The Republic’s constitution seemingly was an expression of extreme democracy. The only fully enfranchised citizens were the workers at the metallurgical factories who made up about 60 percent of the entire population. These factories were state property. The workers were provided not merely with all possible conveniences at the factories, one can even speak of luxury. In addition to splendid living quarters and excellent food, they had at their disposal various educational institutions and amusements: libraries, museums, theaters, concerts, gymnasiums, etc. The working day had been greatly reduced in length. The education of the young, medical and legal services, and religious observance of the various sects were matters of state concern. Broadly assured that all their needs and & even slightest wishes would be met, the workers at the state factories received no wages; but the families of citizens who had labored at the factories for twenty years or of those who had died or rendered incompetent to work during their years of service received a generous life pension on the condition that they not leave the Republic. From among the workers, representatives were chosen by means of a general election who were sent to the Republic’s legislature which considered all the aspects of the country’s political life, but which could not alter its fundamental laws.
However, this democratic shell concealed the pure despotism of the individuals who had founded the original Trust. Allowing others to serve as delegates to the legislature, they invariably placed their candidates as directors of the factories. The economic life of the country was in the hands of the Board of Directors. They accepted all orders and distributed them to the factories; they purchased materials and equipment; they managed all the factories. Through their hands passed enormous sums of money, calculated in the billions. The Legislature only confirmed their projections for expenditures and revenue for the operation of the factories although the total of these projections far exceeded the Republic’s budget. In international relations the influence of the Board of Directors was enormous. Its decisions could bankrupt entire countries. The prices it established determined the earnings of millions of workers all over the world. At the same time, the influence of the Board, although not directly, was decisive in the Republic’s internal affairs. The Legislature, in fact, was only the obedient servant of the Board’s will.
Retaining power in its own hands, the Board was dedicated above all to the pitiless regimentation of the country’s entire existence. Under conditions of apparent freedom, citizens’ lives were regulated down to the smallest detail. The buildings in all the country’s cities were built according to the same plan set by law. The decoration of the worker’s quarters, in spite of its luxury, was severely standardized. Everyone ate the same food at the same time. Clothing issued from government warehouses was invariably of the same design for decades. After a certain hour, announced by a signal from City Hall, no one was allowed on the streets. All the Republic’s press was under the watchful eye of a censor, and no articles critical of the Board’s dictatorship were passed. It should be mentioned that the entire country was so convinced of the benevolence of the dictatorship that the compositors themselves refused to set lines critical of the Board. The factories were full of the Board’s spies. At the slightest sign of discontent with the Board, these agents at hastily called meetings rushed to calm the disaffected with passionate speeches. Certainly one disarming argument which was employed was that the workers’ way of life was envied by the entire world. It was also said that in the case of certain individuals who persistently conducted agitation, the Council was not above assassination. At any rate, in all the years of the Republic not a single director was elected to the Board who was unsympathetic to the founding members.
The population of Star City for the most part consisted of workers who were completing their time of service. They were, so to speak, owners of stock in the state. The support which they received from the state allowed them to live well. Therefore, it is not surprising that Star City was considered to be one of the gayest cities in the world. It was a gold mine for various entrepreneurs. The most talented people from all the world assembled here. Here were found the best operas, the best concerts, the finest art exhibits; here were published the best informed newspapers. The stores of Star City presented astounding wealth and selections; the restaurants were famed for their luxury and fine service; clubs offered all kinds of depravity devised by both the ancient and the modern world. However, government regulation of life was also preserved in Star City. It’s true that the decoration of apartments and fashions were not controlled but no one was allowed to leave his home after a certain hour, censorship was strict, and the Board retained a large number of secret agents. Officially order was maintained by the state police, but parallel with it existed the secret agents of the all-knowing Board.
Such, in broadest outline, was the way of life in the Republic of the Southern Cross and in its capital. It will be the historian’s task to determine in the future to what degree it caused the appearance and spread of the fateful epidemic which led to the destruction of Star City, and perhaps, that of the entire young state.
The first cases of Contradiction were noted in the Republic twenty years ago. At that time occurrences of the malady were sporadic and unpredictable. However, the local psychiatrists and neuropatholgists were intrigued by it, described it in detail, and several papers were devoted to it at an international medical congress held in Lhasa. Subsequently it was forgotten for some reason, although there was no lack of such cases in the mental hospitals in Star City. It received its name as the result of the fact that those who suffered from it constantly contradicted their own desires, wanted one thing, but said and did another (the scientific name of the disease is Mania contradicens). Customarily it begins with mild symptoms, particularly a kind of peculiar aphasia. A victim of the disease says “yes” instead of “no”; when he wishes to say affectionate words, he spews curses, etc. The majority of the victims also begin to perform contradictory acts; intending to turn to the left, he turns right; thinking to lift his hat to be able to see better, he pulls it down over his eyes, etc. As the disease progresses these contradictions seize the victim’s entire physical and mental life and therefore, of course, it expresses itself in an infinite variety of forms in accordance with the particulars of his life. But in general, the victim’s speech becomes incomprehensible and his actions absurd. Physiological functions also become disordered. Aware of the illogic of his actions, the victim becomes extremely agitated, sometimes to the point of hysteria. Many victims take their own lives, sometimes in an attack of madness, sometimes, on the other hand, in a lucid moment. Others die of brain hemorrhages. Almost always the disease terminates in death; cases of recovery are extremely rare.
Mania contradicens took on epidemic proportions in Star City at the middle of the year. Before that time the number of those suffering from Contradiction was never more than two percent of all those ill at the time. But in May (an autumn month in the Republic) the percentage of those stricken with this disease grew to twenty-five percent and then continued to increase, while at the same time the absolute numbers of the victims grew at the same rate. In the middle of June, two percent of the entire population that is, about 50,000 people, were officially recognized as suffering from Contradiction. We have no statistics for the later period, but the hospitals were over-flowing with patients. The number of physicians available was totally inadequate. And in addition, the physicians themselves and other medical personnel were subject to the same disease. Very soon the victims had no one to turn to for medical help and precise count of those suffering from the disease became impossible to maintain. It should be noted, that all witnesses agree that in July it was impossible to find a family which did not have someone suffering from the disease. In addition, the number of those who were not affected by the disease was in constant decline, thanks to mass emigration from the suffering city, and an increase in the number of the victims. One is nearly inclined to believe those who say that everyone who remained
in Star City in August was stricken with this psychological disorder.
The first manifestations of the epidemic may be seen in the increasing occurrence of the headline MANIA CONTRADICENS in the local newspapers. Since the identification of the disease in its early stages is very difficult, the first days of the epidemic were full of comic incidents. Instead of taking money from passengers, the conductors on the city transportation system gave them money. Traffic policeman whose duty it was to regulate traffic spent their day misdirecting it. Museum visitors, as they made their way through the galleries, removed pictures and turned them to the wall. A newspaper corrected by a proofreader seized by the disease turned out to be full of the most amusing absurdities. At a concert a violinist suddenly produced the most horrible dissonances in the middle of an orchestral selection, etc. A long series of such events provided abundant material for local newspaper columnists. But several incidents of a different sort soon cut short the stream of witticisms. First of all, a physician suffering from the disease of Contradiction prescribed a deadly chemical for a girl under his care and his patient died. The newspapers were full of this case for three days. Then two nannies in the municipal gardens were seized by the disease and cut the throats of forty one children. The entire city was shaken by the news. And on the same day, two officers suffering from the disease rolled a machine gun up to the window of the city police station and fired on peaceful pedestrians as they walked by. Nearly 500 people were killed or wounded.
After this incident all the newspapers, all the population, demanded that measures be taken against the epidemic. An extraordinary combined meeting of the City Council and the Legislature decided to summon physicians from other cities and foreign countries, to enlarge the hospitals, to open new ones and construct special quarters to isolate the victims of Contradiction, to print and distribute 500,000 copies of a pamphlet describing the new disease and identifying its symptoms and treatment, to organize a special team of physicians and aides for all the sections of the city to visit private dwellings and render first aid, etc. It was also decreed that special trains reserved exclusively for victims of the disease would leave the city on every line every day because the physicians considered the best treatment for the disease to be a change in residence. Similar measures were taken at the same time by various private associations, unions, and clubs. A special Society to Combat the Epidemic was even organized, whose members displayed extraordinary self-sacrifice. But, in spite of the fact that all these and other measures were introduced with inexhaustible energy, the epidemic did not slacken, but grew worse every day, touching the old and the young, men and women, working men and those at leisure, the self-disciplined and the dissolute. And soon the entire community was seized by irresistible and primitive terror as a result of this incredible disaster.
Flight began from Star City. At first a few individuals, especially some high officials, directors, or members of the Legislature or the City Council hastened to send their families to Australia and Patagonia. They were followed by a transient population—visitors who had come voluntarily to “The gayest city of the Southern Hemisphere,” artists of all sorts, various unscrupulous individuals, and women of unseemly behavior. They were followed by merchants who fled as the epidemic grew. They quickly sold out their goods or abandoned their shops to their fates. With them went bankers, theater and restaurant owners, and publishers. Finally, the masses of the city’s residents were affected. According to the law, former workers were forbidden to leave the Republic without special permission under the threat of losing their pensions. But in the rush to save one’s life, this threat was ignored. Mass flight began: municipal workers fled; the police fled; hospital workers, pharmacists, and physicians fled. The urge to flee, in turn, became a mania. Everyone who could, fled the city.
The electric train stations were besieged by enormous crowds. Train tickets were purchased for enormous sums and battles were fought over them. Entire fortunes were paid for places in the dirigibles which could hold only ten passengers. When trains were departing, individuals broke into the cars and would not give up their places. Mobs stopped the trains provided exclusively for the victims of the disease, threw them out of the cars, took their beds, and forced the engineers to proceed. Beginning at the end of May all the railroad crews of the Republic were recruited to work on the lines connecting the capital with the ports. Trains left Star City overloaded with passengers; passengers filled all the corridors and the more daring rode on the outside, although at the speeds attained by the electric trains this might result in death by suffocation. The Australian, South American, and South African steamship lines grew unbelievably rich transporting emigrants from the Republic to other countries. The two Southern Company dirigible lines profited no less, since they could make about ten trips a day and they brought the last belated millionaires out of Star City…. On the other hand, the trains arrived nearly empty in Star City; it was impossible to find anyone for any salary who was willing to work in the capital; only rarely an eccentric tourist in search of strong emotions would come to the city beset by the infection. It is calculated that from the beginning of the emigration until June 22 when regular train service ceased, one and a half million people left the city on all its six railroad lines, that is, almost two-thirds of the entire population.
In these days, Horace DeVille, the Chairman of the City Council acquired eternal fame, thanks to his enterprise, strength of will, and courage. At an extraordinary session on June 5 the City Council, the Legislature, and the Board of Directors gave him dictatorial powers over the city with the title Chief of the City, and the disposition of the city treasury, the police, and the city’s institutions. Shortly afterwards, the state government and its records were removed form Star City to Northern Harbor. The name of Horace DeVille must be written in gold among the most illustrious names of humanity. For six weeks he fought against increasing anarchy in the city, collecting around him a group of like assistants. For a long period of time they maintained discipline among the police and city employees who were overcome by the horror of the general catastrophe and whose ranks had been decimated by the epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of citizens owe their lives to Horace DeVille, since thanks to his energy and skill they escaped the city. He lightened the last days for thousands of others, providing them the comfort of dying in hospitals with medical care and not under the blows of insane mobs. And finally, it is to DeVille that humanity owes the catastrophe’s chronicle—there is no other name for the brief but expressive and precise telegrams which he dispatched several times each day from Star City to the Republic’s Provisional Government located in Northern Harbor.
Upon taking office as Chief of the City, DeVille’s first act was to attempt to calm the alarmed populace. Manifestoes were published which pointed out that the mental disease was most readily transmitted to individuals who were agitated and called upon healthy and balanced individuals to employ their influence on those who were weak and nervous. DeVille also turned to the Society to Combat the Epidemic, assigning to its members supervision over all public places, such as theaters, meeting halls, parks and streets. During this period there was hardly an hour when new outbreaks of the disease were not discovered. Now here, now there, individuals or groups of individuals could be seen who displayed obviously abnormal behavior. Most of the victims who understood their malady indicated a desire for help. But under the influence of their disturbed minds this desire was expressed as some kind of inimical acts directed against those around them. The victims wanted to hurry to their homes or to a hospital, but instead in their terror they rushed towards the city’s limits. They wanted to ask for sympathy, but instead they seized passing strangers by the throat, choking them, beating them, sometimes even striking at them with knives or clubs. Therefore when the public saw a man who suffered from Contradiction they fled in every direction. It was at this time that the members of the Society came to his aid. Some of the members would seize the victim, calm him, and send him to the near
est hospital; others would try to talk to the public and explain to them that there was no danger, but that it was merely an additional misfortune with which they all must deal.
In theaters and meeting halls cases of sudden attacks of the disease very often led to tragic consequences. At the opera, several hundred members of the audience seized by mass insanity, rather than expressing their delight with the singers’ performances, rushed onto the stage and beat them. At the Grand Theater an actor suddenly attacked by the disease, who was to feign suicide suddenly fired into the audience. The revolver, of course, was unloaded, but thanks to the nervous strain, a number of individuals who bore the incipient germs of the disease were also overcome. In the confusion which followed, the expected panic was intensified by the contradictory acts of the madmen and several score individuals were killed. But the most tragic occurrence was at a fireworks display where a squad of policemen assigned there in case of fire, in a fit of madness, ignited a backdrop and curtain behind which the fireworks were being arranged. Not less than two hundred people died in the subsequent fire and panic. After this event Horace DeVille took measures to close all dramatic and musical performances in the city.
Worlds Apart Page 43
