Anthem

Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in the United Kingdom. The story takes place at an unspecified future date when mankind has entered another Dark Age.

• Science fiction

								
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936.PART ONE

      It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others
      think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It
      is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears
      but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression
      blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The
      laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations
      bid them so. May we be forgiven!

      But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater
      crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment
      awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has
      come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for
      it.

      It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air.
      Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are
      alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws
      say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for
      this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we
      have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one
      body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the
      ground, and on the wall before us the shadow of our one head.

      The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads
      without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle
      from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be
      sentenced to ten years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if
      it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the
      light is precious and we should not waste it to write when we
      need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save
      the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must
      also write, for—may the Council have mercy upon us!—we wish to
      speak for once to no ears but our own.

      Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron
      bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names
      upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and
      this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet
      tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and
      frowned and said:

      “There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has
      grown beyond the bodies of your brothers.” But we cannot change
      our bones nor our body.

      We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts
      which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may
      not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us
      and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret
      fear, that we know and do not resist.

      We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be
      alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there
      are words cut in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves
      whenever we are tempted:

  “WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE.
  THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT WE,
  ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER.”

      We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not.

      These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the
      grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which
      come from more years than men could count. And these words are
      the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World
      Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has
      it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that
      no memory can reach.

      But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth,
      else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective
      Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the
      evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They whisper many strange
      things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those
      Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without
      horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those
      times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the
      Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is
      no will save the will of all men together.

      All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we
      alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our
      brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has
      ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our
      last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden here
      under the ground.

      We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were
      five years old, together with all the children of the City who
      had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls there were
      white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. We
      were just like all our brothers then, save for the one
      transgression: we fought with our brothers. There are few
      offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and
      for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and
      of all the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar
      most often.

      When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the
      Students, where there are ten wards, for our ten years of
      learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year.
      Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we arose when
      the big bell rang in the tower and we went to our beds when it
      rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood in the great
      sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all
      together with the three Teachers at the head:

      “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are
      we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers
      who are the State. Amen.”

      Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare
      of all things save one hundred beds.

      We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of
      the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us.
      It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be
      born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be
      different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to
      them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked
      upon us.

      So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons,

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