Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (395 page)

(He talked in rather a vulgar manner, I thought; but I did not like to reprove him.)

We walked out into the city. It was very clean and very quiet. The streets, which were designated by numbers, ran out from each other at right angles, and all presented exactly the same appearance. There were no horses or carriages about; all the traffic was conducted by electric cars. All the people that we met wore a quiet, grave expression, and were so much like each other as to give one the idea that they were all members of the same family. Every one was dressed, as was also my guide, in a pair of grey trousers, and a grey tunic, buttoning tight round the neck and fastened round the waist by a belt. Each man was clean shaven, and each man had black hair.

I said: “Are all these men twins?”

“Twins! Good gracious, no!” answered my guide. “Whatever made you fancy that?”

“Why, they all look so much alike,” I replied; “and they’ve all got black hair!”

Oh, that’s the regulation colour for hair,” explained my companion; “we’ve all got black hair. If a man’s hair is not black naturally, he has to have it dyed black.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why!” retorted the old gentleman, somewhat irritably. “Why, I thought you understood that all men were now equal. What would become of our equality if one man or woman were allowed to swagger about in golden hair, while another had to put up with carrots? Men have not only got to be equal in these happy days, but to look it, as far as can be. By causing all men to be clean shaven, and all men and women to have black hair cut the same length, we obviate, to a certain extent, the errors of Nature.”

I said:

“Why black?”

He said he did not know, but that was the colour which had been decided upon.

“Who by?” I asked.

“By THE MAJORITY,” he replied, raising his hat and lowering his eyes, as if in prayer.

We walked further, and passed more men. I said:

“Are there no women in this city?”

“Women!” exclaimed my guide, “of course there are. We’ve passed hundreds of them!”

“I thought I knew a woman when I saw one,” I observed; “but I can’t remember noticing any.”

“Why, there go two, now,” he said, drawing my attention to a couple of persons near to us, both dressed in the regulation grey trousers and tunics

“How do you know they are women?” I asked.

“Why, you see the metal numbers that everybody wears on their collar?”

“Yes; I was just thinking what a number of policemen you had, and wondering where the other people were!”

“Well, the even numbers are women; the odd numbers are men.”

“How very simple,” I remarked. “I suppose after a little practise you can tell one sex from the other almost at a glance?”

“Oh, yes,” he replied, “if you want to.”

We walked on in silence for awhile. And then I said:

“Why does everybody have a number?”

“To distinguish him by,” answered my companion.

“Don’t people have names, then?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Oh! there was so much inequality in names. Some people were called Montmorency, and they looked down on the Smiths; and the Smythes did not like mixing with the Joneses; so, to save further bother, it was decided to abolish names altogether, and to give everybody a number.”

“Did not the Montmorencies and the Smythes object?”

“Yes; but the Smiths and Joneses were in THE MAJORITY.”

“And did not the Ones and Twos look down upon the Threes and Fours, and so on?”

“At first, yes. But, with the abolition of wealth, numbers lost their value, except for industrial purposes and for double acrostics, and now No. 100 does not consider himself in any way superior to No. 1,000,000.”

I had not washed when I got up, there being no conveniences for doing so in the Museum, and I was beginning to feel somewhat hot and dirty. I said:

“Can I wash myself anywhere?”

He said:

“No; we are not allowed to wash ourselves. You must wait until half-past four, and then you will be washed for tea.”

“
Be
washed!” I cried. “Who by?”

“The State.”

He said that they had found they could not maintain their equality when people were allowed to wash themselves. Some people washed three or four times a day, while others never touched soap and water from one year’s end to the other, and in consequence there got to be two distinct classes, the Clean and the Dirty. All the old class prejudices began to be revived. The clean despised the dirty, and the dirty hated the clean. So, to end dissension, the State decided to do the washing itself, and each citizen was now washed twice a day by government-appointed officials; and private washing was prohibited.

I noticed that we passed no houses as we went along, only block after block of huge, barrack-like buildings, all of the same size and shape. Occasionally, at a corner, we came across a smaller building, labeled “Museum,” “Hospital,” “Debating Hall,” “Bath,” “Gymnasium,” “Academy of Sciences,” “Exhibition of Industries,” “School of Talk,” etc., etc.; but never a house.

I said:

“Doesn’t anybody live in this town?”

He said:

“You do ask silly questions; upon my word, you do. Where do you think they live?”

I said:

“That’s just what I’ve been trying to think. I don’t see any houses anywhere!”

He said:

“We don’t need houses — not houses such as you are thinking of. We are socialistic now; we live together in fraternity and equality. We live in these blocks that you see. Each block accommodates one thousand citizens. It contains one thousand beds, one hundred in each room — and bath-rooms and dressing-rooms in proportion, a dining-hall and kitchens. At seven o’clock every morning a bell is rung, and every one rises and tidies up his bed. At seven-thirty they go into the dressing-rooms, and are washed and shaved and have their hair done. At eight o’clock breakfast is served in the dining-hall. It comprises a pint of oatmeal porridge and half a pint of warm milk for each adult citizen. We are all strict vegetarians now. The vegetarian vote increased enormously during the last century, and their organisation being very perfect, they have been able to dictate every election for the past fifty years. At one o’clock another bell is rung, and the people return to dinner, which consists of beans and stewed fruits, with roly-poly pudding twice a week, and plum duff on Saturdays. At five o’clock there is tea, and at ten the lights are out and everybody goes to bed. We are all equal, and we all live alike — clerk and scavenger, tinker and apothecary — all together in fraternity and liberty. The men live in blocks on this side of the town and the women are at the other end of the city.”

“Where are the married people kept?” I asked.

Oh, there are no married couples,” he replied; “we abolished marriage two hundred years ago. You see married life did not work at all well with our system. Domestic life, we found, was thoroughly anti-socialistic in its tendencies. Men thought more of their wives and families than they did of the State. They wished to labour for the benefit of their little circle of beloved ones rather than for the good of the community. They cared more for the future of their children than for the Destiny of Humanity. The ties of love and blood bound men together fast in little groups instead of in one great whole. Before considering the advancement of the human race, men considered the advancement of their kith and kin. Before striving for the greatest happiness of the greatest number, men strove for the happiness of the few who were near and dear to them. In secret, men and women hoarded up and laboured and denied themselves, so as, in secret, to give some little extra gift of joy to their beloved. Love stirred the vice of ambition in men’s hearts. To win the smiles of the women they loved, to leave a name behind them that their children might be proud to bear, men sought to raise themselves above the general level, to do some deed that should make the world look up to them and honour them above their fellow-men, to press a deeper footprint than another’s upon the dusty highway of the age. The fundamental principles of Socialism were being daily thwarted and contemned. Each house was a revolutionary centre for the propagation of individualism and personality. From the warmth of each domestic hearth grew up the vipers, Comradeship and Independence, to sting the State and poison the minds of men.

“The doctrines of equality were openly disputed. Men, when they loved a woman, thought her superior to every other woman, and hardly took any pains to disguise their opinion. Lovng wives believed their husbands to be wiser and braver and better than all other men. Mothers laughed at the idea of their children being in no way superior to other children. Children imbibed the hideous heresy that their father and mother were the best father and mother in the world.

“From whatever point you looked at it, the Family stood forth as our foe. One man had a charming wife and two sweet-tempered children; his neighbour was married to a shrew, and was the father of eleven noisy, ill-dispositioned brats — where was the equality?

“Again, wherever the Family existed, there hovered, ever contending, the angels of Joy and Sorrow; and in a world where joy and sorrow are known, Equality cannot live. One man and woman, in the night, stand weeping beside a little cot. On the other side of the lath-and-plaster, a fair young couple, hand in hand, are laughing at the silly antics of a grave-faced, gurgling baby. What is poor Equality doing?

“Such things could not be allowed. Love, we saw, was our enemy at every turn. He made equality impossible. He brought joy and pain, and peace and suffering in his train. He disturbed men’s beliefs, and imperiled the Destiny of Humanity; so we abolished him and all his works.

“Now there are no marriages, and, therefore, no domestic troubles; no wooing, therefore no heart aching; no loving, therefore no sorrowing; no kisses and no tears.

“We all live together in equality, free from the troubling of joy and pain.”

I said:

“It must be very peaceful; but, tell me — I ask the question merely from a scientific standpoint — how do you keep up the supply of men and women?”

He said:

“Oh, that’s simple enough. How did you, in your day, keep up the supply of horses and cows? In the spring, so many children, according as the State requires, are arranged for, and carefully bred, under medical supervision. When they are born, they are taken away from their mothers (who, else, might grow to love them), and brought up in the public nurseries and schools until they are fourteen. They are then examined by State-appointed inspectors, who decide what calling they should be brought up to, and to such calling they are thereupon apprenticed. At twenty they take their rank as citizens, and are entitled to a vote. No difference whatever is make between men and women. Both sexes enjoy equal privileges.”

I said:

“What are those privileges?”

He said:

“Why, all that I’ve been telling you.”

We wandered for a few more miles, but passed nothing but street after street of these huge blocks. I said:

“Are there no shops nor stores in this town?”

“No,” he replied. “What do we want with shops and stores? The State feeds us, clothes us, houses us, doctors us. washes and dresses us, cuts our corns, and buries us. What could we do with shops?”

I began to feel tired with our walk. I said:

“Can we go in anywhere and have a drink?”

He said:

“A ‘drink’! What’s a ‘drink? We have half-a-pint of cocoa with our dinner. Do you mean that?”

I did not feel equal to explaining the matter to him, and he evidently would not have understood me if I had; so I said:

“Yes; I meant that.”

We passed a very fine-looking man a little further on, and I noticed that he only had one arm. I had noticed two or three rather big-looking men with only one arm in the course of the morning, and it struck me as curious. I remarked about it to my guide.

He said:

“Yes; when a man is much above the average size and strength, we cut one of his legs or arms off, so as to make things more equal; we lop him down a bit, as it were. Nature, you see, is somewhat behind the times; but we do what we can to put her straight.”