第 28 页

there human mortality had ever been most terrible. On the other hand

this _creche_ company, the International Creche Syndicate, lost not

one-half per cent of the million babies or so that formed its peculiar

care. But Graham's prejudice was too strong even for those figures.

Along one of the many passages of the place they presently came upon a

young couple in the usual blue canvas peering through the transparency

and laughing hysterically at the bald head of their first-born. Graham's

face must have showed his estimate of them, for their merriment ceased

and they looked abashed. But this little incident accentuated his sudden

realisation of the gulf between his habits of thought and the ways of

the new age. He passed on to the crawling rooms and the Kindergarten,

perplexed and distressed. He found the endless long playrooms were

empty! the latter-day children at least still spent their nights in

sleep. As they went through these, the little officer pointed out the

nature of the toys, developments of those devised by that inspired

sentimentalist Froebel. There were nurses here, but much was done by

machines that sang and danced and dandled.

Graham was still not clear upon many points. "But so many orphans," he

said perplexed, reverting to a first misconception, and learnt again

that they were not orphans.

So soon as they had left the _creche_ he began to speak of the horror

the babies in their incubating cases had caused him. "Is motherhood

gone?" he said. "Was it a cant? Surely it was an instinct. This seems so

unnatural--abominable almost."

"Along here we shall come to the dancing place," said Asano by way of

reply. "It is sure to be crowded. In spite of all the political unrest

it will be crowded. The women take no great interest in politics--except

a few here and there. You will see the mothers--most young women in

London are mothers. In that class it is considered a creditable thing to

have one child--a proof of animation. Few middle class people have more

than one. With the Labour Company it is different. As for motherhood

They still take an immense pride in the children. They come here to look

at them quite often."

"Then do you mean that the population of the world--?"

"Is falling? Yes. Except among the people under the Labour Company. They

are reckless--."

The air was suddenly dancing with music, and down a way they approached

obliquely, set with gorgeous pillars as it seemed of clear amethyst,

flowed a concourse of gay people and a tumult of merry cries and

laughter. He saw curled heads, wreathed brows, and a happy intricate

flutter of gamboge pass triumphant across the picture.

"You will see," said Asano with a faint smile "The world has changed.

In a moment you will see the mothers of the new age. Come this way. We

shall see those yonder again very soon."

They ascended a certain height in a swift lift, and changed to a slower

one. As they went on the music grew upon them, until it was near and

full and splendid, and, moving with its glorious intricacies they could

distinguish the beat of innumerable dancing feet. They made a payment

at a turnstile, and emerged upon the wide gallery that overlooked the

dancing place, and upon the full enchantment of sound and sight.

"Here," said Asano, "are the fathers and mothers of the little ones you

saw."

The hall was not so richly decorated as that of the Atlas, but saving

that, it was, for its size, the most splendid Graham had seen. The

beautiful white limbed figures that supported the galleries reminded

him once more of the restored magnificence of sculpture; they seemed

to writhe in engaging attitudes, their faces laughed. The source of the

music that filled the place was hidden, and the whole vast shining floor

was thick with dancing couples. "Look at them," said the little officer,

"see how much they show of motherhood."

The gallery they stood upon ran along the upper edge of a huge screen

that cut the dancing hall on one side from a sort of outer hall that

showed through broad arches the incessant onward rush of the city ways.

In this outer hall was a great crowd of less brilliantly dressed people,

as numerous almost as those who danced within, the great majority

wearing the blue uniform of the Labour Company that was now so familiar

to Graham. Too poor to pass the turnstiles to the festival, they were

yet unable to keep away from the sound of its seductions. Some of them

even had cleared spaces, and were dancing also, fluttering their rags in

the air. Some shouted as they danced, jests and odd allusions Graham

did not understand. Once someone began whistling the refrain of the

revolutionary song, but it seemed as though that beginning was promptly

suppressed. The corner was dark and Graham could not see. He turned to

the hall again. Above the caryatidae were marble busts of men whom that

age esteemed great moral emancipators and pioneers; for the most part

their names were strange to Graham, though he recognised Grant Allen,

Le Gallienne, Nietzsche, Shelley and Goodwin. Great black festoons

and eloquent sentiments reinforced the huge inscription that partially

defaced the upper end of the dancing place, and asserted that "The

Festival of the Awakening" was in progress.

"Myriads are taking holiday or staying from work because of that, quite

apart from the labourers who refuse to go back," said Asano. "These

people are always ready for holidays."

Graham walked to the parapet and stood leaning over, looking down at the

dancers. Save for two or three remote whispering couples, who had stolen

apart, he and his guide had the gallery to themselves. A warm breath of

scent and vitality came up to him. Both men and women below were lightly

clad, bare-armed, open-necked, as the universal warmth of the city

permitted. The hair of the men was often a mass of effeminate curls,

their chins were always shaven, and many of them had flushed or coloured

cheeks. Many of the women were very pretty, and all were dressed with

elaborate coquetry. As they swept by beneath, he saw ecstatic faces with

eyes half closed in pleasure.

"What sort of people are these?" he asked abruptly.

"Workers--prosperous workers. What you would have called the middle

class. Independent tradesmen with little separate businesses have

vanished long ago, but there are store servers, managers, engineers of

a hundred sorts. Tonight is a holiday of course, and every dancing place

in the city will be crowded, and every place of worship."

"But--the women?"

"The same. There's a thousand forms of work for women now. But you had

the beginning of the independent working-woman in your days. Most women

are independent now. Most of these are married more or less--there are

a number of methods of contract--and that gives them more money, and

enables them to enjoy themselves."

"I see," said Graham looking at the flushed faces, the flash and swirl

of movement, and still thinking of that nightmare of pink helpless

limbs. "And these are--mothers."

"Most of them."

"The more I see of these things the more complex I find your problems.

This, for instance, is a surprise. That news from Paris was a surprise."

In a little while he spoke again:

"These are mothers. Presently, I suppose, I shall get into the

modern way of seeing things. I have old habits of mind clinging about

me--habits based, I suppose, on needs that are over and done with. Of

course, in our time, a woman was supposed not only to bear children,

but to cherish them, to devote herself to them, to educate them--all

the essentials of moral and mental education a child owed its mother. Or

went without. Quite a number, I admit, went without. Nowadays, clearly,

there is no more need for such care than if they were butterflies. I see

that! Only there was an ideal--that figure of a grave, patient woman,

silently and serenely mistress of a home, mother and maker of men--to

love her was a sort of worship--"

He stopped and repeated, "A sort of worship."

"Ideals change," said the little man, "as needs change."

Graham awoke from an instant reverie and Asano repeated his words.

Graham's mind returned to the thing at hand.

"Of course I see the perfect reasonableness of this Restraint,

soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish a act, they are

necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is

man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now

for all practical purposes--his political affairs are managed by Bosses

with a black police--and life is joyous."

He looked at the dancers again. "Joyous," he said.

"There are weary moments," said the little officer, reflectively.

"They all look young. Down there I should be visibly the oldest man. And

in my own time I should have passed as middle-aged."

"They are young. There are few old people in this class in the work

cities."

"How is that?"

"Old people's lives are not so pleasant as they used to be, unless they

are rich to hire lovers and helpers. And we have an institution called

Euthanasy."

"Ah! that Euthanasy!" said Graham. "The easy death?"

"The easy death. It is the last pleasure. The Euthanasy Company does it

well. People will pay the sum--it is a costly thing--long beforehand,

go off to some pleasure city and return impoverished and weary, very

weary."

"There is a lot left for me to understand," said Graham after a pause.

"Yet I see the logic of it all. Our array of angry virtues and sour

restraints was the consequence of danger and insecurity. The Stoic, the

Puritan, even in my time, were vanishing types. In the old days man

was armed against Pain, now he is eager for Pleasure. There lies the

difference. Civilisation has driven pain and danger so far off--for

well-to-do people. And only well-to-do people matter now. I have been

asleep two hundred years."

For a minute they leant on the balustrading, following the intricate

evolution of the dance. Indeed the scene was very beautiful.

"Before God," said Graham, suddenly, "I would rather be a wounded

sentinel freezing in the snow than one of these painted fools!"

"In the snow," said Asano, "one might think differently."

"I am uncivilised," said Graham, not heeding him. "That is the trouble.

I am primitive--Palaeolithic. Their fountain of rage and fear and anger

is sealed and closed, the habits of a lifetime make them cheerful and

easy and delightful. You must bear with my nineteenth century shocks and

disgusts. These people, you say, are skilled workers and so forth. And

while these dance, men are fighting--men are dying in Paris to keep the

world--that they may dance."

Asano smiled faintly. "For that matter, men are dying in London," he

said.

There was a moment's silence.

"Where do these sleep?" asked Graham.

"Above and below--an intricate warren."

"And where do they work? This is--the domestic life."

"You will see little work to-night. Half the workers are out or under

arms. Half these people are keeping holiday. But we will go to the work

places if you wish it."

For a time Graham watched the dancers, then suddenly turned away. "I

want to see the workers. I have seen enough of these," he said.

Asano led the way along the gallery across the dancing hall. Presently

they came to a transverse passage that brought a breath of fresher,

colder air.

Asano glanced at this passage as they went past, stopped, went back

to it, and turned to Graham with a smile. "Here, Sire," he said, "is

something--will be familiar to you at least--and yet--. But I will not

tell you. Come!"

He led the way along a closed passage that presently became cold. The

reverberation of their feet told that this passage was a bridge. They

came into a circular gallery that was glazed in from the outer weather,

and so reached a circular chamber which seemed familiar, though Graham

could not recall distinctly when he had entered it before. In this was a

ladder--the first ladder he had seen since his awakening--up which they

went, and came into a high, dark, cold place in which was another almost

vertical ladder. This they ascended, Graham still perplexed.

But at the top he understood, and recognized the metallic bars to which

he clung. He was in the cage under the ball of St. Paul's. The dome rose

but a little way above the general contour of the city, into the still

twilight, and sloped away, shining greasily under a few distant lights,

into a circumambient ditch of darkness.

Out between the bars he looked upon the wind-clear northern sky and saw

the starry constellations all unchanged. Capella hung in the west, Vega

was rising, and the seven glittering points of the Great Bear swept

overhead in their stately circle about the Pole.

He saw these stars in a clear gap of sky. To the east and south the

great circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the

heavens, so that the glare about the Council House was hidden. To the

south-west hung Orion, showing like a pallid ghost through a tracery of

iron-work and interlacing shapes above a dazzling coruscation of lights.

A bellowing and siren screaming that came from the flying stages warned

the world that one of the aeroplanes was ready to start. He remained for

a space gazing towards the glaring stage. Then his eyes went back to the

northward constellations.

For a long time he was silent. "This," he said at last, smiling in the

shadow, "seems the strangest thing of all. To stand in the dome of Saint

Paul's and look once more upon these familiar, silent stars!"

Thence Graham was taken by Asano along devious ways to the great