Anthem Page #12

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

								

      of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water
      but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down,
      upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream
      and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the
      blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the first time.

      We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body
      were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers,
      for we felt not pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like
      the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were straight and thin
      and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this
      being who looked upon us from the stream, and that we had nothing
      to fear with this being.

      We walked on till the sun had set. When the shadows gathered
      among the trees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, where
      we shall sleep tonight. And suddenly, for the first time this
      day, we remembered that we are the Damned. We remembered it, and
      we laughed.

      We are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic
      together with the written pages we had brought for the World
      Council of Scholars, but never given to them. We have much to
      speak of to ourselves, and we hope we shall find the words for it
      in the days to come. Now, we cannot speak, for we cannot
      understand.

      PART NINE

      We have not written for many days. We did not wish to speak. For
      we needed no words to remember that which has happened to us.

      It was on our second day in the forest that we heard steps behind
      us. We hid in the bushes, and we waited. The steps came closer.
      And then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees, and a
      gleam of gold.

      We leapt forward, we ran to them, and we stood looking upon the
      Golden One.

      They saw us, and their hands closed into fists, and the fists
      pulled their arms down, as if they wished their arms to hold
      them, while their body swayed. And they could not speak.

      We dared not come too close to them. We asked, and our voice
      trembled:

      “How did you come to be here, Golden One?”

      But they whispered only:

      “We have found you....”

      “How did you come to be in the forest?” we asked.

      They raised their head, and there was a great pride in their
      voice; they answered:

      “We have followed you.”

      Then we could not speak, and they said:

      “We heard that you had gone to the Uncharted Forest, for the
      whole City is speaking of it. So on the night of the day when we
      heard it, we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the
      marks of your feet across the plain where no men walk. So we
      followed them, and we went into the forest, and we followed the
      path where the branches were broken by your body.”

      Their white tunic was torn, and the branches had cut the skin of
      their arms, but they spoke as if they had never taken notice of
      it, nor of weariness, nor of fear.

      “We have followed you,” they said, “and we shall follow you
      wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it also.
      If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we
      wish to share your damnation.”

      They looked upon us, and their voice was low, but there was
      bitterness and triumph in their voice.

      “Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor
      fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are soft and
      humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but
      our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with you, rather than
      blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do
      not send us away from you.”

      Then they knelt, and bowed their golden head before us.

      We had never thought of that which we did. We bent to raise the
      Golden One to their feet, but when we touched them, it was as if
      madness had stricken us. We seized their body and we pressed our
      lips to theirs. The Golden One breathed once, and their breath
      was a moan, and then their arms closed around us.

      We stood together for a long time. And we were frightened that we
      had lived for twenty-one years and had never known what joy is
      possible to men.

      Then we said:

      “Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger
      in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their
      good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are
      together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your
      hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange,
      unknown world, but our own.”

      Then we walked on into the forest, their hand in ours.

      And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms
      is neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the
      race of men.

      We have walked for many days. The forest has no end, and we seek
      no end. But each day added to the chain of days between us and
      the City is like an added blessing.

      We have made a bow and many arrows. We can kill more birds than
      we need for our food; we find water and fruit in the forest. At
      night, we choose a clearing, and we build a ring of fires around
      it. We sleep in the midst of that ring, and the beasts dare not
      attack us. We can see their eyes, green and yellow as coals,
      watching us from the tree branches beyond. The fires smoulder as
      a crown of jewels around us, and smoke stands still in the air,
      in columns made blue by the moonlight. We sleep together in the
      midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden One around us, their
      head upon our breast.

      Some day, we shall stop and build a house, when we shall have
      gone far enough. But we do not have to hasten. The days before us
      are without end, like the forest.

      We cannot understand this new life which we have found, yet it
      seems so clear and so simple. When questions come to puzzle us,
      we walk faster, then turn and forget all things as we watch the
      Golden One following. The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms,
      as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the
      sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their
      shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from
      above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which
      has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their
      neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel. They
      approach us, and they stop, laughing, knowing what we think, and
      they wait obediently, without questions, till it pleases us to
      turn and go on.

      We go on and we bless the earth under our feet. But questions
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