"Countless men," she said, "and while it is in their minds--they willobey."
"But I know nothing. That is what I had in mind. I know nothing. Andthese others--the Councillors, Ostrog. They are wiser, cooler, they knowso much, every detail. And, indeed, what are these miseries of which youspeak? What am I to know? Do you mean--"
He stopped blankly.
"I am still hardly more than a girl," she said. "But to me the worldseems full of wretchedness. The world has altered since your day,altered very strangely. I have prayed that I might see you and tell youthese things. The world has changed. As if a canker had seized it--androbbed life of--everything worth having."
She turned a flushed face upon him, moving suddenly. "Your days were thedays of freedom. Yes--I have thought. I have been made to think, for mylife--has not been happy. Men are no longer free--no greater, no betterthan the men of your time. That is not all. This city--is a prison.Every city now is a prison. Mammon grips the key in his hand. Myriads,countless myriads, toil from the cradle to the grave. Is that right? Isthat to be--for ever? Yes, far worse than in your time. All about us,beneath us, sorrow and pain. All the shallow delight of such life asyou find about you, is separated by just a little from a life ofwretchedness beyond any telling Yes, the poor know it--they know theysuffer. These countless multitudes who faced death for you two nightssince--! You owe your life to them."
"Yes," said Graham, slowly. "Yes. I owe my life to them."
"You come," she said, "from the days when this new tyranny of the citieswas scarcely beginning. It is a tyranny--a tyranny. In your days thefeudal war lords had gone, and the new lordship of wealth had stillto come. Half the men in the world still lived out upon the freecountryside. The cities had still to devour them. I have heard thestories out of the old books--there was nobility! Common men led livesof love and faithfulness then--they did a thousand things. And you--youcome from that time."
"It was not--. But never mind. How is it now--?"
"Gain and the Pleasure Cities! Or slavery--unthanked, unhonoured,slavery."
"Slavery!" he said.
"Slavery."
"You don't mean to say that human beings are chattels."
"Worse. That is what I want you to know, what I want you to see. I knowyou do not know. They will keep things from you, they will take youpresently to a Pleasure City. But you have noticed men and women andchildren in pale blue canvas, with thin yellow faces and dull eyes?"
"Everywhere."
"Speaking a horrible dialect, coarse and weak."
"I have heard it."
"They are the slaves--your slaves. They are the slaves of the LabourCompany you own."
"The Labour Company! In some way--that is familiar. Ah! now I remember.I saw it when I was wandering about the city, after the lights returned,great fronts of buildings coloured pale blue. Do you really mean--?"
"Yes. How can I explain it to you? Of course the blue uniform struckyou. Nearly a third of our people wear it--more assume it now every day.This Labour Company has grown imperceptibly."
"What is this Labour Company?" asked Graham.
"In the old times, how did you manage with starving people?"
"There was the workhouse--which the parishes maintained."
"Workhouse! Yes--there was something. In our history lessons. I remembernow. The Labour Company ousted the workhouse. It grew--partly--outof something--you, perhaps, may remember it--an emotional religiousorganisation called the Salvation Army--that became a business company.In the first place it was almost a charity. To save people fromworkhouse rigours. Now I come to think of it, it was one of the earliestproperties your Trustees acquired. They bought the Salvation Army andreconstructed it as this. The idea in the first place was to give workto starving homeless people."
"Yes."
"Nowadays there are no workhouses, no refuges and charities, nothing butthat Company. Its offices are everywhere. That blue is its colour.And any man, woman or child who comes to be hungry and weary and withneither home nor friend nor resort, must go to the Company in theend--or seek some way of death. The Euthanasy is beyond their means--forthe poor there is no easy death. And at any hour in the day or nightthere is food, shelter and a blue uniform for all comers--that is thefirst condition of the Company's incorporation--and in return for aday's shelter the Company extracts a day's work, and then returns thevisitor's proper clothing and sends him or her out again."
"Yes?"
"Perhaps that does not seem so terrible to you. In your days men starvedin your streets. That was bad. But they died--men. These people inblue--. The proverb runs: 'Blue canvas once and ever.' The Companytrades in their labour, and it has taken care to assure itself of thesupply. People come to it starving and helpless--they eat and sleep fora night and day, they--work for a day, and at the end of the day they goout again. If they have worked well they have a penny or so--enoughfor a theatre or a cheap dancing place, or a kinematograph story, ora dinner or a bet. They wander about after that is spent. Begging isprevented by the police of the ways. Besides, no one gives. They comeback again the next day or the day after--brought back by the sameincapacity that brought them first. At last their proper clothing wearsout, or their rags get so shabby that they are ashamed. Then they mustwork for months to get fresh. If they want fresh. A great number ofchildren are born under the Company's care. The mother owes them amonth thereafter--the children they cherish and educate until theyare fourteen, and they pay two years' service. You may be sure thesechildren are educated for the blue canvas. And so it is the Companyworks."
"And none are destitute in the city?"
"None. They are either in blue canvas or in prison."
"If they will not work?"
"Most people will work at that pitch, and the Company has powers. Thereare stages of unpleasantness in the work--stoppage of food--and a man orwoman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking systemin the Company's offices all over the world. Besides, who can leave thecity poor? To go to Paris costs two Lions. And for insubordinationthere are the prisons--dark and miserable--out of sight below. There areprisons now for many things."
"And a third of the people wear this blue canvas?"
"More than a third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope,with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing in their ears, mocking theirshameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for theEuthanasy, the rich man's refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions,countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of anything butlimitations and unsatisfied desires. They are born, they are thwartedand they die. That is the state to which we have come."
For a space Graham sat downcast.
"But there has been a revolution," he said. "All these things will bechanged." Ostrog--"
"That is our hope. That is the hope of the world. But Ostrog will notdo it. He is a politician. To him it seems things must be like this.He does not mind. He takes it for granted. All the rich, all theinfluential, all who are happy, come at last to take these miseries forgranted. They use the people in their politics, they live in ease bytheir degradation. But you--you who come from a happier age--it is toyou the people look. To you."
He looked at her face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He felta rush of emotion. For a moment he forgot this city, he forgot the race,and all those vague remote voices, in the immediate humanity of herbeauty.
"But what am I to do?" he said with his eyes upon her.
"Rule," she answered, bending towards him and speaking in a low tone."Rule the world as it has never been ruled, for the good and happinessof men. For you might rule it--you could rule it.
"The people are stirring. All over the world the people are stirring. Itwants but a word--but a word from you--to bring them all together. Eventhe middle sort of people are restless unhappy.
"They are not telling you the things that are happening. The people willnot go back to their drudgery--they refuse to be disarmed. Ostrog hasawakened something greater than he dr
eamt of--he has awakened hopes."
His heart was beating fast. He tried to seem judicial, to weighconsiderations.
"They only want their leader," she said.
"And then?"
"You could do what you would;--the world is yours."
He sat, no longer regarding her. Presently he spoke. "The old dreams,and the thing I have dreamt, liberty, happiness. Are they dreams? Couldone man--one man--?" His voice sank and ceased.
"Not one man, but all men--give them only a leader to speak the desireof their hearts."
He shook his head, and for a time there was silence.
He looked up suddenly, and their eyes met. "I have not your faith,"he said. "I have not your youth. I am here with power that mocks me.No--let me speak. I want to do--not right--I have not the strengthfor that--but something rather right than wrong. It will bring nomillennium, but I am resolved now that I will rule. What you have saidhas awakened me.... You are right. Ostrog must know his place. And Iwill learn--.... One thing I promise you. This Labour slavery shallend."
"And you will rule?"
"Yes. Provided--. There is one thing."
"Yes?"
"That you will help me."
"I!--a girl!"
"Yes. Does it not occur to you I am absolutely alone?"
She started and for an instant her eyes had pity. "Need you ask whetherI will help you?" she said.
She stood before him, beautiful, worshipful, and her enthusiasm and thegreatness of their theme was like a great gulf fixed between them. Totouch her, to clasp her hand, was a thing beyond hope. "Then I will ruleindeed," he said slowly. "I will rule-" He paused. "With you."
There came a tense silence, and then the beating a clock striking thehour. She made him no answer. Graham rose.
"Even now," he said, "Ostrog will be waiting." He hesitated, facing her."When I have asked him certain questions--. There is much I do not know.It may be, that I will go to see with my own eyes the things of whichyou have spoken. And when I return--?"
"I shall know of your going and coming. I will wait for you here again."
He stood for a moment regarding her.
"I knew," she said, and stopped.
He waited, but she said no more. They regarded one another steadfastly,questioningly, and then he turned from her towards the Wind Vane office.