Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887

by Edward Bellamy

  Chapter 4

  I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me verygiddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me a strong arm ashe conducted me from the roof to a roomy apartment on the upper floorof the house, where he insisted on my drinking a glass or two of goodwine and partaking of a light repast.

  "I think you are going to be all right now," he said cheerily. "Ishould not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of yourposition if your course, while perfectly excusable under thecircumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess," he addedlaughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I shouldundergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in the nineteenthcentury, if I did not act rather promptly. I remembered that theBostonians of your day were famous pugilists, and thought best to loseno time. I take it you are now ready to acquit me of the charge ofhoaxing you."

  "If you had told me," I replied, profoundly awed, "that a thousandyears instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on thiscity, I should now believe you."

  "Only a century has passed," he answered, "but many a millennium in theworld's history has seen changes less extraordinary."

  "And now," he added, extending his hand with an air of irresistiblecordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of thetwentieth century and to this house. My name is Leete, Dr. Leete theycall me."

  "My name," I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West."

  "I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West," he responded."Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own, I hope youwill find it easy to make yourself at home in it."

  After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a change ofclothing, of which I gladly availed myself.

  It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's attirehad been among the great changes my host had spoken of, for, barring afew details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all.

  Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it with me,the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my intellectual sensations,he may wish to know, on finding myself so suddenly dropped as it wereinto a new world. In reply let me ask him to suppose himself suddenly,in the twinkling of an eye, transported from earth, say, to Paradise orHades. What does he fancy would be his own experience? Would histhoughts return at once to the earth he had just left, or would he,after the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a while,albeit to be remembered later, in the interest excited by his newsurroundings? All I can say is, that if his experience were at all likemine in the transition I am describing, the latter hypothesis wouldprove the correct one. The impressions of amazement and curiosity whichmy new surroundings produced occupied my mind, after the first shock,to the exclusion of all other thoughts. For the time the memory of myformer life was, as it were, in abeyance.

  No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kindoffices of my host, than I became eager to return to the house-top; andpresently we were comfortably established there in easy-chairs, withthe city beneath and around us. After Dr. Leete had responded tonumerous questions on my part, as to the ancient landmarks I missed andthe new ones which had replaced them, he asked me what point of thecontrast between the new and the old city struck me most forcibly.

  "To speak of small things before great," I responded, "I really thinkthat the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detailthat first impressed me."

  "Ah!" ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest, "I hadforgotten the chimneys, it is so long since they went out of use. It isnearly a century since the crude method of combustion on which youdepended for heat became obsolete."

  "In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is thematerial prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificenceimplies."

  "I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of yourday," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt, as you imply, the cities of thatperiod were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make themsplendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the generalpoverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would nothave given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism whichthen prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What littlewealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in privateluxury. Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of thesurplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoyin equal degree."

  The sun had been setting as we returned to the house-top, and as wetalked night descended upon the city.

  "It is growing dark," said Dr. Leete. "Let us descend into the house; Iwant to introduce my wife and daughter to you."

  His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had heardwhispering about me as I was coming back to conscious life; and, mostcurious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000 were like, I assentedwith alacrity to the proposition. The apartment in which we found thewife and daughter of my host, as well as the entire interior of thehouse, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must be artificial,although I could not discover the source from which it was diffused.Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved womanof about her husband's age, while the daughter, who was in the firstblush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Herface was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately tinted complexion,and perfect features could make it, but even had her countenance lackedspecial charms, the faultless luxuriance of her figure would have givenher place as a beauty among the women of the nineteenth century.Feminine softness and delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciouslycombined with an appearance of health and abounding physical vitalitytoo often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare her.It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the generalstrangeness of the situation, but still striking, that her name shouldbe Edith.

  The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of socialintercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was peculiarlystrained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe indeed thatit is under what may be called unnatural, in the sense ofextraordinary, circumstances that people behave most naturally, for thereason, no doubt, that such circumstances banish artificiality. I knowat any rate that my intercourse that evening with these representativesof another age and world was marked by an ingenuous sincerity andfrankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance. No doubt theexquisite tact of my entertainers had much to do with this. Of coursethere was nothing we could talk of but the strange experience by virtueof which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naiveand direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a greatdegree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which might soeasily have been overpowering. One would have supposed that they werequite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another century, soperfect was their tact.

  For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my mind to havebeen more alert and acute than that evening, or my intellectualsensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean that the consciousnessof my amazing situation was for a moment out of mind, but its chiefeffect thus far was to produce a feverish elation, a sort of mentalintoxication.[1]

  Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when severaltimes the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face, I foundher eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, almost likefascination. It was evident that I had excited her interest to anextraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, supposing her to be agirl of imagination. Though I supposed curiosity was the chief motiveof her interest, it could but affect me as it would not have done hadshe been less beautiful.

  Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in myaccount of the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in theunderground chamber. All had suggestions to offer to account for myhaving been forgotten there, and the theory which we finally agreed onoffers at least a plausible explanation, although whether it be in itsdetails the true one, nobody, of course,
will ever know. The layer ofashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had been burneddown. Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place thenight I fell asleep. It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost hislife in the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the restfollows naturally enough. No one but he and Dr. Pillsbury either knewof the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr. Pillsbury,who had gone that night to New Orleans, had probably never heard of thefire at all. The conclusion of my friends, and of the public, must havebeen that I had perished in the flames. An excavation of the ruins,unless thorough, would not have disclosed the recess in the foundationwalls connecting with my chamber. To be sure, if the site had beenagain built upon, at least immediately, such an excavation would havebeen necessary, but the troublous times and the undesirable characterof the locality might well have prevented rebuilding. The size of thetrees in the garden now occupying the site indicated, Dr. Leete said,that for more than half a century at least it had been open ground.

  [1] In accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered that,except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my surroundingsnext to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. Within a block of myhome in the old Boston I could have found social circles vastly moreforeign to me. The speech of the Bostonians of the twentieth centurydiffers even less from that of their cultured ancestors of thenineteenth than did that of the latter from the language of Washingtonand Franklin, while the differences between the style of dress andfurniture of the two epochs are not more marked than I have knownfashion to make in the time of one generation.