Anthem Page #5

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 our punishment, if it be discovered, is not for the human
      heart to ponder. Never, not in the memory of the Ancient Ones’
      Ancients, never have men done that which we are doing.

      And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to
      ourselves that we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no
      burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to
      us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save
      those of the sun. And in our heart—strange are the ways of
      evil!—in our heart there is the first peace we have known in
      twenty years.

      PART TWO

      Liberty 5-3000... Liberty five-three thousand ... Liberty
      5-3000....

      We wish to write this name. We wish to speak it, but we dare not
      speak it above a whisper. For men are forbidden to take notice of
      women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men. But we
      think of one among women, they whose name is Liberty 5-3000, and
      we think of no others. The women who have been assigned to work
      the soil live in the Homes of the Peasants beyond the City. Where
      the City ends there is a great road winding off to the north, and
      we Street Sweepers must keep this road clean to the first
      milepost. There is a hedge along the road, and beyond the hedge
      lie the fields. The fields are black and ploughed, and they lie
      like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some
      hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide
      apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with
      thin, green spangles. Women work in the fields, and their white
      tunics in the wind are like the wings of sea-gulls beating over
      the black soil.

      And there it was that we saw Liberty 5-3000 walking along the
      furrows. Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron.
      Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them,
      no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden as the sun; their
      hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to
      restrain it. They threw seeds from their hand as if they deigned
      to fling a scornful gift, and the earth was a beggar under their
      feet.

      We stood still; for the first time did we know fear, and then
      pain. And we stood still that we might not spill this pain more
      precious than pleasure.

      Then we heard a voice from the others call their name: “Liberty
      5-3000,” and they turned and walked back. Thus we learned their
      name, and we stood watching them go, till their white tunic was
      lost in the blue mist.

      And the following day, as we came to the northern road, we kept
      our eyes upon Liberty 5-3000 in the field. And each day
      thereafter we knew the illness of waiting for our hour on the
      northern road. And there we looked at Liberty 5-3000 each day. We
      know not whether they looked at us also, but we think they did.
      Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they
      turned to us. They turned in a whirl and the movement of their
      body stopped, as if slashed off, as suddenly as it had started.
      They stood still as a stone, and they looked straight upon us,
      straight into our eyes. There was no smile on their face, and no
      welcome. But their face was taut, and their eyes were dark. Then
      they turned as swiftly, and they walked away from us.

      But the following day, when we came to the road, they smiled.
      They smiled to us and for us. And we smiled in answer. Their head
      fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin
      white neck were stricken suddenly with a great lassitude. They
      were not looking upon us, but upon the sky. Then they glanced at
      us over their shoulder, as we felt as if a hand had touched our
      body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet.

      Every morning thereafter, we greeted each other with our eyes. We
      dared not speak. It is a transgression to speak to men of other
      Trades, save in groups at the Social Meetings. But once, standing
      at the hedge, we raised our hand to our forehead and then moved
      it slowly, palm down, toward Liberty 5-3000. Had the others seen
      it, they could have guessed nothing, for it looked only as if we
      were shading our eyes from the sun. But Liberty 5-3000 saw it and
      understood. They raised their hand to their forehead and moved it
      as we had. Thus, each day, we greet Liberty 5-3000, and they
      answer, and no men can suspect.

      We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second
      Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our
      brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty
      5-3000. We do not know why we think of them. We do not know why,
      when we think of them, we feel all of a sudden that the earth is
      good and that it is not a burden to live. We do not think of them
      as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have given them a name in our
      thoughts. We call them the Golden One. But it is a sin to give
      men names which distinguish them from other men. Yet we call them
      the Golden One, for they are not like the others. The Golden One
      are not like the others.

      And we take no heed of the law which says that men may not think
      of women, save at the Time of Mating. This is the time each
      spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older
      than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of
      Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to
      them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter,
      but women never see their children and children never know their
      parents. Twice have we been sent to the Palace of Mating, but it
      is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think.

      We had broken so many laws, and today we have broken one more.
      Today, we spoke to the Golden One.

      The other women were far off in the field, when we stopped at the
      hedge by the side of the road. The Golden One were kneeling alone
      at the moat which runs through the field. And the drops of water
      falling from their hands, as they raised the water to their lips,
      were like sparks of fire in the sun. Then the Golden One saw us,
      and they did not move, kneeling there, looking at us, and circles
      of light played upon their white tunic, from the sun on the water
      of the moat, and one sparkling drop fell from a finger of their
      hand held as frozen in the air.

      Then the Golden One rose and walked to the hedge, as if they had
      heard a command in our eyes. The two other Street Sweepers of our
      brigade were a hundred paces away down the road. And we thought
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