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Title: The Last Generation - A Story of the Future
Author: Flecker, James Elroy, 1884-1915
Language: English
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THE LAST GENERATION
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE BRIDGE OF FIRE
A BOOK OF POEMS CONTAINING THE BALLAD OF
HAMPSTEAD HEATH AND THE TWIN SONNETS OF BATHROLAIRE
Price 1s. net
THE LAST GENERATION
A STORY OF THE FUTURE
BY
JAMES ELROY FLECKER
_El hombre es el rey de la creación_; _vive_ (he
lives) _en la tierra y cree_ (he believes) _en el cielo_
DE ARTEAGA, _Spanish Grammar_
THE NEW AGE PRESS
140 FLEET STREET, LONDON
1908
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
TO
FRANK SAVERY
WHO TAUGHT, ENCOURAGED, AND REVEALED
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 9
I. AT BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL 13
II. THE PROCLAMATION 17
III. THE MUTUAL EXTERMINATION CLUB 23
IV. THE EPISODE OF THE BABY 29
V. THE FLORENTINE LEAGUE 34
VI. OUTSIDE 43
VII. THE LAST MEN 54
THE LAST GENERATION
INTRODUCTION
I had been awake for I know not how many hours that summer dawn while
the sun came over the hills and coloured the beautiful roses in my
mother's garden. As I lay drowsily gazing through the window, I
thought I had never known a morning so sultry, and yet so pleasant.
Outside not a leaf stirred; yet the air was fresh, and the madrigal
notes of the birds came to me with a peculiar intensity and clearness.
I listened intently to the curious sound of trilling, which drew
nearer and nearer, until it seemed to merge into a whirring noise that
filled the room and crowded at my ears. At first I could see nothing,
and lay in deadly fear of the unknown; but soon I thought I saw rims
and sparks of spectral fire floating through the pane. Then I heard
some one say, "I am the Wind." But the voice was so like that of an
old friend whom one sees again after many years that my terror
departed, and I asked simply why the Wind had come.
"I have come to you," he replied, "because you are the first man I
have discovered who is after my own heart. You whom others call dreamy
and capricious, volatile and headstrong, you whom some accuse of
weakness, others of unscrupulous abuse of power, you I know to be a
true son of Æolus, a fit inhabitant for those caves of boisterous
song."
"Are you the North Wind or the East Wind?" said I. "Or do you blow
from the Atlantic? Yet if those be your feathers that shine upon the
pane like yellow and purple threads, and if it be through your
influence that the garden is so hot to-day, I should say you were the
lazy South Wind, blowing from the countries that I love."
"I blow from no quarter of the Earth," replied the voice. "I am not in
the compass. I am a little unknown Wind, and I cross not Space but
Time. If you will come with me I will take you not over countries but
over centuries, not directly, but waywardly, and you may travel where
you will. You shall see Napoleon, Cæsar, Pericles, if you command. You
may be anywhere in the world at any period. I will show you some of my
friends, the poets...."
"And may I drink red wine with Praxiteles, or with Catullus beside his
lake?"
"Certainly, if you know enough Latin and Greek, and can pronounce them
intelligently."
"And may I live with Thais or Rhodope, or some wild Assyrian queen?"
"Unless they are otherwise employed, certainly."
"Ah, Wind of Time," I continued with a sigh, "we men of this age are
rotten with booklore, and with a yearning for the past. And wherever I
asked to go among those ancient days, I should soon get dissatisfied,
and weary your bright wings. I will be no pillar of salt, a sterile
portent in a sterile desert. Carry me forward, Wind of Time. What is
there going to be?"
The Wind put his hand over my eyes.
I
AT BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL
"This is our first stopping place," said a voice from the points of
flame.
I opened my eyes expecting to see one of those extravagant scenes that
imaginative novelists love to depict. I was prepared to find the upper
air busy with aeroplanes and the earth beneath given over to unbridled
debauch. Instead, I discovered myself seated on a tall electric
standard, watching a crowd assembled before what I took to be
Birmingham Town Hall. I was disappointed in this so tame a sight,
until it flashed across me that I had never seen an English crowd
preserve such an orderly and quiet demeanour; and a more careful
inspection assured me that although no man wore a uniform, every man
carried a rifle. They were obviously waiting for some one to come and
address them from the balcony of the Town Hall, which was festooned
with red flags. As the curtains were pulled aside I caught a momentary
glimpse of an old person whose face I shall never forget, but
apparently it was not for him that the breathless crowd was waiting.
The man who finally appeared on the balcony was an individual not more
than thirty years old, with a black beard and green eyes. At the sound
of acclamation which greeted him he burst out into a loud laugh; then
with a sudden seriousness he held up his hand and began to address his
followers:--
"I have but few words for you, my army, a few bitter words. Need I
encourage men to fight who have staked their existence to gain
mastery? We cannot draw back; never will the cries of the slaughtered
thousands we yearned to rescue from a more protracted, more cruel
misery than war, make us forget the myriads who still await the
supreme mercy of our revenge.
"For centuries and for centuries we endured the march of that
Civilisation which now, by the weapons of her own making, we have set
forth to destroy. We, men of Birmingham, dwellers in this hideous town
unvisited by sun or moon, long endured to be told that we were in the
van of progress, leading Humanity year by year along her glorious
path. And, looking around them, the wise men saw the progress of
civilisation, and what was it? What did it mean? Less country, fewer
savages, deeper miseries, more millionaires, and more museums. So
to-day we march on London.
"Let us commemorate, my friends, at this last hour, a great if all
unwitting benefactor, the protomartyr of our cause. You remember that
lank follower of the Newest Art, who lectured to us once within these
very walls? He it was who first expounded to us the beauty of
Birmingham, the artistic majesty of tall chimneys, the sombre glory of
furnaces, the deep mystery of smoke, the sad picturesqueness of
scrap-heaps and of slag. Then we began to hate our lives in earnest;
then we arose and struck. Even now I shudder when I think of that
lecturer's fate, and with a feeling of respect I commemorate his words
to-day.
"On, then! You need not doubt of my victory, nor of my power. Some of
you will die, but you know that death is rest. You do not need to fear
the sombre fireworks of a mediæval Hell, nor yet the dreary
dissipations of a Methodist Heaven. Come, friends, and march on
London!"
They heard him in deep silence; there was a gentle stir of
preparation; they faded far below me.
II
THE PROCLAMATION
At a point ten years farther along that dusky road the Wind set me
down in a prodigious room. I had never before seen so large and
splendid a construction, so gracefully embellished, so justly
proportioned. The shape was elliptical, and it seemed as if the
architect had drawn his inspiration from the Coliseum at Rome. This
Hall, however, was much larger, and had the additional distinction of
a roof, which, supported by a granite column, was only rendered
visible from beneath by means of great bosses of clear gold. Galleries
ran round the walls, and there was even a corkscrew balustrade winding
up round the central pillar. Every part of the building was crowded
with people. There seemed to be no window in the place, so that I
could not tell whether or no it was night. The whole assembly was
illuminated by a thousand electric discs, and the ventilation was
almost perfectly planned on a system to me entirely strange. There was
a raised throne at one end of the building on which sat a King
decently dressed in black. I recognised the green-eyed man, and learnt
that his name was Harris, Joshua Harris. The entire body of the Hall
was filled by soldiers in mud-coloured tunics and waterproof boots.
These were the men that had conquered the world.
As soon as the populace were well assembled the King made a sign to
his Herald, who blew so sudden and terrific a blast with his trumpet
that the multitude stopped their chattering with a start. The Herald
proceeded to bawl a proclamation through his megaphone. I heard him
distinctly, but should never have been able to reproduce his exact
words had not the Wind very kindly handed to me one of the printed
copies for free distribution which it had wafted from a chair. The
proclamation ran thus:--
"I, Joshua Harris, by right of conquest and in virtue of my
intelligence, King of Britain, Emperor of the two Americas,
and Lord High Suzerain of the World, to the Princes,
Presidents, and Peoples of the said world,--Greeting. Ye
know that in days past an old man now dead showed me how
man's dolorous and fruitless sojourn on this globe might
cease by his own act and wisdom; how pain and death and the
black Power that made us might be frustrated of their
accustomed prey. Then I swore an oath to fulfil that old
man's scheme, and I gathered my followers, who were the
miserable men, and the hungry men, and we have conquered all
there is to conquer by our cannon and by our skill. Already
last year I gave public notice, in the proclamation of
Vienna, in the proclamation of Cairo, in the proclamation of
Pekin, and in the proclamation of Rio Janeiro, that all
bearing of children must cease, and that all women should be
permanently sterilised according to the prescription of
Doctor Smith. Therefore to-day, since there is no remote
African plain, no island far away in the deep South Seas
where our forces are not supreme and our agents not
vigilant, I make my final proclamation to you, my army, and
to you, Princes, Presidents, and Peoples of this world, that
from this hour forth there be no child born of any woman,
or, if born, that it be slain with its father and its mother
(_a fainting woman had here to be carried out_), and to you,
my terrestrial forces, I entrust the execution of my
commands.
"Joy then be with you, my people, for the granaries are full
of corn and wine that I have laid up, sufficient for many
years to come; joy be with you, since you are the last and
noblest generation of mankind, and since Doctor Smith by his
invention, and I by my wise prevision, have enabled you to
live not only without payment and without work (_loud cheers
from the galleries_), but also with luxury and splendour,
and with all the delights, and none of the dangers, of
universal love."
I expected the proclamation to be followed by an outburst of applause;
but instead the whole multitude sat calm and motionless. Looking round
I was struck by the hideous appearance of mankind. It was especially
revolting to look at the ears of the soldiers in front, who had their
backs turned to me. These stuck out from the bullet-like heads, and
made the men look like two-handled teapots on stands. Yet here and
there appeared in the galleries some woman's countenance beautified by
the sorrows of our race, or some tall youth whose eyes expressed the
darkest determination. The silence seemed to gather in folds. I was
studying drowsily the Asiatic dresses and the nude people from
Melanesia, when I heard a noise which I thought was that of the Wind.
But I saw it was the King, who had begun to laugh. It was a very
strange noise indeed, and very strange laughter.
III
THE MUTUAL EXTERMINATION CLUB
"You would perhaps like to stay here some time," said the Wind, "and
look around. You will then understand the significance of this
generation more clearly, and you may observe some interesting
incidents."
I was standing with one or two other people outside a pseudo-Chinese
erection, which I at first took to be a cricket pavilion, and then saw
to be the headquarters of a rifle club. I apprehended from the
placards that I was in Germany, and inquired in the language of the
country, which I understand very well, what was the object of this
rifle practice, and whether there was any thought of war.
The man to whom I addressed myself, an adipose person with iron-rimmed
spectacles and a kindly, intelligent face, seemed surprised at my
question.
"You must be a stranger," he said. "This is our very notable
_Vertilgungsverein_."
I understood: it was a Club for Mutual Extermination.
I then noticed that there were no ordinary targets, and that the
cadets were pointing their rifles at a bearded man who stood with a
covered pipe in his mouth, leaning against a tree some two hundred
yards away.
After the report the bearded man held up both hands.
"That is to signify that he has been completely missed," said the fat
gentleman. "One hand, wounded; two hands, missed. And that is
reasonable (_vernünftig_), because if he were dead he could not raise
either."
I approved the admirable logic of the rule, and supposed that the man
would now be allowed to go free.
"Oh yes, according to the rules," he answered, "he certainly is
allowed to go free; but I do not think his sense of honour would
permit him so to do."
"Is he then of very noble family?" I inquired.
"Not at all; he is a scientist. We have a great many scientists in our
club. They are all so disappointed at the way in which human progress
has been impeded, and at the impossibility of a continuous evolution
of knowledge-accumulation, that they find no more attraction in life.
And he is dead this time," he continued, shading his eyes to look, as
soon as a second report had flashed.
"By the way," I asked, "I suppose you only exterminate--er--members of
the club?"
The fellow smiled with a little disdain. "Oh, it would be illegal for
us to exterminate outsiders. But of course if you would like to
join...."
"Why, that's never a woman going over to the tree!" I cried.
"Oh yes, we have quite a number of intellectual women and upper-class
ladies of advanced ideas in the club. But I do not think that lady is
an intellectual; she is more probably a passion-wreck."
She was indeed a very handsome woman in the prime of life, dressed
with a little too much ostentation and coquetry in a sleeveless,
transparent white blouse and a skirt to match.
My informant turned round to a skinny young student with hog's-bristle
hair, and made some vulgar jest about its "being a pity to waste such
a good piece of flesh." He was a superman, and imagined, falsely I
believe, that an air of bluff cynicism, a Teutonic attempt at
heartiness, was the true outward sign of inward superiority. The young
man fired, and the woman raised the arm that was not shattered by the
bullet. He fired again, and she fell on her knees, this time with a
scream.
"I think you had better have a shot," said the sharpshooter to my man.
"I'm rather bad at this."
Indeed his hand was shaking violently.
My interlocutor bowed, and went over to take the rifle. The skinny
student took his place by my side, and began talking to me as well.
"He's an infallible shot that Müller there," he said, nodding at my
former companion.... "Didn't I tell you?"
To my great relief the passion-wrecked lady fell dead. I was getting
wildly excited, rent between horror and curiosity.
"You see that man in the plumed hat?" said the student. "He is coming
round to say on whom the lot has fallen. Ah, he is coming this way,
and making a sign at me. Good-day, sir," he said, taking off his hat
with a deep and jerky bow. "I am afraid we must continue our
conversation another time."
IV
THE EPISODE OF THE BABY
As soon as I turned away, rather horrified, from the merry proceedings
of the Mutual Extermination Club, I seemed to be in England, or
perhaps in America. At all events I was walking along a dusty highway
in the midst of an inquisitive crowd. In front of me half-a-dozen
members of the International Police Force (their tunics and boots gave
me to understand their quality) were dragging along a woman who held a
baby in her arms. A horror-struck and interested multitude surged
behind, and rested only when the woman was taken into a large and
disgusting edifice with iron gates. Aided by my distinguished
appearance and carriage, I succeeded after some difficulty in
persuading the Chief Gaoler to let me visit the cell where the mother
was lodged, previous to undergoing an execution which would doubtless
be as unpleasant as prolonged. I found a robust, apple-cheeked woman,
very clean and neat, despite her forlorn condition and the rough
handling the guards had used to her. She confessed to me with tears
that she had been in her day a provincial courtesan, and that she had
been overcome by desire to have a child, "just to see what it was
like." She had therefore employed all imaginable shifts to avoid being
injected with Smithia, and had fled with an old admirer to a lonely
cave, where she had brought forth her child. "And a pretty boy too,"
she added, wringing her hands, "and only fourteen months old."
She was so heartbroken that I did not like to ask her any more
questions till she had recovered, for fear her answers should be
unintelligible. Finally, as I desired to learn matters that were of
common knowledge to the rest of the world, and was not anxious to
arouse suspicion, I represented myself as a cultured foreigner who had
just been released from a _manicomio_, and was therefore naturally in
a state of profound ignorance on all that appertained to Modern
History. I felt indeed that I would never have a better chance of
gathering information than from conversation with this solitary woman.
It would be her pleasure, not her duty, to instruct me.
So I began by asking how the diminishing numbers of the military could
keep a sufficient watch, and how it was that every one submitted so
meekly to the proclamation. She answered that the police recruited
themselves yearly from the more active and noble-minded of the people,
that custom had a lot to do with the submissive attitude of mankind,
and that apart from that, there was a great resolve abroad to carry
out the project of King Harris to fulfilment. She went on to inform me
that Smithia was tasteless, and would act even when drunk at meals,
and not merely as an injection, that it acted on both sexes, and that
it was otherwise innocuous. By now most of the well-springs,
reservoirs, and cisterns had been contaminated by the fluid, of which
large quantities had been prepared at a very cheap price. After
gleaning sundry other details, I thanked her heartily and left the
cell.
Outside in the courtyard I discovered a large concourse of people
examining the baby, who was naturally enough an object of extreme
wonder to the whole countryside. The women called it a duck, and used
other pet names that were not then in fashion, but most of the men
thought it was an ugly little brat at best. The child was seated on a
cushion, and despite his mother's absence was crowing vigorously and
kicking with puny force. There was some debate as to how it should be
killed. Some were for boiling and eating it; others were for hitting
it on the head with a club. However, the official who held the cushion
brought the conference to a close by inadvertently dropping the child
on to the flags, and thereby breaking its neck.
V
THE FLORENTINE LEAGUE
I feel certain on reflection that the scene of the last episode must
have been America, for I remember returning to Europe on a French boat
which landed me at Havre, and immediately taking the train to Paris.
As I passed through Normandy, I saw hardly a soul stirring in the
villages, and the small houses were all in a most dilapidated
condition. There was no more need for farms, and villagers in their
loneliness were flocking to the towns. Even the outer suburbs of Paris
were mere masses of flaked and decaying plaster. An unpleasant crash
into the buffers of Saint Lazare reminded me that the engine was being
driven by an amateur; indeed, we had met the Dieppe train at Rouen,
sent a pilot engine ahead to clear the way, and then raced it to Paris
on the up-line amid enthusiastic cheers. We won, but were badly
shaken.
We left the train beside the platform, trusting to the Church
Missionary Society man to put it away in the engine-shed. These
excellent philanthropists were unwearying in their efforts to prevent
needless loss of life, and such work as was still done in the world
was performed almost entirely by them and by members of kindred
British Protestant societies. They wore a blue badge to distinguish
themselves, and were ordered about by every one. At the call of
"Anglais, Anglais!" some side-whiskered man would immediately run up
to obey the summons, and you could send him to get food from the Store
for you, and he would be only too pleased. They would also cook hot
dinners.
I walked through the Boulevard Montmartre, and at every step I took I
became more profoundly miserable. One had called Paris the pleasure
city, the fairest city in the world, in the days before the
Proclamation; for one found it vibrating with beauty and life. And now
assuredly it was supremely a city of pleasure, for there was no work
to be done at all. So no artist ever took any trouble now, since there
was neither payment nor fame attainable; and wonderful caricatures of
philanthropists scribbled on the pavement or elsewhere, or clever
ribald songs shrieking out of gramophones were the only reminder of
that past and beautiful Paris that I had known. There was a fatuous
and brutal expression on most of the faces, and the people seemed to
be too lazy to do anything except drink and fondle. Even the lunatics
attracted but little attention. There was a flying-machine man who was
determined, as he expressed it, "that it should not be said of the
human race that it never flew." Even the "Anglais" were tired of
helping him with his machine, which he was quietly building on the
Place de l'Opéra--a mass of intricate wires, bamboos, and paper boxes;
and the inventor himself frequently got lost as he climbed cheerily
among the rigging.
Weary of all this, I slept, alone, in one of the public beds, and
early next morning I clambered up the sacred slope of the Butte to see
the sunrise. The great silence of early morning was over the town, a
deathly and unnatural stillness. As I stood leaning over the parapet,
thinking miserably, a young man came up the hill slowly yet
gracefully, so that it was a pleasure to look at him. His face was sad
and noble, and as I had never thought to see nobility again, I hoped
he would be a friend to me. However, he turned himself almost roughly,
and said:
"Why have you come here?"
"To look at the fallen city I loved long ago," I replied, with
careless sorrow.
"Have you then also read of the old times in books?" he said, looking
round at me with large bright eyes.
"Yes, I have read many books," said I, trying to evade the subject.
"But will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?"
"Nothing coming from you, sir, could be impertinent."
"I wanted to ask how old you are, because you seem so young. You seem
to be only seventeen."
"You could tell me nothing more delightful," the young man replied,
with a gentle, yet strong and deep intonation. "I am indeed one of the
youngest men alive--I am twenty-two years old. And I am looking for
the last time on the city of Paris."
"Do not say that," I cried. "All this may be horrible, but it cannot
be as dull as Death. Surely there must be some place in the world
where we could live among beauty, some other folk besides ourselves
who are still poets. Why should one die until life becomes hopelessly
ugly and deformed?"
"I am not going to kill myself, as you seem to think," said the young
man. "I am going, and I pray and implore you to come with me, to a
place after your heart and mine, that some friends have prepared. It
is a garden, and we are a League. I have already been there three
months, and I have put on these horrible clothes for one day only, in
obedience to a rule of our League, that every one should go out once a
year to look at the world around. We are thinking of abolishing the
rule."
"How pleasant and beautiful it sounds!"
"It is, and will you come with me there right now?"
"Shall I be admitted?"
"My word will admit you at once. Come this way with me. I have a motor
at the bottom of the hill."
During the journey I gathered much information about the League, which
was called the Florentine League. It had been formed out of the
youngest "years" of the race, and its members had been chosen for
their taste and elegance. For although few parents of the day had
thought it worth while to teach their children anything more recondite
than their letters and tables, yet some of the boys and girls had
developed a great desire for knowledge, and an exceeding great delight
in Poetry, Art, Music, and all beautiful sights and sounds.
"We live," he said, "apart from the world, like that merry company of
gentle-folk who, when the plague was raging at Florence, left the
city, and retiring to a villa in the hills, told each other those
enchanting tales. We enjoy all that Life, Nature, and Art can give us,
and Love has not deserted the garden, but still draws his golden bow.
It is no crippled and faded Eros of the city that dwells among us, but
the golden-thighed God himself. For we do all things with refinement,
and not like those outside, seeing to it that in all our acts we keep
our souls and bodies both delicate and pure."
We came to the door of a long wall, and knocked. White-robed
attendants appeared in answer to our summons, and I was stripped,
bathed, and anointed by their deft hands. All the while a sound of
singing and subdued laughter made me eager to be in the garden. I was
then clothed in a very simple white silk garment with a gold clasp;
the open door let sunshine in upon the tiles, and my friend, also
clothed in silk, awaited me. We walked out into the garden, which was
especially noticeable for those flowers which have always been called
old-fashioned--I mean hollyhocks, sweet-william, snapdragons, and
Canterbury bells, which were laid out in regular beds. Everywhere
young men and women were together: some were walking about idly in the
shade; some played at fives; some were reading to each other in the
arbours. I was shown a Grecian temple in which was a library, and
dwelling-places near it. I afterwards asked a girl called Fiore di
Fiamma what books the Florentines preferred to read, and she told me
that they loved the Poets best, not so much the serious and strenuous
as those whose vague and fleeting fancies wrap the soul in an
enchanting sorrow.
I asked: "Do you write songs, Fiore di Fiamma?"
"Yes, I have written a few, and music for them."
"Do sing me one, and I will play the guitar."
So she sang me one of the most mournful songs I had ever heard, a song
which had given up all hope of fame, written for the moment's laughter
or for the moment's tears.
"Wind," I said that night, "stay with me many years in the garden."
But it was not the Wind I kissed.
VI
OUTSIDE
I passed many years in that sad, enchanted place, dreaming at times of
my mother's roses, and of friends that I had known before, and
watching our company grow older and fewer. There was a rule that no
one should stay there after their thirty-seventh birthday, and some
old comrades passed weeping from us to join the World Outside. But
most of them chose to take poison and to die quietly in the Garden; we
used to burn their bodies, singing, and set out their urns on the
grass. In time I became Prince of the Garden: no one knew my age, and
I grew no older; yet my Flame-Flower knew when I intended to die. Thus
we lived on undisturbed, save for some horrible shout that rose from
time to time from beyond the walls; but we were not afraid, as we had
cannon mounted at our gates. At last there were twelve of us left in
the precinct of delight, and we decided to die all together on the eve
of the Queen's birthday. So we made a great feast and held good cheer,
and had the poison prepared, and cast lots. The first lot fell to
Fiore di Fiamma, and the last lot to me; whereat all applauded. I
watched my Queen, who had never seemed to me as noble as then, in her
mature and majestic beauty. She kissed me, and drank, and the others
drank, became very pale, and fell to earth. Then I, rising with a last
pæan of exultation, raised the cup to my lips.
But that moment the trees and flowers bent beneath a furious storm,
and the cup was wrenched out of my hand by a terrific blast and sent
hurtling to the ground. I saw the rainbow-coloured feathers flashing,
and for a second I saw the face of the Wind himself. I trembled, and
sinking into my chair buried my face in my hands. A wave of despair
and loneliness broke over me. I felt like a drowning man.
"Take me back, Lord of the Wind!" I cried. "What am I doing among
these dead æsthetes? Take me back to the country where I was born, to
the house where I am at home, to the things I used to handle, to the
friends with whom I talked, before man went mad. I am sick of this
generation that cannot strive or fight, these people of one idea, this
doleful, ageing world. Take me away!"
But the Wind replied in angry tones, not gently as of old:--
"Is it thus you treat me, you whom I singled out from men? You have
forgotten me for fifteen years; you have wandered up and down a
garden, oblivious of all things that I had taught you, incurious,
idle, listless, effeminate. Now I have saved you from dying a mock
death, like a jester in a tragedy; and in time I will take you back,
for that I promised; but first you shall be punished as you deserve."
So saying, the Wind raised me aloft and set me beyond the wall.
I dare not describe--I fear to remember the unutterable loathing of
the three years I spent outside. The unhappy remnant of a middle-aged
mankind was gradually exchanging lust for gluttony. Crowds squatted by
day and by night round the Houses of Dainty Foods that had been
stocked by Harris the King; there was no youthful face to be found
among them, and scarcely one that was not repulsively deformed with
the signs of lust, cunning, and debauch. At evening there were
incessant fires of crumbling buildings, and fat women made horrible
attempts at revelry. There seemed to be no power of thought in these
creatures. The civilisation of ages had fallen from them like a
worthless rag from off their backs. Europeans were as bestial as
Hottentots, and the noblest thing they ever did was to fight. For
sometimes a fierce desire of battle seized them, and then they tore
each other passionately with teeth and nails.
I cannot understand it even now. Surely there should have been some
Puritans somewhere, or some Philosophers waiting to die with dignity
and honour. Was it that there was no work to do? Or that there were no
children to love? Or that there was nothing young in the World? Or
that all beautiful souls perished in the garden?
I think it must have been the terrible thought of approaching
extinction that obsessed these distracted men. And perhaps they were
not totally depraved. There was a rough fellowship among them, a
desire to herd together; and for all that they fought so much, they
fought in groups. They never troubled to look after the sick and the
wounded, but what could they do?
One day I began to feel that I too was one of them--I, who had held
aloof in secret ways so long, joined the gruesome company in their
nightly dance, and sat down to eat and drink their interminable meal.
Suddenly a huge, wild, naked man appeared in front of the firelight, a
prophet, as it appeared, who prophesied not death but life. He flung
out his lean arms and shouted at us: "In vain have you schemed and
lingered and died, O Last Generation of the Damned. For the cities
shall be built again, and the mills shall grind anew, and the church
bells shall ring, and the Earth be repeopled with new miseries in
God's own time."
I could not bear to hear this fellow speak. Here was one of the old
sort of men, the men that talked evil, and murmured about God.
"Friends," I said, turning to the Feasters, "we will have no skeletons
like that at our feast." So saying I seized a piece of flaming wood
from the fire, and rushed at the man. He struggled fiercely, but he
had no weapon, and I beat him about the head till he fell, and death
rattled in his throat--rattled with what seemed to me a most familiar
sound. I stood aghast; then wiped the blood from the man's eyes and
looked into them.
"Who are you?" I exclaimed. "I have seen you before; I seem to know
the sound of your voice and the colour of your eyes. Can you speak a
word and tell us your story, most unhappy prophet, before you die?"
"Men of the Last Generation," said the dying man, raising himself on
his elbow--"Men of the Last Generation, I am Joshua Harris, your
King."
As brainless frogs who have no thought or sense in them, yet shrink
when they are touched, and swim when the accustomed water laves their
eager limbs, so did these poor creatures feel a nerve stirring within
them, and unconsciously obey the voice which had commanded them of
old. As though the mere sound of his tremulous words conveyed an
irresistible mandate, the whole group came shuffling nearer. All the
while they preserved a silence that made me afraid, so reminiscent was
it of that deadly hush that had followed the Proclamation, of the
quiet army starting for London, and especially of that mysterious and
sultry morning so many years ago when the roses hung their enamelled
heads and the leaves were as still as leaves of tin or copper. They
sat down in circles round the fire, maintaining an orderly
disposition, like a stray battalion of some defeated army which is
weary of fruitless journeys in foreign lands, but still remembers
discipline and answers to command. Meanwhile, the dying man was
gathering with a noiseless yet visible effort every shred of strength
from his massive limbs, and preparing to give them his last message.
As he looked round on that frightful crowd great tears, that his own
pain and impending doom could never have drawn from him, filled his
strange eyes.
"Forgive me--forgive me," he said at last, clearly enough for all to
hear. "If any of you still know what mercy is, or the meaning of
forgiveness, say a kind word to me. Loving you, relying on humanity
and myself, despising the march of Time and the power of Heaven, I
became a false redeemer, and took upon my back the burden of all sin.
But how was I to know, my people, I who am only a man, whither my
plans for your redemption would lead? Have none of you a word to say?
"Is there no one here who remembers our fighting days? Where are the
great lieutenants who stood at my side and cheered me with counsel?
Where are Robertson, Baldwin, and Andrew Spencer? Are there none of
the old set left?"
He brushed the tears and blood from his eyes and gazed into the crowd.
Pointing joyously to an old man who sat not far away he called out, "I
know you, Andrew, from that great scar on your forehead. Come here,
Andrew, and that quickly."
The old man seemed neither to hear nor understand him, but sat like
all the rest, blinking and unresponsive.
"Andrew," he cried, "you must know me! Think of Brum and South Melton
Street. Be an Englishman, Andrew--come and shake hands!"
The man looked at him with staring, timid eyes; then shuddered all
over, scrambled up from the ground, and ran away.
"It does not matter," murmured the King of the World. "There are no
men left. I have lived in the desert, and I saw there that which I
would I had seen long ago--visions that came too late to warn me. For
a time my Plan has conquered; but that greater Plan shall be
victorious in the end."
I was trying to stanch the wounds I had inflicted, and I hoped to
comfort him, but he thrust me aside.
"I know that no man of this generation could have killed me. I have
nothing in common with you, bright Spirit. It was not you I loved, not
for you I fought and struggled, but for these. I do not want to be
reminded, by that light of reason shining in your eyes, of what we
were all of us, once. It was a heroic age, when good and evil lived
together, and misery bound man to man. Yet I will not regret what I
have done. I ask forgiveness not of God, but of Man; and I claim the
gratitude of thousands who are unknown, and unknown shall ever remain.
For ages and ages God must reign over an empty kingdom, since I have
brought to an end one great cycle of centuries. Tell me, Stranger, was
I not great in my day?"
He fell back, and the Wind that took his Spirit carried me also into
space.
VII
THE LAST MEN
The Wind bore me onwards more than forty years, and I found seated
beside a granary half-a-dozen wrinkled and very aged men, whose faces
were set with a determination to go on living to the bitter end. They
were delirious, and naked; they tore their white beards; they mumbled
and could not speak. The great beasts came out of the forest by night
softly and gazed at them with their lantern eyes, but never did them
harm. All day long they ate and slept or wandered a little aimlessly
about. During that year four of them died.
Afterwards I saw the last two men. One of them was lying on the ground
gasping passionately for breath, his withered limbs awry with pain. I
could see that he had been a magnificent man in his youth. As his old
friend died, the Last of the Race remembered his Humanity. He bent
down, kissed the livid lips, carefully and tearfully closed the filmed
red eyes. He even tried to scratch a grave with his long finger-nails,
but soon despaired. He then went away, plodding as fast as he could
hobble, weeping silently, afraid of the Dead. In the afternoon he came
to a vast city, where many corpses lay; and about nightfall, when the
stars were shining, he came to a massive half-ruined Dome that had
been used for the worship of some God. Entering, he tottered towards
the altar, which still stood, half-buried in stone-dust and flakes;
and reaching up to a great bronze Crucifix that stood upon it, with
his dying strength he clasped to his arms the Emblem of our Sorrow.
* * * * *
I saw the vast Halls and Palaces of men falling in slowly, decaying,
crumbling, destroyed by nothing but the rains and the touch of Time.
And looking again I saw wandering over and above the ruins, moving
curiously about, myriads of brown, hairy, repulsive little apes.
One of them was building a fire with sticks.
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