Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XI

by Various

  "What about the actors?" I asked. "In most countries the leading actors are very much sought after, and can make large fortunes. I should imagine your system does not allow of that kind of career for a successful actor."

  "All our actors," replied Dr. Dodderer, "are trained in the Imperial Meccanian Dramatic College. The lower grades belong to the Fifth Class, the higher grades to the Fourth. The technique of acting has been brought to such perfection that the' star' as he used to be called, has entirely disappeared. There is no room for him in our system. The' star' was a mere product of popular enthusiasm."

  "How do you judge, then, of the popularity of any particular actor?"

  "We take no account of it at all," replied Dr. Dodderer. "Our expert Board of Dramatic Criticism determines the standing of each actor. We have, of course, expert psychologists, who are able to test the particular psychological effect both of each phase of the play and of the impression made by individual actors. Their experiments are of great value both to our dramatic managers and to the writers of plays."

  At this point Dr. Dodderer announced that the hour he had reserved for me was at an end.

  CHAPTER VI

  MORE CULTURE IN MECCO

  I RETURNED to Conductor Prigge and my daily grind. But as most of this first period was spent in visiting systematically a number of institutions similar to those I had seen in Bridgetown, but on a larger scale, it is hardly necessary to describe them here. For instance, the arrangements for receiving and distributing food are on the same principle: the markets are managed in the same way. The general system of shopping is the same, except that, as the city is much larger, there is very much more' shopping by post.' As the shops are not permitted to display anything in shop windows, nor to advertise except in the trade gazettes and catalogues, there is not much incentive to spend time in desultory shopping. The great Stores are more like warehouses than shops. I had gathered from my conversations with Sheep that the State seemed to place obstacles in the way of personal expenditure, and yet at the same time production was encouraged. Sheep's explanations had not seemed to me entirely satisfactory, so I decided to question Prigge on this interesting point. As his services were charged for at double the rate of Sheep's, I thought I ought to get more complete information from him. So one day I said to him > "How is it that in Meccania, as far as I can judge, you have brought production to such a pitch of perfection--I mean as regards the enormous quantities manufactured--whilst at the same time you seem to restrict expenditure or consumption in so many ways?"

  Prigge tilted back his head and put on his professorial air.

  "Such a question would be better dealt with when you come to make a definite study of our National Economy, but as it is really quite an elementary question--a commonplace of all our textbooks-- I do not mind explaining it briefly now. Your first error is in supposing that the State encourages production indiscriminately. We produce what we require and no more, but we are able to measure our requirements better than other nations. In other countries people are allowed to buy a lot of things they do not require; this causes unnecessary production, of course. Unregulated consumption gives rise to unregulated production."

  I still felt puzzled as to what became of the wealth produced by the wonderfully efficient system of wholesale production, for, as far as I could tell, the people seemed less luxurious in their habits than those of countries far less advanced in machine production. But I felt I should be getting on dangerous ground, and forbore.

  The commercial quarter, in which we spent a whole day, was remarkably small for so large a city, especially considering that the city is not commercially self-contained. But I learnt that Mecco is not really the commercial centre of Meccania. The merchants are little more than the agents for the distribution of goods. The quantities are largely fixed by the Department of Industry and Commerce, consequently there is not much room for enterprise, except in effecting economies in distribution, in bargaining with the Government as to the kinds of goods to be produced, and in discussing with manufacturers matters of detail as to patterns and styles. For example, the Schools of Art produce every year designs for cloth for women's dress. The merchants select from these the patterns to be manufactured. There is little excitement in a merchant's career. Most of the clerks seem to be occupied in the preparation and revision of catalogues, which are the substitute for advertisements. No new article can be produced until it has been approved by the Improvements Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce.

  All this side of the life of Mecco was very tame and stereotyped. Prigge discoursed at length on the merits of the Post Office and all its works, but the only remarkable thing I noticed about it, besides the censorship of letters, and the enormous number of people employed, was the ingenious arrangement whereby a conversation carried on in any part of Meccania could be overheard at the Central Office.

  The absence of life and bustle in the streets was as striking as in Bridgetown. Most of the people in the Government offices belonged to the Fourth Class, and as these all lived in the two quarters running north and south of the central ring, they could reach their offices in a very short time. The midday meal was taken in a canteen within the office. The few inferior employees, messengers, porters, cleaners, etc., who belonged to the Fifth or Sixth Class, lived almost as near. The higher Civil servants of the Third Class, who of course were less numerous, did not make a crowd in the street. The green uniforms of the Fourth Class were the most conspicuous object everywhere. The industrial classes, living as they do on the side nearest the industrial town, are transported by an ingenious system of trams and underground and overhead railways, so that in half an hour they can all get from their homes to their work, where they remain all day. All goods arriving from the industrial town for distribution to the Stores are carried by a regular service of motor-vans. The distribution of goods to houses is so systematised as to require comparatively few vehicles. For instance, certain kinds of goods can be delivered only once a month for each household, others only once a week. Consequently one sees a perfectly regular stream of traffic, which is never very dense and never congested. All this might have been very interesting to a student of municipal socialism and mechanical organisation, but my chief interests lay in other directions, and it was not until we came to the cultural institutions that I found things so remarkable, at any rate from my own point of view, that I shall make no apology for describing them with some fullness here, even at the risk of being tedious to those who think more of locomotion than of liberty, or who regard the Post Office as the highest symbol of civilisation.

  I had looked forward with some curiosity to my first visit to a Meccanian Art Gallery, for, as I had not been into any private houses, and as there are no shop windows, I had seen hardly any signs of Meccanian Art Culture, except in Architecture. The decorative work in the public buildings did not impress me favourably. It was Patriotic Art, executed by the students of the Imperial Meccanian Academy.

  Prigge announced that, as he had been promoted to a higher grade in the Police Service, he would no longer be available to conduct me. By way of consoling me for the deprivation he said that in any case I should have to be handed over to various specialist conductors, as I had almost completed the general part of my tour and had reached the stage when I should have to begin the study of definite branches of Meccanian culture. He had consequently arranged for me to spend the first three days in the Great Meccanian Gallery under the guidance of Specialist Art Section Sub-Conductor Musch.

  Sub-Conductor Musch met me at the appointed time at the hotel. He was a very different type from Prigge. He was much less of the drillsergeant; in fact he looked rather' decadent,' if a Meccanian can be decadent. He spoke in a soft voice, which was quite a contrast to the leathery voices of most officials I had encountered previously. He began by saying that before we actually began our inspection of the pictures there were certain preliminaries.

  The Great Meccanian Gallery, he said, was the temp
le of all that was sacred in the aesthetic world. I must be properly prepared for it, so that I could concentrate my attention upon what I saw and not be distracted by having to ask questions about extraneous matters. If I would pay careful attention he would describe the general arrangements.

  "The Great Meccanian Gallery," he said, "is one of the four galleries in Mecco; the other three are subsidiary. The first gallery is devoted to the old historical collections that existed before the time of Prince Mechow, and contains only foreign pictures. The second gallery contains Meccanian pictures of a date previous to the foundation of the Great Meccanian Gallery by Prince Mechow. The fourth gallery contains foreign pictures contemporary with those in the Great Meccanian Gallery. And now we come to the Great Meccanian Gallery itself.

  "Every picture in that gallery is an expression of the Meccanian spirit; otherwise it is not admitted. Its technique must also satisfy the Board of Art of the Department of Culture. Consequently, as soon as you enter you are in the atmosphere of pure Meccanian Art. Previous to the creation of this gallery, the influence of Art was rather de-nationalising. The aesthetic sense was cultivated in total ignorance of the possibility of marrying it to the Meccanian spirit. The Meccanian spirit is the active, creative male; the aesthetic sense is receptive, conceptive, essentially female. Of the two, Meccanian Art is born."

  He went on in this style for several minutes until I thought I had better get something more definite from him for my' guidance.' So I said, "How does one tell whether a picture is an expression of the Meccanian spirit?"

  "To the true Meccanian, all things truly Meccanian are sacred, and by the inward cultivation of the sense of reverence for what is most characteristically Meccanian he arrives at a certainty which is incommunicable to others."

  "But suppose opinion is divided. Suppose, for example, one man says, here is a picture which is full of the Meccanian spirit, and another man says the contrary."

  Musch smiled in a sad, superior way, by which I saw that after all, in spite of his 'decadence,' he was a true Meccanian. "You are evidently not well acquainted with either Meccanian history or philosophy," he said. "Even our early philosophers taught that the Meccanian spirit must embody itself in institutions or it would evaporate. The Imperial Meccanian Academy is the visible embodiment of the highest manifestation of the Meccanian aesthetic spirit. All Meccanian artists are trained under the influence of the Academy. Its judgment, as expressed by the Central Board, is infallible. None of its decisions has ever been reversed. I do not think you realise how completely the influence of the Academy has moulded the Meccanian appreciation of Art during the last generation," he went on in his slow, soft speech. "You have heard something from my friend Dr. Dodderer of the care taken by our all-beneficent Super-State in the cultivation of the appreciation of the Drama, and you have probably heard something too of our musical culture. Other forms of Art are equally sacred, since they are all Meccanian. Every person in the Fourth and higher classes goes through a course of art appreciation, which extends over several years. No person is admitted beyond the fifth stage of the Great Meccanian Gallery unless he has passed the advanced test. Attendance at the gallery is compulsory, once a fortnight, for all persons of the Fourth and Third Classes between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. The Fifth Class are not admitted to rooms beyond Stage III, except by special permission on four days in the year. For them we have a few local galleries, as we have for the Sixth Class also, containing pictures which are soundly Meccanian in spirit but which do not come up to the standard of the Great Gallery."

  Presently we proceeded to the gallery containing the old historical collection. Musch said that we should see what we wanted of this in an hour, in fact it was rather a formality to visit it, but the Regulations for Foreign Observers made it necessary that I should see this first. It turned out to be really a fine collection, such as I had seen in many others parts of Europe; but I almost gasped at the strange freak which had inspired the curators in arranging the pictures. They were arranged strictly according to subject. All the "Nativities "were together in one room, all the "Madonnas "together in another, all the "Adam and Eves "together, all the "Deluges," all the "Susannas," all the "Prodigal Sons," all the "Venuses," all the "Bacchuses "; whatever the subject, every picture relating to that subject was placed together as if the gallery were a collection of butterflies.

  Musch took no interest in this collection. It was all dead, he said, obsolete, pre-Meccanian, untouched by the spirit. When we came to the second gallery containing the older Meccanian pictures he showed more interest. Some painted three centuries ago I thought very fine, but Musch said they were lacking in self -consciousness. The Meccanian spirit was overlaid by false foreign culture. Only when we came to some weird and powerful but almost revolting pictures, dating from the beginning of the century, did he grow enthusiastic. These, he said, were the genuine precursors and pioneers of Meccanian Art.

  It was afternoon when we entered the first section or stage of the Great Meccanian Gallery. This was the first stage for young persons, and was divided into a section containing' elementarygeneral' pictures, and another containing historical pictures. The general pictures were mostly scenes of places of interest in various parts of Meccania, or national customs and public ceremonies. The technique was distinctly good. The historical pictures mostly represented wars against foreign enemies. I noticed that the Meccanians were represented as heroes, and their enemies as brutalised hordes of semi-lunatics. Others represented Meccanians discovering all the arts of peace and war. I spent a dreary day and more, working painfully through Stages I., II. and III., up to XIX., until, on the third day, we came to the most advanced specimens. These reminded me of Dr. Dodderer's account of the Meccanian drama. There was a number of allegorical subjects--"The Birth of the Meccanian Spirit," "The Victory of Time over Space," "The Festival of Chemistry," "The Nuptials of Science and Force," "The Conquests of Culture." Others were more mystical-- "War the Servant of Culture," "The Deity instructing Monarchy," "The Eternal Principle of Meccanian Monarchy," "The Wisdom of the Super-State," "The Unity of the Seven Classes."

  Some of these were immense canvases forty feet long, full of life-size figures drawn with microscopic exactness. The artists had certainly managed to catch and even accentuate the Meccanian features of every face. I felt the Meccanian atmosphere, but I still could not understand why such careful cultivation should have been required to produce this extraordinary collection. I would gladly have given the whole gallery for a few masterpieces from the old collection.

  I could not imagine that any effect produced on the mind even of patriotic Meccanians could be worth all the trouble spent upon either the creation of the gallery itself or the organisation of artistic culture that centred round it. I was therefore curious to see what sort of effect the sight of the pictures had upon other visitors. In one of the lower rooms I had seen some groups of schoolgirls accompanied by a teacher. They all had their notebooks, and were taking down notes in shorthand. Musch explained enthusiastically that these girls would spend a whole afternoon on half a dozen pictures, and that by the time they were twenty years of age they would have studied every picture up to Stage XIX. in the gallery. What I overheard from the teacher's lecture was something like this: "Now let us analyse the colour scheme. By the aid of the colour divider you perceive at once the proportions in which the colours are distributed. Now notice that red, which occupies only 7 per cent of the canvas, is more conspicuous than green, which occupies more than 25 per cent." I did not catch the next passage, but presently I heard: "All the pictures by the same artist have the same distribution of colour. Consequently it would be possible to determine by an analysis of the colour scheme the authenticity of any picture by this artist. Next notice the method of the brush strokes. Under the microscope "(here the microscope came into play) "you will see the characteristic quality of the brush stroke. It has been already ascertained that in this picture there are 5232 down-strokes of an average l
ength of 3 millimetres, 1079 strokes from right to left of an average length of 1 1 millimetre, only 490 from left to right, and 72 upward strokes. The same proportion of strokes has been discovered in several other pictures by the same artist, according to the size of the picture. This picture was painted in exactly 125 hours. The quantity of paint used must have been almost exactly three-quarters of a litre, so you can make a calculation to ascertain the number of brush strokes to the litre."

  In another gallery I noticed some superior young men of the Fourth Class in their green uniforms, discussing the merits of a popular artist. One of them was saying, "And I maintain that his morality is pre-Meccanian; he lacks super-masculinity." In another room a few stolid citizens of middle age were slowly making a pilgrimage. I wondered why they did not move faster and get it over, until I discovered there was a rule that, at each visit, non-students were not allowed to spend less than half an hour in one room, or more than threequarters of an hour. This regulation did not apply to me so long as I was under the charge of Musch, who had access to the whole gallery.