Anthem

by Ayn Rand

  PART EIGHT

  It has been a day of wonder, this, our first day in the forest.

  We awoke when a ray of sunlight fell across our face. We wanted to leapto our feet, as we have had to leap every morning of our life, but weremembered suddenly that no bell had rung and that there was no bell toring anywhere. We lay on our back, we threw our arms out, and we lookedup at the sky. The leaves had edges of silver that trembled and rippledlike a river of green and fire flowing high above us.

  We did not wish to move. We thought suddenly that we could lie thus aslong as we wished, and we laughed aloud at the thought. We could alsorise, or run, or leap, or fall down again. We were thinking that thesewere thoughts without sense, but before we knew it our body had risen inone leap. Our arms stretched out of their own will, and our body whirledand whirled, till it raised a wind to rustle through the leaves of thebushes. Then our hands seized a branch and swung us high into a tree,with no aim save the wonder of learning the strength of our body. Thebranch snapped under us and we fell upon the moss that was soft as acushion. Then our body, losing all sense, rolled over and over on themoss, dry leaves in our tunic, in our hair, in our face. And we heardsuddenly that we were laughing, laughing aloud, laughing as if therewere no power left in us save laughter.

  Then we took our glass box, and we went on into the forest. We went on,cutting through the branches, and it was as if we were swimming througha sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising and falling and risingaround us, and flinging their green sprays high to the treetops. Thetrees parted before us, calling us forward. The forest seemed to welcomeus. We went on, without thought, without care, with nothing to feel savethe song of our body.

  We stopped when we felt hunger. We saw birds in the tree branches, andflying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone and we sent it as anarrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made a fire, we cooked the bird,and we ate it, and no meal had ever tasted better to us. And we thoughtsuddenly that there was a great satisfaction to be found in the foodwhich we need and obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungryagain and soon, that we might know again this strange new pride ineating.

  Then we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak ofglass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water but only acut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, upturned, and the skylay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream and we bent down to drink. Andthen we stopped. For, upon the blue of the sky below us, we saw our ownface for the first time.

  We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body werebeautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers, for we feltnot pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like the bodies of ourbrothers, for our limbs were straight and thin and hard and strong. Andwe thought that we could trust this being who looked upon us from thestream, and that we had nothing to fear with this being.

  We walked on till the sun had set. When the shadows gathered among thetrees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, where we shall sleeptonight. And suddenly, for the first time this day, we remembered thatwe are the Damned. We remembered it, and we laughed.

  We are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic togetherwith the written pages we had brought for the World Council of Scholars,but never given to them. We have much to speak of to ourselves, and wehope we shall find the words for it in the days to come. Now, we cannotspeak, for we cannot understand.