“Well, you’ve brought me to a nice society! So that child might remain there until another smashall runs over him?”
“Perhaps.”
“Great God what about the police? Aren’t there any?”
“Very few. There are as many as are needed to carry out judgments. You keep forgetting that we’re free, and want to stay that way. It’s our strength, our superiority, our pride and glory. Oh, we’re a very great people.”
“Thank you. And who apprehends thieves?”
“Pooh! Thieves!”
“Why pooh?”
“What does that have to do with the State? If you’re robbed, it’s your fault. Either you’re carrying precious objects on your person and, as innocent as an imbecile foreigner, have forgotten the risks you’re running and haven’t taken precautions in consequence, or you’ve come out without having locked your door securely enough, or without having locked your valuables in a strong enough, complicated enough, heavy enough safe—how do I know? One is always the accomplice of one’s thief. You’re not five years old, damn it! Why should anyone protect you? You ought not to be in tutelage; make arrangements; defend yourself. We’re free and responsible; that’s what makes our grandeur.”
“Under the law of the revolver, then? And what about murderers—does anyone occupy themselves with them? Would it be in poor taste to inhibit the liberty of their industry, or make observations to them?”
“Pooh!”
“Pooh again! Oh, it’s too much. One is the accomplice of one's murderer, then? But in truth, in truth...”
“Calm down. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Chapter II
Nothing any longer differs from liberty
but absolute liberty.
In the depths of the black streets of the seventh city, by the dreary gaslight, I did indeed see many other things.
The boiler of one of the steamboats traveling along the Seine exploded and a hundred people disappeared into the river; I was told that it was not necessary to budge, that it was their affair; and that there is, in any case, a rescue company that has an interest in helping the victims of the frequent accidents of that sort. They have a very simple manner of proceeding; they haul you half way out of the water and tell you the price that it will cost you to be pulled out entirely; if that price is not agreeable to you, they let go of you and go to make the proposition to someone else.
“And those murders are tolerated?” I protested.
“Those suicides are certainly tolerated. It’s necessary to respect the liberty of transactions.”
The river is spanned by twenty bridges covered in twenty-five story houses; in their great funereal shadow the water seems to flow like ink or bitumen. If an arch collapses with a dozen houses, do you think that anyone moves a muscle? No. No one says: “Poor people!” Everyone chants: “It’s their own fault; why were they living on a bridge? Why did they rent rooms in houses under threat? Doubtless because the rents were cheaper by virtue of the danger, so they accepted the risk. The chances for and against what happened have their weight in the subsequent deliberation into which the tenants decide to enter, and the discussion of prices that takes place with the landlord. Everything therefore happens very fairly.”
“And the police don’t enquire as to whether the houses are tottering on their foundations?”
“No. We want, and we have, the least government, the least administration and the fewest police possible. That’s our adornment.”
However, I saw one man being dragged away by agents of the public force. That, I said to myself, must be a great criminal; he’s done more than commit murder. I asked by what sin he was soiled. The reply was that he was a pauper. Paupers are virtually the only criminals that are pursued here. Poverty only results from idleness or incapacity; the man who is poor out of idleness has doubtless weighed up the balance-sheet of the advantages and inconveniences of working or not working; he has made his choice; that is his business, but society owes him nothing. If he is incapable, as he is useless, it rejects him.
“But there are intelligent and willing people who can’t find work.”
“No, if they can’t find any, it’s because they don’t know how to look for it, so they aren’t intelligent.”
“But what about the infirm?”
“Oh, you can understand that it’s not my fault, as an individual, or ours, as the State, if some citizen is missing an arm.”
“What about charity?”
“Suppressed.”
“Fraternity, then?”
“Oh as to that, it’s a joke—a hollow word with which people wanted to replace charity. One doesn’t replace a sentiment, one kills it; that’s what we’ve had the glory of doing; it was neither virile, nor rational, nor utilitarian. No sentiment is, in fact; they’re all absurd; they’re all contrary to the reason that ought to guide us.”
“So be it. What do they do with those unfortunates?”
“Take them to the frontier—if they get that far, for one doesn’t take responsibility for nourishing them on the way.”
“So, starve, dog is the law?”
“No, it’s useless dog, go starve somewhere else.”
I soon saw dogs that had been killed.
We went into a factory.
Harnessed to machines that were working relentlessly were young children, boys and girls, and adolescents of both sexes, all in rags. Pale, etiolated, debilitated, dolorously sad and haggard, the wretched creatures were working like automata, without zeal, without intelligence, but regularly; and if one of those specters occasionally made a mistake or stopped momentarily, exhausted, the machine itself, by virtue of a new improvement, showered him with blows that he could not escape.
I asked why the two sexes were together. The reply was that that was liberty.
I asked how long the law permitted those unfortunates to be forced to work. The reply was that the law no longer limited the hours of children’s labor, that it no longer protected apprentices, and that that was liberty.
It was added that their mortality rate was high.
Chapter III
Almost all those who say that they are liberals,
pass for such, and form the party of liberty,
have tyrannical instincts and make tyrannical laws.
“What is the condition of women in this atrocious country?” I asked Graymalkin as we left.
“They don’t work.”
“Oh! Much better. Men are sufficient to procure the means of existence of their companions?”
“Pooh! It’s forbidden for women to work.”
“Damn! But that isn’t liberty, is it? No matter; doubtless the legislator wished them to be entirely devoted to the duties of the hearth?”
“Oh, it isn’t the hearth that hinders us. The truth is that the labor of women depreciated that of men and lowered the wages of workers.”
“But that’s abominable! So, a woman who isn’t married, or a widow with several children, or the wife of a man who is ill, injured or mutilated, can do nothing to earn bread?”
“No, nothing.”
“But then…?” I said, looking Graymalkin full in the face.
“Yes,” he replied, with some slight embarrassment. “One resource remains to them.”
“Great God! Infamy of infamies!”
“It’s dinner time,” he replied, coldly. “You can judge the condition of women for yourself.”
We went into an immense room, dazzling with electric light and magnificently decorated, albeit in very poor taste. It had the form of a theater, and, indeed, I was in a kind of theater.
Facing me was the stage. Instead of stalls and boxes, there was a series of elliptical steps, broad enough to carry tables all around their perimeter, each accompanied by a padded sofa and a rocking chair, in order that the customer could choose and alternate, and a footstool so that he could stretch his legs. Those items of furniture were upholstered in cerise satin, and the wood was gilded. The room was hung
everywhere with cerise satin embroidered with gold, heightened with fringes, torsades and tassels of the same metal.
On every table there was linen, crystal, silverware—what am I saying? splendid gold-plate—and flowers. At each end, a powdered domestic dressed in sumptuous livery stood motionless.
On every sofa a woman in a splendid ball-gown was sitting, resplendent with jewels.
On going in, everyone chose a table.
Everyone arrived at the same time; all business finished at the same time and the spectacle began with the meal.
First there were conjurers, to whom little attention was paid. Then came singers of both sexes, intoning ditties whose lewd words and gestures were welcomed with fervor. Acrobats were applauded, especially tightrope-dancers. Wrestlers attracted serious attention. A fantasy play whose words and music—what music!—were lost in the noise of conversations, for everyone was talking or shouting as he pleased, was a great success because of a singular ballet danced by ballerinas in outrageously short and transparent skirts. But the greatest success, a frenetic success, was for the living tableaux; they were strange groups of men and women in leotards, some clad in waistbands and others only enjoying sashes. I turned my eyes away in disgust.
After that saturnalia, everyone retired with his table-companion; the restaurant-theater was also a hotel and contained an enormous number of regally-furnished rooms.
We finally left, Graymalkin having told me that after the spectacle he would settle up with the women with whom we had dined and that we would go home.
Scarcely had we climbed into a smashall than he exclaimed: “What a life! What a great existence! To empty the cup of pleasures every evening in a single draught! Imagination, amour and the table! And what luxury! What splendor! At the same time, what equality! Did you not see, at the first table to the left of ours, the citizen whose footwear was allowing his dirty toenails to be seen? He was a hat-maker; he’s one of the most distinguished citizens. And two tables further on, that jacket with holes at the elbows: he’s a millionaire and a former minister.”
“Yes,” I replied, pensively, “Those fellows had very black hands, a very bad odor, and behaved like street-porters.”
“Noble simplicity, my friend, noble simplicity; frank and sincere manners; a casual attitude that puts everyone at ease. Everyone does as he likes; people get up, circulate, talk, lie down, put their feet on the table, smoke, spit anywhere. O Liberty, Liberty! Thou art in our mores and in our laws! What you used to call politeness is only constraint, abasement, degradation and lies. As for costume, you’ll encounter tomorrow those you saw so badly dressed today in black suits and covered in golden chains, with three rings on every finger.”
“How much did that orgy cost?”
“Three thousand francs all in, my friend—which is about 375 francs in 1868 currency. Oh, damn it, that’s why we work so hard during the day; we only live to savor enjoyments.”
“And everyone has the means to procure them.”
“Many can. They give themselves to it until they’re ruined, after which they start making their fortune again.”
“And while they’re remaking it where do they dine?”
“There are hotel-theaters for all purses.
“No one dines at home, then?”
“No one. Life has become too dear; it’s necessary to live communally. Then again, household chores take too much precious time from business.”
“What about the family, though? Women and children?”
“The children are brought up by the women, their mothers. As for the women, as you can see, they’re not troublesome.”
“But what about society and socialites? The rich? The middle class?”
“Oh, my God, there’s no more of that. Everyone is rich today and poor tomorrow. Fortunes are made and unmade by the minute. One is only a capitalist momentarily. There are no more private incomes. The heredity of wealth has been abolished.”
“So all the women are like those I’ve just seen?”
“All of them. Obviously, since they can’t work.”
I uttered a roar. “And no one gets married anymore?”
“In a way, yes. One sees people coming back for months to sit at the same table with the same woman. Some have been seen to keep the same companion for years. That’s as if they were married, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. Look, shut up, wretch; I don’t want to hear another word.”
Chapter IV
The houses, all constructed on the same plan, as I said, were rectangular; every floor had only four rooms, two overlooking the street and two on the other side; one penetrated into those fifty apartments, made up of a study or drawing-room and a bedroom, by means of a lift, the cage of which was in the middle of the house and whose compartment had four doors coinciding with those of the rooms on every floor. The elevator went up and down automatically every minute, with the result that any tenant returning home did not have to wait long to reach his apartment.
The elevator’s compartment was fitted with divans. It was sitting on one of them that I found myself in front of my door. Graymalkin stopped the apparatus by means of a button that he pressed. We went into my apartment. Graymalkin pressed another button and the elevator continued on its route.
I was not too badly installed from the viewpoint of comfort. A good bed, a good settee, the eternal rocking-chairs, stools, a toilet-commode, a few mushroom-wardrobes, curtains, door-curtains and carpets furnished one of the rooms; in the other was a desk and four rattan chairs; that was obviously the room in which one treated affairs, the other being for repose. Gas lit my lodgings day and night.
Even so, the apartment had something unpleasant about it and I felt ill-at-ease there. The banal character—which is to say, the lack of character—of the furniture, the total absence of taste that I glimpsed in whoever had decorated my abode, was antipathetic to me. There were colors in the wallpaper and fabrics that clashed, designs, lines and forms that offended the eye. There had been no preoccupation with anything but adequacy; the beautiful, the elegant and the agreeable had not been taken into consideration: no works of art, and no ornaments of any kind; no cornice, no moldings, no patterns. One had a clear sense that it was only a pied-à-terre, in which one treated affairs and slept, but in which one did not live.
Such were, however, without exception, the dwellings of all the inhabitants of the seventh city. No one, even multimillionaires, had more than two rooms. In fact, without wives, without children, without friends, without receptions, without meetings, what would anyone have done with a third? In all the houses, on all the floors, the furnishings were invariably the same; what did it matter? Affairs by day and the hotel-theater in the evening—that was the life of these people.
I rediscovered there the same thinking that I had observed in their clothing: no taste, no rules, no formality, no research and no care. One put on the first garment that came to hand, provided that it was comfortable, and warm or cool, depending on the season. Whether it was ugly or beautiful, whether it went well or badly, whether it was new or old, clean or dirty, one did not worry about it. One abandoned it by caprice or kept it until it fell into tatters. One only wore ready-made garments. One obtained complete costumes from stores that sold boots, shoes, hats, caps, shirts, ties, waistcoats, jackets, trousers, overcoats, etc. of all qualities at all prices.
That was what I was told by Graymalkin, who wished me goodnight after having told me that I would have to brush my own clothes the following morning.
Service was organized as follows: a certain number of domestics were lodged in each house; at fixed hours, after the departure of the tenants, the elevator deposited the in the rooms and they “did the housework,” as one says. When they came home, the people who possessed two costumes would find their clothing for the following day brushed and their shoes polished. The others took care of it themselves. One never saw those omnibus domestics, whose wages were included in the price of the rent, which was invariably 19
,000 francs.
Chapter V
I woke up with the impression that bad dreams had haunted me all night.
After lighting my gas I was taking a bitter pleasure in reconstructing them when I heard my door open. A conventionally clad individual came straight in, his hat on his head. I was ill-disposed, and was about to make a rather dry observation when he addressed me as: “Imbecile foreigner...”
I responded with a sharp slap that laid him on the floor, after which he got up and we boxed. I soon perceived that I was dealing with a man whose muscles had not received either from labor or gymnastics the strength that exercise provides. The whiteness of his hands confirmed that opinion. It was in conformity with the facts, because I soon mastered my adversary. When he had asked for mercy I invited him to sit down.
“Why did you hit me?” he asked.
“Because I don’t like being called an imbecile foreigner, and won’t suffer it, even though it seems to be a commonly used appellation in your ignoble country.”
At those words my visitor seemed struck by amazement; his eyes widened, his mouth opened very wide and his arms fell. I was told subsequently that that extreme astonishment was certainly due to the fact that no inhabitant of the seventh city had ever imagined that his country might not be the object of universal enthusiasm.
I passed on, and, Graymalkin having come in, the conversation proceeded. I shall mitigate the bizarre language, almost pidgin, that my two interlocutors spoke.
“What does he want?” I asked Graymalkin.
“Is worker, so does little; wanted to profit from his free time to make grandeur of our institutions stand out to your eyes, to polish you, form you, educate you, to reveal to you what imb…foreigners need to know.”
“To form me in his image, the clown? Thanks. Just explain to me what you meant by the words: ‘He’s a worker, so does little?’”
“Easy. Today, finally, workers content: work very little.”
The Humanisphere Page 17
