Anthem Page #7

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

								

      are many Uncharted Forests over the land, among the Cities. And
      it is whispered that they have grown over the ruins of many
      cities of the Unmentionable Times. The trees have swallowed the
      ruins, and the bones under the ruins, and all the things which
      perished. And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the
      night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times. And we
      wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the
      world. We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which
      many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These
      few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires
      raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones and all the
      things made by the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is
      called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where
      all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all
      the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the
      squares of the Cities for three months. Then came the Great
      Rebirth.

      The words of the Evil Ones... The words of the Unmentionable
      Times... What are the words which we have lost?

      May the Council have mercy upon us! We had no wish to write such
      a question, and we knew not what we were doing till we had
      written it. We shall not ask this question and we shall not think
      it. We shall not call death upon our head.

      And yet... And yet... There is some word, one single word which
      is not in the language of men, but which had been. And this is
      the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But
      sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men
      find that word. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or
      cut into the fragments of ancient stones. But when they speak it
      they are put to death. There is no crime punished by death in
      this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word.

      We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the
      City. And it was a sight which has stayed with us through the
      years, and it haunts us, and follows us, and it gives us no rest.
      We were a child then, ten years old. And we stood in the great
      square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to
      behold the burning. They brought the Transgressor out into the
      square and they led them to the pyre. They had torn out the
      tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer.
      The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and
      eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did
      not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces
      which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, theirs was
      the calmest and the happiest face.

      As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and a
      flame set to the pyre, the Transgressor looked upon the City.
      There was a thin thread of blood running from the corner of their
      mouth, but their lips were smiling. And a monstrous thought came
      to us then, which has never left us. We had heard of Saints.
      There are the Saints of Labor, and the Saints of the Councils,
      and the Saints of the Great Rebirth. But we had never seen a
      Saint nor what the likeness of a Saint should be. And we thought
      then, standing in the square, that the likeness of a Saint was
      the face we saw before us in the flames, the face of the
      Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word.

      As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours,
      else we would not be living today. Perhaps it had only seemed to
      us. But it seemed to us that the eyes of the Transgressor had
      chosen us from the crowd and were looking straight upon us. There
      was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their
      body. There was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than
      is fit for human pride to be. And it seemed as if these eyes were
      trying to tell us something through the flames, to send into our
      eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes were
      begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and
      from the earth. But the flames rose and we could not guess the
      word....

      What—even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the
      Pyre—what is the Unspeakable Word?

      PART THREE

      We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered a new power of nature. And
      we have discovered it alone, and we alone are to know it.

      It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council
      of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and
      therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But
      we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of
      this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who
      will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to
      all our brothers.

      We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know
      its nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it
      first two years ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of
      a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was dead, yet it
      moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not
      understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer. The
      frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the
      metal of our knife which had sent the strange power to the copper
      through the brine of the frog’s body. We put a piece of copper
      and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wire to
      them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never
      occurred before, a new miracle and a new power.

      This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all
      our studies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we
      can describe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling
      before us. We came to know that we had found the greatest power
      on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the
      needle move and turn on the compass which we stole from the Home
      of the Scholars; but we had been taught, when still a child, that
      the loadstone points to the north and that this is a law which
      nothing can change; yet our new power defies all laws. We found
      that it causes lightning, and never have men known what causes
      lightning. In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of iron by the
      side of our hole, and we watched it from below. We have seen the
      lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metal
      draws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it
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