Across the Zodiac Read online

  CHAPTER VI - AN OFFICIAL VISIT.

  At this point of our conversation an amba entered the room and madecertain signs which my host immediately understood.

  "The Zampta," he said, "has called upon me, evidently on your account,and probably with some message from his Suzerain. You need not beafraid," he added. "At worst they would only refuse you protection,and I could secure you from danger under my own roof, and in the lastextremity effect your retreat and return to your own planet; supposingfor a moment," he added, smiling, "that you are a real being and comefrom a real world."

  The Regent of that dominion, the only Martialist outside my host'sfamily with whom I had yet been able to converse, awaited us in thehall or entrance chamber. I bowed low to him, and then remainedstanding. My host, also saluting his visitor, at once took his seat.The Regent, returning the salute and seating himself, proceeded toaddress us; very little ceremony on either side being observed betweenthis autocratic deputy of an absolute Sovereign and his subjects.

  "Esmo _dent Ecasfen_" said the Regent, "will you point out the personyou declare yourself to have rescued from assault and received intoyour house on the 431st day of this year?"

  "That is the person, Regent," said my host, pointing to me.

  The visitor then asked my name, which I gave, and addressing methereby, he continued--

  "The Campta has requested me to ascertain the truth regarding youralleged size, so far exceeding anything hitherto known among us. Youwill permit me, therefore, to measure your height and girth."

  I bowed, and he proceeded to ascertain that I was about a foot tallerand some ten inches larger round the waist than himself. Of thesefacts he took note, and then proceeded--

  "The signs you made to those who first encountered you were understoodto mean that you descended from the sky, in a vessel which is now lefton the summit of yonder mountain, Asnyca."

  "I did not descend from the sky," I replied, "for the sky is, as weboth know, no actual vault or boundary of the atmospheric depths. Iascended from a world nearer to the Sun, and after travelling forforty days through space, landed upon this planet in the vessel youmention."

  "I am directed," he answered, "to see this vessel, to inspect yourmachinery and instruments, and to report thereon to the Suzerain. Youwill doubtless be ready to accompany me thither to-morrow two hoursafter sunrise. You may be accompanied, if you please, by your host orany members of his family; I shall be attended by one or more of myofficers. In the meantime I am to inform you that, until my report hasbeen received and considered, you are under the protection of the law,and need not apprehend any molestation of the kind you incurred atfirst. You will not, however, repeat to any one but myself theexplanation you have offered of your appearance--which, I understand,has been given in fuller detail to Esmo--until the decision of theCampta shall have been communicated to you."

  I simply bowed my assent; and after this brief but sufficientfulfilment of the purpose for which he had called, the Regent took hisleave.

  "What," I asked, when we re-entered my chamber, "is the meaning of thetitle by which the Regent addressed you?"

  "In speaking to officials," he replied, "of rank so high as his, it iscustomary to address them simply by their titles, unless more than oneof the same rank be present, in which case we call them, as we doinferior officials, by their name with the title appended. Forinstance, in the Court of the Sovereign our Regent would be calledEndo Zampta. Men of a certain age and social position, but having nooffice, are addressed by their name and that of their residence; and,_asfe_ meaning a town or dwelling, usage gives me the name of Esmo, inor of the town of Eca.

  "I am sorry," he went on, "that neither my son nor myself canaccompany you to-morrow. All the elder members of my family areengaged to attend at some distance hence before the hour at which youcan return. But I should not like you to be alone with strangers; and,independently of this consideration, I should perhaps have asked ofyou a somewhat unusual favour. My daughter Eveena, who, like most of_our_ women" (he laid a special emphasis on the pronoun) "has receiveda better education than is now given in the public academies, has beenfrom the first greatly interested in your narrative and in all youhave told us of the world from which you come. She is anxious to seeyour vessel, and I had hoped to take her when I meant to visit it inyour company. But after to-morrow I cannot tell when you may besummoned to visit the Campta, or whether after that visit you arelikely to return hither. I will ask you, therefore, if you do notobject to what I confess is an unusual proceeding, to take Eveenaunder your charge to-morrow."

  "Is it," I inquired, "permissible for a young lady to accompany astranger on such an excursion?"

  "It is very unusual," returned my host; "but you must observe thathere family ties are, as a rule, unknown. It cannot be usual for amaiden to be attended by father or brother, since she knows neither.It is only by a husband that a girl can, as a rule, be attendedabroad. Our usages render such attendance exceedingly close, and, onthe other hand, forbid strangers to interrupt or take notice thereof.In Eveena's presence the Regent will find it difficult to draw youinto conversation which might be inconvenient or dangerous; andespecially cannot attempt to gratify, by questioning you, anycuriosity as to myself or my family."

  "But," I said, "from what you say, it seems that the Regent and anyone who might accompany him would draw inferences which might not beagreeable to you or to the young lady."

  "I hardly understand you," he replied. "The only conjecture they couldmake, which they will certainly make, is that you are, or are about tobe, married to her; and as they will never see her again, and, if theydid, could not recognise her--as they will not to-morrow know anythingsave that she belongs to my household, and certainly will not speak toher--I do not see how their inference can affect her. When I part withher, it will be to some one of my own customs and opinions; and to usthis close confinement of girls appears to transcend reasonablerestraint, as it contradicts the theoretical freedom and equalitygranted by law to the sex, but utterly withheld by the social usageswhich have grown out of that law."

  "I can only thank you for giving me a companion more agreeable thanthe official who is to report upon my reality," I said.

  "I do not desire," he continued, "to bind you to any reserve inreplying to questions, beyond what I am sure you will do without apledge--namely, to avoid betraying more than you can help of thatwhich is not known outside my own household. But on this subject I maybe able to speak more fully after to-morrow. Now, if you will comeinto the peristyle, we shall be in time for the evening meal."

  Eveena's curiosity had in nowise overcome her silent shyness. Shemight possibly have completed her tenth year, which epoch in the lifeof Mars is about equivalent to the seventeenth birthday of a damselnurtured in North-Western Europe. I hardly think that I had addressedher directly half-a-dozen times, or had received from her a dozenwords in return. I had been attracted, nevertheless, not only by hergrace and beauty, but by the peculiar sweetness of her voice and thegentleness of her manner and bearing when engaged in pacifying disputeor difficulty among the children, and particularly in dealing with thehalf-deformed spoilt infant of which I have spoken. This evening thatlittle brat was more than usually exasperating, and having exhaustedthe patience or repelled the company of all the rest, found itselfalone, and set up a fretful, continuous scream, disagreeable even tome, and torturing to Martial ears, which, adapted to hear in that thinair, are painfully alive to strident, harsh, or even loud sounds.Instantly obeying a sign from her mother, Eveena rose in the middle ofa conversation to which she had listened with evident interest, anddevoted herself for half-an-hour to please and pacify thisuncomfortable child. The character and appearance of this infant, soutterly unlike all its companions, had already excited my curiosity,but I had found no opportunity of asking a question without risking animpertinence. On this occasion, however, I ventured to make someremark on the extreme gentleness and forbearance with which not onlyEveena but the children treated their peevish
and exacting brother.

  "He is no brother of theirs," said Zulve, the mistress of the house."You would hardly find in any family like ours a child with soirritable a temper or a disposition so selfish, and nowhere a creatureso hardly treated by Nature in body as well as mind."

  "Indeed," I said, hardly understanding her answer.

  "No," said my host. "It is the rule to deprive of life, promptly andpainlessly, children to whom, from physical deformity or defect, lifeis thought unlikely to be pleasant, and whose descendants might be aburden to the public and a cause of physical deterioration to therace. It is, however, one of the exceptional tenets to which I havebeen obliged to allude, that man should not seek to be wiser thanNature; and that life should neither be cut short, except as apunishment for great crimes, nor prolonged artificially contrary tothe manifest intention, or, as our philosophers would say, the commoncourse of Nature. Those who think with me, therefore, alwaysendeavour, when we hear in time of their approaching fate, to preservechildren so doomed. Precautions against undue haste or readiness todestroy lives that might, after all, grow up to health and vigour areprovided by law. No single physician or physiologist can sign adeath-warrant; and I, though no longer a physician by craft, am amongthe arbiters, one or more of whom must be called in to approve orsuspend the decision. On these occasions I have rescued fromextinction several children of whose unfitness to live, according tothe standard of the State Nurseries, there was no question, and placedthem in families, mostly childless, that were willing to receive them.Of this one it was our turn to take charge; and certainly his chanceis better for being brought up among other children, and under theinfluence of their gentler dispositions and less exactingtemperaments."

  "And is such ill-temper and selfishness," I asked, "generally foundamong the deformed?"

  "I don't think," replied Esmo, "that this child is much worse thanmost of my neighbours' children, except that physical discomfort makeshim fretful. What you call selfishness in him is only the naturalinheritance derived from an ancestry who for some hundred generationshave certainly never cared for anything or any one but themselves. Ithought I had explained to you by what train of circumstances and ofreasoning family affection, such as it is reputed to have beenthousands of years ago, has become extinct in this planet; and, familyaffection extinguished, all weaker sentiments of regard for otherswere very quickly withered up."

  "You told me something of the kind," I said; "but the idea of a lifeso utterly swallowed up in self that no one even thinks it necessaryto affect regard for and interest in others, was to me sounintelligible and inconceivable that I did not realise the fullmeaning of your account. Nor even now do I understand how a societyformed of such members can be held together. On Earth we should expectthem either to tear one another to pieces, or to relapse intoisolation and barbarism lower than that of the lowest tribe whichpreserves social instincts and social organisation. A society composedof men resembling that child, but with the intelligence, force, andconsistent purpose of manhood, would, I should have thought, be littlebetter than a congregation of beasts of prey."

  "We have such beasts," said Esmo, "in the wild lands, and they arecertainly unsociable and solitary. But men, at least civilised men,are governed not only by instinct but by interest, and the interest ofeach individual in the preservation of social co-operation and socialorder is very evident and very powerful. Experience and schooldiscipline cure children of the habit of indulging mere temper andspite before they come to be men, and they are taught by practice aswell as by precept the absolute necessity of co-operation. Egotism,therefore, has no tendency to dissolve society as a mere organisation,though it has utterly destroyed society as a source of pleasure."

  "Does your law," I asked, "confine the principle of euthanasia toinfants, or do you put out of the world adults whose life is supposed,for one reason or another, to be useless and joyless?"

  "Only," he answered, "in the case of the insane. When the doctors aresatisfied that a lunatic cannot be cured, an inquest is held; and ifthe medical verdict be approved, he is quietly and painlesslydismissed from existence. Logically, of course, the same principleshould be applied to all incurable disease; and I suspect--indeed Iknow--that it is applied when the household have become weary, and thepatient is utterly unable to protect himself or appeal to the law. Butthe general application of the principle has been successfullyresisted, on the ground that the terror it would cause, the constantanxiety and alarm in which men would live if the right of judging whenlife had become worthless to them were left to others, would faroutweigh any benefit which might be derived from the legalisedextinction of existences which had become a prolonged misery; and suchcases, as I have told you, are very rare among us. A case of hopelessbodily suffering, not terminating very speedily in death, does notoccur thrice a year among the whole population of the planet, exceptthrough accident. We have means of curing at the outset almost all ofthose diseases which the observance for hundreds of generations ofsound physical conditions of life has not extirpated; and in the worstinstances our anaesthetics seldom fail to extinguish the sense of painwithout impairing intellect. Of course, any one who is tired of hislife is at liberty to put an end to it, and any one else may assisthim. But, though the clinging to existence is perhaps the mostirrational of all those purely animal instincts on emancipation fromwhich we pride ourselves, it is the strongest and the most lasting.The life of most of my countrymen would be to me intolerableweariness, if only from the utter want, after wealth is attained, ofall warmer and less isolated interest than some one pet scientificpursuit can afford; and yet more from the total absence of affection,family duties, and the various mental occupations which interest inothers affords. But though the question whether life is worth livinghas long ago been settled among us in the negative, suicide, thelogical outcome of that conviction, is the rarest of all the methodsby which life is terminated."

  "Which seems to show that even in Mars logic does not always dominatelife and prevail over instinct. But what is the most usual cause ofdeath, where neither disease nor senility are other than rareexceptions?"

  "Efflux of time," Esmo replied with an ironical smile. "That is thechief fatal disease recognised by our physicians."

  "And what is its nature?"

  "Ah, that neither I nor any other physician can tell you. Life 'goesout,' like a lamp when the materials supplying the electric currentare exhausted; and yet here all the waste of which physic can takecognisance is fully repaired, and the circuit is not broken."

  "What are the symptoms, then?"

  "They are all reducible to one--exhaustion of the will, the primeelement of personality. The patient ceases to _care_. It is too muchtrouble to work; then too much trouble to read; then too much troubleto exert even those all but mechanical powers of thought which arenecessary to any kind of social intercourse--to give an order, toanswer a question, to recognise a name or a face: then even thepassions die out, till the patient cannot be provoked to rate a stupidamba or a negligent wife; finally, there is not energy to dress orundress, to rise up or sit down. Then the patient is allowed to die:if kept alive perforce, he would finally lack the energy to eat oreven to breathe. And yet, all this time, the man is alive, the self isthere; and I have prolonged life, or rather renewed it, for a time, bysome chance stimulus that has reached the inner sight through thethickening veil, and shocked the essential man into willing andthinking once more as he thought and willed when he was younger thanhis grandchildren are now.... It is well that some of us who know besthow long the flesh may be kept in life, are, in right of that veryknowledge, proof against the wish to keep the life in the flesh forever."