Delphi complete works of.., p.306
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 306
“Well, in a sense,” I said, pausing to light a cigarette which I had found with a lighter in my pocket, “and yet in a sense it doesn’t. We had started that.”
“You will be surprised at least to learn,” said Dr. Oom, “that in all this vast city there is not a single moving vehicle—”
“I hardly expected there would be,” I replied; “no doubt the sidewalks themselves . . .”
“Exactly,” said Dr. Oom.
A silence ensued which began, in a way, to be almost painful or at least boring. I realized that the scene between us had been worn so thin in preceding generations that it was difficult to keep it up at the proper point of intensity.
I began to feel it my duty to discover some subject at least upon which the revelations of Dr. Oom would come up to the standard of feature-article interest.
“Dr. Oom,” I said, “there is one thing that always and forever, in each successive world and generation, is of undying interest. What about the position and status of women in this new world?”
“Ah!” said Dr. Oom, “most interesting; let me explain first . . .”
But he had hardly spoken when the little door through which we had stepped out onto the roof was swung open and a glad, girlish voice called: “Why, father, where ever have you been?”
A ravishing girlish figure rushed across to the leads and threw its arms in affectionate impulsiveness about the neck of Dr. Oom. . . .
How ever can I forget the moment — my first sight of Rooshna — my first glimpse of she for whom or rather but for whom all that I was, or rather whatever else I am — but enough. Words fail me to convey the picture of the exquisite being who thus burst upon my sight.
She was clad in a long and quietly flowing garment which appeared made of a single fabric, that is, I couldn’t see a hole or a join in it, in which, or rather from which and through which the colours of the sunshine seemed to glisten in opalescent irradiation.
“Rooshna,” said Dr. Oom in a voice of gentle remonstrance at the impulsiveness of the exquisite being who clung to his neck. “Look, my child. One is with us.”
Rooshna unclasped her arms as she became aware of my presence. Then moving towards me, her hands clasped in agitation, she raised her eyes to mine.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “at last you are awake! How wonderful! Sometimes I used to think that you would never wake; some years you seemed almost to do so and other years you seemed to sleep harder than ever.”
Marvellous it seemed to me to think that this exquisite being — if I may call her that again — had watched over my slumbers.
Dr. Oom turned towards us.
“My daughter, Rooshna,” he said with a smile, “has long been your constant attendant while you slept. She was always hoping that the day might come when she herself might show you all the wonders of this strange new world.”
“But I should like nothing better,” I said. “I shall be charmed indeed if Miss Oom will be so kind as to act as my guide.”
“Excellent,” said Dr. Oom; “for myself I pray that you will excuse me as I have to attend this afternoon a meeting of the Witanagemot.”
“Come along then,” said Rooshna gaily; “let me lead the way.”
“You must tell me,” she said as we made our way through the passages and halls of the beautiful building from which we had emerged, “what you want to know about first. There must be so much to explain to you; how would you like to hear first about our currency and coinage?”
“Currency and coinage!” I repeated with delight. “I can imagine nothing more fascinating. Do tell me about it.”
“I will,” said Rooshna, “and then, after that, what about a little talk on transportation facilities.”
“Glorious!” I said.
“And then I know you want to hear about labour and capital and social insurance.”
“Delicious! I can’t hear enough of it.”
“Then I shall have lots to tell you. Of course father could have explained it all much better.”
“Miss Oom,” I said boldly, “I don’t regret your father’s absence.”
Rooshna looked at me with an air of perplexity.
“Why do you say that?” she questioned. “I can’t understand why you say that. Really I can’t. But anyway” — her expression cleared as she spoke— “father couldn’t come as he had to be at the Witanagemot — if you know what that is?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “the meeting of the Wise Old Men. And pray, tell me, what does your father do, Miss Oom?” I asked.
“Do?” she said. “How do you mean?”
“I mean what is his work.”
“Oh! I understand,” said Rooshna, breaking into a pleasant laugh, “work! You see there’s practically no work at all now. It’s all done by the machines and especially by the new life-force which science has invented and which is called Wheee! You’ve heard of that?”
“Not exactly,” I answered, “but of course in all the Utopia books there was generally a marvellous force of that sort.”
“Quite so,” said Rooshna. “So you see since the discovery of Wheee, there is really terribly little to do. Employment has grown extremely rare and is confined to the young. So that the men like father have to find other things to occupy them.”
“And how does he occupy himself?”
“He works on the sky a good deal, astronomical work, you know, like taking the mean altitude of the sun and finding the diameter of the moon. He does both of those every day, and then he generally copies out the multiplication table every morning.”
“But hasn’t all that been done before?”
“Of course,” answered Rooshna with just a shade of irritation in her tone, “but what else can father do? Since the invention of Wheee there’s no work and of course there are no professions because we don’t have soldiers any more, and there is no law, and since the invention of Healall there is no illness and no doctors. You know about Healall?”
“I think so,” I said; “already it was foreseen in some of our newspaper advertisements. It cures everything.”
“Exactly. So what can father do? But come along — don’t let’s sit here. Let’s go out in the street. There!” she said, “is the outer door swung open. How do you like the look of it?”
“Marvellous,” I said. “Why, the street is all roofed over with glass! How wonderful! And the sidewalk actually moves along like a moving platform! Who could have believed it?”
“Jump onto it then,” cried Rooshna, “and away we go!”
Marvellous indeed was the afternoon which ensued during which Rooshna conducted me, on the moving platform and on foot, among the pleasant squares and gardens where we rested and talked of the wonderful world about us. At little tables set under sycamore trees, slippered attendants served us with Slooch in golden glasses and with synthetic fruits and canned sardines. Rooshna meanwhile explained to me the currency, the coinage, the labour legislation and the rules of procedure of the Witanagemot. I was delighted with all I saw, and especially pleased to remark the excessive number of old men moving about, and how bright the old fellows seemed!
The prolongation of life, as my fair conductress explained, had naturally led to the existence of a high percentage of bright, snappy old people. The young were few, and, I presume, for the most part busy elsewhere, at school or work. But their absence was more than compensated by the great number of old men, every one of whom seemed in full possession of all the faculties he had ever had or needed.
Never have I had such a delightful afternoon. So much so that I returned from it with the most glorious feeling of satisfaction, a feeling as if I had, so to speak, plenty of it.
That evening I banqueted with Dr. Oom and his friends in the great hall. The meal was served to us, not seated in our stiff fashion of today, but in the true Utopian pose of reclining languidly on couches, while slippered attendants served us with exquisite viands as we reclined. Our discourse was accompanied by soft music proceeding from I know not where. During the meal, which was a prolonged one, Dr. Oom and his friends conversed enthusiastically of the altitude of the sun, of the binomial theorem, and of the multiplication table. Their talk, I perceived, was animated but never contentious. Just once for a moment something like controversy arose as to what was nine times eight but it was only for a moment. For the most part, I realized, there was nothing to argue over, everything being long since settled; and in a world where nothing happened, there were of course no events or happenings to talk about. As a consequence conversation was able to move on the higher ground of eternal verities such as multiplication and long division.
I need not describe in detail the marvellous days which succeeded my first awakening in Utopia. Each day brought its delightful round. Rooshna would join me after breakfast and would talk of currency, bimetalism and the elimination of the unearned increment. Then I would spend half an hour beside the venerable Dr. Oom, holding his astronomical instruments for him, while he measured the apparent diameter of the moon, and listening to his pleasant talk on the zodiac and the equinoxes. After, would come a ride on the moving platforms with Rooshna, while we discussed the relation of profits to interest, or the relation of interest to profits, or the possibility of a regulated currency based on the reciprocal variation of the index of general prices. The evening brought with it the customary prolonged and delightful banquet on synthetic eggs, fried figs and goulash under glass. The food, I discovered, had all been prepared years and years before. . . .
How long this delicious existence might have lasted I cannot say. I was aware, however, that my feelings towards Rooshna were rapidly passing from the mere sense of interest and companionship to something more intense, deeper, and, if I may so call it, broader and indeed higher. In fact I was already conscious in my own heart that I loved her. Again and again as I sat under the spell of her talk on sociological science I could scarcely resist the impulse to take her to my heart and tell her of my love.
But at the same time another and entirely different impulse kept drawing me in an opposite direction. More and more each day I began to feel an overwhelming desire to go to sleep. My sleep at night was not enough. I wanted more. As I sat with Dr. Oom watching his grave face as he tested out the multiplication table with marks on a bit of paper, I wanted to sleep. If I sat out in one of the little squares where the fountains splashed beneath the sycamores, my head would sink forward with a drowsy desire for sleep. Even at the banquets in the evening something in the soft unvarying light, the gentle music and the murmur of the scientific discourse on the properties of a right-angled triangle — even this failed to keep me roused. Sleep — I must sleep.
Yet behind this feeling there seemed to me some strange, deep, subtle meaning which I couldn’t fathom. Why this unending ever-present desire for sleep? Had it some bearing on the mystery of life itself? Could it mean that beyond all the arts and contrivances of man — this prolongation of life and removal of accident, danger and disease — there was something, some undeniable decree. What was this world into which I had penetrated by some occult process unknown to myself? Could it be? — I put the thought from me — could it be, could that be — the meaning of unending quiet, this unending harmony, this living among the unchanging truths of existence — this life without life — I wouldn’t name the word — was that where I was?
It was on the tenth day.
Overwhelmingly the thought came to me. I sprang up from the bench on which I sat.
I stood erect and grasped Rooshna’s hand as she sat. “Rooshna,” I said, “I love you!”
“I know that,” she said quietly, not speaking like a Utopian but like a woman of the Earth-as-it-was. “I know that,” she said. “I knew it from the first.”
“Rooshna,” I said, “I love you. But I must go . . . out, out of this . . . I don’t know how, or where, but out and back into life again. . . .”
“I know,” she said, “I’m going too.”
“But you can’t,” I said, “your place is here. Your father . . .”
Rooshna shook her head.
“He is not my father. I call him that, but I too belong as you do outside. I don’t know — I can’t remember now — it is all so perplexed. It seems as if I had been here ever so long — waiting for you.”
I seated myself again beside Rooshna.
We sat silent for a little time, our hands clasped.
Then she spoke.
“Listen,” she said, “will you trust me?”
“Oh, of course,” I answered.
“But I mean trust me a great deal. Do you remember that in the life you came from long ago there were stories called fairy stories — and often in these fairy stories, there was a princess, and the princess would say to her lover, ‘Will you trust me and do what I say, and no matter how hard it is you will do it and everything will be all right?’ ”
“Well?” I said.
“Well, I want you to do that now. You want to sleep — to sleep as if to sleep forever. There, lie upon the bench — your head upon my arm — so; and now say to me good-bye. I understand, dear. You cannot stay. Sleep.”
“You’ve been asleep so long. I didn’t like to wake you.”
It was my wife’s voice. She was standing beside the bed, with a cup of tea in her hand — my wife’s voice, but where had I heard it before?
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she repeated, “but I do so want to show you this. I found it in turning out some old things this morning. Do you remember it?”
As she spoke she handed me, half blushing, a little picture of the queer old kind once called a “tintype.”
“Why, of course!” I said, still half dreaming, “it’s you and me.”
“When the tintype man took us on the little seat under the sycamore.”
“The day I said, when I—”
“Yes,” she answered, “that day.”
Chapter II. Ten Seconds for Refreshments
AFTER READING ABOUT the Dear Old Utopia of the preceding chapter, the reader ought in fairness to sit down and take a breath and think about it. He might even eat something. He will see on a little reflection that the trouble with this dear old Orthodox Utopia is that it is altogether too comprehensible. You can understand it. It may be marvellous, no doubt it is, but after all it is terribly like the world in which we live. The real Utopia, if we could get a look at it, would be quite incomprehensible; we simply wouldn’t understand what the people were talking about. Neither could they explain it all, as the Dr. Ooms do in the sham Utopias, because they wouldn’t understand what it was that we didn’t understand. Anyone who has ever tried to explain to an intelligent Eskimo the operation of the New York Stock Exchange will know just what I mean. Few people perhaps have had that experience. But anybody who has undertaken to describe the nature of the photo-electric cell to an Equatorial African pygmy will understand the case exactly.
Well, then — let’s get back and see the rest; let us take a look at the Real Utopia.
In other words, let us suppose that we could really look ahead and see, not this venerable being with whiskers, but the real world of tomorrow. Let us suppose that we fall asleep for a hundred years and then wake up and sit up and see. Or no — don’t let’s even fall asleep. Let us simply take a look right now at a family group in Utopia. There they are, apparently a mother and two children, seated at breakfast. Breakfast, yes — it looks like breakfast. Some of the things at the little table look a little queer (we’ve never seen a coffee-gun, of course, or a synthetic egg) — still, it must be breakfast. There, they’re beginning to talk — listen.
Chapter III. The Real Utopia
“GOOD NEWS, CHILDREN!”
It is the woman, the mother, who is speaking as she sits at the breakfast table. She speaks gaily, as if full of happiness.
“Good news, children. Father is coming out of jail!”
“Good,” said the little boy. “I always like it when father comes out of jail.”
“This father,” corrects the little girl solemnly, looking up from the porridge.
“I meant that, Clara, of course,” said the boy. “You know I didn’t mean Mr. Angleneck. When does father come out, mum?”
“This morning, I think — in fact quite early, almost now. Wait a minute.”
She moved with her fingers a little dial that lay on the table. (By the way, how Utopia-like that would have seemed only a little while ago. But we are doing it already.)
“It’s Mrs. Ex-Angleneck-Afterthought speaking,” she said, “is that the Elysian Fields Jail?”
A voice seemed to speak from the wall, from nowhere, just in the room (an inconceivable wonderful thing, but we’re doing it now). “Yes.”
“Is that the office?”
“No, it’s the ballroom. Last night’s dance isn’t over yet — it was graduates’ night, you see, but I can get you the office — or perhaps — I can tell you what you want.”
“I wanted to find out if my husband has left the jail yet; he was to come out this morning.”
There was silence, a long pause, and then the voice spoke again.
“I’m so sorry. The governor of the jail won’t let him go.”
“Won’t let him go?”
“He says he simply can’t spare him and that he must stay over for the polo match. He says not to expect him till tonight.”
Mrs. Afterthought put down the dial with a sigh, yet with a slight flush of pleasure on her face. “He’s such a favourite out there,” she said. “Every time he goes to jail it’s the same thing. They simply will keep him there.”
Little Clara looked up from her plate.
“But I thought that only wicked people were put into prison.”
“Clara!” said her mother severely, “what have you been reading now? If you and Edward will keep dragging old books off the library shelves—”
