma below meant. It was an appeal against the unexpected, an appeal\nto those others who, more fortunate, seemed wiser and more powerful,\nfor something--for INTELLIGENCE. This mute mass, weary footed, rank\nfollowing rank, protested its persuasion that some of these others\nmust have foreseen these dislocations--that anyhow they ought to have\nforeseen--and arranged.\n\nThat was what this crowd of wreckage was feeling and seeking so dumbly\nto assert.\n\n\'Things came to me like the turning on of a light in a darkened room,\'\nhe says. \'These men were praying to their fellow creatures as once they\nprayed to God! The last thing that men will realise about anything is\nthat it is inanimate. They had transferred their animation to mankind.\nThey still believed there was intelligence somewhere, even if it\nwas careless or malignant.... It had only to be aroused to be\nconscience-stricken, to be moved to exertion.... And I saw, too, that\nas yet THERE WAS NO SUCH INTELLIGENCE. The world waits for intelligence.\nThat intelligence has still to be made, that will for good and order has\nstill to be gathered together, out of scraps of impulse and wandering\nseeds of benevolence and whatever is fine and creative in our souls,\ninto a common purpose. It\'s something still to come....\'\n\nIt is characteristic of the widening thought of the time that this not\nvery heroical young man who, in any previous age, might well have been\naltogether occupied with the problem of his own individual necessities,\nshould be able to stand there and generalise about the needs of the\nrace.\n\nBut upon all the stresses and conflicts of that chaotic time there\nwas already dawning the light of a new era. The spirit of humanity was\nescaping, even then it was escaping, from its extreme imprisonment in\nindividuals. Salvation from the bitter intensities of self, which had\nbeen a conscious religious end for thousands of years, which men had\nsought in mortifications, in the wilderness, in meditation, and by\ninnumerable strange paths, was coming at last with the effect of\nnaturalness into the talk of men, into the books they read, into their\nunconscious gestures, into their newspapers and daily purposes and\neveryday acts. The broad horizons, the magic possibilities that the\nspirit of the seeker had revealed to them, were charming them out of\nthose ancient and instinctive preoccupations from which the very threat\nof hell and torment had failed to drive them. And this young man,\nhomeless and without provision even for the immediate hours, in the\npresence of social disorganisation, distress, and perplexity, in a\nblazing wilderness of thoughtless pleasure that blotted out the stars,\ncould think as he tells us he thought.\n\n\'I saw life plain,\' he wrote. \'I saw the gigantic task before us, and\nthe very splendour of its intricate and immeasurable difficulty filled\nme with exaltation. I saw that we have still to discover government,\nthat we have still to discover education, which is the necessary\nreciprocal of government, and that all this--in which my own little\nspeck of a life was so manifestly overwhelmed--this and its yesterday\nin Greece and Rome and Egypt were nothing, the mere first dust swirls\nof the beginning, the movements and dim murmurings of a sleeper who will\npresently be awake....\'\n\nSection 7\n\nAnd then the story tells, with an engaging simplicity, of his descent\nfrom this ecstatic vision of reality.\n\n\'Presently I found myself again, and I was beginning to feel cold and a\nlittle hungry.\'\n\nHe bethought himself of the John Burns Relief Offices which stood upon\nthe Thames Embankment. He made his way through the galleries of the\nbooksellers and the National Gallery, which had been open continuously\nday and night to all decently dressed people now for more than twelve\nyears, and across the rose-gardens of Trafalgar Square, and so by the\nhotel colonnade to the Embankment. He had long known of these admirable\noffices, which had swept the last beggars and matchsellers and all the\ncasual indigent from the London streets, and he believed that he would,\nas a matter of course, be able to procure a ticket for food and a\nnight\'s lodgings and some indication of possible employment.\n\nBut he had not reckoned upon the new labour troubles, and when he got to\nthe Embankment he found the offices hopelessly congested and besieged by\na large and rather unruly crowd. He hovered for a time on the outskirts\nof the waiting multitude, perplexed and dismayed, and then he became\naware of a movement, a purposive trickling away of people, up through\nthe arches of the great buildings that had arisen when all the railway\nstations were removed to the south side of the river, and so to the\ncovered ways of the Strand. And here, in the open glare of midnight,\nhe found unemployed men begging, and not only begging, but begging with\nastonishing assurance, from the people who were emerging from the small\ntheatres and other such places of entertainment which abounded in that\nthoroughfare.\n\nThis was an altogether unexampled thing. There had been no begging in\nLondon streets for a quarter of a century. But that night the police\nwere evidently unwilling or unable to cope with the destitute who were\ninvading those well-kept quarters of the town. They had become stonily\nblind to anything but manifest disorder.\n\nBarnet walked through the crowd, unable to bring himself to ask; indeed\nhis bearing must have been more valiant than his circumstances, for\ntwice he says that he was begged from. Near the Trafalgar Square\ngardens, a girl with reddened cheeks and blackened eyebrows, who was\nwalking alone, spoke to him with a peculiar friendliness.\n\n\'I\'m starving,\' he said to her abruptly.\n\n\'Oh! poor dear!\' she said; and with the impulsive generosity of her\nkind, glanced round and slipped a silver piece into his hand....\n\nIt was a gift that, in spite of the precedent of De Quincey, might under\nthe repressive social legislation of those times, have brought Barnet\nwithin reach of the prison lash. But he took it, he confesses, and\nthanked her as well as he was able, and went off very gladly to get\nfood.\n\nSection 8\n\nA day or so later--and again his freedom to go as he pleased upon the\nroads may be taken as a mark of increasing social disorganisation and\npolice embarrassment--he wandered out into the open country. He speaks\nof the roads of that plutocratic age as being \'fenced with barbed wire\nagainst unpropertied people,\' of the high-walled gardens and trespass\nwarnings that kept him to the dusty narrowness of the public ways. In\nthe air, happy rich people were flying, heedless of the misfortunes\nabout them, as he himself had been flying two years ago, and along\nthe road swept the new traffic, light and swift and wonderful. One was\nrarely out of earshot of its whistles and gongs and siren cries even\nin the field paths or over the open downs. The officials of the labour\nexchanges were everywhere overworked and infuriated, the casual wards\nwere so crowded that the surplus wanderers slept in ranks under sheds\nor in the open air, and since giving to wayfarers had been made a\npunishable offence there was no longer friendship or help for a man from\nthe rare foot passenger or the wayside cottage....\n\n\'I wasn\'t angry,\' said Barnet. \'I saw an immense selfishness, a\nmonstrous disregard for anything but pleasure and possession in all\nthose people above us, but I saw how inevitable that was, how certainly\nif the richest had changed places with the poorest, that things would\nhave been the same. What else can happen when men use science and every\nnew thing that science gives, and all their available intelligence and\nenergy to manufacture wealth and appliances, and leave government and\neducation to the rustling traditions of hundreds of years ago? Those\ntraditions come from the dark ages when there was really not enough\nfor every one, when life was a fierce struggle that might be masked\nbut could not be escaped. Of course this famine grabbing, this fierce\ndispossession of others, must follow from such a disharmony between\nmaterial and training. Of course the rich were vulgar and the poor grew\nsavage and every added power that came to men made the rich richer and\nthe poor less necessary and less free. The men I met in the casual\nwards and the relief offices were all smouldering for revolt, talking\nof justice and injustice and revenge. I saw no hope in that talk, nor in\nanything but patience....\'\n\nBut he did not mean a passive patience. He meant that the method\nof social reconstruction was still a riddle, that no effectual\nrearrangement was possible until this riddle in all its tangled aspects\nwas solved. \'I tried to talk to those discontented men,\' he wrote,\n\'but it was hard for them to see things as I saw them. When I talked of\npatience and the larger scheme, they answered, \"But then we shall all be\ndead\"--and I could not make them see, what is so simple to my own mind,\nthat that did not affect the question. Men who think in lifetimes are of\nno use to statesmanship.\'\n\nHe does not seem to have seen a newspaper during those wanderings, and\na chance sight of the transparency of a kiosk in the market-place at\nBishop\'s Stortford announcing a \'Grave International Situation\' did\nnot excite him very much. There had been so many grave international\nsituations in recent years.\n\nThis time it was talk of the Central European powers suddenly attacking\nthe Slav Confederacy, with France and England going to the help of the\nSlavs.\n\nBut the next night he found a tolerable meal awaiting the vagrants\nin the casual ward, and learnt from the workhouse master that all\nserviceable trained men were to be sent back on the morrow to their\nmobilisation centres. The country was on the eve of war. He was to go\nback through London to Surrey. His first feeling, he records, was one of\nextreme relief that his days of \'hopeless battering at the underside\nof civilisation\' were at an end. Here was something definite to do,\nsomething definitely provided for. But his relief was greatly modified\nwhen he found that the mobilisation arrangements had been made\nso hastily and carelessly that for nearly thirty-six hours at the\nimprovised depot at Epsom he got nothing either to eat or to drink but\na cup of cold water. The depot was absolutely unprovisioned, and no one\nwas free to leave it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND\n\nTHE LAST WAR\n\nSection 1\n\nViewed from the standpoint of a sane and ambitious social order, it is\ndifficult to understand, and it would be tedious to follow, the motives\nthat plunged mankind into the war that fills the histories of the middle\ndecades of the twentieth century.\n\nIt must always be remembered that the political structure of the world\nat that time was everywhere extraordinarily behind the collective\nintelligence. That is the central fact of that history. For two hundred\nyears there had been no great changes in political or legal methods and\npretensions, the utmost change had been a certain shifting of boundaries\nand slight readjustment of procedure, while in nearly every other aspect\nof life there had been fundamental revolutions, gigantic releases, and\nan enormous enlargement of scope and outlook. The absurdities of courts\nand the indignities of representative parliamentary government, coupled\nwith the opening of vast fields of opportunity in other directions, had\nwithdrawn the best intelligences more and more from public affairs.\nThe ostensible governments of the world in the twentieth century were\nfollowing in the wake of the ostensible religions. They were ceasing to\ncommand the services of any but second-rate men. After the middle of\nthe eighteenth century there are no more great ecclesiastics upon the\nworld\'s memory, after the opening of the twentieth no more statesmen.\nEverywhere one finds an energetic, ambitious, short-sighted,\ncommon-place type in the seats of authority, blind to the new\npossibilities and litigiously reliant upon the traditions of the past.\n\nPerhaps the most dangerous of those outworn traditions were the\nboundaries of the various \'sovereign states,\' and the conception of a\ngeneral predominance in human affairs on the part of some one particular\nstate. The memory of the empires of Rome and Alexander squatted, an\nunlaid carnivorous ghost, in the human imagination--it bored into the\nhuman brain like some grisly parasite and filled it with disordered\nthoughts and violent impulses. For more than a century the French\nsystem exhausted its vitality in belligerent convulsions, and then the\ninfection passed to the German-speaking peoples who were the heart and\ncentre of Europe, and from them onward to the Slavs. Later ages were\nto store and neglect the vast insane literature of this obsession, the\nintricate treaties, the secret agreements, the infinite knowingness of\nthe political writer, the cunning refusals to accept plain facts, the\nstrategic devices, the tactical manoeuvres, the records of mobilisations\nand counter-mobilisations. It ceased to be credible almost as soon as\nit ceased to happen, but in the very dawn of the new age their state\ncraftsmen sat with their historical candles burning, and, in spite\nof strange, new reflections and unfamiliar lights and shadows, still\nwrangling and planning to rearrange the maps of Europe and the world.\n\nIt was to become a matter for subtle inquiry how far the millions of men\nand women outside the world of these specialists sympathised and agreed\nwith their portentous activities. One school of psychologists inclined\nto minimise this participation, but the balance of evidence goes to\nshow that there were massive responses to these suggestions of the\nbelligerent schemer. Primitive man had been a fiercely combative animal;\ninnumerable generations had passed their lives in tribal warfare, and\nthe weight of tradition, the example of history, the ideals of\nloyalty and devotion fell in easily enough with the incitements of the\ninternational mischief-maker. The political ideas of the common man were\npicked up haphazard, there was practically nothing in such education as\nhe was given that was ever intended to fit him for citizenship as such\n(that conception only appeared, indeed, with the development of Modern\nState ideas), and it was therefore a comparatively easy matter to fill\nhis vacant mind with the sounds and fury of exasperated suspicion and\nnational aggression.\n\nFor example, Barnet describes the London crowd as noisily patriotic when\npresently his battalion came up from the depot to London, to entrain for\nthe French frontier. He tells of children and women and lads and old men\ncheering and shouting, of the streets and rows hung with the flags of\nthe Allied Powers, of a real enthusiasm even among the destitute and\nunemployed. The Labour Bureaux were now partially transformed into\nenrolment offices, and were centres of hotly patriotic excitement.\nAt every convenient place upon the line on either side of the Channel\nTunnel there were enthusiastic spectators, and the feeling in the\nregiment, if a little stiffened and darkened by grim anticipations, was\nnone the less warlike.\n\nBut all this emotion was the fickle emotion of minds without established\nideas; it was with most of them, Barnet says, as it was with himself,\na natural response to collective movement, and to martial sounds and\ncolours, and the exhilarating challenge of vague dangers. And people had\nbeen so long oppressed by the threat of and preparation for war that its\narrival came with an effect of positive relief.\n\nSection 2\n\nThe plan of campaign of the Allies assigned the defence of the lower\nMeuse to the English, and the troop-trains were run direct from the\nvarious British depots to the points in the Ardennes where they were\nintended to entrench themselves.\n\nMost of the documents bearing upon the campaign were destroyed during\nthe war, from the first the scheme of the Allies seems to have been\nconfused, but it is highly probable that the formation of an aerial\npark in this region, from which attacks could be made upon the vast\nindustrial plant of the lower Rhine, and a flanking raid through Holland\nupon the German naval establishments at the mouth of the Elbe, were\nintegral parts of the original project. Nothing of this was known to\nsuch pawns in the game as Barnet and his company, whose business it\nwas to do what they were told by the mysterious intelligences at the\ndirection of things in Paris, to which city the Whitehall staff had\nalso been transferred. From first to last these directing intelligences\nremained mysterious to the body of the army, veiled under the name of\n\'Orders.\' There was no Napoleon, no Caesar to embody enthusiasm. Barnet\nsays, \'We talked of Them. THEY are sending us up into Luxembourg. THEY\nare going to turn the Central European right.\'\n\nBehind the veil of this vagueness the little group of more or less\nworthy men which constituted Headquarters was beginning to realise the\nenormity of the thing it was supposed to control....\n\nIn the great hall of the War Control, whose windows looked out across\nthe Seine to the Trocadero and the palaces of the western quarter, a\nseries of big-scale relief maps were laid out upon tables to display\nthe whole seat of war, and the staff-officers of the control were\ncontinually busy shifting the little blocks which represented the\ncontending troops, as the reports and intelligence came drifting in to\nthe various telegraphic bureaux in the adjacent rooms. In other smaller\napartments there were maps of a less detailed sort, upon which, for\nexample, the reports of the British Admiralty and of the Slav commanders\nwere recorded as they kept coming to hand. Upon these maps, as upon\nchessboards, Marshal Dubois, in consultation with General Viard and the\nEarl of Delhi, was to play the great game for world supremacy against\nthe Central European powers. Very probably he had a definite idea of his\ngame; very probably he had a coherent and admirable plan.\n\nBut he had reckoned without a proper estimate either of the new strategy\nof aviation or of the possibilities of atomic energy that Holsten had\nopened for mankind. While he planned entrenchments and invasions and a\nfrontier war, the Central European generalship was striking at the\neyes and the brain. And while, with a certain diffident hesitation, he\ndeveloped his gambit that night upon the lines laid down by Napoleon\nand Moltke, his own scientific corps in a state of mutinous activity was\npreparing a blow for Berlin. \'These old fools!\' was the key in which the\nscientific corps was thinking.\n\nThe War Control in Paris, on the night of July the second, was\nan impressive display of the paraphernalia of scientific military\norganisation, as the first half of the twentieth century understood it.\nTo one human being at least the consulting commanders had the likeness\nof world-wielding gods.\n\nShe was a skilled typist, capable of nearly sixty words a minute, and\nshe had been engaged in relay with other similar women to take down\norders in duplicate and hand them over to the junior officers in\nattendance, to be forwarded and filed. There had come a lull, and she\nhad been sent out from the dictating room to take the air upon the\nterrace before the great hall and to eat such scanty refreshment as she\nhad brought with her until her services were required again.\n\nFrom her position upon the terrace this young woman had a view not only\nof the wide sweep of the river below her, and all the eastward side of\nParis from the Arc de Triomphe to Saint Cloud, great blocks and masses\nof black or pale darkness with pink and golden flashes of illumination\nand endless interlacing bands of dotted lights under a still and\nstarless sky, but also the whole spacious interior of the great hall\nwith its slender pillars and gracious arching and clustering lamps was\nvisible to her. There, over a wilderness of tables, lay the huge maps,\ndone on so large a scale that one might fancy them small countries; the\nmessengers and attendants went and came perpetually, altering, moving\nthe little pieces that signified hundreds and thousands of men, and the\ngreat commander and his two consultants stood amidst all these things\nand near where the fighting was nearest, scheming, directing. They had\nbut to breathe a word and presently away there, in the world of reality,\nthe punctual myriads moved. Men rose up and went forward and died. The\nfate of nations lay behind the eyes of these three men. Indeed they were\nlike gods.\n\nMost godlike of the three was Dubois. It was for him to decide; the\nothers at most might suggest. Her woman\'s soul went out to this grave,\nhandsome, still, old man, in a passion of instinctive worship.\n\nOnce she had taken words of instruction from him direct. She had awaited\nthem in an ecstasy of happiness--and fear. For her exaltation was made\nterrible by the dread that some error might dishonour her....\n\nShe watched him now through the glass with all the unpenetrating\nminuteness of an impassioned woman\'s observation.\n\nHe said little, she remarked. He looked but little at the maps. The\ntall Englishman beside him was manifestly troubled by a swarm of ideas,\nconflicting ideas; he craned his neck at every shifting of the little\nred, blue, black, and yellow pieces on the board, and wanted to draw the\ncommander\'s attention to this and that. Dubois listened, nodded, emitted\na word and became still again, brooding like the national eagle.\n\nHis eyes were so deeply sunken under his white eyebrows that she could\nnot see his eyes; his moustache overhung the mouth from which those\nwords of decision came. Viard, too, said little; he was a dark man with\na drooping head and melancholy, watchful eyes. He was more intent upon\nthe French right, which was feeling its way now through Alsace to the\nRhine. He was, she knew, an old colleague of Dubois; he knew him better,\nshe decided, he trusted him more than this unfamiliar Englishman....\n\nNot to talk, to remain impassive and as far as possible in profile;\nthese were the lessons that old Dubois had mastered years ago. To\nseem to know all, to betray no surprise, to refuse to hurry--itself a\nconfession of miscalculation; by attention to these simple rules,\nDubois had built up a steady reputation from the days when he had been\na promising junior officer, a still, almost abstracted young man,\ndeliberate but ready. Even then men had looked at him and said: \'He\nwill go far.\' Through fifty years of peace he had never once been found\nwanting, and at manoeuvres his impassive persistence had perplexed and\nhypnotised and defeated many a more actively intelligent man. Deep in\nhis soul Dubois had hidden his one profound discovery about the modern\nart of warfare, the key to his career. And this discovery was that\nNOBODY KNEW, that to act therefore was to blunder, that to talk was to\nconfess; and that the man who acted slowly and steadfastly and above all\nsilently, had the best chance of winning through. Meanwhile one fed\nthe men. Now by this same strategy he hoped to shatter those mysterious\nunknowns of the Central European command. Delhi might talk of a great\nflank march through Holland, with all the British submarines and\nhydroplanes and torpedo craft pouring up the Rhine in support of it;\nViard might crave for brilliance with the motor bicycles, aeroplanes,\nand ski-men among the Swiss mountains, and a sudden swoop upon\nVienna; the thing was to listen--and wait for the other side to begin\nexperimenting. It was all experimenting. And meanwhile he remained in\nprofile, with an air of assurance--like a man who sits in an automobile\nafter the chauffeur has had his directions.\n\nAnd every one about him was the stronger and surer for that quiet face,\nthat air of knowledge and unruffled confidence. The clustering lights\nthrew a score of shadows of him upon the maps, great bunches of him,\nversions of a commanding presence, lighter or darker, dominated the\nfield, and pointed in every direction. Those shadows symbolised his\ncontrol. When a messenger came from the wireless room to shift this or\nthat piece in the game, to replace under amended reports one Central\nEuropean regiment by a score, to draw back or thrust out or distribute\nthis or that force of the Allies, the Marshal would turn his head and\nseem not to see, or look and nod slightly, as a master nods who approves\na pupil\'s self-correction. \'Yes, that\'s better.\'\n\nHow wonderful he was, thought the woman at the window, how wonderful it\nall was. This was the brain of the western world, this was Olympus with\nthe warring earth at its feet. And he was guiding France, France so long\na resentful exile from imperialism, back to her old predominance.\n\nIt seemed to her beyond the desert of a woman that she should be\nprivileged to participate....\n\nIt is hard to be a woman, full of the stormy impulse to personal\ndevotion, and to have to be impersonal, abstract, exact, punctual. She\nmust control herself....\n\nShe gave herself up to fantastic dreams, dreams of the days when the war\nwould be over and victory enthroned. Then perhaps this harshness,\nthis armour would be put aside and the gods might unbend. Her eyelids\ndrooped....\n\nShe roused herself with a start. She became aware that the night outside\nwas no longer still. That there was an excitement down below on the\nbridge and a running in the street and a flickering of searchlights\namong the clouds from some high place away beyond the Trocadero. And\nthen the excitement came surging up past her and invaded the hall\nwithin.\n\nOne of the sentinels from the terrace stood at the upper end of the\nroom, gesticulating and shouting something.\n\nAnd all the world had changed. A kind of throbbing. She couldn\'t\nunderstand. It was as if all the water-pipes and concealed machinery and\ncables of the ways beneath, were beating--as pulses beat. And about her\nblew something like a wind--a wind that was dismay.\n\nHer eyes went to the face of the Marshal as a frightened child might\nlook towards its mother.\n\nHe was still serene. He was frowning slightly, she thought, but that\nwas natural enough, for the Earl of Delhi, with one hand gauntly\ngesticulating, had taken him by the arm and was all too manifestly\ndisposed to drag him towards the great door that opened on the terrace.\nAnd Viard was hurrying towards the huge windows and doing so in the\nstrangest of attitudes, bent forward and with eyes upturned.\n\nSomething up there?\n\nAnd then it was as if thunder broke overhead.\n\nThe sound struck her like a blow. She crouched together against the\nmasonry and looked up. She saw three black shapes swooping down through\nthe torn clouds, and from a point a little below two of them, there had\nalready started curling trails of red....\n\nEverything else in her being was paralysed, she hung through moments\nthat seemed infinities, watching those red missiles whirl down towards\nher.\n\nShe felt torn out of the world. There was nothing else in the world but\na crimson-purple glare and sound, deafening, all-embracing, continuing\nsound. Every other light had gone out about her and against this glare\nhung slanting walls, pirouetting pillars, projecting fragments of\ncornices, and a disorderly flight of huge angular sheets of glass. She\nhad an impression of a great ball of crimson-purple fire like a maddened\nliving thing that seemed to be whirling about very rapidly amidst\na chaos of falling masonry, that seemed to be attacking the earth\nfuriously, that seemed to be burrowing into it like a blazing rabbit....\n\nShe had all the sensations of waking up out of a dream.\n\nShe found she was lying face downward on a bank of mould and that a\nlittle rivulet of hot water was running over one foot. She tried to\nraise herself and found her leg was very painful. She was not clear\nwhether it was night or day nor where she was; she made a second effort,\nwincing and groaning, and turned over and got into a sitting position\nand looked about her.\n\nEverything seemed very silent. She was, in fact, in the midst of a\nvast uproar, but she did not realise this because her hearing had been\ndestroyed.\n\nAt first she could not join on what she saw to any previous experience.\n\nShe seemed to be in a strange world, a soundless, ruinous world, a\nworld of heaped broken things. And it was lit--and somehow this was more\nfamiliar to her mind than any other fact about her--by a flickering,\npurplish-crimson light. Then close to her, rising above a confusion of\ndebris, she recognised the Trocadero; it was changed, something had\ngone from it, but its outline was unmistakable. It stood out against a\nstreaming, whirling uprush of red-lit steam. And with that she recalled\nParis and the Seine and the warm, overcast evening and the beautiful,\nluminous organisation of the War Control....\n\nShe drew herself a little way up the slope of earth on which she lay,\nand examined her surroundings with an increasing understanding....\n\nThe earth on which she was lying projected like a cape into the river.\nQuite close to her was a brimming lake of dammed-up water, from which\nthese warm rivulets and torrents were trickling. Wisps of vapour came\ninto circling existence a foot or so from its mirror-surface. Near\nat hand and reflected exactly in the water was the upper part of a\nfamiliar-looking stone pillar. On the side of her away from the water\nthe heaped ruins rose steeply in a confused slope up to a glaring crest.\nAbove and reflecting this glare towered pillowed masses of steam rolling\nswiftly upward to the zenith. It was from this crest that the livid glow\nthat lit the world about her proceeded, and slowly her mind connected\nthis mound with the vanished buildings of the War Control.\n\n\'Mais!\' she whispered, and remained with staring eyes quite motionless\nfor a time, crouching close to the warm earth.\n\nThen presently this dim, broken human thing began to look about it\nagain. She began to feel the need of fellowship. She wanted to question,\nwanted to speak, wanted to relate her experience. And her foot hurt her\natrociously. There ought to be an ambulance. A little gust of querulous\ncriticisms blew across her mind. This surely was a disaster! Always\nafter a disaster there should be ambulances and helpers moving about....\n\nShe craned her head. There was something there. But everything was so\nstill!\n\n\'Monsieur!\' she cried. Her ears, she noted, felt queer, and she began to\nsuspect that all was not well with them.\n\nIt was terribly lonely in this chaotic strangeness, and perhaps this\nman--if it was a man, for it was difficult to see--might for all his\nstillness be merely insensible. He might have been stunned....\n\nThe leaping glare beyond sent a ray into his corner and for a moment\nevery little detail was distinct. It was Marshal Dubois. He was lying\nagainst a huge slab of the war map. To it there stuck and from it there\ndangled little wooden objects, the symbols of infantry and cavalry and\nguns, as they were disposed upon the frontier. He did not seem to\nbe aware of this at his back, he had an effect of inattention, not\nindifferent attention, but as if he were thinking....\n\nShe could not see the eyes beneath his shaggy brows, but it was evident\nhe frowned. He frowned slightly, he had an air of not wanting to be\ndisturbed. His face still bore that expression of assured confidence,\nthat conviction that if things were left to him France might obey in\nsecurity....\n\nShe did not cry out to him again, but she crept a little nearer. A\nstrange surmise made her eyes dilate. With a painful wrench she pulled\nherself up so that she could see completely over the intervening lumps\nof smashed-up masonry. Her hand touched something wet, and after one\nconvulsive movement she became rigid.\n\nIt was not a whole man there; it was a piece of a man, the head and\nshoulders of a man that trailed down into a ragged darkness and a pool\nof shining black....\n\nAnd even as she stared the mound above her swayed and crumbled, and a\nrush of hot water came pouring over her. Then it seemed to her that she\nwas dragged downward....\n\nSection 3\n\nWhen the rather brutish young aviator with the bullet head and the black\nhair close-cropped en brosse, who was in charge of the French special\nscientific corps, heard presently of this disaster to the War Control,\nhe was so wanting in imagination in any sphere but his own, that he\nlaughed. Small matter to him that Paris was burning. His mother and\nfather and sister lived at Caudebec; and the only sweetheart he had ever\nhad, and it was poor love-making then, was a girl in Rouen. He slapped\nhis second-in-command on the shoulder. \'Now,\' he said, \'there\'s nothing\non earth to stop us going to Berlin and giving them tit-for-tat....\nStrategy and reasons of state--they\'re over.... Come along, my boy, and\nwe\'ll just show these old women what we can do when they let us have our\nheads.\'\n\nHe spent five minutes telephoning and then he went out into the\ncourtyard of the chateau in which he had been installed and shouted\nfor his automobile. Things would have to move quickly because there was\nscarcely an hour and a half before dawn. He looked at the sky and noted\nwith satisfaction a heavy bank of clouds athwart the pallid east.\n\nHe was a young man of infinite shrewdness, and his material and\naeroplanes were scattered all over the country-side, stuck away\nin barns, covered with hay, hidden in woods. A hawk could not have\ndiscovered any of them without coming within reach of a gun. But that\nnight he only wanted one of the machines, and it was handy and quite\nprepared under a tarpaulin between two ricks not a couple of miles away;\nhe was going to Berlin with that and just one other man. Two men would\nbe enough for what he meant to do....\n\nHe had in his hands the black complement to all those other gifts\nscience was urging upon unregenerate mankind, the gift of destruction,\nand he was an adventurous rather than a sympathetic type....\n\nHe was a dark young man with something negroid about his gleaming face.\nHe smiled like one who is favoured and anticipates great pleasures.\nThere was an exotic richness, a chuckling flavour, about the voice\nin which he gave his orders, and he pointed his remarks with the long\nfinger of a hand that was hairy and exceptionally big.\n\n\'We\'ll give them tit-for-tat,\' he said. \'We\'ll give them tit-for-tat. No\ntime to lose, boys....\'\n\nAnd presently over the cloud-banks that lay above Westphalia and Saxony\nthe swift aeroplane, with its atomic engine as noiseless as a dancing\nsunbeam and its phosphorescent gyroscopic compass, flew like an arrow to\nthe heart of the Central European hosts.\n\nIt did not soar very high; it skimmed a few hundred feet above the\nbanked darknesses of cumulus that hid the world, ready to plunge at once\ninto their wet obscurities should some hostile flier range into vision.\nThe tense young steersman divided his attention between the guiding\nstars above and the level, tumbled surfaces of the vapour strata that\nhid the world below. Over great spaces those banks lay as even as a\nfrozen lava-flow and almost as still, and then they were rent by ragged\nareas of translucency, pierced by clear chasms, so that dim patches\nof the land below gleamed remotely through abysses. Once he saw quite\ndistinctly the plan of a big railway station outlined in lamps and\nsignals, and once the flames of a burning rick showing livid through a\nboiling drift of smoke on the side of some great hill. But if the world\nwas masked it was alive with sounds. Up through that vapour floor came\nthe deep roar of trains, the whistles of horns of motor-cars, a sound\nof rifle fire away to the south, and as he drew near his destination the\ncrowing of cocks....\n\nThe sky above the indistinct horizons of this cloud sea was at first\nstarry and then paler with a light that crept from north to east as the\ndawn came on. The Milky Way was invisible in the blue, and the lesser\nstars vanished. The face of the adventurer at the steering-wheel, darkly\nvisible ever and again by the oval greenish glow of the compass face,\nhad something of that firm beauty which all concentrated purpose gives,\nand something of the happiness of an idiot child that has at last got\nhold of the matches. His companion, a less imaginative type, sat with\nhis legs spread wide over the long, coffin-shaped box which contained\nin its compartments the three atomic bombs, the new bombs that would\ncontinue to explode indefinitely and which no one so far had ever seen\nin action. Hitherto Carolinum, their essential substance, had been\ntested only in almost infinitesimal quantities within steel chambers\nembedded in lead. Beyond the thought of great destruction slumbering\nin the black spheres between his legs, and a keen resolve to follow out\nvery exactly the instructions that had been given him, the man\'s mind\nwas a blank. His aquiline profile against the starlight expressed\nnothing but a profound gloom.\n\nThe sky below grew clearer as the Central European capital was\napproached.\n\nSo far they had been singularly lucky and had been challenged by no\naeroplanes at all. The frontier scouts they must have passed in the\nnight; probably these were mostly under the clouds; the world was wide\nand they had had luck in not coming close to any soaring sentinel. Their\nmachine was painted a pale gray, that lay almost invisibly over the\ncloud levels below. But now the east was flushing with the near ascent\nof the sun, Berlin was but a score of miles ahead, and the luck of the\nFrenchmen held. By imperceptible degrees the clouds below dissolved....\n\nAway to the north-eastward, in a cloudless pool of gathering light and\nwith all its nocturnal illuminations still blazing, was Berlin. The left\nfinger of the steersman verified roads and open spaces below upon the\nmica-covered square of map that was fastened by his wheel. There in a\nseries of lake-like expansions was the Havel away to the right; over by\nthose forests must be Spandau; there the river split about the Potsdam\nisland; and right ahead was Charlottenburg cleft by a great thoroughfare\nthat fell like an indicating beam of light straight to the imperial\nheadquarters. There, plain enough, was the Thiergarten; beyond rose\nthe imperial palace, and to the right those tall buildings, those\nclustering, beflagged, bemasted roofs, must be the offices in which\nthe Central European staff was housed. It was all coldly clear and\ncolourless in the dawn.\n\nHe looked up suddenly as a humming sound grew out of nothing and became\nswiftly louder. Nearly overhead a German aeroplane was circling down\nfrom an immense height to challenge him. He made a gesture with his left\narm to the gloomy man behind and then gripped his little wheel with both\nhands, crouched over it, and twisted his neck to look upward. He was\nattentive, tightly strung, but quite contemptuous of their ability to\nhurt him. No German alive, he was assured, could outfly him, or indeed\nany one of the best Frenchmen. He imagined they might strike at him as\na hawk strikes, but they were men coming down out of the bitter cold up\nthere, in a hungry, spiritless, morning mood; they came slanting down\nlike a sword swung by a lazy man, and not so rapidly but that he was\nable to slip away from under them and get between them and Berlin. They\nbegan challenging him in German with a megaphone when they were still\nperhaps a mile away. The words came to him, rolled up into a mere blob\nof hoarse sound. Then, gathering alarm from his grim silence, they gave\nchase and swept down, a hundred yards above him perhaps, and a couple of\nhundred behind. They were beginning to understand what he was. He ceased\nto watch them and concentrated himself on the city ahead, and for a time\nthe two aeroplanes raced....\n\nA bullet came tearing through the air by him, as though some one was\ntearing paper. A second followed. Something tapped the machine.\n\nIt was time to act. The broad avenues, the park, the palaces below\nrushed widening out nearer and nearer to them. \'Ready!\' said the\nsteersman.\n\nThe gaunt face hardened to grimness, and with both hands the\nbomb-thrower lifted the big atomic bomb from the box and steadied it\nagainst the side. It was a black sphere two feet in diameter. Between\nits handles was a little celluloid stud, and to this he bent his head\nuntil his lips touched it. Then he had to bite in order to let the air\nin upon the inducive. Sure of its accessibility, he craned his neck over\nthe side of the aeroplane and judged his pace and distance. Then very\nquickly he bent forward, bit the stud, and hoisted the bomb over the\nside.\n\n\'Round,\' he whispered inaudibly.\n\nThe bomb flashed blinding scarlet in mid-air, and fell, a descending\ncolumn of blaze eddying spirally in the midst of a whirlwind. Both the\naeroplanes were tossed like shuttlecocks, hurled high and sideways and\nthe steersman, with gleaming eyes and set teeth, fought in great banking\ncurves for a balance. The gaunt man clung tight with hand and knees; his\nnostrils dilated, his teeth biting his lips. He was firmly strapped....\n\nWhen he could look down again it was like looking down upon the crater\nof a small volcano. In the open garden before the Imperial castle a\nshuddering star of evil splendour spurted and poured up smoke and flame\ntowards them like an accusation. They were too high to distinguish\npeople clearly, or mark the bomb\'s effect upon the building until\nsuddenly the facade tottered and crumbled before the flare as sugar\ndissolves in water. The man stared for a moment, showed all his long\nteeth, and then staggered into the cramped standing position his straps\npermitted, hoisted out and bit another bomb, and sent it down after its\nfellow.\n\nThe explosion came this time more directly underneath the aeroplane\nand shot it upward edgeways. The bomb box tipped to the point of\ndisgorgement, and the bomb-thrower was pitched forward upon the third\nbomb with his face close to its celluloid stud. He clutched its handles,\nand with a sudden gust of determination that the thing should not escape\nhim, bit its stud. Before he could hurl it over, the monoplane was\nslipping sideways. Everything was falling sideways. Instinctively he\ngave himself up to gripping, his body holding the bomb in its place.\n\nThen that bomb had exploded also, and steersman, thrower, and aeroplane\nwere just flying rags and splinters of metal and drops of moisture in\nthe air, and a third column of fire rushed eddying down upon the doomed\nbuildings below....\n\nSection 4\n\nNever before in the history of warfare had there been a continuing\nexplosive; indeed, up to the middle of the twentieth century the only\nexplosives known were combustibles whose explosiveness was due entirely\nto their instantaneousness; and these atomic bombs which science burst\nupon the world that night were strange even to the men who used them.\nThose used by the Allies were lumps of pure Carolinum, painted on the\noutside with unoxidised cydonator inducive enclosed hermetically in a\ncase of membranium. A little celluloid stud between the handles by which\nthe bomb was lifted was arranged so as to be easily torn off and\nadmit air to the inducive, which at once became active and set up\nradio-activity in the outer layer of the Carolinum sphere. This\nliberated fresh inducive, and so in a few minutes the whole bomb was a\nblazing continual explosion. The Central European bombs were the same,\nexcept that they were larger and had a more complicated arrangement for\nanimating the inducive.\n\nAlways before in the development of warfare the shells and rockets fired\nhad been but momentarily explosive, they had gone off in an instant once\nfor all, and if there was nothing living or valuable within reach of the\nconcussion and the flying fragments then they were spent and over.\nBut Carolinum, which belonged to the beta group of Hyslop\'s so-called\n\'suspended degenerator\' elements, once its degenerative process had\nbeen induced, continued a furious radiation of energy and nothing could\narrest it. Of all Hyslop\'s artificial elements, Carolinum was the most\nheavily stored with energy and the most dangerous to make and handle. To\nthis day it remains the most potent degenerator known. What the earlier\ntwentieth-century chemists called its half period was seventeen days;\nthat is to say, it poured out half of the huge store of energy in its\ngreat molecules in the space of seventeen days, the next seventeen days\'\nemission was a half of that first period\'s outpouring, and so on. As\nwith all radio-active substances this Carolinum, though every seventeen\ndays its power is halved, though constantly it diminishes towards\nthe imperceptible, is never entirely exhausted, and to this day the\nbattle-fields and bomb fields of that frantic time in human history are\nsprinkled with radiant matter, and so centres of inconvenient rays.\n\nWhat happened when the celluloid stud was opened was that the inducive\noxidised and became active. Then the surface of the Carolinum began to\ndegenerate. This degeneration passed only slowly into the substance of\nthe bomb. A moment or so after its explosion began it was still mainly\nan inert sphere exploding superficially, a big, inanimate nucleus\nwrapped in flame and thunder. Those that were thrown from aeroplanes\nfell in this state, they reached the ground still mainly solid, and,\nmelting soil and rock in their progress, bored into the earth. There, as\nmore and more of the Carolinum became active, the bomb spread itself out\ninto a monstrous cavern of fiery energy at the base of what became very\nspeedily a miniature active volcano. The Carolinum, unable to disperse,\nfreely drove into and mixed up with a boiling confusion of molten\nsoil and superheated steam, and so remained spinning furiously and\nmaintaining an eruption that lasted for years or months or weeks\naccording to the size of the bomb employed and the chances of its\ndispersal. Once launched, the bomb was absolutely unapproachable and\nuncontrollable until its forces were nearly exhausted, and from the\ncrater that burst open above it, puffs of heavy incandescent vapour and\nfragments of viciously punitive rock and mud, saturated with Carolinum,\nand each a centre of scorching and blistering energy, were flung high\nand far.\n\nSuch was the crowning triumph of military science, the ultimate\nexplosive that was to give the \'decisive touch\' to war....\n\nSection 5\n\nA recent historical writer has described the world of that time as one\nthat \'believed in established words and was invincibly blind to the\nobvious in things.\' Certainly it seems now that nothing could have been\nmore obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century than the\nrapidity with which war was becoming impossible. And as certainly they\ndid not see it. They did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in\ntheir fumbling hands. Yet the broad facts must have glared upon any\nintelligent mind. All through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries\nthe amount of energy that men were able to command was continually\nincreasing. Applied to warfare that meant that the power to inflict a\nblow, the power to destroy, was continually increasing. There was\nno increase whatever in the ability to escape. Every sort of passive\ndefence, armour, fortifications, and so forth, was being outmastered\nby this tremendous increase on the destructive side. Destruction was\nbecoming so facile that any little body of malcontents could use it; it\nwas revolutionising the problems of police and internal rule. Before\nthe last war began it was a matter of common knowledge that a man could\ncarry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to\nwreck half a city. These facts were before the minds of everybody;\nthe children in the streets knew them. And yet the world still, as the\nAmericans used to phrase it, \'fooled around\' with the paraphernalia and\npretensions of war.\n\nIt is only by realising this profound, this fantastic divorce between\nthe scientific and intellectual movement on the one hand, and the world\nof the lawyer-politician on the other, that the men of a later time\ncan hope to understand this preposterous state of affairs. Social\norganisation was still in the barbaric stage. There were already great\nnumbers of actively intelligent men and much private and commercial\ncivilisation, but the community, as a whole, was aimless, untrained and\nunorganised to the pitch of imbecility. Collective civilisation, the\n\'Modern State,\' was still in the womb of the future....\n\nSection 6\n\nBut let us return to Frederick Barnet\'s Wander Jahre and its account\nof the experiences of a common man during the war time. While these\nterrific disclosures of scientific possibility were happening in Paris\nand Berlin, Barnet and his company were industriously entrenching\nthemselves in Belgian Luxembourg.\n\nHe tells of the mobilisation and of his summer day\'s journey through the\nnorth of France and the Ardennes in a few vivid phrases. The country\nwas browned by a warm summer, the trees a little touched with autumnal\ncolour, and the wheat already golden. When they stopped for an hour\nat Hirson, men and women with tricolour badges upon the platform\ndistributed cakes and glasses of beer to the thirsty soldiers, and there\nwas much cheerfulness. \'Such good, cool beer it was,\' he wrote. \'I had\nhad nothing to eat nor drink since Epsom.\'\n\nA number of monoplanes, \'like giant swallows,\' he notes, were scouting\nin the pink evening sky.\n\nBarnet\'s battalion was sent through the Sedan country to a place called\nVirton, and thence to a point in the woods on the line to Jemelle. Here\nthey detrained, bivouacked uneasily by the railway--trains and stores\nwere passing along it all night--and next morning he: marched eastward\nthrough a cold, overcast dawn, and a morning, first cloudy and then\nblazing, over a large spacious country-side interspersed by forest\ntowards Arlon.\n\nThere the infantry were set to work upon a line of masked entrenchments\nand hidden rifle pits between St Hubert and Virton that were designed to\ncheck and delay any advance from the east upon the fortified line of\nthe Meuse. They had their orders, and for two days they worked without\neither a sight of the enemy or any suspicion of the disaster that had\nabruptly decapitated the armies of Europe, and turned the west of Paris\nand the centre of Berlin into blazing miniatures of the destruction of\nPompeii.\n\nAnd the news, when it did come, came attenuated. \'We heard there had\nbeen mischief with aeroplanes and bombs in Paris,\' Barnet relates; \'but\nit didn\'t seem to follow that \"They\" weren\'t still somewhere elaborating\ntheir plans and issuing orders. When the enemy began to emerge from the\nwoods in front of us, we cheered and blazed away, and didn\'t trouble\nmuch more about anything but the battle in hand. If now and then one\ncocked up an eye into the sky to see what was happening there, the rip\nof a bullet soon brought one down to the horizontal again....\n\nThat battle went on for three days all over a great stretch of country\nbetween Louvain on the north and Longwy to the south. It was essentially\na rifle and infantry struggle. The aeroplanes do not seem to have taken\nany decisive share in the actual fighting for some days, though no\ndoubt they effected the strategy from the first by preventing surprise\nmovements. They were aeroplanes with atomic engines, but they were not\nprovided with atomic bombs, which were manifestly unsuitable for field\nuse, nor indeed had they any very effective kind of bomb. And though\nthey manoeuvred against each other, and there was rifle shooting at them\nand between them, there was little actual aerial fighting. Either\nthe airmen were indisposed to fight or the commanders on both sides\npreferred to reserve these machines for scouting....\n\nAfter a day or so of digging and scheming, Barnet found himself in the\nforefront of a battle. He had made his section of rifle pits chiefly\nalong a line of deep dry ditch that gave a means of inter-communication,\nhe had had the earth scattered over the adjacent field, and he had\nmasked his preparations with tussocks of corn and poppy. The hostile\nadvance came blindly and unsuspiciously across the fields below and\nwould have been very cruelly handled indeed, if some one away to the\nright had not opened fire too soon.\n\n\'It was a queer thrill when these fellows came into sight,\' he\nconfesses; \'and not a bit like manoeuvres. They halted for a time on\nthe edge of the wood and then came forward in an open line. They kept\nwalking nearer to us and not looking at us, but away to the right of us.\nEven when they began to be hit, and their officers\' whistles woke them\nup, they didn\'t seem to see us. One or two halted to fire, and then they\nall went back towards the wood again. They went slowly at first, looking\nround at us, then the shelter of the wood seemed to draw them, and they\ntrotted. I fired rather mechanically and missed, then I fired again, and\nthen I became earnest to hit something, made sure of my sighting, and\naimed very carefully at a blue back that was dodging about in the corn.\nAt first I couldn\'t satisfy myself and didn\'t shoot, his movements were\nso spasmodic and uncertain; then I think he came to a ditch or some such\nobstacle and halted for a moment. \"GOT you,\" I whispered, and pulled the\ntrigger.\n\n\'I had the strangest sensations about that man. In the first instance,\nwhen I felt that I had hit him I was irradiated with joy and pride....\n\n\'I sent him spinning. He jumped and threw up his arms....\n\n\'Then I saw the corn tops waving and had glimpses of him flapping about.\nSuddenly I felt sick. I hadn\'t killed him....\n\n\'In some way he was disabled and smashed up and yet able to struggle\nabout. I began to think....\n\n\'For nearly two hours that Prussian was agonising in the corn. Either he\nwas calling out or some one was shouting to him....\n\n\'Then he jumped up--he seemed to try to get up upon his feet with one\nlast effort; and then he fell like a sack and lay quite still and never\nmoved again.\n\n\'He had been unendurable, and I believe some one had shot him dead. I\nhad been wanting to do so for some time....\'\n\nThe enemy began sniping the rifle pits from shelters they made for\nthemselves in the woods below. A man was hit in the pit next to Barnet,\nand began cursing and crying out in a violent rage. Barnet crawled\nalong the ditch to him and found him in great pain, covered with blood,\nfrantic with indignation, and with the half of his right hand smashed to\na pulp. \'Look at this,\' he kept repeating, hugging it and then extending\nit. \'Damned foolery! Damned foolery! My right hand, sir! My right hand!\'\n\nFor some time Barnet could do nothing with him. The man was consumed by\nhis tortured realisation of the evil silliness of war, the realisation\nwhich had come upon him in a flash with the bullet that had destroyed\nhis skill and use as an artificer for ever. He was looking at the\nvestiges with a horror that made him impenetrable to any other idea. At\nlast the poor wretch let Barnet tie up his bleeding stump and help him\nalong the ditch that conducted him deviously out of range....\n\nWhen Barnet returned his men were already calling out for water, and all\nday long the line of pits suffered greatly from thirst. For food they\nhad chocolate and bread.\n\n\'At first,\' he says, \'I was extraordinarily excited by my baptism of\nfire. Then as the heat of the day came on I experienced an enormous\ntedium and discomfort. The flies became extremely troublesome, and my\nlittle grave of a rifle pit was invaded by ants. I could not get up\nor move about, for some one in the trees had got a mark on me. I kept\nthinking of the dead Prussian down among the corn, and of the bitter\noutcries of my own man. Damned foolery! It WAS damned foolery. But who\nwas to blame? How had we got to this? . . .\n\n\'Early in the afternoon an aeroplane tried to dislodge us with dynamite\nbombs, but she was hit by bullets once or twice, and suddenly dived down\nover beyond the trees.\n\n\'\"From Holland to the Alps this day,\" I thought, \"there must be\ncrouching and lying between half and a million of men, trying to inflict\nirreparable damage upon one another. The thing is idiotic to the pitch\nof impossibility. It is a dream. Presently I shall wake up.\" . . .\n\n\'Then the phrase changed itself in my mind. \"Presently mankind will wake\nup.\"\n\n\'I lay speculating just how many thousands of men there were among these\nhundreds of thousands, whose spirits were in rebellion against all these\nancient traditions of flag and empire. Weren\'t we, perhaps, already in\nthe throes of the last crisis, in that darkest moment of a nightmare\'s\nhorror before the sleeper will endure no more of it--and wakes?\n\n\'I don\'t know how my speculations ended. I think they were not so\nmuch ended as distracted by the distant thudding of the guns that were\nopening fire at long range upon Namur.\'\n\nSection 7\n\nBut as yet Barnet had seen no more than the mildest beginnings of modern\nwarfare. So far he had taken part only in a little shooting. The bayonet\nattack by which the advanced line was broken was made at a place called\nCroix Rouge, more than twenty miles away, and that night under cover of\nthe darkness the rifle pits were abandoned and he got his company away\nwithout further loss.\n\nHis regiment fell back unpressed behind the fortified lines between\nNamur and Sedan, entrained at a station called Mettet, and was sent\nnorthward by Antwerp and Rotterdam to Haarlem. Hence they marched into\nNorth Holland. It was only after the march into Holland that he began to\nrealise the monstrous and catastrophic nature of the struggle in which\nhe was playing his undistinguished part.\n\nHe describes very pleasantly the journey through the hills and open land\nof Brabant, the repeated crossing of arms of the Rhine, and the change\nfrom the undulating scenery of Belgium to the flat, rich meadows, the\nsunlit dyke roads, and the countless windmills of the Dutch levels.\nIn those days there was unbroken land from Alkmaar and Leiden to the\nDollart. Three great provinces, South Holland, North Holland, and\nZuiderzeeland, reclaimed at various times between the early tenth\ncentury and 1945 and all many feet below the level of the waves outside\nthe dykes, spread out their lush polders to the northern sun and\nsustained a dense industrious population. An intricate web of laws\nand custom and tradition ensured a perpetual vigilance and a perpetual\ndefence against the beleaguering sea. For more than two hundred and\nfifty miles from Walcheren to Friesland stretched a line of embankments\nand pumping stations that was the admiration of the world.\n\nIf some curious god had chosen to watch the course of events in those\nnorthern provinces while that flanking march of the British was in\nprogress, he would have found a convenient and appropriate seat for\nhis observation upon one of the great cumulus clouds that were drifting\nslowly across the blue sky during all these eventful days before the\ngreat catastrophe. For that was the quality of the weather, hot and\nclear, with something of a breeze, and underfoot dry and a little\ninclined to be dusty. This watching god would have looked down upon\nbroad stretches of sunlit green, sunlit save for the creeping patches\nof shadow cast by the clouds, upon sky-reflecting meres, fringed and\ndivided up by masses of willow and large areas of silvery weeds, upon\nwhite roads lying bare to the sun and upon a tracery of blue canals. The\npastures were alive with cattle, the roads had a busy traffic, of beasts\nand bicycles and gaily coloured peasants\' automobiles, the hues of the\ninnumerable motor barges in the canal vied with the eventfulness of the\nroadways; and everywhere in solitary steadings, amidst ricks and barns,\nin groups by the wayside, in straggling villages, each with its fine old\nchurch, or in compact towns laced with canals and abounding in bridges\nand clipped trees, were human habitations.\n\nThe people of this country-side were not belligerents. The interests\nand sympathies alike of Holland had been so divided that to the end she\nremained undecided and passive in the struggle of the world powers. And\neverywhere along the roads taken by the marching armies clustered groups\nand crowds of impartially observant spectators, women and children in\npeculiar white caps and old-fashioned sabots, and elderly, clean-shaven\nmen quietly thoughtful over their long pipes. They had no fear of their\ninvaders; the days when \'soldiering\' meant bands of licentious looters\nhad long since passed away....\n\nThat watcher among the clouds would have seen a great distribution of\nkhaki-uniformed men and khaki-painted material over the whole of the\nsunken area of Holland. He would have marked the long trains, packed\nwith men or piled with great guns and war material, creeping slowly,\nalert for train-wreckers, along the north-going lines; he would have\nseen the Scheldt and Rhine choked with shipping, and pouring out still\nmore men and still more material; he would have noticed halts and\nprovisionings and detrainments, and the long, bustling caterpillars of\ncavalry and infantry, the maggot-like wagons, the huge beetles of great\nguns, crawling under the poplars along the dykes and roads northward,\nalong ways lined by the neutral, unmolested, ambiguously observant\nDutch. All the barges and shipping upon the canals had been\nrequisitioned for transport. In that clear, bright, warm weather, it\nwould all have looked from above like some extravagant festival of\nanimated toys.\n\nAs the sun sank westward the spectacle must have become a little\nindistinct because of a golden haze; everything must have become warmer\nand more glowing, and because of the lengthening of the shadows more\nmanifestly in relief. The shadows of the tall churches grew longer and\nlonger, until they touched the horizon and mingled in the universal\nshadow; and then, slow, and soft, and wrapping the world in fold after\nfold of deepening blue, came the night--the night at first obscurely\nsimple, and then with faint points here and there, and then jewelled in\ndarkling splendour with a hundred thousand lights. Out of that mingling\nof darkness and ambiguous glares the noise of an unceasing activity\nwould have arisen, the louder and plainer now because there was no\nlonger any distraction of sight.\n\nIt may be that watcher drifting in the pellucid gulf beneath the stars\nwatched all through the night; it may be that he dozed. But if he gave\nway to so natural a proclivity, assuredly on the fourth night of the\ngreat flank march he was aroused, for that was the night of the battle\nin the air that decided the fate of Holland. The aeroplanes were\nfighting at last, and suddenly about him, above and below, with cries\nand uproar rushing out of the four quarters of heaven, striking,\nplunging, oversetting, soaring to the zenith and dropping to the ground,\nthey came to assail or defend the myriads below.\n\nSecretly the Central European power had gathered his flying machines\ntogether, and now he threw them as a giant might fling a handful of ten\nthousand knives over the low country. And amidst that swarming flight\nwere five that drove headlong for the sea walls of Holland, carrying\natomic bombs. From north and west and south, the allied aeroplanes rose\nin response and swept down upon this sudden attack. So it was that war\nin the air began. Men rode upon the whirlwind that night and slew and\nfell like archangels. The sky rained heroes upon the astonished earth.\nSurely the last fights of mankind were the best. What was the heavy\npounding of your Homeric swordsmen, what was the creaking charge of\nchariots, beside this swift rush, this crash, this giddy triumph, this\nheadlong swoop to death?\n\nAnd then athwart this whirling rush of aerial duels that swooped and\nlocked and dropped in the void between the lamp-lights and the stars,\ncame a great wind and a crash louder than thunder, and first one and\nthen a score of lengthening fiery serpents plunged hungrily down upon\nthe Dutchmen\'s dykes and struck between land and sea and flared up again\nin enormous columns of glare and crimsoned smoke and steam.\n\nAnd out of the darkness leapt the little land, with its spires and\ntrees, aghast with terror, still and distinct, and the sea, tumbled with\nanger, red-foaming like a sea of blood....\n\nOver the populous country below went a strange multitudinous crying and\na flurry of alarm bells....\n\nThe surviving aeroplanes turned about and fled out of the sky, like\nthings that suddenly know themselves to be wicked....\n\nThrough a dozen thunderously flaming gaps that no water might quench,\nthe waves came roaring in upon the land....\n\nSection 8\n\n\'We had cursed our luck,\' says Barnet, \'that we could not get to our\nquarters at Alkmaar that night. There, we were told, were provisions,\ntobacco, and everything for which we craved. But the main canal from\nZaandam and Amsterdam was hopelessly jammed with craft, and we were glad\nof a chance opening that enabled us to get out of the main column and\nlie up in a kind of little harbour very much neglected and weedgrown\nbefore a deserted house. We broke into this and found some herrings in\na barrel, a heap of cheeses, and stone bottles of gin in the cellar;\nand with this I cheered my starving men. We made fires and toasted the\ncheese and grilled our herrings. None of us had slept for nearly forty\nhours, and I determined to stay in this refuge until dawn and then if\nthe traffic was still choked leave the barge and march the rest of the\nway into Alkmaar.\n\n\'This place we had got into was perhaps a hundred yards from the canal\nand underneath a little brick bridge we could see the flotilla still,\nand hear the voices of the soldiers. Presently five or six other barges\ncame through and lay up in the meer near by us, and with two of these,\nfull of men of the Antrim regiment, I shared my find of provisions. In\nreturn we got tobacco. A large expanse of water spread to the westward\nof us and beyond were a cluster of roofs and one or two church towers.\nThe barge was rather cramped for so many men, and I let several squads,\nthirty or forty perhaps altogether, bivouac on the bank. I did not let\nthem go into the house on account of the furniture, and I left a note of\nindebtedness for the food we had taken. We were particularly glad of our\ntobacco and fires, because of the numerous mosquitoes that rose about\nus.\n\n\'The gate of the house from which we had provisioned ourselves was\nadorned with the legend, Vreugde bij Vrede, \"Joy with Peace,\" and it\nbore every mark of the busy retirement of a comfort-loving proprietor.\nI went along his garden, which was gay and delightful with big bushes of\nrose and sweet brier, to a quaint little summer-house, and there I sat\nand watched the men in groups cooking and squatting along the bank. The\nsun was setting in a nearly cloudless sky.\n\n\'For the last two weeks I had been a wholly occupied man, intent only\nupon obeying the orders that came down to me. All through this time I\nhad been working to the very limit of my mental and physical faculties,\nand my only moments of rest had been devoted to snatches of sleep. Now\ncame this rare, unexpected interlude, and I could look detachedly upon\nwhat I was doing and feel something of its infinite wonderfulness. I was\nirradiated with affection for the men of my company and with admiration\nat their cheerful acquiescence in the subordination and needs of our\npositions. I watched their proceedings and heard their pleasant voices.\nHow willing those men were! How ready to accept leadership and forget\nthemselves in collective ends! I thought how manfully they had gone\nthrough all the strains and toil of the last two weeks, how they\nhad toughened and shaken down to comradeship together, and how much\nsweetness there is after all in our foolish human blood. For they were\njust one casual sample of the species--their patience and readiness\nlay, as the energy of the atom had lain, still waiting to be properly\nutilised. Again it came to me with overpowering force that the supreme\nneed of our race is leading, that the supreme task is to discover\nleading, to forget oneself in realising the collective purpose of the\nrace. Once more I saw life plain....\'\n\nVery characteristic is that of the \'rather too corpulent\' young\nofficer, who was afterwards to set it all down in the Wander Jahre. Very\ncharacteristic, too, it is of the change in men\'s hearts that was even\nthen preparing a new phase of human history.\n\nHe goes on to write of the escape from individuality in science and\nservice, and of his discovery of this \'salvation.\' All that was then,\nno doubt, very moving and original; now it seems only the most obvious\ncommonplace of human life.\n\nThe glow of the sunset faded, the twilight deepened into night. The\nfires burnt the brighter, and some Irishmen away across the meer started\nsinging. But Barnet\'s men were too weary for that sort of thing, and\nsoon the bank and the barge were heaped with sleeping forms.\n\n\'I alone seemed unable to sleep. I suppose I was over-weary, and after\na little feverish slumber by the tiller of the barge I sat up, awake and\nuneasy....\n\n\'That night Holland seemed all sky. There was just a little black lower\nrim to things, a steeple, perhaps, or a line of poplars, and then the\ngreat hemisphere swept over us. As at first the sky was empty. Yet my\nuneasiness referred itself in some vague way to the sky.\n\n\'And now I was melancholy. I found something strangely sorrowful and\nsubmissive in the sleepers all about me, those men who had marched so\nfar, who had left all the established texture of their lives behind them\nto come upon this mad campaign, this campaign that signified nothing and\nconsumed everything, this mere fever of fighting. I saw how little and\nfeeble is the life of man, a thing of chances, preposterously unable\nto find the will to realise even the most timid of its dreams. And I\nwondered if always it would be so, if man was a doomed animal who would\nnever to the last days of his time take hold of fate and change it to\nhis will. Always, it may be, he will remain kindly but jealous, desirous\nbut discursive, able and unwisely impulsive, until Saturn who begot him\nshall devour him in his turn....\n\n\'I was roused from these thoughts by the sudden realisation of the\npresence of a squadron of aeroplanes far away to the north-east and very\nhigh. They looked like little black dashes against the midnight blue.\nI remember that I looked up at them at first rather idly--as one might\nnotice a flight of birds. Then I perceived that they were only the\nextreme wing of a great fleet that was advancing in a long line very\nswiftly from the direction of the frontier and my attention tightened.\n\n\'Directly I saw that fleet I was astonished not to have seen it before.\n\n\'I stood up softly, undesirous of disturbing my companions, but with my\nheart beating now rather more rapidly with surprise and excitement.\nI strained my ears for any sound of guns along our front. Almost\ninstinctively I turned about for protection to the south and west, and\npeered; and then I saw coming as fast and much nearer to me, as if they\nhad sprung out of the darkness, three banks of aeroplanes; a group\nof squadrons very high, a main body at a height perhaps of one or two\nthousand feet, and a doubtful number flying low and very indistinct. The\nmiddle ones were so thick they kept putting out groups of stars. And I\nrealised that after all there was to be fighting in the air.\n\n\'There was something extraordinarily strange in this swift, noiseless\nconvergence of nearly invisible combatants above the sleeping hosts.\nEvery one about me was still unconscious; there was no sign as yet of\nany agitation among the shipping on the main canal, whose whole course,\ndotted with unsuspicious lights and fringed with fires, must have been\nclearly perceptible from above. Then a long way off towards Alkmaar I\nheard bugles, and after that shots, and then a wild clamour of bells. I\ndetermined to let my men sleep on for as long as they could....\n\n\'The battle was joined with the swiftness of dreaming. I do not think it\ncan have been five minutes from the moment when I first became aware of\nthe Central European air fleet to the contact of the two forces. I saw\nit quite plainly in silhouette against the luminous blue of the northern\nsky. The allied aeroplanes--they were mostly French--came pouring down\nlike a fierce shower upon the middle of the Central European fleet.\nThey looked exactly like a coarser sort of rain. There was a crackling\nsound--the first sound I heard--it reminded one of the Aurora Borealis,\nand I supposed it was an interchange of rifle shots. There were flashes\nlike summer lightning; and then all the sky became a whirling confusion\nof battle that was still largely noiseless. Some of the Central European\naeroplanes were certainly charged and overset; others seemed to collapse\nand fall and then flare out with so bright a light that it took the edge\noff one\'s vision and made the rest of the battle disappear as though it\nhad been snatched back out of sight.\n\n\'And then, while I still peered and tried to shade these flames from my\neyes with my hand, and while the men about me were beginning to stir,\nthe atomic bombs were thrown at the dykes. They made a mighty thunder in\nthe air, and fell like Lucifer in the picture, leaving a flaring\ntrail in the sky. The night, which had been pellucid and detailed\nand eventful, seemed to vanish, to be replaced abruptly by a black\nbackground to these tremendous pillars of fire....\n\n\'Hard upon the sound of them came a roaring wind, and the sky was filled\nwith flickering lightnings and rushing clouds....\n\n\'There was something discontinuous in this impact. At one moment I was\na lonely watcher in a sleeping world; the next saw every one about me\nafoot, the whole world awake and amazed....\n\n\'And then the wind had struck me a buffet, taken my helmet and swept\naside the summerhouse of Vreugde bij Vrede, as a scythe sweeps away\ngrass. I saw the bombs fall, and then watched a great crimson flare leap\nresponsive to each impact, and mountainous masses of red-lit steam and\nflying fragments clamber up towards the zenith. Against the glare I saw\nthe country-side for miles standing black and clear, churches, trees,\nchimneys. And suddenly I understood. The Central Europeans had burst\nthe dykes. Those flares meant the bursting of the dykes, and in a little\nwhile the sea-water would be upon us....\'\n\nHe goes on to tell with a certain prolixity of the steps he took--and\nall things considered they were very intelligent steps--to meet this\namazing crisis. He got his men aboard and hailed the adjacent barges;\nhe got the man who acted as barge engineer at his post and the engines\nworking, he cast loose from his moorings. Then he bethought himself of\nfood, and contrived to land five men, get in a few dozen cheeses, and\nship his men again before the inundation reached them.\n\nHe is reasonably proud of this piece of coolness. His idea was to take\nthe wave head-on and with his engines full speed ahead. And all the\nwhile he was thanking heaven he was not in the jam of traffic in the\nmain canal. He rather, I think, overestimated the probable rush of\nwaters; he dreaded being swept away, he explains, and smashed against\nhouses and trees.\n\nHe does not give any estimate of the time it took between the bursting\nof the dykes and the arrival of the waters, but it was probably an\ninterval of about twenty minutes or half an hour. He was working now\nin darkness--save for the light of his lantern--and in a great wind. He\nhung out head and stern lights....\n\nWhirling torrents of steam were pouring up from the advancing waters,\nwhich had rushed, it must be remembered, through nearly incandescent\ngaps in the sea defences, and this vast uprush of vapour soon veiled the\nflaring centres of explosion altogether.\n\n\'The waters came at last, an advancing cascade. It was like a broad\nroller sweeping across the country. They came with a deep, roaring\nsound. I had expected a Niagara, but the total fall of the front could\nnot have been much more than twelve feet. Our barge hesitated for a\nmoment, took a dose over her bows, and then lifted. I signalled for full\nspeed ahead and brought her head upstream, and held on like grim death\nto keep her there.\n\n\'There was a wind about as strong as the flood, and I found we were\npounding against every conceivable buoyant object that had been between\nus and the sea. The only light in the world now came from our lamps,\nthe steam became impenetrable at a score of yards from the boat, and\nthe roar of the wind and water cut us off from all remoter sounds. The\nblack, shining waters swirled by, coming into the light of our lamps out\nof an ebony blackness and vanishing again into impenetrable black.\nAnd on the waters came shapes, came things that flashed upon us for a\nmoment, now a half-submerged boat, now a cow, now a huge fragment of a\nhouse\'s timberings, now a muddle of packing-cases and scaffolding.\nThe things clapped into sight like something shown by the opening of a\nshutter, and then bumped shatteringly against us or rushed by us. Once I\nsaw very clearly a man\'s white face....\n\n\'All the while a group of labouring, half-submerged trees remained ahead\nof us, drawing very slowly nearer. I steered a course to avoid them.\nThey seemed to gesticulate a frantic despair against the black steam\nclouds behind. Once a great branch detached itself and tore shuddering\nby me. We did, on the whole, make headway. The last I saw of Vreugde bij\nVrede before the night swallowed it, was almost dead astern of us....\'\n\nSection 9\n\nMorning found Barnet still afloat. The bows of his barge had been badly\nstrained, and his men were pumping or baling in relays. He had got about\na dozen half-drowned people aboard whose boat had capsized near him, and\nhe had three other boats in tow. He was afloat, and somewhere between\nAmsterdam and Alkmaar, but he could not tell where. It was a day that\nwas still half night. Gray waters stretched in every direction under a\ndark gray sky, and out of the waves rose the upper parts of houses, in\nmany cases ruined, the tops of trees, windmills, in fact the upper third\nof all the familiar Dutch scenery; and on it there drifted a dimly seen\nflotilla of barges, small boats, many overturned, furniture, rafts,\ntimbering, and miscellaneous objects.\n\nThe drowned were under water that morning. Only here and there did a\ndead cow or a stiff figure still clinging stoutly to a box or chair or\nsuch-like buoy hint at the hidden massacre. It was not till the Thursday\nthat the dead came to the surface in any quantity. The view was bounded\non every side by a gray mist that closed overhead in a gray canopy. The\nair cleared in the afternoon, and then, far away to the west under great\nbanks of steam and dust, the flaming red eruption of the atomic bombs\ncame visible across the waste of water.\n\nThey showed flat and sullen through the mist, like London sunsets. \'They\nsat upon the sea,\' says Barnet, \'like frayed-out waterlilies of flame.\'\n\nBarnet seems to have spent the morning in rescue work along the track\nof the canal, in helping people who were adrift, in picking up derelict\nboats, and in taking people out of imperilled houses. He found other\nmilitary barges similarly employed, and it was only as the day wore on\nand the immediate appeals for aid were satisfied that he thought of food\nand drink for his men, and what course he had better pursue. They had a\nlittle cheese, but no water. \'Orders,\' that mysterious direction, had at\nlast altogether disappeared. He perceived he had now to act upon his own\nresponsibility.\n\n\'One\'s sense was of a destruction so far-reaching and of a world so\naltered that it seemed foolish to go in any direction and expect to find\nthings as they had been before the war began. I sat on the quarter-deck\nwith Mylius my engineer and Kemp and two others of the non-commissioned\nofficers, and we consulted upon our line of action. We were foodless and\naimless. We agreed that our fighting value was extremely small, and that\nour first duty was to get ourselves in touch with food and instructions\nagain. Whatever plan of campaign had directed our movements was\nmanifestly smashed to bits. Mylius was of opinion that we could take\na line westward and get back to England across the North Sea. He\ncalculated that with such a motor barge as ours it would be possible to\nreach the Yorkshire coast within four-and-twenty hours. But this idea\nI overruled because of the shortness of our provisions, and more\nparticularly because of our urgent need of water.\n\n\'Every boat we drew near now hailed us for water, and their demands did\nmuch to exasperate our thirst. I decided that if we went away to the\nsouth we should reach hilly country, or at least country that was not\nsubmerged, and then we should be able to land, find some stream, drink,\nand get supplies and news. Many of the barges adrift in the haze about\nus were filled with British soldiers and had floated up from the Nord\nSee Canal, but none of them were any better informed than ourselves of\nthe course of events. \"Orders\" had, in fact, vanished out of the sky.\n\n\'\"Orders\" made a temporary reappearance late that evening in the form\nof a megaphone hail from a British torpedo boat, announcing a truce, and\ngiving the welcome information that food and water were being hurried\ndown the Rhine and were to be found on the barge flotilla lying over the\nold Rhine above Leiden.\'...\n\nWe will not follow Barnet, however, in the description of his strange\noverland voyage among trees and houses and churches by Zaandam and\nbetween Haarlem and Amsterdam, to Leiden. It was a voyage in a red-lit\nmist, in a world of steamy silhouette, full of strange voices and\nperplexity, and with every other sensation dominated by a feverish\nthirst. \'We sat,\' he says, \'in a little huddled group, saying very\nlittle, and the men forward were mere knots of silent endurance. Our\nonly continuing sound was the persistent mewing of a cat one of the men\nhad rescued from a floating hayrick near Zaandam. We kept a southward\ncourse by a watch-chain compass Mylius had produced....\n\n\'I do not think any of us felt we belonged to a defeated army, nor had\nwe any strong sense of the war as the dominating fact about us. Our\nmental setting had far more of the effect of a huge natural catastrophe.\nThe atomic bombs had dwarfed the international issues to complete\ninsignificance. When our minds wandered from the preoccupations of our\nimmediate needs, we speculated upon the possibility of stopping the use\nof these frightful explosives before the world was utterly destroyed.\nFor to us it seemed quite plain that these bombs and the still greater\npower of destruction of which they were the precursors might quite\neasily shatter every relationship and institution of mankind.\n\n\'\"What will they be doing,\" asked Mylius, \"what will they be doing?\nIt\'s plain we\'ve got to put an end to war. It\'s plain things have to be\nrun some way. THIS--all this--is impossible.\"\n\n\'I made no immediate answer. Something--I cannot think what--had brought\nback to me the figure of that man I had seen wounded on the very first\nday of actual fighting. I saw again his angry, tearful eyes, and that\npoor, dripping, bloody mess that had been a skilful human hand five\nminutes before, thrust out in indignant protest. \"Damned foolery,\" he\nhad stormed and sobbed, \"damned foolery. My right hand, sir! My RIGHT\nhand....\"\n\n\'My faith had for a time gone altogether out of me. \"I think we are\ntoo--too silly,\" I said to Mylius, \"ever to stop war. If we\'d had the\nsense to do it, we should have done it before this. I think this----\" I\npointed to the gaunt black outline of a smashed windmill that stuck up,\nridiculous and ugly, above the blood-lit waters--\"this is the end.\"\'\n\nSection 10\n\nBut now our history must part company with Frederick Barnet and his\nbarge-load of hungry and starving men.\n\nFor a time in western Europe at least it was indeed as if civilisation\nhad come to a final collapse. These crowning buds upon the tradition\nthat Napoleon planted and Bismarck watered, opened and flared \'like\nwaterlilies of flame\' over nations destroyed, over churches smashed or\nsubmerged, towns ruined, fields lost to mankind for ever, and a million\nweltering bodies. Was this lesson enough for mankind, or would the\nflames of war still burn amidst the ruins?\n\nNeither Barnet nor his companions, it is clear, had any assurance in\ntheir answers to that question. Already once in the history of\nmankind, in America, before its discovery by the whites, an organised\ncivilisation had given way to a mere cult of warfare, specialised and\ncruel, and it seemed for a time to many a thoughtful man as if the\nwhole world was but to repeat on a larger scale this ascendancy of the\nwarrior, this triumph of the destructive instincts of the race.\n\nThe subsequent chapters of Barnet\'s narrative do but supply body to\nthis tragic possibility. He gives a series of vignettes of civilisation,\nshattered, it seemed, almost irreparably. He found the Belgian hills\nswarming with refugees and desolated by cholera; the vestiges of the\ncontending armies keeping order under a truce, without actual battles,\nbut with the cautious hostility of habit, and a great absence of plan\neverywhere.\n\nOverhead aeroplanes went on mysterious errands, and there were rumours\nof cannibalism and hysterical fanaticisms in the valleys of the Semoy\nand the forest region of the eastern Ardennes. There was the report\nof an attack upon Russia by the Chinese and Japanese, and of some huge\nrevolutionary outbreak in America. The weather was stormier than men had\never known it in those regions, with much thunder and lightning and wild\ncloud-bursts of rain....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD\n\nTHE ENDING OF WAR\n\nSection 1\n\nOn the mountain-side above the town of Brissago and commanding two\nlong stretches of Lake Maggiore, looking eastward to Bellinzona, and\nsouthward to Luino, there is a shelf of grass meadows which is very\nbeautiful in springtime with a great multitude of wild flowers. More\nparticularly is this so in early June, when the slender asphodel Saint\nBruno\'s lily, with its spike of white blossom, is in flower. To the\nwestward of this delightful shelf there is a deep and densely wooded\ntrench, a great gulf of blue some mile or so in width out of which\narise great precipices very high and wild. Above the asphodel fields the\nmountains climb in rocky slopes to solitudes of stone and sunlight that\ncurve round and join that wall of cliffs in one common skyline. This\ndesolate and austere background contrasts very vividly with the glowing\nserenity of the great lake below, with the spacious view of fertile\nhills and roads and villages and islands to south and east, and with the\nhotly golden rice flats of the Val Maggia to the north. And because\nit was a remote and insignificant place, far away out of the crowding\ntragedies of that year of disaster, away from burning cities and\nstarving multitudes, bracing and tranquillising and hidden, it was here\nthat there gathered the conference of rulers that was to arrest, if\npossible, before it was too late, the debacle of civilisation. Here,\nbrought together by the indefatigable energy of that impassioned\nhumanitarian, Leblanc, the French ambassador at Washington, the chief\nPowers of the world were to meet in a last desperate conference to \'save\nhumanity.\'\n\nLeblanc was one of those ingenuous men whose lot would have been\ninsignificant in any period of security, but who have been caught up\nto an immortal role in history by the sudden simplification of\nhuman affairs through some tragical crisis, to the measure of their\nsimplicity. Such a man was Abraham Lincoln, and such was Garibaldi.\nAnd Leblanc, with his transparent childish innocence, his entire\nself-forgetfulness, came into this confusion of distrust and intricate\ndisaster with an invincible appeal for the manifest sanities of the\nsituation. His voice, when he spoke, was \'full of remonstrance.\' He was\na little bald, spectacled man, inspired by that intellectual idealism\nwhich has been one of the peculiar gifts of France to humanity. He was\npossessed of one clear persuasion, that war must end, and that the only\nway to end war was to have but one government for mankind. He brushed\naside all other considerations. At the very outbreak of the war, so soon\nas the two capitals of the belligerents had been wrecked, he went to the\npresident in the White House with this proposal. He made it as if it was\na matter of course. He was fortunate to be in Washington and in touch\nwith that gigantic childishness which was the characteristic of the\nAmerican imagination. For the Americans also were among the simple\npeoples by whom the world was saved. He won over the American president\nand the American government to his general ideas; at any rate they\nsupported him sufficiently to give him a standing with the more\nsceptical European governments, and with this backing he set to work--it\nseemed the most fantastic of enterprises--to bring together all the\nrulers of the world and unify them. He wrote innumerable letters, he\nsent messages, he went desperate journeys, he enlisted whatever support\nhe could find; no one was too humble for an ally or too obstinate\nfor his advances; through the terrible autumn of the last wars this\npersistent little visionary in spectacles must have seemed rather like a\nhopeful canary twittering during a thunderstorm. And no accumulation of\ndisasters daunted his conviction that they could be ended.\n\nFor the whole world was flaring then into a monstrous phase of\ndestruction. Power after Power about the armed globe sought to\nanticipate attack by aggression. They went to war in a delirium of\npanic, in order to use their bombs first. China and Japan had assailed\nRussia and destroyed Moscow, the United States had attacked Japan, India\nwas in anarchistic revolt with Delhi a pit of fire spouting death and\nflame; the redoubtable King of the Balkans was mobilising. It must\nhave seemed plain at last to every one in those days that the world\nwas slipping headlong to anarchy. By the spring of 1959 from nearly\ntwo hundred centres, and every week added to their number, roared the\nunquenchable crimson conflagrations of the atomic bombs, the flimsy\nfabric of the world\'s credit had vanished, industry was completely\ndisorganised and every city, every thickly populated area was starving\nor trembled on the verge of starvation. Most of the capital cities of\nthe world were burning; millions of people had already perished, and\nover great areas government was at an end. Humanity has been compared\nby one contemporary writer to a sleeper who handles matches in his sleep\nand wakes to find himself in flames.\n\nFor many months it was an open question whether there was to be found\nthroughout all the race the will and intelligence to face these new\nconditions and make even an attempt to arrest the downfall of the social\norder. For a time the war spirit defeated every effort to rally the\nforces of preservation and construction. Leblanc seemed to be protesting\nagainst earthquakes, and as likely to find a spirit of reason in the\ncrater of Etna. Even though the shattered official governments now\nclamoured for peace, bands of irreconcilables and invincible patriots,\nusurpers, adventurers, and political desperadoes, were everywhere in\npossession of the simple apparatus for the disengagement of atomic\nenergy and the initiation of new centres of destruction. The stuff\nexercised an irresistible fascination upon a certain type of mind.\nWhy should any one give in while he can still destroy his enemies?\nSurrender? While there is still a chance of blowing them to dust? The\npower of destruction which had once been the ultimate privilege\nof government was now the only power left in the world--and it was\neverywhere. There were few thoughtful men during that phase of\nblazing waste who did not pass through such moods of despair as Barnet\ndescribes, and declare with him: \'This is the end....\'\n\nAnd all the while Leblanc was going to and fro with glittering glasses\nand an inexhaustible persuasiveness, urging the manifest reasonableness\nof his view upon ears that ceased presently to be inattentive. Never at\nany time did he betray a doubt that all this chaotic conflict would end.\nNo nurse during a nursery uproar was ever so certain of the inevitable\nultimate peace. From being treated as an amiable dreamer he came by\ninsensible degrees to be regarded as an extravagant possibility. Then he\nbegan to seem even practicable. The people who listened to him in 1958\nwith a smiling impatience, were eager before 1959 was four months old\nto know just exactly what he thought might be done. He answered with the\npatience of a philosopher and the lucidity of a Frenchman. He began to\nreceive responses of a more and more hopeful type. He came across\nthe Atlantic to Italy, and there he gathered in the promises for this\ncongress. He chose those high meadows above Brissago for the reasons we\nhave stated. \'We must get away,\' he said, \'from old associations.\' He\nset to work requisitioning material for his conference with an assurance\nthat was justified by the replies. With a slight incredulity the\nconference which was to begin a new order in the world, gathered itself\ntogether. Leblanc summoned it without arrogance, he controlled it by\nvirtue of an infinite humility. Men appeared upon those upland slopes\nwith the apparatus for wireless telegraphy; others followed with tents\nand provisions; a little cable was flung down to a convenient point\nupon the Locarno road below. Leblanc arrived, sedulously directing every\ndetail that would affect the tone of the assembly. He might have been a\ncourier in advance rather than the originator of the gathering. And\nthen there arrived, some by the cable, most by aeroplane, a few in other\nfashions, the men who had been called together to confer upon the state\nof the world. It was to be a conference without a name. Nine monarchs,\nthe presidents of four republics, a number of ministers and ambassadors,\npowerful journalists, and such-like prominent and influential men, took\npart in it. There were even scientific men; and that world-famous old\nman, Holsten, came with the others to contribute his amateur statecraft\nto the desperate problem of the age. Only Leblanc would have dared so to\nsummon figure heads and powers and intelligence, or have had the courage\nto hope for their agreement....\n\nSection 2\n\nAnd one at least of those who were called to this conference of\ngovernments came to it on foot. This was King Egbert, the young king\nof the most venerable kingdom in Europe. He was a rebel, and had always\nbeen of deliberate choice a rebel against the magnificence of his\nposition. He affected long pedestrian tours and a disposition to sleep\nin the open air. He came now over the Pass of Sta Maria Maggiore and\nby boat up the lake to Brissago; thence he walked up the mountain, a\npleasant path set with oaks and sweet chestnut. For provision on the\nwalk, for he did not want to hurry, he carried with him a pocketful\nof bread and cheese. A certain small retinue that was necessary to his\ncomfort and dignity upon occasions of state he sent on by the cable car,\nand with him walked his private secretary, Firmin, a man who had\nthrown up the Professorship of World Politics in the London School of\nSociology, Economics, and Political Science, to take up these duties.\nFirmin was a man of strong rather than rapid thought, he had anticipated\ngreat influence in this new position, and after some years he was still\nonly beginning to apprehend how largely his function was to listen.\nOriginally he had been something of a thinker upon international\npolitics, an authority upon tariffs and strategy, and a valued\ncontributor to various of the higher organs of public opinion, but the\natomic bombs had taken him by surprise, and he had still to recover\ncompletely from his pre-atomic opinions and the silencing effect of\nthose sustained explosives.\n\nThe king\'s freedom from the trammels of etiquette was very complete. In\ntheory--and he abounded in theory--his manners were purely democratic.\nIt was by sheer habit and inadvertency that he permitted Firmin, who had\ndiscovered a rucksack in a small shop in the town below, to carry\nboth bottles of beer. The king had never, as a matter of fact, carried\nanything for himself in his life, and he had never noted that he did not\ndo so.\n\n\'We will have nobody with us,\' he said, \'at all. We will be perfectly\nsimple.\'\n\nSo Firmin carried the beer.\n\nAs they walked up--it was the king made the pace rather than\nFirmin--they talked of the conference before them, and Firmin, with a\ncertain want of assurance that would have surprised him in himself\nin the days of his Professorship, sought to define the policy of his\ncompanion. \'In its broader form, sir,\' said Firmin; \'I admit a certain\nplausibility in this project of Leblanc\'s, but I feel that although\nit may be advisable to set up some sort of general control for\nInternational affairs--a sort of Hague Court with extended powers--that\nis no reason whatever for losing sight of the principles of national and\nimperial autonomy.\'\n\n\'Firmin,\' said the king, \'I am going to set my brother kings a good\nexample.\'\n\nFirmin intimated a curiosity that veiled a dread.\n\n\'By chucking all that nonsense,\' said the king.\n\nHe quickened his pace as Firmin, who was already a little out of breath,\nbetrayed a disposition to reply.\n\n\'I am going to chuck all that nonsense,\' said the king, as Firmin\nprepared to speak. \'I am going to fling my royalty and empire on the\ntable--and declare at once I don\'t mean to haggle. It\'s haggling--about\nrights--has been the devil in human affairs, for--always. I am going to\nstop this nonsense.\'\n\nFirmin halted abruptly. \'But, sir!\' he cried.\n\nThe king stopped six yards ahead of him and looked back at his adviser\'s\nperspiring visage.\n\n\'Do you really think, Firmin, that I am here as--as an infernal\npolitician to put my crown and my flag and my claims and so forth in the\nway of peace? That little Frenchman is right. You know he is right\nas well as I do. Those things are over. We--we kings and rulers and\nrepresentatives have been at the very heart of the mischief. Of course\nwe imply separation, and of course separation means the threat of war,\nand of course the threat of war means the accumulation of more and more\natomic bombs. The old game\'s up. But, I say, we mustn\'t stand here, you\nknow. The world waits. Don\'t you think the old game\'s up, Firmin?\'\n\nFirmin adjusted a strap, passed a hand over his wet forehead, and\nfollowed earnestly. \'I admit, sir,\' he said to a receding back, \'that\nthere has to be some sort of hegemony, some sort of Amphictyonic\ncouncil----\'\n\n\'There\'s got to be one simple government for all the world,\' said the\nking over his shoulder.\n\n\'But as for a reckless, unqualified abandonment, sir----\'\n\n\'BANG!\' cried the king.\n\nFirmin made no answer to this interruption. But a faint shadow of\nannoyance passed across his heated features.\n\n\'Yesterday,\' said the king, by way of explanation, \'the Japanese very\nnearly got San Francisco.\'\n\n\'I hadn\'t heard, sir.\'\n\n\'The Americans ran the Japanese aeroplane down into the sea and there\nthe bomb got busted.\'\n\n\'Under the sea, sir?\'\n\n\'Yes. Submarine volcano. The steam is in sight of the Californian coast.\nIt was as near as that. And with things like this happening, you want\nme to go up this hill and haggle. Consider the effect of that upon my\nimperial cousin--and all the others!\'\n\n\'HE will haggle, sir.\'\n\n\'Not a bit of it,\' said the king.\n\n\'But, sir.\'\n\n\'Leblanc won\'t let him.\'\n\nFirmin halted abruptly and gave a vicious pull at the offending strap.\n\'Sir, he will listen to his advisers,\' he said, in a tone that in\nsome subtle way seemed to implicate his master with the trouble of the\nknapsack.\n\nThe king considered him.\n\n\'We will go just a little higher,\' he said. \'I want to find this\nunoccupied village they spoke of, and then we will drink that beer. It\ncan\'t be far. We will drink the beer and throw away the bottles. And\nthen, Firmin, I shall ask you to look at things in a more generous\nlight.... Because, you know, you must....\'\n\nHe turned about and for some time the only sound they made was the\nnoise of their boots upon the loose stones of the way and the irregular\nbreathing of Firmin.\n\nAt length, as it seemed to Firmin, or quite soon, as it seemed to the\nking, the gradient of the path diminished, the way widened out, and they\nfound themselves in a very beautiful place indeed. It was one of those\nupland clusters of sheds and houses that are still to be found in the\nmountains of North Italy, buildings that were used only in the high\nsummer, and which it was the custom to leave locked up and deserted\nthrough all the winter and spring, and up to the middle of June. The\nbuildings were of a soft-toned gray stone, buried in rich green grass,\nshadowed by chestnut trees and lit by an extraordinary blaze of yellow\nbroom. Never had the king seen broom so glorious; he shouted at the\nlight of it, for it seemed to give out more sunlight even than it\nreceived; he sat down impulsively on a lichenous stone, tugged out his\nbread and cheese, and bade Firmin thrust the beer into the shaded weeds\nto cool.\n\n\'The things people miss, Firmin,\' he said, \'who go up into the air in\nships!\'\n\nFirmin looked around him with an ungenial eye. \'You see it at its best,\nsir,\' he said, \'before the peasants come here again and make it filthy.\'\n\n\'It would be beautiful anyhow,\' said the king.\n\n\'Superficially, sir,\' said Firmin. \'But it stands for a social order\nthat is fast vanishing away. Indeed, judging by the grass between the\nstones and in the huts, I am inclined to doubt if it is in use even\nnow.\'\n\n\'I suppose,\' said the king, \'they would come up immediately the hay\non this flower meadow is cut. It would be those slow, creamy-coloured\nbeasts, I expect, one sees on the roads below, and swarthy girls with\nred handkerchiefs over their black hair.... It is wonderful to think how\nlong that beautiful old life lasted. In the Roman times and long ages\nbefore ever the rumour of the Romans had come into these parts, men\ndrove their cattle up into these places as the summer came on.... How\nhaunted is this place! There have been quarrels here, hopes, children\nhave played here and lived to be old crones and old gaffers, and died,\nand so it has gone on for thousands of lives. Lovers, innumerable\nlovers, have caressed amidst this golden broom....\'\n\nHe meditated over a busy mouthful of bread and cheese.\n\n\'We ought to have brought a tankard for that beer,\' he said.\n\nFirmin produced a folding aluminium cup, and the king was pleased to\ndrink.\n\n\'I wish, sir,\' said Firmin suddenly, \'I could induce you at least to\ndelay your decision----\'\n\n\'It\'s no good talking, Firmin,\' said the king. \'My mind\'s as clear as\ndaylight.\'\n\n\'Sire,\' protested Firmin, with his voice full of bread and cheese and\ngenuine emotion, \'have you no respect for your kingship?\'\n\nThe king paused before he answered with unwonted gravity. \'It\'s just\nbecause I have, Firmin, that I won\'t be a puppet in this game of\ninternational politics.\' He regarded his companion for a moment and then\nremarked: \'Kingship!--what do YOU know of kingship, Firmin?\n\n\'Yes,\' cried the king to his astonished counsellor. \'For the first time\nin my life I am going to be a king. I am going to lead, and lead by\nmy own authority. For a dozen generations my family has been a set of\ndummies in the hands of their advisers. Advisers! Now I am going to be a\nreal king--and I am going to--to abolish, dispose of, finish, the crown\nto which I have been a slave. But what a world of paralysing shams\nthis roaring stuff has ended! The rigid old world is in the melting-pot\nagain, and I, who seemed to be no more than the stuffing inside a regal\nrobe, I am a king among kings. I have to play my part at the head of\nthings and put an end to blood and fire and idiot disorder.\'\n\n\'But, sir,\' protested Firmin.\n\n\'This man Leblanc is right. The whole world has got to be a Republic,\none and indivisible. You know that, and my duty is to make that easy.\nA king should lead his people; you want me to stick on their backs like\nsome Old Man of the Sea. To-day must be a sacrament of kings. Our trust\nfor mankind is done with and ended. We must part our robes among them,\nwe must part our kingship among them, and say to them all, now the\nking in every one must rule the world.... Have you no sense of the\nmagnificence of this occasion? You want me, Firmin, you want me to go\nup there and haggle like a damned little solicitor for some price, some\ncompensation, some qualification....\'\n\nFirmin shrugged his shoulders and assumed an expression of despair.\nMeanwhile, he conveyed, one must eat.\n\nFor a time neither spoke, and the king ate and turned over in his mind\nthe phrases of the speech he intended to make to the conference. By\nvirtue of the antiquity of his crown he was to preside, and he intended\nto make his presidency memorable. Reassured of his eloquence, he\nconsidered the despondent and sulky Firmin for a space.\n\n\'Firmin,\' he said, \'you have idealised kingship.\'\n\n\'It has been my dream, sir,\' said Firmin sorrowfully, \'to serve.\'\n\n\'At the levers, Firmin,\' said the king.\n\n\'You are pleased to be unjust,\' said Firmin, deeply hurt.\n\n\'I am pleased to be getting out of it,\' said the king.\n\n\'Oh, Firmin,\' he went on, \'have you no thought for me? Will you never\nrealise that I am not only flesh and blood but an imagination--with its\nrights. I am a king in revolt against that fetter they put upon my head.\nI am a king awake. My reverend grandparents never in all their august\nlives had a waking moment. They loved the job that you, you advisers,\ngave them; they never had a doubt of it. It was like giving a doll to\na woman who ought to have a child. They delighted in processions and\nopening things and being read addresses to, and visiting triplets and\nnonagenarians and all that sort of thing. Incredibly. They used to keep\nalbums of cuttings from all the illustrated papers showing them at it,\nand if the press-cutting parcels grew thin they were worried. It was all\nthat ever worried them. But there is something atavistic in me; I\nhark back to unconstitutional monarchs. They christened me too\nretrogressively, I think. I wanted to get things done. I was bored. I\nmight have fallen into vice, most intelligent and energetic princes do,\nbut the palace precautions were unusually thorough. I was brought up in\nthe purest court the world has ever seen.... Alertly pure.... So I\nread books, Firmin, and went about asking questions. The thing was bound\nto happen to one of us sooner or later. Perhaps, too, very likely I\'m\nnot vicious. I don\'t think I am.\'\n\nHe reflected. \'No,\' he said.\n\nFirmin cleared his throat. \'I don\'t think you are, sir,\' he said. \'You\nprefer----\'\n\nHe stopped short. He had been going to say \'talking.\' He substituted\n\'ideas.\'\n\n\'That world of royalty!\' the king went on. \'In a little while no one\nwill understand it any more. It will become a riddle....\n\n\'Among other things, it was a world of perpetual best clothes.\nEverything was in its best clothes for us, and usually wearing bunting.\nWith a cinema watching to see we took it properly. If you are a king,\nFirmin, and you go and look at a regiment, it instantly stops whatever\nit is doing, changes into full uniform and presents arms. When my august\nparents went in a train the coal in the tender used to be whitened. It\ndid, Firmin, and if coal had been white instead of black I have no doubt\nthe authorities would have blackened it. That was the spirit of our\ntreatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One\nnever saw anything in profile. One got an impression of a world that\nwas insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began to poke my little\nquestions into the Lord Chancellor and the archbishop and all the rest\nof them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general\neffect I produced was that I wasn\'t by any means displaying the Royal\nTact they had expected of me....\'\n\nHe meditated for a time.\n\n\'And yet, you know, there is something in the kingship, Firmin. It\nstiffened up my august little grandfather. It gave my grandmother a\nkind of awkward dignity even when she was cross--and she was very\noften cross. They both had a profound sense of responsibility. My poor\nfather\'s health was wretched during his brief career; nobody outside the\ncircle knows just how he screwed himself up to things. \"My people expect\nit,\" he used to say of this tiresome duty or that. Most of the things\nthey made him do were silly--it was part of a bad tradition, but\nthere was nothing silly in the way he set about them.... The spirit of\nkingship is a fine thing, Firmin; I feel it in my bones; I do not know\nwhat I might not be if I were not a king. I could die for my people,\nFirmin, and you couldn\'t. No, don\'t say you could die for me, because\nI know better. Don\'t think I forget my kingship, Firmin, don\'t imagine\nthat. I am a king, a kingly king, by right divine. The fact that I am\nalso a chattering young man makes not the slightest difference to that.\nBut the proper text-book for kings, Firmin, is none of the court memoirs\nand Welt-Politik books you would have me read; it is old Fraser\'s Golden\nBough. Have you read that, Firmin?\'\n\nFirmin had. \'Those were the authentic kings. In the end they were cut\nup and a bit given to everybody. They sprinkled the nations--with\nKingship.\'\n\nFirmin turned himself round and faced his royal master.\n\n\'What do you intend to do, sir?\' he asked. \'If you will not listen to\nme, what do you propose to do this afternoon?\'\n\nThe king flicked crumbs from his coat.\n\n\'Manifestly war has to stop for ever, Firmin. Manifestly this can only\nbe done by putting all the world under one government. Our crowns and\nflags are in the way. Manifestly they must go.\'\n\n\'Yes, sir,\' interrupted Firmin, \'but WHAT government? I don\'t see what\ngovernment you get by a universal abdication!\'\n\n\'Well,\' said the king, with his hands about his knees, \'WE shall be the\ngovernment.\'\n\n\'The conference?\' exclaimed Firmin.\n\n\'Who else?\' asked the king simply.\n\n\'It\'s perfectly simple,\' he added to Firmin\'s tremendous silence.\n\n\'But,\' cried Firmin, \'you must have sanctions! Will there be no form of\nelection, for example?\'\n\n\'Why should there be?\' asked the king, with intelligent curiosity.\n\n\'The consent of the governed.\'\n\n\'Firmin, we are just going to lay down our differences and take over\ngovernment. Without any election at all. Without any sanction. The\ngoverned will show their consent by silence. If any effective opposition\narises we shall ask it to come in and help. The true sanction of\nkingship is the grip upon the sceptre. We aren\'t going to worry people\nto vote for us. I\'m certain the mass of men does not want to be bothered\nwith such things.... We\'ll contrive a way for any one interested to join\nin. That\'s quite enough in the way of democracy. Perhaps later--when\nthings don\'t matter.... We shall govern all right, Firmin. Government\nonly becomes difficult when the lawyers get hold of it, and since these\ntroubles began the lawyers are shy. Indeed, come to think of it, I\nwonder where all the lawyers are.... Where are they? A lot, of course,\nwere bagged, some of the worst ones, when they blew up my legislature.\nYou never knew the late Lord Chancellor....\n\n\'Necessities bury rights. And create them. Lawyers live on dead rights\ndisinterred.... We\'ve done with that way of living. We won\'t have more\nlaw than a code can cover and beyond that government will be free....\n\n\'Before the sun sets to-day, Firmin, trust me, we shall have made our\nabdications, all of us, and declared the World Republic, supreme and\nindivisible. I wonder what my august grandmother would have made of it!\nAll my rights! . . . And then we shall go on governing. What else is\nthere to do? All over the world we shall declare that there is no longer\nmine or thine, but ours. China, the United States, two-thirds of Europe,\nwill certainly fall in and obey. They will have to do so. What else can\nthey do? Their official rulers are here with us. They won\'t be able\nto get together any sort of idea of not obeying us.... Then we\nshall declare that every sort of property is held in trust for the\nRepublic....\'\n\n\'But, sir!\' cried Firmin, suddenly enlightened. \'Has this been arranged\nalready?\'\n\n\'My dear Firmin, do you think we have come here, all of us, to talk\nat large? The talking has been done for half a century. Talking\nand writing. We are here to set the new thing, the simple, obvious,\nnecessary thing, going.\'\n\nHe stood up.\n\nFirmin, forgetting the habits of a score of years, remained seated.\n\n\'WELL,\' he said at last. \'And I have known nothing!\'\n\nThe king smiled very cheerfully. He liked these talks with Firmin.\n\nSection 3\n\nThat conference upon the Brissago meadows was one of the most\nheterogeneous collections of prominent people that has ever met\ntogether. Principalities and powers, stripped and shattered until all\ntheir pride and mystery were gone, met in a marvellous new humility.\nHere were kings and emperors whose capitals were lakes of flaming\ndestruction, statesmen whose countries had become chaos, scared\npoliticians and financial potentates. Here were leaders of thought and\nlearned investigators dragged reluctantly to the control of affairs.\nAltogether there were ninety-three of them, Leblanc\'s conception of\nthe head men of the world. They had all come to the realisation of the\nsimple truths that the indefatigable Leblanc had hammered into them;\nand, drawing his resources from the King of Italy, he had provisioned\nhis conference with a generous simplicity quite in accordance with the\nrest of his character, and so at last was able to make his astonishing\nand entirely rational appeal. He had appointed King Egbert the\npresident, he believed in this young man so firmly that he completely\ndominated him, and he spoke himself as a secretary might speak from the\npresident\'s left hand, and evidently did not realise himself that he was\ntelling them all exactly what they had to do. He imagined he was\nmerely recapitulating the obvious features of the situation for their\nconvenience. He was dressed in ill-fitting white silk clothes, and he\nconsulted a dingy little packet of notes as he spoke. They put him out.\nHe explained that he had never spoken from notes before, but that this\noccasion was exceptional.\n\nAnd then King Egbert spoke as he was expected to speak, and Leblanc\'s\nspectacles moistened at that flow of generous sentiment, most amiably\nand lightly expressed. \'We haven\'t to stand on ceremony,\' said the king,\n\'we have to govern the world. We have always pretended to govern the\nworld and here is our opportunity.\'\n\n\'Of course,\' whispered Leblanc, nodding his head rapidly, \'of course.\'\n\n\'The world has been smashed up, and we have to put it on its wheels\nagain,\' said King Egbert. \'And it is the simple common sense of this\ncrisis for all to help and none to seek advantage. Is that our tone or\nnot?\'\n\nThe gathering was too old and seasoned and miscellaneous for any great\ndisplays of enthusiasm, but that was its tone, and with an astonishment\nthat somehow became exhilarating it began to resign, repudiate, and\ndeclare its intentions. Firmin, taking notes behind his master, heard\neverything that had been foretold among the yellow broom, come\ntrue. With a queer feeling that he was dreaming, he assisted at the\nproclamation of the World State, and saw the message taken out to the\nwireless operators to be throbbed all round the habitable globe. \'And\nnext,\' said King Egbert, with a cheerful excitement in his voice, \'we\nhave to get every atom of Carolinum and all the plant for making it,\ninto our control....\'\n\nFirman was not alone in his incredulity. Not a man there who was not a\nvery amiable, reasonable, benevolent creature at bottom; some had been\nborn to power and some had happened upon it, some had struggled to get\nit, not clearly knowing what it was and what it implied, but none was\nirreconcilably set upon its retention at the price of cosmic disaster.\nTheir minds had been prepared by circumstances and sedulously cultivated\nby Leblanc; and now they took the broad obvious road along which King\nEgbert was leading them, with a mingled conviction of strangeness and\nnecessity. Things went very smoothly; the King of Italy explained the\narrangements that had been made for the protection of the camp from any\nfantastic attack; a couple of thousand of aeroplanes, each carrying a\nsharpshooter, guarded them, and there was an excellent system of relays,\nand at night all the sky would be searched by scores of lights, and the\nadmirable Leblanc gave luminous reasons for their camping just where\nthey were and going on with their administrative duties forthwith. He\nknew of this place, because he had happened upon it when holiday-making\nwith Madame Leblanc twenty years and more ago. \'There is very simple\nfare at present,\' he explained, \'on account of the disturbed state of\nthe countries about us. But we have excellent fresh milk, good red wine,\nbeef, bread, salad, and lemons.... In a few days I hope to place\nthings in the hands of a more efficient caterer....\'\n\nThe members of the new world government dined at three long tables on\ntrestles, and down the middle of these tables Leblanc, in spite of\nthe barrenness of his menu, had contrived to have a great multitude of\nbeautiful roses. There was similar accommodation for the secretaries and\nattendants at a lower level down the mountain. The assembly dined as it\nhad debated, in the open air, and over the dark crags to the west the\nglowing June sunset shone upon the banquet. There was no precedency now\namong the ninety-three, and King Egbert found himself between a pleasant\nlittle Japanese stranger in spectacles and his cousin of Central Europe,\nand opposite a great Bengali leader and the President of the United\nStates of America. Beyond the Japanese was Holsten, the old chemist, and\nLeblanc was a little way down the other side.\n\nThe king was still cheerfully talkative and abounded in ideas. He fell\npresently into an amiable controversy with the American, who seemed to\nfeel a lack of impressiveness in the occasion.\n\nIt was ever the Transatlantic tendency, due, no doubt, to the necessity\nof handling public questions in a bulky and striking manner, to\nover-emphasise and over-accentuate, and the president was touched by\nhis national failing. He suggested now that there should be a new era,\nstarting from that day as the first day of the first year.\n\nThe king demurred.\n\n\'From this day forth, sir, man enters upon his heritage,\' said the\nAmerican.\n\n\'Man,\' said the king, \'is always entering upon his heritage. You\nAmericans have a peculiar weakness for anniversaries--if you will\nforgive me saying so. Yes--I accuse you of a lust for dramatic effect.\nEverything is happening always, but you want to say this or this is the\nreal instant in time and subordinate all the others to it.\'\n\nThe American said something about an epoch-making day.\n\n\'But surely,\' said the king, \'you don\'t want us to condemn all humanity\nto a world-wide annual Fourth of July for ever and ever more. On account\nof this harmless necessary day of declarations. No conceivable day could\never deserve that. Ah! you do not know, as I do, the devastations of\nthe memorable. My poor grandparents were--RUBRICATED. The worst of these\nhuge celebrations is that they break up the dignified succession of\none\'s contemporary emotions. They interrupt. They set back. Suddenly\nout come the flags and fireworks, and the old enthusiasms are furbished\nup--and it\'s sheer destruction of the proper thing that ought to be\ngoing on. Sufficient unto the day is the celebration thereof. Let the\ndead past bury its dead. You see, in regard to the calendar, I am for\ndemocracy and you are for aristocracy. All things I hold, are august,\nand have a right to be lived through on their merits. No day should be\nsacrificed on the grave of departed events. What do you think of it,\nWilhelm?\'\n\n\'For the noble, yes, all days should be noble.\'\n\n\'Exactly my position,\' said the king, and felt pleased at what he had\nbeen saying.\n\nAnd then, since the American pressed his idea, the king contrived to\nshift the talk from the question of celebrating the epoch they were\nmaking to the question of the probabilities that lay ahead. Here every\none became diffident. They could see the world unified and at peace, but\nwhat detail was to follow from that unification they seemed indisposed\nto discuss. This diffidence struck the king as remarkable. He plunged\nupon the possibilities of science. All the huge expenditure that had\nhitherto gone into unproductive naval and military preparations, must\nnow, he declared, place research upon a new footing. \'Where one man\nworked we will have a thousand.\' He appealed to Holsten. \'We have only\nbegun to peep into these possibilities,\' he said. \'You at any rate have\nsounded the vaults of the treasure house.\'\n\n\'They are unfathomable,\' smiled Holsten.\n\n\'Man,\' said the American, with a manifest resolve to justify and\nreinstate himself after the flickering contradictions of the king, \'Man,\nI say, is only beginning to enter upon his heritage.\'\n\n\'Tell us some of the things you believe we shall presently learn, give\nus an idea of the things we may presently do,\' said the king to Holsten.\n\nHolsten opened out the vistas....\n\n\'Science,\' the king cried presently, \'is the new king of the world.\'\n\n\'OUR view,\' said the president, \'is that sovereignty resides with the\npeople.\'\n\n\'No!\' said the king, \'the sovereign is a being more subtle than that.\nAnd less arithmetical. Neither my family nor your emancipated people. It\nis something that floats about us, and above us, and through us. It is\nthat common impersonal will and sense of necessity of which Science is\nthe best understood and most typical aspect. It is the mind of the race.\nIt is that which has brought us here, which has bowed us all to its\ndemands....\'\n\nHe paused and glanced down the table at Leblanc, and then re-opened at\nhis former antagonist.\n\n\'There is a disposition,\' said the king, \'to regard this gathering as if\nit were actually doing what it appears to be doing, as if we ninety-odd\nmen of our own free will and wisdom were unifying the world. There is\na temptation to consider ourselves exceptionally fine fellows, and\nmasterful men, and all the rest of it. We are not. I doubt if we should\naverage out as anything abler than any other casually selected body\nof ninety-odd men. We are no creators, we are consequences, we are\nsalvagers--or salvagees. The thing to-day is not ourselves but the wind\nof conviction that has blown us hither....\'\n\nThe American had to confess he could hardly agree with the king\'s\nestimate of their average.\n\n\'Holsten, perhaps, and one or two others, might lift us a little,\' the\nking conceded. \'But the rest of us?\'\n\nHis eyes flitted once more towards Leblanc.\n\n\'Look at Leblanc,\' he said. \'He\'s just a simple soul. There are\nhundreds and thousands like him. I admit, a certain dexterity, a certain\nlucidity, but there is not a country town in France where there is not a\nLeblanc or so to be found about two o\'clock in its principal cafe. It\'s\njust that he isn\'t complicated or Super-Mannish, or any of those things\nthat has made all he has done possible. But in happier times, don\'t\nyou think, Wilhelm, he would have remained just what his father was,\na successful epicier, very clean, very accurate, very honest. And on\nholidays he would have gone out with Madame Leblanc and her knitting\nin a punt with a jar of something gentle and have sat under a large\nreasonable green-lined umbrella and fished very neatly and successfully\nfor gudgeon....\'\n\nThe president and the Japanese prince in spectacles protested together.\n\n\'If I do him an injustice,\' said the king, \'it is only because I want\nto elucidate my argument. I want to make it clear how small are men and\ndays, and how great is man in comparison....\'\n\nSection 4\n\nSo it was King Egbert talked at Brissago after they had proclaimed the\nunity of the world. Every evening after that the assembly dined together\nand talked at their ease and grew accustomed to each other and sharpened\neach other\'s ideas, and every day they worked together, and really for\na time believed that they were inventing a new government for the world.\nThey discussed a constitution. But there were matters needing attention\ntoo urgently to wait for any constitution. They attended to these\nincidentally. The constitution it was that waited. It was presently\nfound convenient to keep the constitution waiting indefinitely as King\nEgbert had foreseen, and meanwhile, with an increasing self-confidence,\nthat council went on governing....\n\nOn this first evening of all the council\'s gatherings, after King Egbert\nhad talked for a long time and drunken and praised very abundantly the\nsimple red wine of the country that Leblanc had procured for them,\nhe fathered about him a group of congenial spirits and fell into a\ndiscourse upon simplicity, praising it above all things and declaring\nthat the ultimate aim of art, religion, philosophy, and science alike\nwas to simplify. He instanced himself as a devotee to simplicity. And\nLeblanc he instanced as a crowning instance of the splendour of this\nquality. Upon that they all agreed.\n\nWhen at last the company about the tables broke up, the king found\nhimself brimming over with a peculiar affection and admiration for\nLeblanc, he made his way to him and drew him aside and broached what he\ndeclared was a small matter. There was, he said, a certain order in his\ngift that, unlike all other orders and decorations in the world,\nhad never been corrupted. It was reserved for elderly men of supreme\ndistinction, the acuteness of whose gifts was already touched to\nmellowness, and it had included the greatest names of every age so\nfar as the advisers of his family had been able to ascertain them.\nAt present, the king admitted, these matters of stars and badges were\nrather obscured by more urgent affairs, for his own part he had never\nset any value upon them at all, but a time might come when they would\nbe at least interesting, and in short he wished to confer the Order\nof Merit upon Leblanc. His sole motive in doing so, he added, was his\nstrong desire to signalise his personal esteem. He laid his hand\nupon the Frenchman\'s shoulder as he said these things, with an almost\nbrotherly affection. Leblanc received this proposal with a modest\nconfusion that greatly enhanced the king\'s opinion of his admirable\nsimplicity. He pointed out that eager as he was to snatch at the\nproffered distinction, it might at the present stage appear invidious,\nand he therefore suggested that the conferring of it should be postponed\nuntil it could be made the crown and conclusion of his services. The\nking was unable to shake this resolution, and the two men parted with\nexpressions of mutual esteem.\n\nThe king then summoned Firmin in order to make a short note of a number\nof things that he had said during the day. But after about twenty\nminutes\' work the sweet sleepiness of the mountain air overcame him, and\nhe dismissed Firmin and went to bed and fell asleep at once, and slept\nwith extreme satisfaction. He had had an active, agreeable day.\n\nSection 5\n\nThe establishment of the new order that was thus so humanly begun,\nwas, if one measures it by the standard of any preceding age, a rapid\nprogress. The fighting spirit of the world was exhausted. Only here\nor there did fierceness linger. For long decades the combative side\nin human affairs had been monstrously exaggerated by the accidents of\npolitical separation. This now became luminously plain. An enormous\nproportion of the force that sustained armaments had been nothing more\naggressive than the fear of war and warlike neighbours. It is doubtful\nif any large section of the men actually enlisted for fighting ever at\nany time really hungered and thirsted for bloodshed and danger. That\nkind of appetite was probably never very strong in the species after the\nsavage stage was past. The army was a profession, in which killing had\nbecome a disagreeable possibility rather than an eventful certainty. If\none reads the old newspapers and periodicals of that time, which did\nso much to keep militarism alive, one finds very little about glory and\nadventure and a constant harping on the disagreeableness of invasion\nand subjugation. In one word, militarism was funk. The belligerent\nresolution of the armed Europe of the twentieth century was the\nresolution of a fiercely frightened sheep to plunge. And now that its\nweapons were exploding in its hands, Europe was only too eager to drop\nthem, and abandon this fancied refuge of violence.\n\nFor a time the whole world had been shocked into frankness; nearly all\nthe clever people who had hitherto sustained the ancient belligerent\nseparations had now been brought to realise the need for simplicity\nof attitude and openness of mind; and in this atmosphere of moral\nrenascence, there was little attempt to get negotiable advantages out of\nresistance to the new order. Human beings are foolish enough no doubt,\nbut few have stopped to haggle in a fire-escape. The council had its\nway with them. The band of \'patriots\' who seized the laboratories and\narsenal just outside Osaka and tried to rouse Japan to revolt against\ninclusion in the Republic of Mankind, found they had miscalculated the\nnational pride and met the swift vengeance of their own countrymen. That\nfight in the arsenal was a vivid incident in this closing chapter of the\nhistory of war. To the last the \'patriots\' were undecided whether, in\nthe event of a defeat, they would explode their supply of atomic bombs\nor not. They were fighting with swords outside the iridium doors,\nand the moderates of their number were at bay and on the verge of\ndestruction, only ten, indeed, remained unwounded, when the republicans\nburst in to the rescue....\n\nSection 6\n\nOne single monarch held out against the general acquiescence in the new\nrule, and that was that strange survival of mediaevalism, the \'Slavic\nFox,\' the King of the Balkans. He debated and delayed his submissions.\nHe showed an extraordinary combination of cunning and temerity in his\nevasion of the repeated summonses from Brissago. He affected ill-health\nand a great preoccupation with his new official mistress, for his\nsemi-barbaric court was arranged on the best romantic models. His\ntactics were ably seconded by Doctor Pestovitch, his chief minister.\nFailing to establish his claims to complete independence, King Ferdinand\nCharles annoyed the conference by a proposal to be treated as a\nprotected state. Finally he professed an unconvincing submission, and\nput a mass of obstacles in the way of the transfer of his national\nofficials to the new government. In these things he was enthusiastically\nsupported by his subjects, still for the most part an illiterate\npeasantry, passionately if confusedly patriotic, and so far with no\npractical knowledge of the effect of atomic bombs. More particularly he\nretained control of all the Balkan aeroplanes.\n\nFor once the extreme naivete of Leblanc seems to have been mitigated by\nduplicity. He went on with the general pacification of the world as if\nthe Balkan submission was made in absolute good faith, and he announced\nthe disbandment of the force of aeroplanes that hitherto guarded the\ncouncil at Brissago upon the approaching fifteenth of July. But instead\nhe doubled the number upon duty on that eventful day, and made various\narrangements for their disposition. He consulted certain experts, and\nwhen he took King Egbert into his confidence there was something in his\nneat and explicit foresight that brought back to that ex-monarch\'s\nmind his half-forgotten fantasy of Leblanc as a fisherman under a green\numbrella.\n\nAbout five o\'clock in the morning of the seventeenth of July one of the\nouter sentinels of the Brissago fleet, which was soaring unobtrusively\nover the lower end of the lake of Garda, sighted and hailed a strange\naeroplane that was flying westward, and, failing to get a satisfactory\nreply, set its wireless apparatus talking and gave chase. A swarm of\nconsorts appeared very promptly over the westward mountains, and before\nthe unknown aeroplane had sighted Como, it had a dozen eager attendants\nclosing in upon it. Its driver seems to have hesitated, dropped down\namong the mountains, and then turned southward in flight, only to find\nan intercepting biplane sweeping across his bows. He then went round\ninto the eye of the rising sun, and passed within a hundred yards of his\noriginal pursuer.\n\nThe sharpshooter therein opened fire at once, and showed an intelligent\ngrasp of the situation by disabling the passenger first. The man at the\nwheel must have heard his companion cry out behind him, but he was too\nintent on getting away to waste even a glance behind. Twice after that\nhe must have heard shots. He let his engine go, he crouched down, and\nfor twenty minutes he must have steered in the continual expectation of\na bullet. It never came, and when at last he glanced round, three great\nplanes were close upon him, and his companion, thrice hit, lay dead\nacross his bombs. His followers manifestly did not mean either to upset\nor shoot him, but inexorably they drove him down, down. At last he was\ncurving and flying a hundred yards or less over the level fields of\nrice and maize. Ahead of him and dark against the morning sunrise was\na village with a very tall and slender campanile and a line of cable\nbearing metal standards that he could not clear. He stopped his engine\nabruptly and dropped flat. He may have hoped to get at the bombs when he\ncame down, but his pitiless pursuers drove right over him and shot him\nas he fell.\n\nThree other aeroplanes curved down and came to rest amidst grass close\nby the smashed machine. Their passengers descended, and ran, holding\ntheir light rifles in their hands towards the debris and the two dead\nmen. The coffin-shaped box that had occupied the centre of the machine\nhad broken, and three black objects, each with two handles like the ears\nof a pitcher, lay peacefully amidst the litter.\n\nThese objects were so tremendously important in the eyes of their\ncaptors that they disregarded the two dead men who lay bloody and broken\namidst the wreckage as they might have disregarded dead frogs by a\ncountry pathway.\n\n\'By God,\' cried the first. \'Here they are!\'\n\n\'And unbroken!\' said the second.\n\n\'I\'ve never seen the things before,\' said the first.\n\n\'Bigger than I thought,\' said the second.\n\nThe third comer arrived. He stared for a moment at the bombs and then\nturned his eyes to the dead man with a crushed chest who lay in a muddy\nplace among the green stems under the centre of the machine.\n\n\'One can take no risks,\' he said, with a faint suggestion of apology.\n\nThe other two now also turned to the victims. \'We must signal,\' said the\nfirst man. A shadow passed between them and the sun, and they looked up\nto see the aeroplane that had fired the last shot. \'Shall we signal?\'\ncame a megaphone hail.\n\n\'Three bombs,\' they answered together.\n\n\'Where do they come from?\' asked the megaphone.\n\nThe three sharpshooters looked at each other and then moved towards the\ndead men. One of them had an idea. \'Signal that first,\' he said, \'while\nwe look.\' They were joined by their aviators for the search, and all\nsix men began a hunt that was necessarily brutal in its haste, for\nsome indication of identity. They examined the men\'s pockets, their\nbloodstained clothes, the machine, the framework. They turned the bodies\nover and flung them aside. There was not a tattoo mark.... Everything\nwas elaborately free of any indication of its origin.\n\n\'We can\'t find out!\' they called at last.\n\n\'Not a sign?\'\n\n\'Not a sign.\'\n\n\'I\'m coming down,\' said the man overhead....\n\nSection 7\n\nThe Slavic fox stood upon a metal balcony in his picturesque Art Nouveau\npalace that gave upon the precipice that overhung his bright little\ncapital, and beside him stood Pestovitch, grizzled and cunning, and now\nfull of an ill-suppressed excitement. Behind them the window opened into\na large room, richly decorated in aluminium and crimson enamel, across\nwhich the king, as he glanced ever and again over his shoulder with a\ngesture of inquiry, could see through the two open doors of a little\nazure walled antechamber the wireless operator in the turret working at\nhis incessant transcription. Two pompously uniformed messengers waited\nlistlessly in this apartment. The room was furnished with a stately\ndignity, and had in the middle of it a big green baize-covered table\nwith the massive white metal inkpots and antiquated sandboxes natural to\na new but romantic monarchy. It was the king\'s council chamber and\nabout it now, in attitudes of suspended intrigue, stood the half-dozen\nministers who constituted his cabinet. They had been summoned for twelve\no\'clock, but still at half-past twelve the king loitered in the balcony\nand seemed to be waiting for some news that did not come.\n\nThe king and his minister had talked at first in whispers; they had\nfallen silent, for they found little now to express except a vague\nanxiety. Away there on the mountain side were the white metal roofs of\nthe long farm buildings beneath which the bomb factory and the bombs\nwere hidden. (The chemist who had made all these for the king had died\nsuddenly after the declaration of Brissago.) Nobody knew of that store\nof mischief now but the king and his adviser and three heavily faithful\nattendants; the aviators who waited now in the midday blaze with\ntheir bomb-carrying machines and their passenger bomb-throwers in the\nexercising grounds of the motor-cyclist barracks below were still in\nignorance of the position of the ammunition they were presently to take\nup. It was time they started if the scheme was to work as Pestovitch\nhad planned it. It was a magnificent plan. It aimed at no less than the\nEmpire of the World. The government of idealists and professors away\nthere at Brissago was to be blown to fragments, and then east, west,\nnorth, and south those aeroplanes would go swarming over a world that\nhad disarmed itself, to proclaim Ferdinand Charles, the new Caesar, the\nMaster, Lord of the Earth. It was a magnificent plan. But the tension\nof this waiting for news of the success of the first blow\nwas--considerable.\n\nThe Slavic fox was of a pallid fairness, he had a remarkably long nose,\na thick, short moustache, and small blue eyes that were a little too\nnear together to be pleasant. It was his habit to worry his moustache\nwith short, nervous tugs whenever his restless mind troubled him, and\nnow this motion was becoming so incessant that it irked Pestovitch\nbeyond the limits of endurance.\n\n\'I will go,\' said the minister, \'and see what the trouble is with the\nwireless. They give us nothing, good or bad.\'\n\nLeft to himself, the king could worry his moustache without stint; he\nleant his elbows forward on the balcony and gave both of his long white\nhands to the work, so that he looked like a pale dog gnawing a bone.\nSuppose they caught his men, what should he do? Suppose they caught his\nmen?\n\nThe clocks in the light gold-capped belfries of the town below presently\nintimated the half-hour after midday.\n\nOf course, he and Pestovitch had thought it out. Even if they had caught\nthose men, they were pledged to secrecy.... Probably they would be\nkilled in the catching.... One could deny anyhow, deny and deny.\n\nAnd then he became aware of half a dozen little shining specks very high\nin the blue.... Pestovitch came out to him presently. \'The government\nmessages, sire, have all dropped into cipher,\' he said. \'I have set a\nman----\'\n\n\'LOOK!\' interrupted the king, and pointed upward with a long, lean\nfinger.\n\nPestovitch followed that indication and then glanced for one questioning\nmoment at the white face before him.\n\n\'We have to face it out, sire,\' he said.\n\nFor some moments they watched the steep spirals of the descending\nmessengers, and then they began a hasty consultation....\n\nThey decided that to be holding a council upon the details of an\nultimate surrender to Brissago was as innocent-looking a thing as the\nking could well be doing, and so, when at last the ex-king Egbert, whom\nthe council had sent as its envoy, arrived upon the scene, he discovered\nthe king almost theatrically posed at the head of his councillors in the\nmidst of his court. The door upon the wireless operators was shut.\n\nThe ex-king from Brissago came like a draught through the curtains and\nattendants that gave a wide margin to King Ferdinand\'s state, and the\nfamiliar confidence of his manner belied a certain hardness in his\neye. Firmin trotted behind him, and no one else was with him. And as\nFerdinand Charles rose to greet him, there came into the heart of the\nBalkan king again that same chilly feeling that he had felt upon the\nbalcony--and it passed at the careless gestures of his guest. For surely\nany one might outwit this foolish talker who, for a mere idea and at the\ncommand of a little French rationalist in spectacles, had thrown away\nthe most ancient crown in all the world.\n\nOne must deny, deny....\n\nAnd then slowly and quite tiresomely he realised that there was nothing\nto deny. His visitor, with an amiable ease, went on talking about\neverything in debate between himself and Brissago except----.\n\nCould it be that they had been delayed? Could it be that they had had\nto drop for repairs and were still uncaptured? Could it be that even\nnow while this fool babbled, they were over there among the mountains\nheaving their deadly charge over the side of the aeroplane?\n\nStrange hopes began to lift the tail of the Slavic fox again.\n\nWhat was the man saying? One must talk to him anyhow until one knew. At\nany moment the little brass door behind him might open with the news\nof Brissago blown to atoms. Then it would be a delightful relief to the\npresent tension to arrest this chatterer forthwith. He might be killed\nperhaps. What?\n\nThe king was repeating his observation. \'They have a ridiculous fancy\nthat your confidence is based on the possession of atomic bombs.\'\n\nKing Ferdinand Charles pulled himself together. He protested.\n\n\'Oh, quite so,\' said the ex-king, \'quite so.\'\n\n\'What grounds?\' The ex-king permitted himself a gesture and the ghost of\na chuckle--why the devil should he chuckle? \'Practically none,\' he said.\n\'But of course with these things one has to be so careful.\'\n\nAnd then again for an instant something--like the faintest shadow of\nderision--gleamed out of the envoy\'s eyes and recalled that chilly\nfeeling to King Ferdinand\'s spine.\n\nSome kindred depression had come to Pestovitch, who had been watching\nthe drawn intensity of Firmin\'s face. He came to the help of his master,\nwho, he feared, might protest too much.\n\n\'A search!\' cried the king. \'An embargo on our aeroplanes.\'\n\n\'Only a temporary expedient,\' said the ex-king Egbert, \'while the search\nis going on.\'\n\nThe king appealed to his council.\n\n\'The people will never permit it, sire,\' said a bustling little man in a\ngorgeous uniform.\n\n\'You\'ll have to make \'em,\' said the ex-king, genially addressing all the\ncouncillors.\n\nKing Ferdinand glanced at the closed brass door through which no news\nwould come.\n\n\'When would you want to have this search?\'\n\nThe ex-king was radiant. \'We couldn\'t possibly do it until the day after\nto-morrow,\' he said.\n\n\'Just the capital?\'\n\n\'Where else?\' asked the ex-king, still more cheerfully.\n\n\'For my own part,\' said the ex-king confidentially, \'I think the whole\nbusiness ridiculous. Who would be such a fool as to hide atomic bombs?\nNobody. Certain hanging if he\'s caught--certain, and almost certain\nblowing up if he isn\'t. But nowadays I have to take orders like the rest\nof the world. And here I am.\'\n\nThe king thought he had never met such detestable geniality. He glanced\nat Pestovitch, who nodded almost imperceptibly. It was well, anyhow,\nto have a fool to deal with. They might have sent a diplomatist. \'Of\ncourse,\' said the king, \'I recognise the overpowering force--and a kind\nof logic--in these orders from Brissago.\'\n\n\'I knew you would,\' said the ex-king, with an air of relief, \'and so let\nus arrange----\'\n\nThey arranged with a certain informality. No Balkan aeroplane was to\nadventure into the air until the search was concluded, and meanwhile\nthe fleets of the world government would soar and circle in the sky. The\ntowns were to be placarded with offers of reward to any one who would\nhelp in the discovery of atomic bombs....\n\n\'You will sign that,\' said the ex-king.\n\n\'Why?\'\n\n\'To show that we aren\'t in any way hostile to you.\'\n\nPestovitch nodded \'yes\' to his master.\n\n\'And then, you see,\' said the ex-king in that easy way of his, \'we\'ll\nhave a lot of men here, borrow help from your police, and run through\nall your things. And then everything will be over. Meanwhile, if I may\nbe your guest....\' When presently Pestovitch was alone with the king\nagain, he found him in a state of jangling emotions. His spirit was\ntossing like a wind-whipped sea. One moment he was exalted and full of\ncontempt for \'that ass\' and his search; the next he was down in a pit of\ndread. \'They will find them, Pestovitch, and then he\'ll hang us.\'\n\n\'Hang us?\'\n\nThe king put his long nose into his councillor\'s face. \'That grinning\nbrute WANTS to hang us,\' he said. \'And hang us he will, if we give him a\nshadow of a chance.\'\n\n\'But all their Modern State Civilisation!\'\n\n\'Do you think there\'s any pity in that crew of Godless, Vivisecting\nPrigs?\' cried this last king of romance. \'Do you think, Pestovitch, they\nunderstand anything of a high ambition or a splendid dream? Do you think\nthat our gallant and sublime adventure has any appeal to them? Here am\nI, the last and greatest and most romantic of the Caesars, and do you\nthink they will miss the chance of hanging me like a dog if they can,\nkilling me like a rat in a hole? And that renegade! He who was once an\nanointed king! . . .\n\n\'I hate that sort of eye that laughs and keeps hard,\' said the king.\n\n\'I won\'t sit still here and be caught like a fascinated rabbit,\' said\nthe king in conclusion. \'We must shift those bombs.\'\n\n\'Risk it,\' said Pestovitch. \'Leave them alone.\'\n\n\'No,\' said the king. \'Shift them near the frontier. Then while they\nwatch us here--they will always watch us here now--we can buy an\naeroplane abroad, and pick them up....\'\n\nThe king was in a feverish, irritable mood all that evening, but he made\nhis plans nevertheless with infinite cunning. They must get the bombs\naway; there must be a couple of atomic hay lorries, the bombs could be\nhidden under the hay.... Pestovitch went and came, instructing trusty\nservants, planning and replanning.... The king and the ex-king talked\nvery pleasantly of a number of subjects. All the while at the back\nof King Ferdinand Charles\'s mind fretted the mystery of his vanished\naeroplane. There came no news of its capture, and no news of its\nsuccess. At any moment all that power at the back of his visitor might\ncrumble away and vanish....\n\nIt was past midnight, when the king, in a cloak and slouch hat\nthat might equally have served a small farmer, or any respectable\nmiddle-class man, slipped out from an inconspicuous service gate on the\neastward side of his palace into the thickly wooded gardens that sloped\nin a series of terraces down to the town. Pestovitch and his guard-valet\nPeter, both wrapped about in a similar disguise, came out among the\nlaurels that bordered the pathway and joined him. It was a clear, warm\nnight, but the stars seemed unusually little and remote because of the\naeroplanes, each trailing a searchlight, that drove hither and thither\nacross the blue. One great beam seemed to rest on the king for a moment\nas he came out of the palace; then instantly and reassuringly it had\nswept away. But while they were still in the palace gardens another\nfound them and looked at them.\n\n\'They see us,\' cried the king.\n\n\'They make nothing of us,\' said Pestovitch.\n\nThe king glanced up and met a calm, round eye of light, that seemed to\nwink at him and vanish, leaving him blinded....\n\nThe three men went on their way. Near the little gate in the garden\nrailings that Pestovitch had caused to be unlocked, the king paused\nunder the shadow of an flex and looked back at the place. It was\nvery high and narrow, a twentieth-century rendering of mediaevalism,\nmediaevalism in steel and bronze and sham stone and opaque glass.\nAgainst the sky it splashed a confusion of pinnacles. High up in the\neastward wing were the windows of the apartments of the ex-king Egbert.\nOne of them was brightly lit now, and against the light a little black\nfigure stood very still and looked out upon the night.\n\nThe king snarled.\n\n\'He little knows how we slip through his fingers,\' said Pestovitch.\n\nAnd as he spoke they saw the ex-king stretch out his arms slowly, like\none who yawns, knuckle his eyes and turn inward--no doubt to his bed.\n\nDown through the ancient winding back streets of his capital hurried the\nking, and at an appointed corner a shabby atomic-automobile waited for\nthe three. It was a hackney carriage of the lowest grade, with dinted\nmetal panels and deflated cushions. The driver was one of the ordinary\ndrivers of the capital, but beside him sat the young secretary of\nPestovitch, who knew the way to the farm where the bombs were hidden.\n\nThe automobile made its way through the narrow streets of the old town,\nwhich were still lit and uneasy--for the fleet of airships overhead had\nkept the cafes open and people abroad--over the great new bridge, and so\nby straggling outskirts to the country. And all through his capital the\nking who hoped to outdo Caesar, sat back and was very still, and no one\nspoke. And as they got out into the dark country they became aware of\nthe searchlights wandering over the country-side like the uneasy\nghosts of giants. The king sat forward and looked at these flitting\nwhitenesses, and every now and then peered up to see the flying ships\noverhead.\n\n\'I don\'t like them,\' said the king.\n\nPresently one of these patches of moonlight came to rest about them and\nseemed to be following their automobile. The king drew back.\n\n\'The things are confoundedly noiseless,\' said the king. \'It\'s like being\nstalked by lean white cats.\'\n\nHe peered again. \'That fellow is watching us,\' he said.\n\nAnd then suddenly he gave way to panic. \'Pestovitch,\' he said, clutching\nhis minister\'s arm, \'they are watching us. I\'m not going through with\nthis. They are watching us. I\'m going back.\'\n\nPestovitch remonstrated. \'Tell him to go back,\' said the king, and tried\nto open the window. For a few moments there was a grim struggle in the\nautomobile; a gripping of wrists and a blow. \'I can\'t go through with\nit,\' repeated the king, \'I can\'t go through with it.\'\n\n\'But they\'ll hang us,\' said Pestovitch.\n\n\'Not if we were to give up now. Not if we were to surrender the bombs.\nIt is you who brought me into this....\'\n\nAt last Pestovitch compromised. There was an inn perhaps half a mile\nfrom the farm. They could alight there and the king could get brandy,\nand rest his nerves for a time. And if he still thought fit to go back\nhe could go back.\n\n\'See,\' said Pestovitch, \'the light has gone again.\'\n\nThe king peered up. \'I believe he\'s following us without a light,\' said\nthe king.\n\nIn the little old dirty inn the king hung doubtful for a time, and was\nfor going back and throwing himself on the mercy of the council. \'If\nthere is a council,\' said Pestovitch. \'By this time your bombs may have\nsettled it.\n\n\'But if so, these infernal aeroplanes would go.\'\n\n\'They may not know yet.\'\n\n\'But, Pestovitch, why couldn\'t you do all this without me?\'\n\nPestovitch made no answer for a moment. \'I was for leaving the bombs\nin their place,\' he said at last, and went to the window. About their\nconveyance shone a circle of bright light. Pestovitch had a brilliant\nidea. \'I will send my secretary out to make a kind of dispute with the\ndriver. Something that will make them watch up above there. Meanwhile\nyou and I and Peter will go out by the back way and up by the hedges to\nthe farm....\'\n\nIt was worthy of his subtle reputation and it answered passing well.\n\nIn ten minutes they were tumbling over the wall of the farm-yard, wet,\nmuddy, and breathless, but unobserved. But as they ran towards the barns\nthe king gave vent to something between a groan and a curse, and all\nabout them shone the light--and passed.\n\nBut had it passed at once or lingered for just a second?\n\n\'They didn\'t see us,\' said Peter.\n\n\'I don\'t think they saw us,\' said the king, and stared as the light went\nswooping up the mountain side, hung for a second about a hayrick, and\nthen came pouring back.\n\n\'In the barn!\' cried the king.\n\nHe bruised his shin against something, and then all three men were\ninside the huge steel-girdered barn in which stood the two motor\nhay lorries that were to take the bombs away. Kurt and Abel, the two\nbrothers of Peter, had brought the lorries thither in daylight. They had\nthe upper half of the loads of hay thrown off, ready to cover the bombs,\nso soon as the king should show the hiding-place. \'There\'s a sort of\npit here,\' said the king. \'Don\'t light another lantern. This key of mine\nreleases a ring....\'\n\nFor a time scarcely a word was spoken in the darkness of the barn.\nThere was the sound of a slab being lifted and then of feet descending a\nladder into a pit. Then whispering and then heavy breathing as Kurt came\nstruggling up with the first of the hidden bombs.\n\n\'We shall do it yet,\' said the king. And then he gasped. \'Curse that\nlight. Why in the name of Heaven didn\'t we shut the barn door?\' For the\ngreat door stood wide open and all the empty, lifeless yard outside and\nthe door and six feet of the floor of the barn were in the blue glare of\nan inquiring searchlight.\n\n\'Shut the door, Peter,\' said Pestovitch.\n\n\'No,\' cried the king, too late, as Peter went forward into the light.\n\'Don\'t show yourself!\' cried the king. Kurt made a step forward and\nplucked his brother back. For a time all five men stood still. It seemed\nthat light would never go and then abruptly it was turned off, leaving\nthem blinded. \'Now,\' said the king uneasily, \'now shut the door.\'\n\n\'Not completely,\' cried Pestovitch. \'Leave a chink for us to go out\nby....\'\n\nIt was hot work shifting those bombs, and the king worked for a time\nlike a common man. Kurt and Abel carried the great things up and Peter\nbrought them to the carts, and the king and Pestovitch helped him to\nplace them among the hay. They made as little noise as they could....\n\n\'Ssh!\' cried the king. \'What\'s that?\'\n\nBut Kurt and Abel did not hear, and came blundering up the ladder with\nthe last of the load.\n\n\'Ssh!\' Peter ran forward to them with a whispered remonstrance. Now they\nwere still.\n\nThe barn door opened a little wider, and against the dim blue light\noutside they saw the black shape of a man.\n\n\'Any one here?\' he asked, speaking with an Italian accent.\n\nThe king broke into a cold perspiration. Then Pestovitch answered: \'Only\na poor farmer loading hay,\' he said, and picked up a huge hay fork and\nwent forward softly.\n\n\'You load your hay at a very bad time and in a very bad light,\' said the\nman at the door, peering in. \'Have you no electric light here?\'\n\nThen suddenly he turned on an electric torch, and as he did so\nPestovitch sprang forward. \'Get out of my barn!\' he cried, and drove the\nfork full at the intruder\'s chest. He had a vague idea that so he\nmight stab the man to silence. But the man shouted loudly as the prongs\npierced him and drove him backward, and instantly there was a sound of\nfeet running across the yard.\n\n\'Bombs,\' cried the man upon the ground, struggling with the prongs in\nhis hand, and as Pestovitch staggered forward into view with the force\nof his own thrust, he was shot through the body by one of the two\nnew-comers.\n\nThe man on the ground was badly hurt but plucky. \'Bombs,\' he repeated,\nand struggled up into a kneeling position and held his electric torch\nfull upon the face of the king. \'Shoot them,\' he cried, coughing and\nspitting blood, so that the halo of light round the king\'s head danced\nabout.\n\nFor a moment in that shivering circle of light the two men saw the king\nkneeling up in the cart and Peter on the barn floor beside him. The old\nfox looked at them sideways--snared, a white-faced evil thing. And then,\nas with a faltering suicidal heroism, he leant forward over the bomb\nbefore him, they fired together and shot him through the head.\n\nThe upper part of his face seemed to vanish.\n\n\'Shoot them,\' cried the man who had been stabbed. \'Shoot them all!\'\n\nAnd then his light went out, and he rolled over with a groan at the feet\nof his comrades.\n\nBut each carried a light of his own, and in another moment everything in\nthe barn was visible again. They shot Peter even as he held up his hands\nin sign of surrender.\n\nKurt and Abel at the head of the ladder hesitated for a moment, and then\nplunged backward into the pit. \'If we don\'t kill them,\' said one of\nthe sharpshooters, \'they\'ll blow us to rags. They\'ve gone down that\nhatchway. Come! . . .\n\n\'Here they are. Hands up! I say. Hold your light while I shoot....\'\n\nSection 8\n\nIt was still quite dark when his valet and Firmin came together and told\nthe ex-king Egbert that the business was settled.\n\nHe started up into a sitting position on the side of his bed.\n\n\'Did he go out?\' asked the ex-king.\n\n\'He is dead,\' said Firmin. \'He was shot.\'\n\nThe ex-king reflected. \'That\'s about the best thing that could have\nhappened,\' he said. \'Where are the bombs? In that farm-house on the\nopposite hill-side! Why! the place is in sight! Let us go. I\'ll dress.\nIs there any one in the place, Firmin, to get us a cup of coffee?\'\n\nThrough the hungry twilight of the dawn the ex-king\'s automobile carried\nhim to the farm-house where the last rebel king was lying among his\nbombs. The rim of the sky flashed, the east grew bright, and the sun was\njust rising over the hills when King Egbert reached the farm-yard. There\nhe found the hay lorries drawn out from the barn with the dreadful bombs\nstill packed upon them. A couple of score of aviators held the yard, and\noutside a few peasants stood in a little group and stared, ignorant as\nyet of what had happened. Against the stone wall of the farm-yard five\nbodies were lying neatly side by side, and Pestovitch had an expression\nof surprise on his face and the king was chiefly identifiable by his\nlong white hands and his blonde moustache. The wounded aeronaut had been\ncarried down to the inn. And after the ex-king had given directions in\nwhat manner the bombs were to be taken to the new special laboratories\nabove Zurich, where they could be unpacked in an atmosphere of chlorine,\nhe turned to these five still shapes.\n\nTheir five pairs of feet stuck out with a curious stiff unanimity....\n\n\'What else was there to do?\' he said in answer to some internal protest.\n\n\'I wonder, Firmin, if there are any more of them?\'\n\n\'Bombs, sir?\' asked Firmin.\n\n\'No, such kings....\n\n\'The pitiful folly of it!\' said the ex-king, following his thoughts.\n\'Firmin, as an ex-professor of International Politics, I think it falls\nto you to bury them. There? . . . No, don\'t put them near the well.\nPeople will have to drink from that well. Bury them over there, some way\noff in the field.\'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH\n\nTHE NEW PHASE\n\nSection 1\n\nThe task that lay before the Assembly of Brissago, viewed as we may view\nit now from the clarifying standpoint of things accomplished, was in\nits broad issues a simple one. Essentially it was to place social\norganisation upon the new footing that the swift, accelerated advance\nof human knowledge had rendered necessary. The council was gathered\ntogether with the haste of a salvage expedition, and it was confronted\nwith wreckage; but the wreckage was irreparable wreckage, and the only\npossibilities of the case were either the relapse of mankind to the\nagricultural barbarism from which it had emerged so painfully or the\nacceptance of achieved science as the basis of a new social order. The\nold tendencies of human nature, suspicion, jealousy, particularism, and\nbelligerency, were incompatible with the monstrous destructive power\nof the new appliances the inhuman logic of science had produced. The\nequilibrium could be restored only by civilisation destroying itself\ndown to a level at which modern apparatus could no longer be produced,\nor by human nature adapting itself in its institutions to the new\nconditions. It was for the latter alternative that the assembly existed.\n\nSooner or later this choice would have confronted mankind. The sudden\ndevelopment of atomic science did but precipitate and render rapid\nand dramatic a clash between the new and the customary that had been\ngathering since ever the first flint was chipped or the first fire built\ntogether. From the day when man contrived himself a tool and suffered\nanother male to draw near him, he ceased to be altogether a thing of\ninstinct and untroubled convictions. From that day forth a widening\nbreach can be traced between his egotistical passions and the social\nneed. Slowly he adapted himself to the life of the homestead, and his\npassionate impulses widened out to the demands of the clan and the\ntribe. But widen though his impulses might, the latent hunter and\nwanderer and wonderer in his imagination outstripped their development.\nHe was never quite subdued to the soil nor quite tamed to the home.\nEverywhere it needed teaching and the priest to keep him within the\nbounds of the plough-life and the beast-tending. Slowly a vast system\nof traditional imperatives superposed itself upon his instincts,\nimperatives that were admirably fitted to make him that cultivator, that\ncattle-mincer, who was for twice ten thousand years the normal man.\n\nAnd, unpremeditated, undesired, out of the accumulations of his tilling\ncame civilisation. Civilisation was the agricultural surplus. It\nappeared as trade and tracks and roads, it pushed boats out upon the\nrivers and presently invaded the seas, and within its primitive courts,\nwithin temples grown rich and leisurely and amidst the gathering medley\nof the seaport towns rose speculation and philosophy and science, and\nthe beginning of the new order that has at last established itself\nas human life. Slowly at first, as we traced it, and then with an\naccumulating velocity, the new powers were fabricated. Man as a whole\ndid not seek them nor desire them; they were thrust into his hand. For\na time men took up and used these new things and the new powers\ninadvertently as they came to him, recking nothing of the consequences.\nFor endless generations change led him very gently. But when he had\nbeen led far enough, change quickened the pace. It was with a series of\nshocks that he realised at last that he was living the old life less and\nless and a new life more and more.\n\nAlready before the release of atomic energy the tensions between the old\nway of living and the new were intense. They were far intenser than they\nhad been even at the collapse of the Roman imperial system. On the one\nhand was the ancient life of the family and the small community and\nthe petty industry, on the other was a new life on a larger scale, with\nremoter horizons and a strange sense of purpose. Already it was growing\nclear that men must live on one side or the other. One could not have\nlittle tradespeople and syndicated businesses in the same market,\nsleeping carters and motor trolleys on the same road, bows and arrows\nand aeroplane sharpshooters in the same army, or illiterate peasant\nindustries and power-driven factories in the same world. And still less\nit was possible that one could have the ideas and ambitions and greed\nand jealousy of peasants equipped with the vast appliances of the new\nage. If there had been no atomic bombs to bring together most of\nthe directing intelligence of the world to that hasty conference at\nBrissago, there would still have been, extended over great areas and\na considerable space of time perhaps, a less formal conference of\nresponsible and understanding people upon the perplexities of this\nworld-wide opposition. If the work of Holsten had been spread over\ncenturies and imparted to the world by imperceptible degrees, it would\nnevertheless have made it necessary for men to take counsel upon and set\na plan for the future. Indeed already there had been accumulating for a\nhundred years before the crisis a literature of foresight; there was a\nwhole mass of \'Modern State\' scheming available for the conference to go\nupon. These bombs did but accentuate and dramatise an already developing\nproblem.\n\nSection 2\n\nThis assembly was no leap of exceptional minds and super-intelligences\ninto the control of affairs. It was teachable, its members trailed\nideas with them to the gathering, but these were the consequences of the\n\'moral shock\' the bombs had given humanity, and there is no reason for\nsupposing its individual personalities were greatly above the average.\nIt would be possible to cite a thousand instances of error and\ninefficiency in its proceedings due to the forgetfulness, irritability,\nor fatigue of its members. It experimented considerably and blundered\noften. Excepting Holsten, whose gift was highly specialised, it is\nquestionable whether there was a single man of the first order of human\nquality in the gathering. But it had a modest fear of itself, and a\nconsequent directness that gave it a general distinction. There was,\nof course, a noble simplicity about Leblanc, but even of him it may\nbe asked whether he was not rather good and honest-minded than in the\nfuller sense great.\n\nThe ex-king had wisdom and a certain romantic dash, he was a man among\nthousands, even if he was not a man among millions, but his memoirs, and\nindeed his decision to write memoirs, give the quality of himself\nand his associates. The book makes admirable but astonishing reading.\nTherein he takes the great work the council was doing for granted as\na little child takes God. It is as if he had no sense of it at all. He\ntells amusing trivialities about his cousin Wilhelm and his secretary\nFirmin, he pokes fun at the American president, who was, indeed,\nrather a little accident of the political machine than a representative\nAmerican, and he gives a long description of how he was lost for three\ndays in the mountains in the company of the only Japanese member, a loss\nthat seems to have caused no serious interruption of the work of the\ncouncil....\n\nThe Brissago conference has been written about time after time, as\nthough it were a gathering of the very flower of humanity. Perched\nup there by the freak or wisdom of Leblanc, it had a certain Olympian\nquality, and the natural tendency of the human mind to elaborate such\na resemblance would have us give its members the likenesses of gods.\nIt would be equally reasonable to compare it to one of those enforced\nmeetings upon the mountain-tops that must have occurred in the opening\nphases of the Deluge. The strength of the council lay not in itself but\nin the circumstances that had quickened its intelligence, dispelled its\nvanities, and emancipated it from traditional ambitions and antagonisms.\nIt was stripped of the accumulation of centuries, a naked government\nwith all that freedom of action that nakedness affords. And its problems\nwere set before it with a plainness that was out of all comparison with\nthe complicated and perplexing intimations of the former time.\n\nSection 3\n\nThe world on which the council looked did indeed present a task quite\nsufficiently immense and altogether too urgent for any wanton indulgence\nin internal dissension. It may be interesting to sketch in a few phrases\nthe condition of mankind at the close of the period of warring states,\nin the year of crisis that followed the release of atomic power. It was\na world extraordinarily limited when one measures it by later standards,\nand it was now in a state of the direst confusion and distress.\n\nIt must be remembered that at this time men had still to spread into\nenormous areas of the land surface of the globe. There were vast\nmountain wildernesses, forest wildernesses, sandy deserts, and frozen\nlands. Men still clung closely to water and arable soil in temperate or\nsub-tropical climates, they lived abundantly only in river valleys, and\nall their great cities had grown upon large navigable rivers or close\nto ports upon the sea. Over great areas even of this suitable land\nflies and mosquitoes, armed with infection, had so far defeated human\ninvasion, and under their protection the virgin forests remained\nuntouched. Indeed, the whole world even in its most crowded districts\nwas filthy with flies and swarming with needless insect life to an\nextent which is now almost incredible. A population map of the world\nin 1950 would have followed seashore and river course so closely in\nits darker shading as to give an impression that homo sapiens was an\namphibious animal. His roads and railways lay also along the lower\ncontours, only here and there to pierce some mountain barrier or reach\nsome holiday resort did they clamber above 3000 feet. And across the\nocean his traffic passed in definite lines; there were hundreds of\nthousands of square miles of ocean no ship ever traversed except by\nmischance.\n\nInto the mysteries of the solid globe under his feet he had not yet\npierced for five miles, and it was still not forty years since, with\na tragic pertinacity, he had clambered to the poles of the earth. The\nlimitless mineral wealth of the Arctic and Antarctic circles was still\nburied beneath vast accumulations of immemorial ice, and the secret\nriches of the inner zones of the crust were untapped and indeed\nunsuspected. The higher mountain regions were known only to a sprinkling\nof guide-led climbers and the frequenters of a few gaunt hotels, and the\nvast rainless belts of land that lay across the continental masses, from\nGobi to Sahara and along the backbone of America, with their perfect\nair, their daily baths of blazing sunshine, their nights of cool\nserenity and glowing stars, and their reservoirs of deep-lying\nwater, were as yet only desolations of fear and death to the common\nimagination.\n\nAnd now under the shock of the atomic bombs, the great masses of\npopulation which had gathered into the enormous dingy town centres\nof that period were dispossessed and scattered disastrously over the\nsurrounding rural areas. It was as if some brutal force, grown impatient\nat last at man\'s blindness, had with the deliberate intention of a\nrearrangement of population upon more wholesome lines, shaken the world.\nThe great industrial regions and the large cities that had escaped the\nbombs were, because of their complete economic collapse, in almost as\ntragic plight as those that blazed, and the country-side was disordered\nby a multitude of wandering and lawless strangers. In some parts of the\nworld famine raged, and in many regions there was plague.... The plains\nof north India, which had become more and more dependent for the general\nwelfare on the railways and that great system of irrigation canals which\nthe malignant section of the patriots had destroyed, were in a state of\npeculiar distress, whole villages lay dead together, no man heeding, and\nthe very tigers and panthers that preyed upon the emaciated survivors\ncrawled back infected into the jungle to perish. Large areas of China\nwere a prey to brigand bands....\n\nIt is a remarkable thing that no complete contemporary account of\nthe explosion of the atomic bombs survives. There are, of course,\ninnumerable allusions and partial records, and it is from these that\nsubsequent ages must piece together the image of these devastations.\n\nThe phenomena, it must be remembered, changed greatly from day to day,\nand even from hour to hour, as the exploding bomb shifted its position,\nthrew off fragments or came into contact with water or a fresh texture\nof soil. Barnet, who came within forty miles of Paris early in October,\nis concerned chiefly with his account of the social confusion of the\ncountry-side and the problems of his command, but he speaks of heaped\ncloud masses of steam. \'All along the sky to the south-west\' and of a\nred glare beneath these at night. Parts of Paris were still burning,\nand numbers of people were camped in the fields even at this distance\nwatching over treasured heaps of salvaged loot. He speaks too of\nthe distant rumbling of the explosion--\'like trains going over iron\nbridges.\'\n\nOther descriptions agree with this; they all speak of the \'continuous\nreverberations,\' or of the \'thudding and hammering,\' or some such\nphrase; and they all testify to a huge pall of steam, from which rain\nwould fall suddenly in torrents and amidst which lightning played.\nDrawing nearer to Paris an observer would have found the salvage camps\nincreasing in number and blocking up the villages, and large numbers\nof people, often starving and ailing, camping under improvised tents\nbecause there was no place for them to go. The sky became more and more\ndensely overcast until at last it blotted out the light of day and left\nnothing but a dull red glare \'extraordinarily depressing to the spirit.\'\nIn this dull glare, great numbers of people were still living, clinging\nto their houses and in many cases subsisting in a state of partial\nfamine upon the produce in their gardens and the stores in the shops of\nthe provision dealers.\n\nComing in still closer, the investigator would have reached the police\ncordon, which was trying to check the desperate enterprise of those who\nwould return to their homes or rescue their more valuable possessions\nwithin the \'zone of imminent danger.\'\n\nThat zone was rather arbitrarily defined. If our spectator could have\ngot permission to enter it, he would have entered also a zone of uproar,\na zone of perpetual thunderings, lit by a strange purplish-red\nlight, and quivering and swaying with the incessant explosion of the\nradio-active substance. Whole blocks of buildings were alight and\nburning fiercely, the trembling, ragged flames looking pale and ghastly\nand attenuated in comparison with the full-bodied crimson glare beyond.\nThe shells of other edifices already burnt rose, pierced by rows of\nwindow sockets against the red-lit mist.\n\nEvery step farther would have been as dangerous as a descent within the\ncrater of an active volcano. These spinning, boiling bomb centres would\nshift or break unexpectedly into new regions, great fragments of earth\nor drain or masonry suddenly caught by a jet of disruptive force might\ncome flying by the explorer\'s head, or the ground yawn a fiery grave\nbeneath his feet. Few who adventured into these areas of destruction\nand survived attempted any repetition of their experiences. There are\nstories of puffs of luminous, radio-active vapour drifting sometimes\nscores of miles from the bomb centre and killing and scorching all they\novertook. And the first conflagrations from the Paris centre spread\nwestward half-way to the sea.\n\nMoreover, the air in this infernal inner circle of red-lit ruins had a\npeculiar dryness and a blistering quality, so that it set up a soreness\nof the skin and lungs that was very difficult to heal....\n\nSuch was the last state of Paris, and such on a larger scale was the\ncondition of affairs in Chicago, and the same fate had overtaken Berlin,\nMoscow, Tokio, the eastern half of London, Toulon, Kiel, and two hundred\nand eighteen other centres of population or armament. Each was a flaming\ncentre of radiant destruction that only time could quench, that indeed\nin many instances time has still to quench. To this day, though indeed\nwith a constantly diminishing uproar and vigour, these explosions\ncontinue. In the map of nearly every country of the world three or four\nor more red circles, a score of miles in diameter, mark the position of\nthe dying atomic bombs and the death areas that men have been forced to\nabandon around them. Within these areas perished museums, cathedrals,\npalaces, libraries, galleries of masterpieces, and a vast accumulation\nof human achievement, whose charred remains lie buried, a legacy of\ncurious material that only future generations may hope to examine....\n\nSection 4\n\nThe state of mind of the dispossessed urban population which swarmed and\nperished so abundantly over the country-side during the dark days of the\nautumnal months that followed the Last War, was one of blank despair.\nBarnet gives sketch after sketch of groups of these people, camped among\nthe vineyards of Champagne, as he saw them during his period of service\nwith the army of pacification.\n\nThere was, for example, that \'man-milliner\' who came out from a field\nbeside the road that rises up eastward out of Epernay, and asked how\nthings were going in Paris. He was, says Barnet, a round-faced man,\ndressed very neatly in black--so neatly that it was amazing to discover\nhe was living close at hand in a tent made of carpets--and he had \'an\nurbane but insistent manner,\' a carefully trimmed moustache and beard,\nexpressive eyebrows, and hair very neatly brushed.\n\n\'No one goes into Paris,\' said Barnet.\n\n\'But, Monsieur, that is very unenterprising,\' the man by the wayside\nsubmitted.\n\n\'The danger is too great. The radiations eat into people\'s skins.\'\n\nThe eyebrows protested. \'But is nothing to be done?\'\n\n\'Nothing can be done.\'\n\n\'But, Monsieur, it is extraordinarily inconvenient, this living in exile\nand waiting. My wife and my little boy suffer extremely. There is a lack\nof amenity. And the season advances. I say nothing of the expense and\ndifficulty in obtaining provisions.... When does Monsieur think that\nsomething will be done to render Paris--possible?\'\n\nBarnet considered his interlocutor.\n\n\'I\'m told,\' said Barnet, \'that Paris is not likely to be possible again\nfor several generations.\'\n\n\'Oh! but this is preposterous! Consider, Monsieur! What are people like\nourselves to do in the meanwhile? I am a costumier. All my connections\nand interests, above all my style, demand Paris....\'\n\nBarnet considered the sky, from which a light rain was beginning to\nfall, the wide fields about them from which the harvest had been taken,\nthe trimmed poplars by the wayside.\n\n\'Naturally,\' he agreed, \'you want to go to Paris. But Paris is over.\'\n\n\'Over!\'\n\n\'Finished.\'\n\n\'But then, Monsieur--what is to become--of ME?\'\n\nBarnet turned his face westward, whither the white road led.\n\n\'Where else, for example, may I hope to find--opportunity?\'\n\nBarnet made no reply.\n\n\'Perhaps on the Riviera. Or at some such place as Homburg. Or some\nplague perhaps.\'\n\n\'All that,\' said Barnet, accepting for the first time facts that had\nlain evident in his mind for weeks; \'all that must be over, too.\'\n\nThere was a pause. Then the voice beside him broke out. \'But, Monsieur,\nit is impossible! It leaves--nothing.\'\n\n\'No. Not very much.\'\n\n\'One cannot suddenly begin to grow potatoes!\'\n\n\'It would be good if Monsieur could bring himself----\'\n\n\'To the life of a peasant! And my wife----You do not know the\ndistinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a peculiar\ndependent charm. Like some slender tropical creeper--with great white\nflowers.... But all this is foolish talk. It is impossible that Paris,\nwhich has survived so many misfortunes, should not presently revive.\'\n\n\'I do not think it will ever revive. Paris is finished. London, too, I\nam told--Berlin. All the great capitals were stricken....\'\n\n\'But----! Monsieur must permit me to differ.\'\n\n\'It is so.\'\n\n\'It is impossible. Civilisations do not end in this manner. Mankind will\ninsist.\'\n\n\'On Paris?\'\n\n\'On Paris.\'\n\n\'Monsieur, you might as well hope to go down the Maelstrom and resume\nbusiness there.\'\n\n\'I am content, Monsieur, with my own faith.\'\n\n\'The winter comes on. Would not Monsieur be wiser to seek a house?\'\n\n\'Farther from Paris? No, Monsieur. But it is not possible, Monsieur,\nwhat you say, and you are under a tremendous mistake.... Indeed you are\nin error.... I asked merely for information....\'\n\n\'When last I saw him,\' said Barnet, \'he was standing under the signpost\nat the crest of the hill, gazing wistfully, yet it seemed to me a little\ndoubtfully, now towards Paris, and altogether heedless of a drizzling\nrain that was wetting him through and through....\'\n\nSection 5\n\nThis effect of chill dismay, of a doom as yet imperfectly apprehended\ndeepens as Barnet\'s record passes on to tell of the approach of winter.\nIt was too much for the great mass of those unwilling and incompetent\nnomads to realise that an age had ended, that the old help and guidance\nexisted no longer, that times would not mend again, however patiently\nthey held out. They were still in many cases looking to Paris when the\nfirst snowflakes of that pitiless January came swirling about them. The\nstory grows grimmer....\n\nIf it is less monstrously tragic after Barnet\'s return to England, it\nis, if anything, harder. England was a spectacle of fear-embittered\nhouseholders, hiding food, crushing out robbery, driving the starving\nwanderers from every faltering place upon the roads lest they should\ndie inconveniently and reproachfully on the doorsteps of those who had\nfailed to urge them onward....\n\nThe remnants of the British troops left France finally in March, after\nurgent representations from the provisional government at Orleans that\nthey could be supported no longer. They seem to have been a fairly\nwell-behaved, but highly parasitic force throughout, though Barnet is\nclearly of opinion that they did much to suppress sporadic brigandage\nand maintain social order. He came home to a famine-stricken country,\nand his picture of the England of that spring is one of miserable\npatience and desperate expedients. The country was suffering much more\nthan France, because of the cessation of the overseas supplies on which\nit had hitherto relied. His troops were given bread, dried fish, and\nboiled nettles at Dover, and marched inland to Ashford and paid off. On\nthe way thither they saw four men hanging from the telegraph posts by\nthe roadside, who had been hung for stealing swedes. The labour refuges\nof Kent, he discovered, were feeding their crowds of casual wanderers on\nbread into which clay and sawdust had been mixed. In Surrey there was a\nshortage of even such fare as that. He himself struck across country to\nWinchester, fearing to approach the bomb-poisoned district round London,\nand at Winchester he had the luck to be taken on as one of the wireless\nassistants at the central station and given regular rations. The station\nstood in a commanding position on the chalk hill that overlooks the town\nfrom the east....\n\nThence he must have assisted in the transmission of the endless cipher\nmessages that preceded the gathering at Brissago, and there it was that\nthe Brissago proclamation of the end of the war and the establishment of\na world government came under his hands.\n\nHe was feeling ill and apathetic that day, and he did not realise what\nit was he was transcribing. He did it mechanically, as a part of his\ntedious duty.\n\nAfterwards there came a rush of messages arising out of the declaration\nthat strained him very much, and in the evening when he was relieved, he\nate his scanty supper and then went out upon the little balcony before\nthe station, to smoke and rest his brains after this sudden and as yet\ninexplicable press of duty. It was a very beautiful, still evening. He\nfell talking to a fellow operator, and for the first time, he declares,\n\'I began to understand what it was all about. I began to see just what\nenormous issues had been under my hands for the past four hours. But\nI became incredulous after my first stimulation. \"This is some sort of\nBunkum,\" I said very sagely.\n\n\'My colleague was more hopeful. \"It means an end to bomb-throwing and\ndestruction,\" he said. \"It means that presently corn will come from\nAmerica.\"\n\n\'\"Who is going to send corn when there is no more value in money?\" I\nasked.\n\n\'Suddenly we were startled by a clashing from the town below. The\ncathedral bells, which had been silent ever since I had come into the\ndistrict, were beginning, with a sort of rheumatic difficulty, to ring.\nPresently they warmed a little to the work, and we realised what was\ngoing on. They were ringing a peal. We listened with an unbelieving\nastonishment and looking into each other\'s yellow faces.\n\n\'\"They mean it,\" said my colleague.\n\n\'\"But what can they do now?\" I asked. \"Everything is broken down....\"\'\n\nAnd on that sentence, with an unexpected artistry, Barnet abruptly ends\nhis story.\n\nSection 6\n\nFrom the first the new government handled affairs with a certain\ngreatness of spirit. Indeed, it was inevitable that they should act\ngreatly. From the first they had to see the round globe as one problem;\nit was impossible any longer to deal with it piece by piece. They had to\nsecure it universally from any fresh outbreak of atomic destruction,\nand they had to ensure a permanent and universal pacification. On\nthis capacity to grasp and wield the whole round globe their existence\ndepended. There was no scope for any further performance.\n\nSo soon as the seizure of the existing supplies of atomic ammunition and\nthe apparatus for synthesising Carolinum was assured, the disbanding or\nsocial utilisation of the various masses of troops still under arms had\nto be arranged, the salvation of the year\'s harvests, and the feeding,\nhousing, and employment of the drifting millions of homeless people.\nIn Canada, in South America, and Asiatic Russia there were vast\naccumulations of provision that was immovable only because of the\nbreakdown of the monetary and credit systems. These had to be brought\ninto the famine districts very speedily if entire depopulation was to\nbe avoided, and their transportation and the revival of communications\ngenerally absorbed a certain proportion of the soldiery and more able\nunemployed. The task of housing assumed gigantic dimensions, and from\nbuilding camps the housing committee of the council speedily passed to\nconstructions of a more permanent type. They found far less friction\nthan might have been expected in turning the loose population on their\nhands to these things. People were extraordinarily tamed by that year of\nsuffering and death; they were disillusioned of their traditions, bereft\nof once obstinate prejudices; they felt foreign in a strange world,\nand ready to follow any confident leadership. The orders of the new\ngovernment came with the best of all credentials, rations. The people\neverywhere were as easy to control, one of the old labour experts who\nhad survived until the new time witnesses, \'as gangs of emigrant workers\nin a new land.\' And now it was that the social possibilities of the\natomic energy began to appear. The new machinery that had come into\nexistence before the last wars increased and multiplied, and the council\nfound itself not only with millions of hands at its disposal but with\npower and apparatus that made its first conceptions of the work it had\nto do seem pitifully timid. The camps that were planned in iron and deal\nwere built in stone and brass; the roads that were to have been mere\niron tracks became spacious ways that insisted upon architecture; the\ncultivations of foodstuffs that were to have supplied emergency rations,\nwere presently, with synthesisers, fertilisers, actinic light, and\nscientific direction, in excess of every human need.\n\nThe government had begun with the idea of temporarily reconstituting the\nsocial and economic system that had prevailed before the first coming\nof the atomic engine, because it was to this system that the ideas and\nhabits of the great mass of the world\'s dispossessed population\nwas adapted. Subsequent rearrangement it had hoped to leave to its\nsuccessors--whoever they might be. But this, it became more and more\nmanifest, was absolutely impossible. As well might the council have\nproposed a revival of slavery. The capitalist system had already been\nsmashed beyond repair by the onset of limitless gold and energy; it fell\nto pieces at the first endeavour to stand it up again. Already before\nthe war half of the industrial class had been out of work, the attempt\nto put them back into wages employment on the old lines was futile from\nthe outset--the absolute shattering of the currency system alone would\nhave been sufficient to prevent that, and it was necessary therefore to\ntake over the housing, feeding, and clothing of this worldwide multitude\nwithout exacting any return in labour whatever. In a little while the\nmere absence of occupation for so great a multitude of people everywhere\nbecame an evident social danger, and the government was obliged to\nresort to such devices as simple decorative work in wood and stone, the\nmanufacture of hand-woven textiles, fruit-growing, flower-growing, and\nlandscape gardening on a grand scale to keep the less adaptable out of\nmischief, and of paying wages to the younger adults for attendance at\nschools that would equip them to use the new atomic machinery.... So\nquite insensibly the council drifted into a complete reorganisation of\nurban and industrial life, and indeed of the entire social system.\n\nIdeas that are unhampered by political intrigue or financial\nconsiderations have a sweeping way with them, and before a year was\nout the records of the council show clearly that it was rising to its\nenormous opportunity, and partly through its own direct control and\npartly through a series of specific committees, it was planning a new\ncommon social order for the entire population of the earth. \'There can\nbe no real social stability or any general human happiness while\nlarge areas of the world and large classes of people are in a phase of\ncivilisation different from the prevailing mass. It is impossible now to\nhave great blocks of population misunderstanding the generally accepted\nsocial purpose or at an economic disadvantage to the rest.\' So the\ncouncil expressed its conception of the problem it had to solve. The\npeasant, the field-worker, and all barbaric cultivators were at an\n\'economic disadvantage\' to the more mobile and educated classes, and the\nlogic of the situation compelled the council to take up systematically\nthe supersession of this stratum by a more efficient organisation of\nproduction. It developed a scheme for the progressive establishment\nthroughout the world of the \'modern system\' in agriculture, a system\nthat should give the full advantages of a civilised life to every\nagricultural worker, and this replacement has been going on right up\nto the present day. The central idea of the modern system is the\nsubstitution of cultivating guilds for the individual cultivator, and\nfor cottage and village life altogether. These guilds are associations\nof men and women who take over areas of arable or pasture land, and make\nthemselves responsible for a certain average produce. They are bodies\nsmall enough as a rule to be run on a strictly democratic basis, and\nlarge enough to supply all the labour, except for a certain assistance\nfrom townspeople during the harvest, needed upon the land farmed. They\nhave watchers\' bungalows or chalets on the ground cultivated, but the\nease and the costlessness of modern locomotion enables them to maintain\na group of residences in the nearest town with a common dining-room and\nclub house, and usually also a guild house in the national or provincial\ncapital. Already this system has abolished a distinctively \'rustic\'\npopulation throughout vast areas of the old world, where it has\nprevailed immemorially. That shy, unstimulated life of the lonely hovel,\nthe narrow scandals and petty spites and persecutions of the small\nvillage, that hoarding, half inanimate existence away from books,\nthought, or social participation and in constant contact with cattle,\npigs, poultry, and their excrement, is passing away out of human\nexperience. In a little while it will be gone altogether. In the\nnineteenth century it had already ceased to be a necessary human state,\nand only the absence of any collective intelligence and an imagined need\nfor tough and unintelligent soldiers and for a prolific class at a low\nlevel, prevented its systematic replacement at that time....\n\nAnd while this settlement of the country was in progress, the urban\ncamps of the first phase of the council\'s activities were rapidly\ndeveloping, partly through the inherent forces of the situation and\npartly through the council\'s direction, into a modern type of town....\n\nSection 7\n\nIt is characteristic of the manner in which large enterprises forced\nthemselves upon the Brissago council, that it was not until the end\nof the first year of their administration and then only with extreme\nreluctance that they would take up the manifest need for a lingua franca\nfor the world. They seem to have given little attention to the various\ntheoretical universal languages which were proposed to them. They wished\nto give as little trouble to hasty and simple people as possible, and\nthe world-wide alstribution of English gave them a bias for it from the\nbeginning. The extreme simplicity of its grammar was also in its favour.\n\nIt was not without some sacrifices that the English-speaking\npeoples were permitted the satisfaction of hearing their speech\nused universally. The language was shorn of a number of grammatical\npeculiarities, the distinctive forms for the subjunctive mood for\nexample and most of its irregular plurals were abolished; its spelling\nwas systematised and adapted to the vowel sounds in use upon the\ncontinent of Europe, and a process of incorporating foreign nouns and\nverbs commenced that speedily reached enormous proportions. Within\nten years from the establishment of the World Republic the New English\nDictionary had swelled to include a vocabulary of 250,000 words, and\na man of 1900 would have found considerable difficulty in reading an\nordinary newspaper. On the other hand, the men of the new time could\nstill appreciate the older English literature.... Certain minor acts\nof uniformity accompanied this larger one. The idea of a common\nunderstanding and a general simplification of intercourse once it was\naccepted led very naturally to the universal establishment of the metric\nsystem of weights and measures, and to the disappearance of the various\nmakeshift calendars that had hitherto confused chronology. The year was\ndivided into thirteen months of four weeks each, and New Year\'s Day\nand Leap Year\'s Day were made holidays, and did not count at all in\nthe ordinary week. So the weeks and the months were brought into\ncorrespondence. And moreover, as the king put it to Firmin, it was\ndecided to \'nail down Easter.\' . . . In these matters, as in so many\nmatters, the new civilisation came as a simplification of ancient\ncomplications; the history of the calendar throughout the world is a\nhistory of inadequate adjustments, of attempts to fix seed-time and\nmidwinter that go back into the very beginning of human society; and\nthis final rectification had a symbolic value quite beyond its practical\nconvenience. But the council would have no rash nor harsh innovations,\nno strange names for the months, and no alteration in the numbering of\nthe years.\n\nThe world had already been put upon one universal monetary basis. For\nsome months after the accession of the council, the world\'s affairs had\nbeen carried on without any sound currency at all. Over great regions\nmoney was still in use, but with the most extravagant variations in\nprice and the most disconcerting fluctuations of public confidence. The\nancient rarity of gold upon which the entire system rested was gone.\nGold was now a waste product in the release of atomic energy, and it\nwas plain that no metal could be the basis of the monetary system\nagain. Henceforth all coins must be token coins. Yet the whole world was\naccustomed to metallic money, and a vast proportion of existing\nhuman relationships had grown up upon a cash basis, and were almost\ninconceivable without that convenient liquidating factor. It seemed\nabsolutely necessary to the life of the social organisation to have some\nsort of currency, and the council had therefore to discover some real\nvalue upon which to rest it. Various such apparently stable values as\nland and hours of work were considered. Ultimately the government,\nwhich was now in possession of most of the supplies of energy-releasing\nmaterial, fixed a certain number of units of energy as the value of a\ngold sovereign, declared a sovereign to be worth exactly twenty marks,\ntwenty-five francs, five dollars, and so forth, with the other current\nunits of the world, and undertook, under various qualifications and\nconditions, to deliver energy upon demand as payment for every sovereign\npresented. On the whole, this worked satisfactorily. They saved the\nface of the pound sterling. Coin was rehabilitated, and after a phase\nof price fluctuations, began to settle down to definite equivalents and\nuses again, with names and everyday values familiar to the common run of\npeople....\n\nSection 8\n\nAs the Brissago council came to realise that what it had supposed to be\ntemporary camps of refugees were rapidly developing into great towns of\na new type, and that it was remoulding the world in spite of itself,\nit decided to place this work of redistributing the non-agricultural\npopulation in the hands of a compactor and better qualified special\ncommittee. That committee is now, far more than the council of any\nother of its delegated committees, the active government of the world.\nDeveloped from an almost invisible germ of \'town-planning\' that came\nobscurely into existence in Europe or America (the question is still in\ndispute) somewhere in the closing decades of the nineteenth century,\nits work, the continual active planning and replanning of the world as\na place of human habitation, is now so to speak the collective material\nactivity of the race. The spontaneous, disorderly spreadings and\nrecessions of populations, as aimless and mechanical as the trickling\nof spilt water, which was the substance of history for endless years,\ngiving rise here to congestions, here to chronic devastating wars, and\neverywhere to a discomfort and disorderliness that was at its best only\npicturesque, is at an end. Men spread now, with the whole power of the\nrace to aid them, into every available region of the earth. Their\ncities are no longer tethered to running water and the proximity\nof cultivation, their plans are no longer affected by strategic\nconsiderations or thoughts of social insecurity. The aeroplane and\nthe nearly costless mobile car have abolished trade routes; a common\nlanguage and a universal law have abolished a thousand restraining\ninconveniences, and so an astonishing dispersal of habitations has\nbegun. One may live anywhere. And so it is that our cities now are true\nsocial gatherings, each with a character of its own and distinctive\ninterests of its own, and most of them with a common occupation. They\nlie out in the former deserts, these long wasted sun-baths of the race,\nthey tower amidst eternal snows, they hide in remote islands, and bask\non broad lagoons. For a time the whole tendency of mankind was to desert\nthe river valleys in which the race had been cradled for half a million\nyears, but now that the War against Flies has been waged so successfully\nthat this pestilential branch of life is nearly extinct, they are\nreturning thither with a renewed appetite for gardens laced by\nwatercourses, for pleasant living amidst islands and houseboats and\nbridges, and for nocturnal lanterns reflected by the sea.\n\nMan who is ceasing to be an agricultural animal becomes more and more a\nbuilder, a traveller, and a maker. How much he ceases to be a cultivator\nof the soil the returns of the Redistribution Committee showed. Every\nyear the work of our scientific laboratories increases the productivity\nand simplifies the labour of those who work upon the soil, and the food\nnow of the whole world is produced by less than one per cent. of its\npopulation, a percentage which still tends to decrease. Far fewer people\nare needed upon the land than training and proclivity dispose towards\nit, and as a consequence of this excess of human attention, the garden\nside of life, the creation of groves and lawns and vast regions of\nbeautiful flowers, has expanded enormously and continues to expand. For,\nas agricultural method intensifies and the quota is raised, one farm\nassociation after another, availing itself of the 1975 regulations,\nelects to produce a public garden and pleasaunce in the place of its\nformer fields, and the area of freedom and beauty is increased. And the\nchemists\' triumphs of synthesis, which could now give us an entirely\nartificial food, remain largely in abeyance because it is so much more\npleasant and interesting to eat natural produce and to grow such things\nupon the soil. Each year adds to the variety of our fruits and the\ndelightfulness of our flowers.\n\nSection 9\n\nThe early years of the World Republic witnessed a certain recrudescence\nof political adventure. There was, it is rather curious to note, no\nrevival of separatism after the face of King Ferdinand Charles had\nvanished from the sight of men, but in a number of countries, as the\nfirst urgent physical needs were met, there appeared a variety of\npersonalities having this in common, that they sought to revive\npolitical trouble and clamber by its aid to positions of importance and\nsatisfaction. In no case did they speak in the name of kings, and it is\nclear that monarchy must have been far gone in obsolescence before the\ntwentieth century began, but they made appeals to the large survivals\nof nationalist and racial feeling that were everywhere to be found, they\nalleged with considerable justice that the council was overriding racial\nand national customs and disregarding religious rules. The great plain\nof India was particularly prolific in such agitators. The revival of\nnewspapers, which had largely ceased during the terrible year because\nof the dislocation of the coinage, gave a vehicle and a method of\norganisation to these complaints. At first the council disregarded\nthis developing opposition, and then it recognised it with an entirely\ndevastating frankness.\n\nNever, of course, had there been so provisional a government. It was of\nan extravagant illegality. It was, indeed, hardly more than a club, a\nclub of about a hundred persons. At the outset there were ninety-three,\nand these were increased afterwards by the issue of invitations which\nmore than balanced its deaths, to as many at one time as one hundred\nand nineteen. Always its constitution has been miscellaneous. At no time\nwere these invitations issued with an admission that they recognised a\nright. The old institution or monarchy had come out unexpectedly well in\nthe light of the new regime. Nine of the original members of the\nfirst government were crowned heads who had resigned their separate\nsovereignty, and at no time afterwards did the number of its royal\nmembers sink below six. In their case there was perhaps a kind of\nattenuated claim to rule, but except for them and the still more\ninfinitesimal pretensions of one or two ex-presidents of republics, no\nmember of the council had even the shade of a right to his participation\nin its power. It was natural, therefore, that its opponents should find\na common ground in a clamour for representative government, and build\nhigh hopes upon a return, to parliamentary institutions.\n\nThe council decided to give them everything they wanted, but in a\nform that suited ill with their aspirations. It became at one stroke a\nrepresentative body. It became, indeed, magnificently representative. It\nbecame so representative that the politicians were drowned in a deluge\nof votes. Every adult of either sex from pole to pole was given a vote,\nand the world was divided into ten constituencies, which voted on the\nsame day by means of a simple modification of the world post. Membership\nof the government, it was decided, must be for life, save in the\nexceptional case of a recall; but the elections, which were held\nquinquenially, were arranged to add fifty members on each occasion. The\nmethod of proportional representation with one transferable vote was\nadopted, and the voter might also write upon his voting paper in a\nspecially marked space, the name of any of his representatives that he\nwished to recall. A ruler was recallable by as many votes as the quota\nby which he had been elected, and the original members by as many votes\nin any constituency as the returning quotas in the first election.\n\nUpon these conditions the council submitted itself very cheerfully to\nthe suffrages of the world. None of its members were recalled, and its\nfifty new associates, which included twenty-seven which it had seen fit\nto recommend, were of an altogether too miscellaneous quality to disturb\nthe broad trend of its policy. Its freedom from rules or formalities\nprevented any obstructive proceedings, and when one of the two newly\narrived Home Rule members for India sought for information how to bring\nin a bill, they learnt simply that bills were not brought in. They asked\nfor the speaker, and were privileged to hear much ripe wisdom from\nthe ex-king Egbert, who was now consciously among the seniors of the\ngathering. Thereafter they were baffled men....\n\nBut already by that time the work of the council was drawing to an end.\nIt was concerned not so much for the continuation of its construction\nas for the preservation of its accomplished work from the dramatic\ninstincts of the politician.\n\nThe life of the race becomes indeed more and more independent of the\nformal government. The council, in its opening phase, was heroic in\nspirit; a dragon-slaying body, it slashed out of existence a vast,\nknotted tangle of obsolete ideas and clumsy and jealous proprietorships;\nit secured by a noble system of institutional precautions, freedom of\ninquiry, freedom of criticism, free communications, a common basis of\neducation and understanding, and freedom from economic oppression. With\nthat its creative task was accomplished. It became more and more an\nestablished security and less and less an active intervention. There is\nnothing in our time to correspond with the continual petty making and\nentangling of laws in an atmosphere of contention that is perhaps the\nmost perplexing aspect of constitutional history in the nineteenth\ncentury. In that age they seem to have been perpetually making laws when\nwe should alter regulations. The work of change which we delegate to\nthese scientific committees of specific general direction which have\nthe special knowledge needed, and which are themselves dominated by\nthe broad intellectual process of the community, was in those days\ninextricably mixed up with legislation. They fought over the details; we\nshould as soon think of fighting over the arrangement of the parts of\na machine. We know nowadays that such things go on best within laws, as\nlife goes on between earth and sky. And so it is that government gathers\nnow for a day or so in each year under the sunshine of Brissago when\nSaint Bruno\'s lilies are in flower, and does little more than bless the\nwork of its committees. And even these committees are less originative\nand more expressive of the general thought than they were at first. It\nbecomes difficult to mark out the particular directive personalities\nof the world. Continually we are less personal. Every good thought\ncontributes now, and every able brain falls within that informal and\ndispersed kingship which gathers together into one purpose the energies\nof the race.\n\nSection 10\n\nIt is doubtful if we shall ever see again a phase of human existence in\nwhich \'politics,\' that is to say a partisan interference with the ruling\nsanities of the world, will be the dominant interest among serious men.\nWe seem to have entered upon an entirely new phase in history in which\ncontention as distinguished from rivalry, has almost abruptly ceased to\nbe the usual occupation, and has become at most a subdued and hidden\nand discredited thing. Contentious professions cease to be an honourable\nemployment for men. The peace between nations is also a peace between\nindividuals. We live in a world that comes of age. Man the warrior, man\nthe lawyer, and all the bickering aspects of life, pass into obscurity;\nthe grave dreamers, man the curious learner, and man the creative\nartist, come forward to replace these barbaric aspects of existence by a\nless ignoble adventure.\n\nThere is no natural life of man. He is, and always has been, a sheath\nof varied and even incompatible possibilities, a palimpsest of inherited\ndispositions. It was the habit of many writers in the early twentieth\ncentury to speak of competition and the narrow, private life of trade\nand saving and suspicious isolation as though such things were in some\nexceptional way proper to the human constitution, and as though openness\nof mind and a preference for achievement over possession were abnormal\nand rather unsubstantial qualities. How wrong that was the history\nof the decades immediately following the establishment of the world\nrepublic witnesses. Once the world was released from the hardening\ninsecurities of a needless struggle for life that was collectively\nplanless and individually absorbing, it became apparent that there was\nin the vast mass of people a long, smothered passion to make things. The\nworld broke out into making, and at first mainly into aesthetic\nmaking. This phase of history, which has been not inaptly termed the\n\'Efflorescence,\' is still, to a large extent, with us. The majority\nof our population consists of artists, and the bulk of activity in\nthe world lies no longer with necessities but with their elaboration,\ndecoration, and refinement. There has been an evident change in the\nquality of this making during recent years. It becomes more purposeful\nthan it was, losing something of its first elegance and prettiness and\ngaining in intensity; but that is a change rather of hue than of nature.\nThat comes with a deepening philosophy and a sounder education. For the\nfirst joyous exercises of fancy we perceive now the deliberation of a\nmore constructive imagination. There is a natural order in these things,\nand art comes before science as the satisfaction of more elemental needs\nmust come before art, and as play and pleasure come in a human life\nbefore the development of a settled purpose....\n\nFor thousands of years this gathering impulse to creative work must have\nstruggled in man against the limitations imposed upon him by his social\nineptitude. It was a long smouldering fire that flamed out at last\nin all these things. The evidence of a pathetic, perpetually thwarted\nurgency to make something, is one of the most touching aspects of the\nrelics and records of our immediate ancestors. There exists still in the\ndeath area about the London bombs, a region of deserted small homes that\nfurnish the most illuminating comment on the old state of affairs.\nThese homes are entirely horrible, uniform, square, squat, hideously\nproportioned, uncomfortable, dingy, and in some respects quite filthy,\nonly people in complete despair of anything better could have lived\nin them, but to each is attached a ridiculous little rectangle of land\ncalled \'the garden,\' containing usually a prop for drying clothes and\na loathsome box of offal, the dustbin, full of egg-shells, cinders, and\nsuch-like refuse. Now that one may go about this region in comparitive\nsecurity--for the London radiations have dwindled to inconsiderable\nproportions--it is possible to trace in nearly every one of\nthese gardens some effort to make. Here it is a poor little plank\nsummer-house, here it is a \'fountain\' of bricks and oyster-shells, here\na \'rockery,\' here a \'workshop.\' And in the houses everywhere there\nare pitiful little decorations, clumsy models, feeble drawings. These\nefforts are almost incredibly inept, like the drawings of blindfolded\nmen, they are only one shade less harrowing to a sympathetic observer\nthan the scratchings one finds upon the walls of the old prisons, but\nthere they are, witnessing to the poor buried instincts that struggled\nup towards the light. That god of joyous expression our poor fathers\nignorantly sought, our freedom has declared to us....\n\nIn the old days the common ambition of every simple soul was to possess\na little property, a patch of land, a house uncontrolled by others, an\n\'independence\' as the English used to put it. And what made this desire\nfor freedom and prosperity so strong, was very evidently the dream of\nself-expression, of doing something with it, of playing with it, of\nmaking a personal delightfulness, a distinctiveness. Property was never\nmore than a means to an end, nor avarice more than a perversion. Men\nowned in order to do freely. Now that every one has his own apartments\nand his own privacy secure, this disposition to own has found its\nrelease in a new direction. Men study and save and strive that they may\nleave behind them a series of panels in some public arcade, a row\nof carven figures along a terrace, a grove, a pavilion. Or they give\nthemselves to the penetration of some still opaque riddle in phenomena\nas once men gave themselves to the accumulation of riches. The work that\nwas once the whole substance of social existence--for most men spent all\ntheir lives in earning a living--is now no more than was the burden upon\none of those old climbers who carried knapsacks of provisions on their\nbacks in order that they might ascend mountains. It matters little to\nthe easy charities of our emancipated time that most people who have\nmade their labour contribution produce neither new beauty nor new\nwisdom, but are simply busy about those pleasant activities and\nenjoyments that reassure them that they are alive. They help, it may be,\nby reception and reverberation, and they hinder nothing. ...\n\nSection 11\n\nNow all this phase of gigantic change in the contours and appearances\nof human life which is going on about us, a change as rapid and as\nwonderful as the swift ripening of adolescence to manhood after the\nbarbaric boyish years, is correlated with moral and mental changes at\nleast as unprecedented. It is not as if old things were going out\nof life and new things coming in, it is rather that the altered\ncircumstances of men are making an appeal to elements in his nature\nthat have hitherto been suppressed, and checking tendencies that have\nhitherto been over-stimulated and over-developed. He has not so much\ngrown and altered his essential being as turned new aspects to the\nlight. Such turnings round into a new attitude the world has seen on a\nless extensive scale before. The Highlanders of the seventeenth century,\nfor example, were cruel and bloodthirsty robbers, in the nineteenth\ntheir descendants were conspicuously trusty and honourable men. There\nwas not a people in Western Europe in the early twentieth century that\nseemed capable of hideous massacres, and none that had not been guilty\nof them within the previous two centuries. The free, frank, kindly,\ngentle life of the prosperous classes in any European country before the\nyears of the last wars was in a different world of thought and feeling\nfrom that of the dingy, suspicious, secretive, and uncharitable\nexistence of the respectable poor, or the constant personal violence,\nthe squalor and naive passions of the lowest stratum. Yet there were\nno real differences of blood and inherent quality between these worlds;\ntheir differences were all in circumstances, suggestion, and habits of\nmind. And turning to more individual instances the constantly observed\ndifference between one portion of a life and another consequent upon\na religious conversion, were a standing example of the versatile\npossibilities of human nature.\n\nThe catastrophe of the atomic bombs which shook men out of cities and\nbusinesses and economic relations shook them also out of their old\nestablished habits of thought, and out of the lightly held beliefs and\nprejudices that came down to them from the past. To borrow a word from\nthe old-fashioned chemists, men were made nascent; they were released\nfrom old ties; for good or evil they were ready for new associations.\nThe council carried them forward for good; perhaps if his bombs had\nreached their destination King Ferdinand Charles might have carried them\nback to an endless chain of evils. But his task would have been a harder\none than the council\'s. The moral shock of the atomic bombs had been a\nprofound one, and for a while the cunning side of the human animal\nwas overpowered by its sincere realisation of the vital necessity for\nreconstruction. The litigious and trading spirits cowered together,\nscared at their own consequences; men thought twice before they sought\nmean advantages in the face of the unusual eagerness to realise new\naspirations, and when at last the weeds revived again and \'claims\' began\nto sprout, they sprouted upon the stony soil of law-courts reformed,\nof laws that pointed to the future instead of the past, and under\nthe blazing sunshine of a transforming world. A new literature, a new\ninterpretation of history were springing into existence, a new teaching\nwas already in the schools, a new faith in the young. The worthy man\nwho forestalled the building of a research city for the English upon\nthe Sussex downs by buying up a series of estates, was dispossessed\nand laughed out of court when he made his demand for some preposterous\ncompensation; the owner of the discredited Dass patents makes his last\nappearance upon the scroll of history as the insolvent proprietor of\na paper called The Cry for Justice, in which he duns the world for a\nhundred million pounds. That was the ingenuous Dass\'s idea of justice,\nthat he ought to be paid about five million pounds annually because he\nhad annexed the selvage of one of Holsten\'s discoveries. Dass came\nat last to believe quite firmly in his right, and he died a victim of\nconspiracy mania in a private hospital at Nice. Both of these men\nwould probably have ended their days enormously wealthy, and of course\nennobled in the England of the opening twentieth century, and it is just\nthis novelty of their fates that marks the quality of the new age.\n\nThe new government early discovered the need of a universal education\nto fit men to the great conceptions of its universal rule. It made no\nwrangling attacks on the local, racial, and sectarian forms of religious\nprofession that at that time divided the earth into a patchwork of\nhatreds and distrusts; it left these organisations to make their peace\nwith God in their own time; but it proclaimed as if it were a mere\nsecular truth that sacrifice was expected from all, that respect had to\nbe shown to all; it revived schools or set them up afresh all around the\nworld, and everywhere these schools taught the history of war and the\nconsequences and moral of the Last War; everywhere it was taught not as\na sentiment but as a matter of fact that the salvation of the world from\nwaste and contention was the common duty and occupation of all men and\nwomen. These things which are now the elementary commonplaces of human\nintercourse seemed to the councillors of Brissago, when first they dared\nto proclaim them, marvellously daring discoveries, not untouched by\ndoubt, that flushed the cheek and fired the eye.\n\nThe council placed all this educational reconstruction in the hands of\na committee of men and women, which did its work during the next few\ndecades with remarkable breadth and effectiveness. This educational\ncommittee was, and is, the correlative upon the mental and spiritual\nside of the redistribution committee. And prominent upon it, and indeed\nfor a time quite dominating it, was a Russian named Karenin, who was\nsingular in being a congenital cripple. His body was bent so that he\nwalked with difficulty, suffered much pain as he grew older, and had\nat last to undergo two operations. The second killed him. Already\nmalformation, which was to be seen in every crowd during the middle ages\nso that the crippled beggar was, as it were, an essential feature of\nthe human spectacle, was becoming a strange thing in the world. It had a\ncurious effect upon Karenin\'s colleagues; their feeling towards him was\nmingled with pity and a sense of inhumanity that it needed usage rather\nthan reason to overcome. He had a strong face, with little bright brown\neyes rather deeply sunken and a large resolute thin-lipped mouth. His\nskin was very yellow and wrinkled, and his hair iron gray. He was at all\ntimes an impatient and sometimes an angry man, but this was forgiven him\nbecause of the hot wire of suffering that was manifestly thrust through\nhis being. At the end of his life his personal prestige was very great.\nTo him far more than to any contemporary is it due that self-abnegation,\nself-identification with the world spirit, was made the basis of\nuniversal education. That general memorandum to the teachers which is\nthe key-note of the modern educational system, was probably entirely his\nwork.\n\n\'Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it,\' he wrote. \'That is the\ndevice upon the seal of this document, and the starting point of all\nwe have to do. It is a mistake to regard it as anything but a plain\nstatement of fact. It is the basis for your work. You have to teach\nself-forgetfulness, and everything else that you have to teach is\ncontributory and subordinate to that end. Education is the release\nof man from self. You have to widen the horizons of your children,\nencourage and intensify their curiosity and their creative impulses, and\ncultivate and enlarge their sympathies. That is what you are for. Under\nyour guidance and the suggestions you will bring to bear on them, they\nhave to shed the old Adam of instinctive suspicions, hostilities,\nand passions, and to find themselves again in the great being of the\nuniverse. The little circles of their egotisms have to be opened out\nuntil they become arcs in the sweep of the racial purpose. And this\nthat you teach to others you must learn also sedulously yourselves.\nPhilosophy, discovery, art, every sort of skill, every sort of service,\nlove: these are the means of salvation from that narrow loneliness\nof desire, that brooding preoccupation with self and egotistical\nrelationships, which is hell for the individual, treason to the race,\nand exile from God....\'\n\nSection 12\n\nAs things round themselves off and accomplish themselves, one begins for\nthe first time to see them clearly. From the perspectives of a new age\none can look back upon the great and widening stream of literature with\na complete understanding. Things link up that seemed disconnected, and\nthings that were once condemned as harsh and aimless are seen to be but\nfactors in the statement of a gigantic problem. An enormous bulk of the\nsincerer writing of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries\nfalls together now into an unanticipated unanimity; one sees it as a\nhuge tissue of variations upon one theme, the conflict of human egotism\nand personal passion and narrow imaginations on the one hand, against\nthe growing sense of wider necessities and a possible, more spacious\nlife.\n\nThat conflict is in evidence in so early a work as Voltaire\'s Candide,\nfor example, in which the desire for justice as well as happiness beats\nagainst human contrariety and takes refuge at last in a forced and\ninconclusive contentment with little things. Candide was but one of\nthe pioneers of a literature of uneasy complaint that was presently\nan innumerable multitude of books. The novels more particularly of the\nnineteenth century, if one excludes the mere story-tellers from our\nconsideration, witness to this uneasy realisation of changes that call\nfor effort and of the lack of that effort. In a thousand aspects,\nnow tragically, now comically, now with a funny affectation of divine\ndetachment, a countless host of witnesses tell their story of lives\nfretting between dreams and limitations. Now one laughs, now one\nweeps, now one reads with a blank astonishment at this huge and almost\nunpremeditated record of how the growing human spirit, now warily, now\neagerly, now furiously, and always, as it seems, unsuccessfully, tried\nto adapt itself to the maddening misfit of its patched and ancient\ngarments. And always in these books as one draws nearer to the heart\nof the matter there comes a disconcerting evasion. It was the fantastic\nconvention of the time that a writer should not touch upon religion.\nTo do so was to rouse the jealous fury of the great multitude of\nprofessional religious teachers. It was permitted to state the discord,\nbut it was forbidden to glance at any possible reconciliation. Religion\nwas the privilege of the pulpit....\n\nIt was not only from the novels that religion was omitted. It was\nignored by the newspapers; it was pedantically disregarded in the\ndiscussion of business questions, it played a trivial and apologetic\npart in public affairs. And this was done not out of contempt but\nrespect. The hold of the old religious organisations upon men\'s respect\nwas still enormous, so enormous that there seemed to be a quality of\nirreverence in applying religion to the developments of every day. This\nstrange suspension of religion lasted over into the beginnings of the\nnew age. It was the clear vision of Marcus Karenin much more than any\nother contemporary influence which brought it back into the texture\nof human life. He saw religion without hallucinations, without\nsuperstitious reverence, as a common thing as necessary as food and\nair, as land and energy to the life of man and the well-being of the\nRepublic. He saw that indeed it had already percolated away from the\ntemples and hierarchies and symbols in which men had sought to imprison\nit, that it was already at work anonymously and obscurely in the\nuniversal acceptance of the greater state. He gave it clearer\nexpression, rephrased it to the lights and perspectives of the new\ndawn....\n\nBut if we return to our novels for our evidence of the spirit of the\ntimes it becomes evident as one reads them in their chronological order,\nso far as that is now ascertainable, that as one comes to the latter\nnineteenth and the earlier twentieth century the writers are much\nmore acutely aware of secular change than their predecessors were. The\nearlier novelists tried to show \'life as it is,\' the latter showed\nlife as it changes. More and more of their characters are engaged in\nadaptation to change or suffering from the effects of world changes. And\nas we come up to the time of the Last Wars, this newer conception of the\neveryday life as a reaction to an accelerated development is continually\nmore manifest. Barnet\'s book, which has served us so well, is frankly a\npicture of the world coming about like a ship that sails into the wind.\nOur later novelists give a vast gallery of individual conflicts in which\nold habits and customs, limited ideas, ungenerous temperaments, and\ninnate obsessions are pitted against this great opening out of life that\nhas happened to us. They tell us of the feelings of old people who have\nbeen wrenched away from familiar surroundings, and how they have had to\nmake peace with uncomfortable comforts and conveniences that are still\nstrange to them. They give us the discord between the opening egotisms\nof youths and the ill-defined limitations of a changing social life.\nThey tell of the universal struggle of jealousy to capture and cripple\nour souls, of romantic failures and tragical misconceptions of the trend\nof the world, of the spirit of adventure, and the urgency of curiosity,\nand how these serve the universal drift. And all their stories lead\nin the end either to happiness missed or happiness won, to disaster or\nsalvation. The clearer their vision and the subtler their art, the more\ncertainly do these novels tell of the possibility of salvation for all\nthe world. For any road in life leads to religion for those upon it who\nwill follow it far enough....\n\nIt would have seemed a strange thing to the men of the former time\nthat it should be an open question as it is to-day whether the world\nis wholly Christian or not Christian at all. But assuredly we have\nthe spirit, and as surely have we left many temporary forms behind.\nChristianity was the first expression of world religion, the first\ncomplete repudiation of tribalism and war and disputation. That it fell\npresently into the ways of more ancient rituals cannot alter that.\nThe common sense of mankind has toiled through two thousand years of\nchastening experience to find at last how sound a meaning attaches to\nthe familiar phrases of the Christian faith. The scientific thinker\nas he widens out to the moral problems of the collective life, comes\ninevitably upon the words of Christ, and as inevitably does the\nChristian, as his thought grows clearer, arrive at the world\nrepublic. As for the claims of the sects, as for the use of a name and\nsuccessions, we live in a time that has shaken itself free from such\nclaims and consistencies.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH\n\nTHE LAST DAYS OF MARCUS KARENIN\n\nSection 1\n\nThe second operation upon Marcus Karenin was performed at the new\nstation for surgical work at Paran, high in the Himalayas above the\nSutlej Gorge, where it comes down out of Thibet.\n\nIt is a place of such wildness and beauty as no other scenery in the\nworld affords. The granite terrace which runs round the four sides\nof the low block of laboratories looks out in every direction upon\nmountains. Far below in the hidden depths of a shadowy blue cleft, the\nriver pours down in its tumultuous passage to the swarming plains of\nIndia. No sound of its roaring haste comes up to those serenities.\nBeyond that blue gulf, in which whole forests of giant deodars seem no\nmore than small patches of moss, rise vast precipices of many-coloured\nrock, fretted above, lined by snowfalls, and jagged into pinnacles.\nThese are the northward wall of a towering wilderness of ice and snow\nwhich clambers southward higher and wilder and vaster to the culminating\nsummits of our globe, to Dhaulagiri and Everest. Here are cliffs of\nwhich no other land can show the like, and deep chasms in which Mt.\nBlanc might be plunged and hidden. Here are icefields as big as inland\nseas on which the tumbled boulders lie so thickly that strange little\nflowers can bloom among them under the untempered sunshine. To the\nnorthward, and blocking out any vision of the uplands of Thibet, rises\nthat citadel of porcelain, that gothic pile, the Lio Porgyul, walls,\ntowers, and peaks, a clear twelve thousand feet of veined and splintered\nrock above the river. And beyond it and eastward and westward rise peaks\nbehind peaks, against the dark blue Himalayan sky. Far away below to the\nsouth the clouds of the Indian rains pile up abruptly and are stayed by\nan invisible hand.\n\nHither it was that with a dreamlike swiftness Karenin flew high over\nthe irrigations of Rajputana and the towers and cupolas of the ultimate\nDelhi; and the little group of buildings, albeit the southward wall\ndropped nearly five hundred feet, seemed to him as he soared down to it\nlike a toy lost among these mountain wildernesses. No road came up to\nthis place; it was reached only by flight.\n\nHis pilot descended to the great courtyard, and Karenin assisted by his\nsecretary clambered down through the wing fabric and made his way to the\nofficials who came out to receive him.\n\nIn this place, beyond infections and noise and any distractions, surgery\nhad made for itself a house of research and a healing fastness. The\nbuilding itself would have seemed very wonderful to eyes accustomed to\nthe flimsy architecture of an age when power was precious. It was made\nof granite, already a little roughened on the outside by frost, but\npolished within and of a tremendous solidity. And in a honeycomb of\nsubtly lit apartments, were the spotless research benches, the operating\ntables, the instruments of brass, and fine glass and platinum and gold.\nMen and women came from all parts of the world for study or experimental\nresearch. They wore a common uniform of white and ate at long tables\ntogether, but the patients lived in an upper part of the buildings, and\nwere cared for by nurses and skilled attendants....\n\nThe first man to greet Karenin was Ciana, the scientific director of the\ninstitution. Beside him was Rachel Borken, the chief organiser. \'You are\ntired?\' she asked, and old Karenin shook his head.\n\n\'Cramped,\' he said. \'I have wanted to visit such a place as this.\'\n\nHe spoke as if he had no other business with them.\n\nThere was a little pause.\n\n\'How many scientific people have you got here now?\' he asked.\n\n\'Just three hundred and ninety-two,\' said Rachel Borken.\n\n\'And the patients and attendants and so on?\'\n\n\'Two thousand and thirty.\'\n\n\'I shall be a patient,\' said Karenin. \'I shall have to be a patient. But\nI should like to see things first. Presently I will be a patient.\'\n\n\'You will come to my rooms?\' suggested Ciana.\n\n\'And then I must talk to this doctor of yours,\' said Karenin. \'But I\nwould like to see a bit of this place and talk to some of your people\nbefore it comes to that.\'\n\nHe winced and moved forward.\n\n\'I have left most of my work in order,\' he said.\n\n\'You have been working hard up to now?\' asked Rachel Borken.\n\n\'Yes. And now I have nothing more to do--and it seems strange.... And\nit\'s a bother, this illness and having to come down to oneself. This\ndoorway and the row of windows is well done; the gray granite and just\nthe line of gold, and then those mountains beyond through that arch.\nIt\'s very well done....\'\n\nSection 2\n\nKarenin lay on the bed with a soft white rug about him, and Fowler, who\nwas to be his surgeon sat on the edge of the bed and talked to him.\nAn assistant was seated quietly in the shadow behind the bed. The\nexamination had been made, and Karenin knew what was before him. He was\ntired but serene.\n\n\'So I shall die,\' he said, \'unless you operate?\'\n\nFowler assented. \'And then,\' said Karenin, smiling, \'probably I shall\ndie.\'\n\n\'Not certainly.\'\n\n\'Even if I do not die; shall I be able to work?\'\n\n\'There is just a chance....\'\n\n\'So firstly I shall probably die, and if I do not, then perhaps I shall\nbe a useless invalid?\'\n\n\'I think if you live, you may be able to go on--as you do now.\'\n\n\'Well, then, I suppose I must take the risk of it. Yet couldn\'t\nyou, Fowler, couldn\'t you drug me and patch me instead of all\nthis--vivisection? A few days of drugged and active life--and then the\nend?\'\n\nFowler thought. \'We are not sure enough yet to do things like that,\' he\nsaid.\n\n\'But a day is coming when you will be certain.\'\n\nFowler nodded.\n\n\'You make me feel as though I was the last of deformity--Deformity is\nuncertainty--inaccuracy. My body works doubtfully, it is not even sure\nthat it will die or live. I suppose the time is not far off when such\nbodies as mine will no longer be born into the world.\'\n\n\'You see,\' said Fowler, after a little pause, \'it is necessary that\nspirits such as yours should be born into the world.\'\n\n\'I suppose,\' said Karenin, \'that my spirit has had its use. But if you\nthink that is because my body is as it is I think you are mistaken.\nThere is no peculiar virtue in defect. I have always chafed against--all\nthis. If I could have moved more freely and lived a larger life in\nhealth I could have done more. But some day perhaps you will be able to\nput a body that is wrong altogether right again. Your science is only\nbeginning. It\'s a subtler thing than physics and chemistry, and it takes\nlonger to produce its miracles. And meanwhile a few more of us must die\nin patience.\'\n\n\'Fine work is being done and much of it,\' said Fowler. \'I can say as\nmuch because I have nothing to do with it. I can understand a lesson,\nappreciate the discoveries of abler men and use my hands, but those\nothers, Pigou, Masterton, Lie, and the others, they are clearing the\nground fast for the knowledge to come. Have you had time to follow their\nwork?\'\n\nKarenin shook his head. \'But I can imagine the scope of it,\' he said.\n\n\'We have so many men working now,\' said Fowler. \'I suppose at\npresent there must be at least a thousand thinking hard, observing,\nexperimenting, for one who did so in nineteen hundred.\'\n\n\'Not counting those who keep the records?\'\n\n\'Not counting those. Of course, the present indexing of research is\nin itself a very big work, and it is only now that we are getting it\nproperly done. But already we are feeling the benefit of that. Since it\nceased to be a paid employment and became a devotion we have had only\nthose people who obeyed the call of an aptitude at work upon these\nthings. Here--I must show you it to-day, because it will interest\nyou--we have our copy of the encyclopaedic index--every week sheets are\ntaken out and replaced by fresh sheets with new results that are brought\nto us by the aeroplanes of the Research Department. It is an index of\nknowledge that grows continually, an index that becomes continually\ntruer. There was never anything like it before.\'\n\n\'When I came into the education committee,\' said Karenin, \'that index\nof human knowledge seemed an impossible thing. Research had produced\na chaotic mountain of results, in a hundred languages and a thousand\ndifferent types of publication....\' He smiled at his memories. \'How\nwe groaned at the job!\'\n\n\'Already the ordering of that chaos is nearly done. You shall see.\'\n\n\'I have been so busy with my own work----Yes, I shall be glad to see.\'\n\nThe patient regarded the surgeon for a time with interested eyes.\n\n\'You work here always?\' he asked abruptly.\n\n\'No,\' said Fowler.\n\n\'But mostly you work here?\'\n\n\'I have worked about seven years out of the past ten. At times I go\naway--down there. One has to. At least I have to. There is a sort of\ngrayness comes over all this, one feels hungry for life, real, personal\npassionate life, love-making, eating and drinking for the fun of\nthe thing, jostling crowds, having adventures, laughter--above all\nlaughter----\'\n\n\'Yes,\' said Karenin understandingly.\n\n\'And then one day, suddenly one thinks of these high mountains\nagain....\'\n\n\'That is how I would have lived, if it had not been for my--defects,\'\nsaid Karenin. \'Nobody knows but those who have borne it the exasperation\nof abnormality. It will be good when you have nobody alive whose body\ncannot live the wholesome everyday life, whose spirit cannot come up\ninto these high places as it wills.\'\n\n\'We shall manage that soon,\' said Fowler.\n\n\'For endless generations man has struggled upward against the\nindignities of his body--and the indignities of his soul. Pains,\nincapacities, vile fears, black moods, despairs. How well I\'ve known\nthem. They\'ve taken more time than all your holidays. It is true, is it\nnot, that every man is something of a cripple and something of a beast?\nI\'ve dipped a little deeper than most; that\'s all. It\'s only now when he\nhas fully learnt the truth of that, that he can take hold of himself to\nbe neither beast nor cripple. Now that he overcomes his servitude to\nhis body, he can for the first time think of living the full life of his\nbody.... Before another generation dies you\'ll have the thing in hand.\nYou\'ll do as you please with the old Adam and all the vestiges from the\nbrutes and reptiles that lurk in his body and spirit. Isn\'t that so?\'\n\n\'You put it boldly,\' said Fowler.\n\nKarenin laughed cheerfully at his caution.... \'When,\' asked Karenin\nsuddenly, \'when will you operate?\'\n\n\'The day after to-morrow,\' said Fowler. \'For a day I want you to drink\nand eat as I shall prescribe. And you may think and talk as you please.\'\n\n\'I should like to see this place.\'\n\n\'You shall go through it this afternoon. I will have two men carry\nyou in a litter. And to-morrow you shall lie out upon the terrace. Our\nmountains here are the most beautiful in the world....\'\n\nSection 3\n\nThe next morning Karenin got up early and watched the sun rise over\nthe mountains, and breakfasted lightly, and then young Gardener, his\nsecretary, came to consult him upon the spending of his day. Would he\ncare to see people? Or was this gnawing pain within him too much to\npermit him to do that?\n\n\'I\'d like to talk,\' said Karenin. \'There must be all sorts of\nlively-minded people here. Let them come and gossip with me. It will\ndistract me--and I can\'t tell you how interesting it makes everything\nthat is going on to have seen the dawn of one\'s own last day.\'\n\n\'Your last day!\'\n\n\'Fowler will kill me.\'\n\n\'But he thinks not.\'\n\n\'Fowler will kill me. If he does not he will not leave very much of me.\nSo that this is my last day anyhow, the days afterwards if they come at\nall to me, will be refuse. I know....\'\n\nGardener was about to speak when Karenin went on again.\n\n\'I hope he kills me, Gardener. Don\'t be--old-fashioned. The thing I am\nmost afraid of is that last rag of life. I may just go on--a scarred\nsalvage of suffering stuff. And then--all the things I have hidden and\nkept down or discounted or set right afterwards will get the better of\nme. I shall be peevish. I may lose my grip upon my own egotism. It\'s\nnever been a very firm grip. No, no, Gardener, don\'t say that! You know\nbetter, you\'ve had glimpses of it. Suppose I came through on the other\nside of this affair, belittled, vain, and spiteful, using the prestige I\nhave got among men by my good work in the past just to serve some small\ninvalid purpose....\'\n\nHe was silent for a time, watching the mists among the distant\nprecipices change to clouds of light, and drift and dissolve before the\nsearching rays of the sunrise.\n\n\'Yes,\' he said at last, \'I am afraid of these anaesthetics and these fag\nends of life. It\'s life we are all afraid of. Death!--nobody minds just\ndeath. Fowler is clever--but some day surgery will know its duty better\nand not be so anxious just to save something . . . provided only that\nit quivers. I\'ve tried to hold my end up properly and do my work. After\nFowler has done with me I am certain I shall be unfit for work--and what\nelse is there for me? . . . I know I shall not be fit for work....\n\n\'I do not see why life should be judged by its last trailing thread of\nvitality.... I know it for the splendid thing it is--I who have been\na diseased creature from the beginning. I know it well enough not to\nconfuse it with its husks. Remember that, Gardener, if presently my\nheart fails me and I despair, and if I go through a little phase of pain\nand ingratitude and dark forgetfulness before the end.... Don\'t believe\nwhat I may say at the last.... If the fabric is good enough the selvage\ndoesn\'t matter. It can\'t matter. So long as you are alive you are just\nthe moment, perhaps, but when you are dead then you are all your life\nfrom the first moment to the last....\'\n\nSection 4\n\nPresently, in accordance with his wish, people came to talk to him, and\nhe could forget himself again. Rachel Borken sat for a long time with\nhim and talked chiefly of women in the world, and with her was a girl\nnamed Edith Haydon who was already very well known as a cytologist. And\nseveral of the younger men who were working in the place and a patient\nnamed Kahn, a poet, and Edwards, a designer of plays and shows, spent\nsome time with him. The talk wandered from point to point and came\nback upon itself, and became now earnest and now trivial as the chance\nsuggestions determined. But soon afterwards Gardener wrote down notes\nof things he remembered, and it is possible to put together again the\noutlook of Karenin upon the world and how he thought and felt about many\nof the principal things in life.\n\n\'Our age,\' he said, \'has been so far an age of scene-shifting. We have\nbeen preparing a stage, clearing away the setting of a drama that was\nplayed out and growing tiresome.... If I could but sit out the first few\nscenes of the new spectacle....\n\n\'How encumbered the world had become! It was ailing as I am ailing with\na growth of unmeaning things. It was entangled, feverish, confused. It\nwas in sore need of release, and I suppose that nothing less than the\nviolence of those bombs could have released it and made it a healthy\nworld again. I suppose they were necessary. Just as everything turns\nto evil in a fevered body so everything seemed turning to evil in those\nlast years of the old time. Everywhere there were obsolete organisations\nseizing upon all the new fine things that science was giving to the\nworld, nationalities, all sorts of political bodies, the churches and\nsects, proprietorship, seizing upon those treat powers and limitless\npossibilities and turning them to evil uses. And they would not suffer\nopen speech, they would not permit of education, they would let no one\nbe educated to the needs of the new time.... You who are younger cannot\nimagine the mixture of desperate hope and protesting despair in which we\nwho could believe in the possibilities of science lived in those years\nbefore atomic energy came....\n\n\'It was not only that the mass of people would not attend, would not\nunderstand, but that those who did understand lacked the power of real\nbelief. They said the things, they saw the things, and the things meant\nnothing to them....\n\n\'I have been reading some old papers lately. It is wonderful how our\nfathers bore themselves towards science. They hated it. They feared\nit. They permitted a few scientific men to exist and work--a pitiful\nhandful.... \"Don\'t find out anything about us,\" they said to them;\n\"don\'t inflict vision upon us, spare our little ways of life from the\nfearful shaft of understanding. But do tricks for us, little limited\ntricks. Give us cheap lighting. And cure us of certain disagreeable\nthings, cure us of cancer, cure us of consumption, cure our colds and\nrelieve us after repletion....\" We have changed all that, Gardener.\nScience is no longer our servant. We know it for something greater than\nour little individual selves. It is the awakening mind of the race, and\nin a little while----In a little while----I wish indeed I could watch\nfor that little while, now that the curtain has risen....\n\n\'While I lie here they are clearing up what is left of the bombs in\nLondon,\' he said. \'Then they are going to repair the ruins and make it\nall as like as possible to its former condition before the bombs fell.\nPerhaps they will dig out the old house in St John\'s Wood to which\nmy father went after his expulsion from Russia.... That London of my\nmemories seems to me like a place in another world. For you younger\npeople it must seem like a place that could never have existed.\'\n\n\'Is there much left standing?\' asked Edith Haydon.\n\n\'Square miles that are scarcely shaken in the south and north-west, they\nsay; and most of the bridges and large areas of dock. Westminster, which\nheld most of the government offices, suffered badly from the small bomb\nthat destroyed the Parliament, there are very few traces of the old\nthoroughfare of Whitehall or the Government region thereabout, but there\nare plentiful drawings to scale of its buildings, and the great hole in\nthe east of London scarcely matters. That was a poor district and very\nlike the north and the south.... It will be possible to reconstruct\nmost of it.... It is wanted. Already it becomes difficult to recall\nthe old time--even for us who saw it.\'\n\n\'It seems very distant to me,\' said the girl.\n\n\'It was an unwholesome world,\' reflected Karenin. \'I seem to remember\neverybody about my childhood as if they were ill. They were ill.\nThey were sick with confusion. Everybody was anxious about money and\neverybody was doing uncongenial things. They ate a queer mixture of\nfoods, either too much or too little, and at odd hours. One sees how ill\nthey were by their advertisements. All this new region of London they\nare opening up now is plastered with advertisements of pills. Everybody\nmust have been taking pills. In one of the hotel rooms in the Strand\nthey have found the luggage of a lady covered up by falling rubble and\nunburnt, and she was equipped with nine different sorts of pill and\ntabloid. The pill-carrying age followed the weapon-carrying age. They\nare equally strange to us. People\'s skins must have been in a vile\nstate. Very few people were properly washed; they carried the filth of\nmonths on their clothes. All the clothes they wore were old clothes; our\nway of pulping our clothes again after a week or so of wear would have\nseemed fantastic to them. Their clothing hardly bears thinking about.\nAnd the congestion of them! Everybody was jostling against everybody in\nthose awful towns. In an uproar. People were run over and crushed by\nthe hundred; every year in London the cars and omnibuses alone killed or\ndisabled twenty thousand people, in Paris it was worse; people used to\nfall dead for want of air in the crowded ways. The irritation of London,\ninternal and external, must have been maddening. It was a maddened\nworld. It is like thinking of a sick child. One has the same effect of\nfeverish urgencies and acute irrational disappointments.\n\n\'All history,\' he said, \'is a record of a childhood....\n\n\'And yet not exactly a childhood. There is something clean and keen\nabout even a sick child--and something touching. But so much of the\nold times makes one angry. So much they did seems grossly stupid,\nobstinately, outrageously stupid, which is the very opposite to being\nfresh and young.\n\n\'I was reading only the other day about Bismarck, that hero of\nnineteenth-century politics, that sequel to Napoleon, that god of blood\nand iron. And he was just a beery, obstinate, dull man. Indeed, that\nis what he was, the commonest, coarsest man, who ever became great. I\nlooked at his portraits, a heavy, almost froggish face, with projecting\neyes and a thick moustache to hide a poor mouth. He aimed at nothing but\nGermany, Germany emphasised, indurated, enlarged; Germany and his class\nin Germany; beyond that he had no ideas, he was inaccessible to ideas;\nhis mind never rose for a recorded instant above a bumpkin\'s elaborate\ncunning. And he was the most influential man in the world, in the whole\nworld, no man ever left so deep a mark on it, because everywhere there\nwere gross men to resonate to the heavy notes he emitted. He trampled on\nten thousand lovely things, and a kind of malice in these louts made\nit pleasant to them to see him trample. No--he was no child; the dull,\nnational aggressiveness he stood for, no childishness. Childhood is\npromise. He was survival.\n\n\'All Europe offered its children to him, it sacrificed education, art,\nhappiness and all its hopes of future welfare to follow the clatter of\nhis sabre. The monstrous worship of that old fool\'s \"blood and iron\"\npassed all round the earth. Until the atomic bombs burnt our way to\nfreedom again....\'\n\n\'One thinks of him now as one thinks of the megatherium,\' said one of\nthe young men.\n\n\'From first to last mankind made three million big guns and a hundred\nthousand complicated great ships for no other purpose but war.\'\n\n\'Were there no sane men in those days,\' asked the young man, \'to stand\nagainst that idolatry?\'\n\n\'In a state of despair,\' said Edith Haydon.\n\n\'He is so far off--and there are men alive still who were alive when\nBismarck died!\' . . . said the young man....\n\nSection 5\n\n\'And yet it may be I am unjust to Bismarck,\' said Karenin, following\nhis own thoughts. \'You see, men belong to their own age; we stand upon\na common stock of thought and we fancy we stand upon the ground. I met\na pleasant man the other day, a Maori, whose great-grandfather was a\ncannibal. It chanced he had a daguerreotype of the old sinner, and the\ntwo were marvellously alike. One felt that a little juggling with time\nand either might have been the other. People are cruel and stupid in a\nstupid age who might be gentle and splendid in a gracious one. The world\nalso has its moods. Think of the mental food of Bismarck\'s childhood;\nthe humiliations of Napoleon\'s victories, the crowded, crowning victory\nof the Battle of the Nations.... Everybody in those days, wise or\nfoolish, believed that the division of the world under a multitude of\ngovernments was inevitable, and that it was going on for thousands of\nyears more. It WAS inevitable until it was impossible. Any one who had\ndenied that inevitability publicly would have been counted--oh! a SILLY\nfellow. Old Bismarck was only just a little--forcible, on the lines of\nthe accepted ideas. That is all. He thought that since there had to\nbe national governments he would make one that was strong at home and\ninvincible abroad. Because he had fed with a kind of rough appetite upon\nwhat we can see now were very stupid ideas, that does not make him\na stupid man. We\'ve had advantages; we\'ve had unity and collectivism\nblasted into our brains. Where should we be now but for the grace of\nscience? I should have been an embittered, spiteful, downtrodden member\nof the Russian Intelligenza, a conspirator, a prisoner, or an assassin.\nYou, my dear, would have been breaking dingy windows as a suffragette.\'\n\n\'NEVER,\' said Edith stoutly....\n\nFor a time the talk broke into humorous personalities, and the young\npeople gibed at each other across the smiling old administrator, and\nthen presently one of the young scientific men gave things a new turn.\nHe spoke like one who was full to the brim.\n\n\'You know, sir, I\'ve a fancy--it is hard to prove such things--that\ncivilisation was very near disaster when the atomic bombs came\nbanging into it, that if there had been no Holsten and no induced\nradio-activity, the world would have--smashed--much as it did. Only\ninstead of its being a smash that opened a way to better things, it\nmight have been a smash without a recovery. It is part of my business\nto understand economics, and from that point of view the century before\nHolsten was just a hundred years\' crescendo of waste. Only the extreme\nindividualism of that period, only its utter want of any collective\nunderstanding or purpose can explain that waste. Mankind used up\nmaterial--insanely. They had got through three-quarters of all the coal\nin the planet, they had used up most of the oil, they had swept away\ntheir forests, and they were running short of tin and copper. Their\nwheat areas were getting weary and populous, and many of the big towns\nhad so lowered the water level of their available hills that they\nsuffered a drought every summer. The whole system was rushing towards\nbankruptcy. And they were spending every year vaster and vaster\namounts of power and energy upon military preparations, and continually\nexpanding the debt of industry to capital. The system was already\nstaggering when Holsten began his researches. So far as the world in\ngeneral went there was no sense of danger and no desire for inquiry.\nThey had no belief that science could save them, nor any idea that there\nwas a need to be saved. They could not, they would not, see the gulf\nbeneath their feet. It was pure good luck for mankind at large that\nany research at all was in progress. And as I say, sir, if that line\nof escape hadn\'t opened, before now there might have been a crash,\nrevolution, panic, social disintegration, famine, and--it is\nconceivable--complete disorder.... The rails might have rusted on the\ndisused railways by now, the telephone poles have rotted and fallen,\nthe big liners dropped into sheet-iron in the ports; the burnt, deserted\ncities become the ruinous hiding-places of gangs of robbers. We might\nhave been brigands in a shattered and attenuated world. Ah, you may\nsmile, but that had happened before in human history. The world is still\nstudded with the ruins of broken-down civilisations. Barbaric bands\nmade their fastness upon the Acropolis, and the tomb of Hadrian became a\nfortress that warred across the ruins of Rome against the Colosseum....\nHad all that possibility of reaction ended so certainly in 1940? Is it\nall so very far away even now?\'\n\n\'It seems far enough away now,\' said Edith Haydon.\n\n\'But forty years ago?\'\n\n\'No,\' said Karenin with his eyes upon the mountains, \'I think you\nunderrate the available intelligence in those early decades of the\ntwentieth century. Officially, I know, politically, that intelligence\ndidn\'t tell--but it was there. And I question your hypothesis. I doubt\nif that discovery could have been delayed. There is a kind of inevitable\nlogic now in the progress of research. For a hundred years and more\nthought and science have been going their own way regardless of the\ncommon events of life. You see--they have got loose. If there had been\nno Holsten there would have been some similar man. If atomic energy had\nnot come in one year it would have come in another. In decadent Rome\nthe march of science had scarcely begun.... Nineveh, Babylon, Athens,\nSyracuse, Alexandria, these were the first rough experiments in\nassociation that made a security, a breathing-space, in which inquiry\nwas born. Man had to experiment before he found out the way to begin.\nBut already two hundred years ago he had fairly begun.... The politics\nand dignities and wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were\nonly the last phoenix blaze of the former civilisation flaring up about\nthe beginnings of the new. Which we serve.... \'Man lives in the dawn for\never,\' said Karenin. \'Life is beginning and nothing else but beginning.\nIt begins everlastingly. Each step seems vaster than the last, and does\nbut gather us together for the nest. This Modern State of ours, which\nwould have been a Utopian marvel a hundred years ago, is already the\ncommonplace of life. But as I sit here and dream of the possibilities\nin the mind of man that now gather to a head beneath the shelter of its\npeace, these great mountains here seem but little things....\'\n\nSection 6\n\nAbout eleven Karenin had his midday meal, and afterwards he slept among\nhis artificial furs and pillows for two hours. Then he awoke and\nsome tea was brought to him, and he attended to a small difficulty in\nconnection with the Moravian schools in the Labrador country and in\nGreenland that Gardener knew would interest him. He remained alone for\na little while after that, and then the two women came to him again.\nAfterwards Edwards and Kahn joined the group, and the talk fell upon\nlove and the place of women in the renascent world. The cloudbanks of\nIndia lay under a quivering haze, and the blaze of the sun fell full\nupon the eastward precipices. Ever and again as they talked, some vast\nsplinter of rock would crack and come away from these, or a wild rush\nof snow and ice and stone, pour down in thunder, hang like a wet thread\ninto the gulfs below, and cease....\n\nSection 7\n\nFor a time Karenin said very little, and Kahn, the popular poet, talked\nof passionate love. He said that passionate, personal love had been the\nabiding desire of humanity since ever humanity had begun, and now\nonly was it becoming a possible experience. It had been a dream that\ngeneration after generation had pursued, that always men had lost on the\nverge of attainment. To most of those who had sought it obstinately it\nhad brought tragedy. Now, lifted above sordid distresses, men and women\nmight hope for realised and triumphant love. This age was the Dawn of\nLove....\n\nKarenin remained downcast and thoughtful while Kahn said these things.\nAgainst that continued silence Kahn\'s voice presently seemed to beat and\nfail. He had begun by addressing Karenin, but presently he was including\nEdith Haydon and Rachel Borken in his appeal. Rachel listened silently;\nEdith watched Karenin and very deliberately avoided Kahn\'s eyes.\n\n\'I know,\' said Karenin at last, \'that many people are saying this sort\nof thing. I know that there is a vast release of love-making in the\nworld. This great wave of decoration and elaboration that has gone about\nthe world, this Efflorescence, has of course laid hold of that. I know\nthat when you say that the world is set free, you interpret that to\nmean that the world is set free for love-making. Down there,--under\nthe clouds, the lovers foregather. I know your songs, Kahn, your\nhalf-mystical songs, in which you represent this old hard world\ndissolving into a luminous haze of love--sexual love.... I don\'t think\nyou are right or true in that. You are a young, imaginative man, and\nyou see life--ardently--with the eyes of youth. But the power that has\nbrought man into these high places under this blue-veiled blackness of\nthe sky and which beckons us on towards the immense and awful future of\nour race, is riper and deeper and greater than any such emotions....\n\n\'All through my life--it has been a necessary part of my work--I have\nhad to think of this release of sexual love and the riddles that perfect\nfreedom and almost limitless power will put to the soul of our race. I\ncan see now, all over the world, a beautiful ecstasy of waste; \"Let us\nsing and rejoice and be lovely and wonderful.\" . . . The orgy is\nonly beginning, Kahn.... It was inevitable--but it is not the end of\nmankind....\n\n\'Think what we are. It is but a yesterday in the endlessness of time\nthat life was a dreaming thing, dreaming so deeply that it forgot itself\nas it dreamt, its lives, its individual instincts, its moments, were\nborn and wondered and played and desired and hungered and grew weary\nand died. Incalculable successions of vision, visions of sunlit jungle,\nriver wilderness, wild forest, eager desire, beating hearts, soaring\nwings and creeping terror flamed hotly and then were as though they\nhad never been. Life was an uneasiness across which lights played\nand vanished. And then we came, man came, and opened eyes that were a\nquestion and hands that were a demand and began a mind and memory that\ndies not when men die, but lives and increases for ever, an over-mind,\na dominating will, a question and an aspiration that reaches to the\nstars.... Hunger and fear and this that you make so much of, this sex,\nare but the elementals of life out of which we have arisen. All these\nelementals, I grant you, have to be provided for, dealt with, satisfied,\nbut all these things have to be left behind.\'\n\n\'But Love,\' said Kahn.\n\n\'I speak of sexual love and the love of intimate persons. And that is\nwhat you mean, Kahn.\'\n\nKarenin shook his head. \'You cannot stay at the roots and climb the\ntree,\' he said....\n\n\'No,\' he said after a pause, \'this sexual excitement, this love story,\nis just a part of growing up and we grow out of it. So far literature\nand art and sentiment and all our emotional forms have been almost\naltogether adolescent, plays and stories, delights and hopes, they have\nall turned on that marvellous discovery of the love interest, but life\nlengthens out now and the mind of adult humanity detaches itself. Poets\nwho used to die at thirty live now to eighty-five. You, too, Kahn! There\nare endless years yet for you--and all full of learning.... We carry an\nexcessive burden of sex and sexual tradition still, and we have to free\nourselves from it. We do free ourselves from it. We have learnt in a\nthousand different ways to hold back death, and this sex, which in the\nold barbaric days was just sufficient to balance our dying, is now like\na hammer that has lost its anvil, it plunges through human life. You\npoets, you young people want to turn it to delight. Turn it to delight.\nThat may be one way out. In a little while, if you have any brains worth\nthinking about, you will be satisfied, and then you will come up here to\nthe greater things. The old religions and their new offsets want still,\nI see, to suppress all these things. Let them suppress. If they can\nsuppress. In their own people. Either road will bring you here at last\nto the eternal search for knowledge and the great adventure of power.\'\n\n\'But incidentally,\' said Rachel Borken; \'incidentally you have half of\nhumanity, you have womankind, very much specialised for--for this love\nand reproduction that is so much less needed than it was.\'\n\n\'Both sexes are specialised for love and reproduction,\' said Karenin.\n\n\'But the women carry the heavier burden.\'\n\n\'Not in their imaginations,\' said Edwards.\n\n\'And surely,\' said Kahn, \'when you speak of love as a phase--isn\'t it a\nnecessary phase? Quite apart from reproduction the love of the sexes\nis necessary. Isn\'t it love, sexual love, which has released the\nimagination? Without that stir, without that impulse to go out from\nourselves, to be reckless of ourselves and wonderful, would our lives be\nanything more than the contentment of the stalled ox?\'\n\n\'The key that opens the door,\' said Karenin, \'is not the goal of the\njourney.\'\n\n\'But women!\' cried Rachel. \'Here we are! What is our future--as women?\nIs it only that we have unlocked the doors of the imagination for you\nmen? Let us speak of this question now. It is a thing constantly in my\nthoughts, Karenin. What do you think of us? You who must have thought so\nmuch of these perplexities.\'\n\nKarenin seemed to weigh his words. He spoke very deliberately. \'I do not\ncare a rap about your future--as women. I do not care a rap about the\nfuture of men--as males. I want to destroy these peculiar futures. I\ncare for your future as intelligences, as parts of and contribution\nto the universal mind of the race. Humanity is not only naturally\nover-specialised in these matters, but all its institutions, its\ncustoms, everything, exaggerate, intensify this difference. I want to\nunspecialise women. No new idea. Plato wanted exactly that. I do not\nwant to go on as we go now, emphasising this natural difference; I do\nnot deny it, but I want to reduce it and overcome it.\'\n\n\'And--we remain women,\' said Rachel Borken. \'Need you remain thinking of\nyourselves as women?\'\n\n\'It is forced upon us,\' said Edith Haydon.\n\n\'I do not think a woman becomes less of a woman because she dresses and\nworks like a man,\' said Edwards. \'You women here, I mean you scientific\nwomen, wear white clothing like the men, twist up your hair in the\nsimplest fashion, go about your work as though there was only one sex in\nthe world. You are just as much women, even if you are not so feminine,\nas the fine ladies down below there in the plains who dress for\nexcitement and display, whose only thoughts are of lovers, who\nexaggerate every difference.... Indeed we love you more.\'\n\n\'But we go about our work,\' said Edith Haydon.\n\n\'So does it matter?\' asked Rachel.\n\n\'If you go about your work and if the men go about their work then for\nHeaven\'s sake be as much woman as you wish,\' said Karenin. \'When I ask\nyou to unspecialise, I am thinking not of the abolition of sex, but the\nabolition of the irksome, restricting, obstructive obsession with sex.\nIt may be true that sex made society, that the first society was the\nsex-cemented family, the first state a confederacy of blood relations,\nthe first laws sexual taboos. Until a few years ago morality meant\nproper sexual behaviour. Up to within a few years of us the chief\ninterest and motive of an ordinary man was to keep and rule a woman and\nher children and the chief concern of a woman was to get a man to do\nthat. That was the drama, that was life. And the jealousy of these\ndemands was the master motive in the world. You said, Kahn, a little\nwhile ago that sexual love was the key that let one out from the\nsolitude of self, but I tell you that so far it has only done so in\norder to lock us all up again in a solitude of two.... All that may have\nbeen necessary but it is necessary no longer. All that has changed\nand changes still very swiftly. Your future, Rachel, AS WOMEN, is a\ndiminishing future.\'\n\n\'Karenin?\' asked Rachel, \'do you mean that women are to become men?\'\n\n\'Men and women have to become human beings.\'\n\n\'You would abolish women? But, Karenin, listen! There is more than\nsex in this. Apart from sex we are different from you. We take up\nlife differently. Forget we are--females, Karenin, and still we are a\ndifferent sort of human being with a different use. In some things we\nare amazingly secondary. Here am I in this place because of my trick of\nmanagement, and Edith is here because of her patient, subtle hands. That\ndoes not alter the fact that nearly the whole body of science is man\nmade; that does not alter the fact that men do so predominatingly make\nhistory, that you could nearly write a complete history of the world\nwithout mentioning a woman\'s name. And on the other hand we have a\ngift of devotion, of inspiration, a distinctive power for truly loving\nbeautiful things, a care for life and a peculiar keen close eye for\nbehaviour. You know men are blind beside us in these last matters. You\nknow they are restless--and fitful. We have a steadfastness. We may\nnever draw the broad outlines nor discover the new paths, but in the\nfuture isn\'t there a confirming and sustaining and supplying role for\nus? As important, perhaps, as yours? Equally important. We hold the\nworld up, Karenin, though you may have raised it.\'\n\n\'You know very well, Rachel, that I believe as you believe. I am not\nthinking of the abolition of woman. But I do want to abolish--the\nheroine, the sexual heroine. I want to abolish the woman whose support\nis jealousy and whose gift possession. I want to abolish the woman who\ncan be won as a prize or locked up as a delicious treasure. And away\ndown there the heroine flares like a divinity.\'\n\n\'In America,\' said Edwards, \'men are fighting duels over the praises of\nwomen and holding tournaments before Queens of Beauty.\'\n\n\'I saw a beautiful girl in Lahore,\' said Kahn, \'she sat under a golden\ncanopy like a goddess, and three fine men, armed and dressed like the\nancient paintings, sat on steps below her to show their devotion. And\nthey wanted only her permission to fight for her.\'\n\n\'That is the men\'s doing,\' said Edith Haydon.\n\n\'I SAID,\' cried Edwards, \'that man\'s imagination was more specialised\nfor sex than the whole being of woman. What woman would do a thing like\nthat? Women do but submit to it or take advantage of it.\'\n\n\'There is no evil between men and women that is not a common evil,\' said\nKarenin. \'It is you poets, Kahn, with your love songs which turn the\nsweet fellowship of comrades into this woman-centred excitement. But\nthere is something in women, in many women, which responds to these\nprovocations; they succumb to a peculiarly self-cultivating egotism.\nThey become the subjects of their own artistry. They develop and\nelaborate themselves as scarcely any man would ever do. They LOOK for\ngolden canopies. And even when they seem to react against that, they may\ndo it still. I have been reading in the old papers of the movements\nto emancipate women that were going on before the discovery of atomic\nforce. These things which began with a desire to escape from the\nlimitations and servitude of sex, ended in an inflamed assertion of sex,\nand women more heroines than ever. Helen of Holloway was at last as\nbig a nuisance in her way as Helen of Troy, and so long as you think\nof yourselves as women\'--he held out a finger at Rachel and smiled\ngently--\'instead of thinking of yourselves as intelligent beings, you\nwill be in danger of--Helenism. To think of yourselves as women is\nto think of yourselves in relation to men. You can\'t escape that\nconsequence. You have to learn to think of yourselves--for our sakes and\nyour own sakes--in relation to the sun and stars. You have to cease to\nbe our adventure, Rachel, and come with us upon our adventures. ...\' He\nwaved his hand towards the dark sky above the mountain crests.\n\nSection 8\n\n\'These questions are the next questions to which research will bring us\nanswers,\' said Karenin. \'While we sit here and talk idly and inexactly\nof what is needed and what may be, there are hundreds of keen-witted\nmen and women who are working these things out, dispassionately and\ncertainly, for the love of knowledge. The next sciences to yield\ngreat harvests now will be psychology and neural physiology. These\nperplexities of the situation between man and woman and the trouble with\nthe obstinacy of egotism, these are temporary troubles, the issue of\nour own times. Suddenly all these differences that seem so fixed will\ndissolve, all these incompatibles will run together, and we shall go on\nto mould our bodies and our bodily feelings and personal reactions as\nboldly as we begin now to carve mountains and set the seas in their\nplaces and change the currents of the wind.\'\n\n\'It is the next wave,\' said Fowler, who had come out upon the terrace\nand seated himself silently behind Karenin\'s chair.\n\n\'Of course, in the old days,\' said Edwards, \'men were tied to their city\nor their country, tied to the homes they owned or the work they did....\'\n\n\'I do not see,\' said Karenin, \'that there is any final limit to man\'s\npower of self-modification.\n\n\'There is none,\' said Fowler, walking forward and sitting down upon the\nparapet in front of Karenin so that he could see his face. \'There is no\nabsolute limit to either knowledge or power.... I hope you do not tire\nyourself talking.\'\n\n\'I am interested,\' said Karenin. \'I suppose in a little while men will\ncease to be tired. I suppose in a little time you will give us something\nthat will hurry away the fatigue products and restore our jaded tissues\nalmost at once. This old machine may be made to run without slacking or\ncessation.\'\n\n\'That is possible, Karenin. But there is much to learn.\'\n\n\'And all the hours we give to digestion and half living; don\'t you think\nthere will be some way of saving these?\'\n\nFowler nodded assent.\n\n\'And then sleep again. When man with his blazing lights made an end to\nnight in his towns and houses--it is only a hundred years or so ago\nthat that was done--then it followed he would presently resent his eight\nhours of uselessness. Shan\'t we presently take a tabloid or lie in some\nfield of force that will enable us to do with an hour or so of slumber\nand rise refreshed again?\'\n\n\'Frobisher and Ameer Ali have done work in that direction.\'\n\n\'And then the inconveniences of age and those diseases of the system\nthat come with years; steadily you drive them back and you lengthen and\nlengthen the years that stretch between the passionate tumults of youth\nand the contractions of senility. Man who used to weaken and die as\nhis teeth decayed now looks forward to a continually lengthening,\ncontinually fuller term of years. And all those parts of him that once\ngathered evil against him, the vestigial structures and odd, treacherous\ncorners of his body, you know better and better how to deal with.\nYou carve his body about and leave it re-modelled and unscarred. The\npsychologists are learning how to mould minds, to reduce and remove bad\ncomplexes of thought and motive, to relieve pressures and broaden ideas.\nSo that we are becoming more and more capable of transmitting what we\nhave learnt and preserving it for the race. The race, the racial wisdom,\nscience, gather power continually to subdue the individual man to its\nown end. Is that not so?\'\n\nFowler said that it was, and for a time he was telling Karenin of new\nwork that was in progress in India and Russia. \'And how is it with\nheredity?\' asked Karenin.\n\nFowler told them of the mass of inquiry accumulated and arranged by\nthe genius of Tchen, who was beginning to define clearly the laws of\ninheritance and how the sex of children and the complexions and many of\nthe parental qualities could be determined.\n\n\'He can actually DO----?\'\n\n\'It is still, so to speak, a mere laboratory triumph,\' said Fowler, \'but\nto-morrow it will be practicable.\'\n\n\'You see,\' cried Karenin, turning a laughing face to Rachel and Edith,\n\'while we have been theorising about men and women, here is science\ngetting the power for us to end that old dispute for ever. If woman is\ntoo much for us, we\'ll reduce her to a minority, and if we do not like\nany type of men and women, we\'ll have no more of it. These old bodies,\nthese old animal limitations, all this earthly inheritance of gross\ninevitabilities falls from the spirit of man like the shrivelled cocoon\nfrom an imago. And for my own part, when I hear of these things I feel\nlike that--like a wet, crawling new moth that still fears to spread its\nwings. Because where do these things take us?\'\n\n\'Beyond humanity,\' said Kahn.\n\n\'No,\' said Karenin. \'We can still keep our feet upon the earth that made\nus. But the air no longer imprisons us, this round planet is no longer\nchained to us like the ball of a galley slave....\n\n\'In a little while men who will know how to bear the strange\ngravitations, the altered pressures, the attenuated, unfamiliar gases\nand all the fearful strangenesses of space will be venturing out from\nthis earth. This ball will be no longer enough for us; our spirit will\nreach out.... Cannot you see how that little argosy will go glittering\nup into the sky, twinkling and glittering smaller and smaller until the\nblue swallows it up. They may succeed out there; they may perish, but\nother men will follow them....\n\n\'It is as if a great window opened,\' said Karenin.\n\nSection 9\n\nAs the evening drew on Karenin and those who were about him went up\nupon the roof of the buildings, so that they might the better watch\nthe sunset and the flushing of the mountains and the coming of the\nafterglow. They were joined by two of the surgeons from the laboratories\nbelow, and presently by a nurse who brought Karenin refreshment in a\nthin glass cup. It was a cloudless, windless evening under the deep blue\nsky, and far away to the north glittered two biplanes on the way to the\nobservatories on Everest, two hundred miles distant over the precipices\nto the east. The little group of people watched them pass over the\nmountains and vanish into the blue, and then for a time they talked of\nthe work that the observatory was doing. From that they passed to the\nwhole process of research about the world, and so Karenin\'s thoughts\nreturned again to the mind of the world and the great future that was\nopening upon man\'s imagination. He asked the surgeons many questions\nupon the detailed possibilities of their science, and he was keenly\ninterested and excited by the things they told him. And as they talked\nthe sun touched the mountains, and became very swiftly a blazing and\nindented hemisphere of liquid flame and sank.\n\nKarenin looked blinking at the last quivering rim of incandescence, and\nshaded his eyes and became silent.\n\nPresently he gave a little start.\n\n\'What?\' asked Rachel Borken.\n\n\'I had forgotten,\' he said.\n\n\'What had you forgotten?\'\n\n\'I had forgotten about the operation to-morrow. I have been so\ninterested as Man to-day that I have nearly forgotten Marcus Karenin.\nMarcus Karenin must go under your knife to-morrow, Fowler, and very\nprobably Marcus Karenin will die.\' He raised his slightly shrivelled\nhand. \'It does not matter, Fowler. It scarcely matters even to me. For\nindeed is it Karenin who has been sitting here and talking; is it not\nrather a common mind, Fowler, that has played about between us? You and\nI and all of us have added thought to thought, but the thread is neither\nyou nor me. What is true we all have; when the individual has altogether\nbrought himself to the test and winnowing of expression, then the\nindividual is done. I feel as though I had already been emptied out of\nthat little vessel, that Marcus Karenin, which in my youth held me so\ntightly and completely. Your beauty, dear Edith, and your broad brow,\ndear Rachel, and you, Fowler, with your firm and skilful hands, are now\nalmost as much to me as this hand that beats the arm of my chair. And as\nlittle me. And the spirit that desires to know, the spirit that resolves\nto do, that spirit that lives and has talked in us to-day, lived in\nAthens, lived in Florence, lives on, I know, for ever....\n\n\'And you, old Sun, with your sword of flame searing these poor eyes\nof Marcus for the last time of all, beware of me! You think I die--and\nindeed I am only taking off one more coat to get at you. I have\nthreatened you for ten thousand years, and soon I warn you I shall be\ncoming. When I am altogether stripped and my disguises thrown away. Very\nsoon now, old Sun, I shall launch myself at you, and I shall reach you\nand I shall put my foot on your spotted face and tug you about by your\nfiery locks. One step I shall take to the moon, and then I shall leap\nat you. I\'ve talked to you before, old Sun, I\'ve talked to you a million\ntimes, and now I am beginning to remember. Yes--long ago, long ago,\nbefore I had stripped off a few thousand generations, dust now\nand forgotten, I was a hairy savage and I pointed my hand at you\nand--clearly I remember it!--I saw you in a net. Have you forgotten\nthat, old Sun? . . .\n\n\'Old Sun, I gather myself together out of the pools of the individual\nthat have held me dispersed so long. I gather my billion thoughts into\nscience and my million wills into a common purpose. Well may you slink\ndown behind the mountains from me, well may you cower....\'\n\nSection 10\n\nKarenin desired that he might dream alone for a little while before he\nreturned to the cell in which he was to sleep. He was given relief for a\npain that began to trouble him and wrapped warmly about with furs, for\na great coldness was creeping over all things, and so they left him, and\nhe sat for a long time watching the afterglow give place to the darkness\nof night.\n\nIt seemed to those who had to watch over him unobtrusively lest he\nshould be in want of any attention, that he mused very deeply.\n\nThe white and purple peaks against the golden sky sank down into cold,\nblue remoteness, glowed out again and faded again, and the burning\ncressets of the Indian stars, that even the moonrise cannot altogether\nquench, began their vigil. The moon rose behind the towering screen of\ndark precipices to the east, and long before it emerged above these, its\nslanting beams had filled the deep gorges below with luminous mist and\nturned the towers and pinnacles of Lio Porgyul to a magic dreamcastle of\nradiance and wonder....\n\nCame a great uprush of ghostly light above the black rim of rocks, and\nthen like a bubble that is blown and detaches itself the moon floated\noff clear into the unfathomable dark sky....\n\nAnd then Karenin stood up. He walked a few paces along the terrace and\nremained for a time gazing up at that great silver disc, that silvery\nshield that must needs be man\'s first conquest in outer space....\n\nPresently he turned about and stood with his hands folded behind him,\nlooking at the northward stars....\n\nAt length he went to his own cell. He lay down there and slept\npeacefully till the morning. And early in the morning they came to him\nand the anaesthetic was given him and the operation performed.\n\nIt was altogether successful, but Karenin was weak and he had to lie\nvery still; and about seven days later a blood clot detached itself from\nthe healing scar and travelled to his heart, and he died in an instant\nin the night.'"