Part 6

“It must end,” said Ultimus, and he sank into a deep reverie. The strangest result of his experience was that the sight of the little chambermaid filled him with disgust. When he thought of the peaceful and profoundly stirring existence out of which he and Siebenhaar had come he could not but contrast it with the obscene excitement in which he had found her. That she could accept and welcome his embraces when she knew, as he did not, the bestiality towards maintaining which the energies of Europe were devoted, filled him with so bitter an anguish that he could hardly endure the sight of her. When he thought that he and she might be bringing another life into a world made so unworthy of human life, then he thought that he could never forgive her. His impulse was to escape, to leave the benighted nations to their fate, but, when he thought of the suffering he had seen, he found that he was bound to them by more than curiosity. He had seen war and could not rest until he had done his utmost to expunge it from the minds of men. He had lived in a pure happiness familiar with all the intellectual discoveries of the human mind; now he had gained the love of beauty and a more passionate incentive to live. What room was there now among all those millions of men for intellect and beauty?

Siebenhaar had made good use of the newspapers.

“It is clear to me,” he said, “that this war happened through stupidity and jealousy. They all invented excuses for it after the outbreak of hostilities. There is no reason why it should not end as suddenly as it began. It is too much to expect men debauched by fifteen years of war to see reason, but they will understand force. We will use force.”

Together they drew up the following manifesto:

SAMWAYS ISLAND, OFF EUROPE.

We, the undersigned, lately arrived in Europe, on discovering its unanimous betrayal of civilisation, hereby declare as follows:

(1) We have destroyed Bondon.

(2) The power which did that will be used against any of the present belligerents not consenting to lay down their arms.

(3) Upon the declaration of peace the fleets of the hostile nations are to be collected and sunk, the guns and ammunition of the various disbanded armies having first been laded in them. Neutral nations will then be invited by us to destroy their fleets and disband their armies.

(4) Nations in future will have no high political relations with each other except through a central government.

(5) Recognising the natural pugnacity of the human race and its love of spectacular effect, we suggest that in future nations which arrive at a complete misunderstanding should, with the consent of the central government, declare war on each other for a period of not less than one week and not more than one month, the nations to place in the firing line only the incurably diseased, the incorrigibly criminal, the lunatic and the imbecile, and all of those convicted of exploitation and profit-sharing.

(6) Not more than two thousand men are to be employed on either side, and the sphere of operations is to be narrowly limited. If desired, and to encourage a knowledge of the horror of war, we suggest that such wars be paid for by admitting spectators at a price.

(7) Wars are only to take place in August.

(8) Naval war is to be prohibited altogether as too barbarous. The central government will maintain an armed fleet for the suppression of pirates.

(9) Weapons and machines designed for the destruction of human life are only to be manufactured by the central government.

(10) Acknowledging that follies do not die easily and that nations at war will always desire territory as a trophy, we are willing to place the island at the service of the central government as the prize to be fought for. It can always be found by wireless.

(11) We submit that there shall be no discussion of the terms of settlement until the central government is set up and a proper tribunal is constituted to deal with all claims. The first step in the interest of parties is disarmament, and upon that we insist.

(Signed) IGNATZ SIEBENHAAR. ULTIMUS SAMWAYS.

XVII: PEACE

This manifesto was transmitted by wireless to all parts of the world. It was published in the newspapers of America, and therefore could not be suppressed by the various National Committees for Keeping the Public in the Dark. Ultimus received invitations to all the capitals of the belligerent nations. He said that if they had anything to say they could say it by wireless. Meanwhile if nothing was said the Fatter fleet would be destroyed within a week: the Fattish fleet immediately after it: and the various ports and capitals would one by one meet the fate of Bondon.

A great deal was said. Almost every day mean little men, who looked as though they had been fat only a short time before and then scorched, arrived to offer Ultimus his own price for his new explosive. They all said the same thing: the enemy alone was responsible for the war and it would never end until the enemy was destroyed. Therefore, in the interests of civilisation and universal peace, Mr. Samways ought to sell, nay, give to humanity the secret of his invention.

“I am using it in the interests of civilisation,” said he, “and, as you see, I am resisting all temptation to make money out of it. The proper use of an explosive is that for which I made mine, namely, to destroy every ugly and useless thing I had made.”

And the mean little men went away. Two of them committed suicide on their way back to shore, so troubled were they at being deprived of the monopoly which had enabled them to drive millions of men to the slaughter that the rest might be miserable slaves in their hands.

As a matter of fact, these two had been ruined by the destruction of Bondon, upon which they had been dependent for the world-wide circulation of their credit.

Day after day brought the news of the suicide of one great financier after another, and the army contractors, realising that they might not be paid for their efforts, abandoned them. No food or supplies reached the armies, which came home in search of food. The Emperors of Fatterland and Grossia fled to their country estates. The Emperor of Waltzia had been dead for ten years, though his death had been concealed.

Before long a number of intelligent men from every country had met in Scandinavia and a central government was proclaimed. The Fattish, Fatter, Grossian, Waltzian, and Coqdorian fleets were collected in the North Sea, and Ultimus had the great satisfaction of driving the island through them.

XVIII: THE RETURN OF THE ISLAND

And now Ultimus could breathe again. Came the news every day of tremendous rejoicings in all the countries, and in all the name of Ultimus Samways was blessed. He was asked by every one of them to anchor his island off their shores, but he replied:

“Not until the lunatic that is in every European is dead, can I dwell among you. It is easy for you, whose lives are shallow to forget. But I have seen and suffered and I cannot forget. When you have discovered the depths in your own lives and each man recognises the profound wonder of every other, then will the thought of the philosopher Siebenhaar be as fertile seed among you and you will reap the harvest of brotherhood.”

When he had sent this message to the United States of Europe he sought out the little chambermaid and said to her:

“I beg your forgiveness. I have let the horror of war break in upon my devotion to you. We are making for the Southern Seas. If you prefer it you can retire to Bondon, though I must warn you that your luxurious hotel is now a hospital for the cure of astute business men.”

The little chambermaid replied:

“I did want to go to see the fun when peace was declared, having seen the fun in the streets when they declared war. But it’s come over me now that I love you and only you, and I want to be by your side to give you all the happiness you have brought into my heart.”

And Siebenhaar said:

“This is a mystery past the understanding of men, but the understanding is its servant.”

Gynecologia

I: HISTORY

I, Conrad P. Lewis, of Crown Imperial, Pa., U.S.A., do hereby declare that the following narrative of my adventures is a plain truthful tale with nothing added or taken away. At the end of a long life I am able to remember unmoved things that for many years I could not call to mind without horror and disgust. Even now I cannot see the charming person of my daughter without some faint discomfort, to be rid of which (for I would die in peace) I have determined to write my story.

The whole civilised world will remember how, during the years when Europe was sunk under the vileness of a scientific barbarism, there was suddenly an end of news from Fatland. Our ships that sailed for her ports did not return. Her flag had disappeared from the high seas. Her trade had entirely ceased. She exported neither coal nor those manufactured goods which had carried her language, customs, and religion to the ends of the earth. Her colonies (we learned) had received only a message to say that they must in future look after themselves, as, indeed, they were as capable of doing as any other collection of people. In one night Fatland ceased to be.

It was at first assumed that her enemies the Fatters had invaded and captured her, but, clearly, they would not destroy her commerce. Moreover, the Fatters were at that time and for many years afterwards living in a state of siege, keeping nine hostile nations at bay upon their frontiers. This was the last of the great wars, leading, as we now know, to the abolition of the idea of nationality, which endowed a nation with the attributes of a vain and insolent human being, so that its actions were childish and could only be made effective by force. When that idea died in the apathy and suffering and bitterness of the years following the great wars then the glorious civilisation which we now enjoy became possible.

The disappearance of Fatland took place shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, which, from the practice which the Europeans had in those days, was always accomplished with great expedition. Every four years or so, when the exhausted nations once more had enough young men over eighteen, there would be some little quarrel, or an arranged assassination, or an ambassador would be indiscreet. One war, I remember, broke out over a scuffle between two bakers in the streets of Bondon: they were a Fattishman and a Fatter, and they had been arguing over the merits of the Fattish loaf and the continental bâton. The Press of both countries took it up: their governments had a good class of troops that year and they did not hesitate to use them. We, in the Western world, were accustomed to it by then and knew how to keep our trade alive through neutral countries. Also, I regret to say, we had engaged upon the dreadful traffic in war material. In those days we were still bounded by the primitive civilisation of Europe. We had not been wakened to manhood and the way of life and eternity, we had not been taught to be elemental in our own elemental continent by the sublime masterpiece of Junius F. Hohlenheim.

When it became clear that Fatland could not be in the hands of the Fatters: when, moreover, we were told that she was taking no part in the last and bloodiest of the wars, and when, after many months, there came no news of any kind, then our merchant-monarchs (now happily extinct) fitted out an expedition, with credentials to the Fattish Government, if any. Wild rumors had spread that the Gulf Stream was diverted, making the Skitish islands uninhabitable, but I had just then returned from a voyage to Norroway and knew that it was not so. I had gazed at the coasts of the mysterious islands with pity, with curiosity, with sad and, I must own it, sentimental longing. Were they not our home? We were still colonists in those days, always looking to other lands than that in which we lived. “O Fatland,” I cried. “O mother inviolate!” But we had the captain’s wife on board and she laughed and said that was not the adjective to apply to a mother.

II: CASTAWAY

On my return I married and put my savings into my father-in-law’s brush-making business, which was almost at once ruined, and I had to go to sea again. Government money had been got for the expedition I told you of, and I knew that pay would be higher on that account. I sent in an application, and, having an uncle well placed, was taken on as third officer. A dirty little gunboat had been put in commission, and directly I set eyes on her I knew the voyage would be unlucky. We were but three days out when we had trouble with the propeller shaft and were carried far north among the ugliest ice I ever saw, and narrowly escaped being caught in a floe. Fortunately we ran into a southward current in the nick of time and, with a fresh wind springing up, were quickly out of danger. However, the years of war had added another peril to those of nature. We fouled a mine among the islands of Smugland and were blown to bits. At the time I was standing near a number of petrol cans, and when I came to the surface of the water I found some of them floating near me. I tied six of them together and they made a tidy little raft, though it was very uncomfortable. On them I drifted for four days until hunger and thirst were too much for me and I swooned away. I was then past agony and my swoon was more like passing into an enchantment than a physical surrender.

I was not at all astonished, therefore, when I came to my senses to find myself in a bed with a man sitting by my bedside. Very glad was I to see him, and I cried out in a big voice:

“Kerbosh! If I ain’t got into heaven by mistake.”

The man shook his head sadly and said:

“Heaven? No.”

But I could not shake off the feeling that I was in Heaven. The man had long hair and a beard, and I could be pardoned for taking him for Peter. He wore a rough shift, a long kilt below his knees, and thick stockings, and by his elbow on a little table, was another stocking which he had been knitting. He gave me food and drink, and I at once felt stronger, but somewhat squeamish, so that the sense of hallucination clung about me. When I asked where I was, the man tiptoed to the door, opened it and listened, then returned to my bedside and said in a whisper:

“It is as much as my place is worth, but I would warn you as man to man to make good your escape while you may. As man to man, I say it, man to man.”

He was so terribly excited as he said this that I decided in my own mind that he was a harmless lunatic, one of the many whom the great wars had rendered idiotic. To humour him I repeated:

“As man to man.”

And I put out my hand. He seized it and said in a desperate voice:

“I am old enough to be your fa----”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and in absolute terror he stopped, took up his knitting and plied the needles frantically.

III: MY CAPTOR

The footsteps came up to the door of the room in which I lay. The door opened to reveal a truly remarkable figure; plump, short, with a tousled mop of reddish-grey hair and a wide, pleasant, weather-beaten face. This figure was clad in a loose blue coat and Bulgarian trousers, very baggy about the hips and tight about the calves; not at all an unbecoming costume, though it both puzzled and pained me. So much so that I pretended to be asleep, for I was averse to being made to speak to this strange object. A woman’s voice addressed the man with the knitting and asked him how I was. He replied that I had come to my senses and gone to sleep again. As luck would have it, the food I had eaten so hastily began just then to cause me acute discomfort, and my body, escaping my control, relieved itself after its fashion. Thereupon the woman, perceiving that I was malingering, fell upon me and shook me until my teeth rattled and delivered herself of an oration upon the deceitfulness of man. I was still suffering acutely and could offer no resistance, though I cried out that I was an American citizen and neutral and should have the matter brought to the ears of my Government.

“In this country,” said my assailant, “men are men and are treated as such, and we do not recognize the existence of any other country in the world. You will get up now and place your superior strength at the service of those who feed you and as far as possible justify your existence.”

The man with the knitting had crept from the room. He returned with a shift, a kilt and stockings like his own. I was made to put these on, the woman, in defiance of all decency, watching me and talking shrilly all the time. Then she drove the man and myself out of doors and set us to work at hoeing in a field of turnips, while she whistled to a dog that came bounding over a hedge, and trudged off in the direction of a wood.

“Who is she?” said I. “Is she your wife?”

“Wife?” answered he. “Wife! There is neither marriage nor giving in marriage. She is a farmer, and I, who was once a Professor of Economics, am her labourer. Intellectually I am in despair, but physically I am in such rude health that I cannot entertain the thought of self-destruction long enough to commit the act. She is my niece, and when the change came she undertook, as all women did, to provide work for her male relatives above a certain age.”

“Change?” I whispered. “What change?”

“Have you not heard?” he said. “Is the country severed from the civilised world?”

I informed him of the expedition which I had joined. He gave a long hopeless sigh and fell into a great silence which moved me far more than his words had done. We plied our hoes in the immense field which was situated in a desolate region of slight undulations the outlines of which were blurred with rank growth.

Presently I broke in upon his silence to ask his name.

“I was,” he murmured, “I was Professor Ian Baffin.”

“Can it be possible?” I cried, for the fame of that great man was world-wide, and during the notorious Anti-Trust elections in my country his works had been in every cultured home. I told him this, but it brought him no comfort.

“At the time of the change,” he said, “I and fifty other Professors and Fellows of Colleges published a manifesto in which we pointed out the disasters that must ensue, and we even went so far as to promise them degrees at the major universities, but the change came and the universities were destroyed.”

“What change?” I asked again.

He leaned on his hoe and gazed toward the setting sun.

IV: THE CHANGE

“About the tenth year of the second of the great wars,” he said, “there was a convulsion in the country. A young idealist appeared who with fiery and vulgar eloquence proclaimed that war was the triumph of the old over the young, to whom since the world began justice had never been done. The old, he said, were in the position of trustees who had betrayed their trust and instead of working for the benefit of the endless army of the young who came after them, devoted all their energies to robbing them of their birthright. To extricate themselves from the punishment which must otherwise have fallen on them they exploited the courage and love of adventure of the young and set them to destroy each other. So successful had they been in this device that they could count on using it at least once in every generation, and politicians knew that when they were at the end of their tether they could always procure a continuance of their offices and emoluments by declaring war. This had been the condition of civilised existence for so many thousands of years that it was generally accepted and the truth was never suspected until our young idealist arrived with honey on his lips for the young and gall and bitter invective for the old. He rushed up and down the country persuading young men on no condition to take up arms. ‘Government?’ he said. ‘What government do you need except such as will provide you with roads, railways, lighting, bread for the incapacitated, and drainage for all?’ I signed a manifesto against him too. His ignorance of economics was pitiful. In the end martial law was proclaimed and he was shot. The young men did not listen to him, but the young women did. Shooting him was a mistake. It gave his name the magic of martyrdom. By the thousand, women, old, young, and middle-aged, cherished his portrait in their bosoms, prayed to him in secret, vowed themselves to his cause, and remained chaste. Nunneries were founded in his name, but so potent was the spell of his martyrdom, so overwrought were the women of this country by the many crises through which we have passed, that amid all the temptations of life they were dedicated to his memory and preserved their virginity. They said if the country can find no better use for our sons than to send them to the slaughter and disablement, we will breed no sons. The Government was warned, but like all governments they could not see beyond the system by which they governed, and when at last they were convinced that something serious was happening, they could think of no other remedy than that of giving votes, i.e. a share in the system by which they enjoyed their positions. At first, to show their contempt for the Government, the women did not use their votes until the country was shown by an energetic and public-spirited woman that another war was in the making. An election was forced and the Government was defeated. At the conclusion of the second great war you may remember that Bondon was destroyed, and with it the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Palace. A new capital was chosen, but as Fatland was no longer the center of the world’s credit system, finance had lost its old power. A new type of politician had arisen, who, in order to win favour with the women, set himself to do all in his power to make government impossible. The enormous numerical superiority of the women made their leaders paramount in the land, though there was still officially a Cabinet and a House of Swells. On the third and last outbreak of hostilities the officials made their final despairing effort and declared war on Fatterland, but they had no army. They had been unable to rebuild their fleet as all the other countries had done. They were helpless. The Cabinet and the House of Swells, to set an example to the country, armed themselves and went to the front, taking with them the last ten thousand young men in the country. They never returned and the country was left populated solely by old men, cripples, and women, of whom a few thousand were pregnant. These were interned. A committee of influential women was formed and issued a decree that Fatland would henceforth have no share in male civilisation. Men had, to cut a long story short, made a mess of things, and women would now see what they could do. They began by abolishing property in land. The first, the only important thing was to feed the population. The State guaranteed to everybody food, housing, and clothes. Able-bodied women were to take charge of their male relatives and make them useful. Decent women, that is to say virgins, were to work on the land. All women guilty of childbirth were to be sent to work in the factories. I cannot remember all the laws made, for my memory has been impaired by my sufferings, but they were all dictated by an unreasoning and venomous hatred of men. We are little better than slaves. They laugh at us affectionately, but they despise and ignore our thoughts. They have defied every economic law, but astonishingly they continue to live.”