Anthem Page #11

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

								

      their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their
      ideas, as all men must.”

      “This box is useless,” said Alliance 6-7349.

      “Should it be what they claim of it,” said Harmony 9-2642, “then
      it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a
      great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it
      cannot be destroyed by the whim of one.”

      “This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,” said Unanimity
      2-9913, “and without the Plans of the World Council the sun
      cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all
      the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number
      needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of
      torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working
      in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon.”

      “And if this should lighten the toil of men,” said Similarity
      5-0306, “then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist
      save in toiling for other men.”

      Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.

      “This thing,” they said, “must be destroyed.”

      And all the others cried as one:

      “It must be destroyed!”

      Then we leapt to the table.

      We seized our box, we shoved them aside, and we ran to the
      window. We turned and we looked at them for the last time, and a
      rage, such as it is not fit for humans to know, choked our voice
      in our throat.

      “You fools!” we cried. “You fools! You thrice-damned fools!”

      We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a
      ringing rain of glass.

      We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we
      ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a
      torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before
      us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited for
      the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew
      not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to
      the end of the world, to the end of our days.

      Then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that
      we had stopped. Trees taller than we had ever seen before stood
      over us in great silence. Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted
      Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had
      carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted
      Forest against our will.

      Our glass box lay beside us. We crawled to it, we fell upon it,
      our face in our arms, and we lay still.

      We lay thus for a long time. Then we rose, we took our box and
      walked on into the forest.

      It mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow
      us, for they never enter the Uncharted Forest. We had nothing to
      fear from them. The forest disposes of its own victims. This gave
      us no fear either. Only we wished to be away, away from the City
      and from the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we
      walked on, our box in our arms, our heart empty.

      We are doomed. Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them
      alone. And we have heard of the corruption to be found in
      solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our
      brother men, and there is no road back for us, and no redemption.

      We know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on
      earth. We are tired.

      Only the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives
      us strength. We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this
      box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake.
      It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their
      truth. Why wonder about this? We have not many days to live. We
      are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great,
      silent trees. There is not a thing behind us to regret.

      Then a blow of pain struck us, our first and our only. We thought
      of the Golden One. We thought of the Golden One whom we shall
      never see again. Then the pain passed. It is best. We are one of
      the Damned. It is best if the Golden One forget our name and the
      body which bore that name.

      PART EIGHT

      It has been a day of wonder, this, our first day in the forest.

      We awoke when a ray of sunlight fell across our face. We wanted
      to leap to our feet, as we have had to leap every morning of our
      life, but we remembered suddenly that no bell had rung and that
      there was no bell to ring anywhere. We lay on our back, we threw
      our arms out, and we looked up at the sky. The leaves had edges
      of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of green and
      fire flowing high above us.

      We did not wish to move. We thought suddenly that we could lie
      thus as long as we wished, and we laughed aloud at the thought.
      We could also rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again. We were
      thinking that these were thoughts without sense, but before we
      knew it our body had risen in one leap. Our arms stretched out of
      their own will, and our body whirled and whirled, till it raised
      a wind to rustle through the leaves of the bushes. Then our hands
      seized a branch and swung us high into a tree, with no aim save
      the wonder of learning the strength of our body. The branch
      snapped under us and we fell upon the moss that was soft as a
      cushion. Then our body, losing all sense, rolled over and over on
      the moss, dry leaves in our tunic, in our hair, in our face. And
      we heard suddenly that we were laughing, laughing aloud, laughing
      as if there were no power left in us save laughter.

      Then we took our glass box, and we went on into the forest. We
      went on, cutting through the branches, and it was as if we were
      swimming through a sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising
      and falling and rising around us, and flinging their green sprays
      high to the treetops. The trees parted before us, calling us
      forward. The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without
      thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our
      body.

      We stopped when we felt hunger. We saw birds in the tree
      branches, and flying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone
      and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made
      a fire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had ever
      tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a
      great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need and
      obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungry again and
      soon, that we might know again this strange new pride in eating.

      Then we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak
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