PAGE 8
The New Gulliver
by
“Going to walk?” asked the Professor.
“No. I have taken my exercise for to-day. I shall disintegrate.”
Even as I looked at him, his substance became a smoky shadow, shimmering and vibrating. It grew rapidly fainter and fainter until it had vanished altogether.
CHAPTER III
“And now,” said the Professor, “before we go any further there is one point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04 just now?”
“I did.”
“Did you observe in him as he came up to slope from his front-door any tendency to puff and blow?”
“He certainly did seem slightly short of breath.”
“Poor fellow! Poor fellow! It breaks my heart to hear it. I don’t give him another hundred years to live. Sad that so intelligent a being should be snuffed out like a candle.”
The Professor did not look in the least as if it had broken his heart. So far as I was able to judge he seemed rather pleased than not.
“That being settled,” he continued, “I may now devote myself to you. You made some protests just now, based, as most protests are, on ignorance. You are not going to be a slave. You may regard me as your host. I shall treat you as a guest and I shall look upon you as a curiosity. Tell me at once what I can do for you.”
“I want to know where I am. I want to know the history of this place–the meaning of first-class and second-class beings–how sex came to be abolished–what is implied by a power of order from the Central Office. I have been here but a few hours and I find everything puzzling and incomprehensible.”
“This,” said the Professor, “is Thule. I cannot give you its exact geographical relation to the world, for it has no geographical relation. How do you imagine that you came here?”
I gave him some account of the shipwreck and of my fight with the sharks, showing him in proof my large clasp-knife, which, together with my perspective-glass and some other trifles, I had found means to secrete in the clothing provided for me by my former host.
“I have no doubt,” said the Professor, “that you speak with sincerity. But you are wrong. That is not how you came here. Nor shall I put you in possession of the actual facts, or you would be able to use them to ensure your return. You are not a prisoner, but at present I wish to detain you. And now, if you will, I will give you roughly and in as few words as possible a sketch of our history and constitution. This being in the nature of a lecture, I shall lie down. It is the custom in this country for every lecture or public speech to be delivered in a recumbent position, the greatest physical ease being consistent with the greatest mental concentration. Come to the sleeping-room.”
He led the way to a room provided with a pneumatic mattress. It was in all respects the counterpart of the room I had seen at my former host’s house. He stretched himself on this mattress, and as there was plenty of room I saw no reason why I should not do the same. He noticed it and approved.
“You are wise,” he said. “Your carcass will now cease to attract your attention and you will be able to attend to me.”
He lay on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and his two long arms crossed over his protuberant stomach. Presently he began to speak in a solemn and magisterial voice, as if he were addressing a large class. I did from time to time interrupt him with question or remark, but have not thought it worth while to place such interruptions on record.
“To understand the conditions of Thule at the present day we must go back to the great social upheaval of centuries ago. At that time the equality of all men was claimed and the community of property. Successful agitation backed by armed force carried the matter. Community of property does to some extent remain to this day, although a more civilised view of the value of property is now held by us. But within a very few years of the social upheaval the fallacy of universal equality declared itself. It is a rare thing for two men to be facially alike, and no two men are ever equal in all respects. Such inequalities soon declared themselves. We had on the one side a minority who contributed more to the State in actual benefit than they received from it, and on the other side a majority who received more from the State than they contributed to it. The minority naturally became a discontented class, and healthy discontent produces activity. The majority, getting more than they gave, were quite satisfied with the state of affairs. They babbled of the blessings of an assured democracy. They took no trouble with themselves. They thought they were at the end of the social revolution when they were only at the beginning of it.