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02 - The Machine Stops - E M Forster · Classic Science Fiction Books

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Chapter two, the mending apparatus, by a vestibule, by a lift,
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by a tubular railway, by a platform, by a sliding door. By
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reversing all the steps of her departure, did Vashti arrive at her son's room,
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which exactly resembled her own. She might well declare that the visit was
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superfluous. The buttons, the knobs, the reading desk with the book,
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the temperature, the atmosphere, the illumination all were exactly the same. And
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if Kuno himself, flush of her flush, stood close beside her at last,
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what profit was there? And that she was too well bred to shake
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him by the hand. Averting her eyes, she spoke as follows. Here,
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I am, I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded the
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development of my soul. It is not worth it, Cuno, it is
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not worth it. My time is too precious. The sunlight almost touched me,
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and I have met with the rudest people. I can only stop a
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few minutes, say what you want to say, and then I must return.
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I have been threatened with homelessness, said Kuno. She looked at him.
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Now, I have been threatened with homelessness, and I could not tell
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you such a thing through the machine. Homelessness means death. The victim is
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exposed to the air, which kills him. I have been outside since I
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spoke to you last. The tremendous thing has happened, and they have discovered
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me. But why shouldn't you go outside? She exclaimed. It is perfectly
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legal, perfectly mechanical, to visit the surface of the earth. I have
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lately been to a lecture on the sea. There is no objection in that.
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One simply summons a respirator and gets an aggression permit. It is not
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the kind of thing that spiritually minded people do, and I begged you not
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to do it, but there is no legal objection to it. I did
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not get an aggression permit. Then how did you get out? I found
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out a way of my own. The phrase conveyed no meaning to her,
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and he had to repeat it. A way of your own, she whispered.
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But that would be wrong. Why the question shocked her beyond measure.
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You are beginning to worship the machine, he said coldly. You think it
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irreligious of me to have found out a way of my own. It was
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just what the committee thought when they threatened me with homelessness. At this she
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grew angry. I worship nothing, she cried, I am most advanced.
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I don't think you irreligious, for there is no such thing as religion left.
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All the fear and the superstition that existed once have been destroyed by the
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machine. I only meant that to find out a way of your own was.
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Besides, there is no new way out, so it is always supposed,
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except through the vomitories, for which one must have an aggression permit.
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It is impossible to get out. The book says, so well, the
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book's wrong. I have been out on my feet. Forcuno was possessed of
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a certain physical strength. By these days it was a demerit to be muscular.
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Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were
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destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to
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let an athlete live. He would never have been happy in that state of
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life to which the machine had called him. He would have yearned for trees
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to climb, rivers, to bathe in meadows and hills against which he might
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measure his body. Men must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not.
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In the dawn of our world, our weekly must be exposed on Mount
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Taegatus in its twilight. Our strong will suffer euthanasia. That the machine may
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progress, that the machine may progress, that the machine may progress eternally.
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You know we have lost the sense of space. We say space is annihilated,
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But we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have
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lost a part of ourselves. I determined to recover it, and I began
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by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my room, up
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and down until I was tired, and so did recapture the meaning of near
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and far. Near is a place to which I can get quickly on my
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feet, not a place to which the train or the airship will take me
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quickly. Far is a place to which I cannot get quickly on my feet.
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The vomitory is far, though I could be there in thirty eight seconds
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by summoning the train. Man is the measure that was my first lesson.
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Man's feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership.
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His body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong.
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Then I went further, and it was then that I called to you
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for the first time, and you would not come. This city, as
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you know, is built deep beneath the surface of the earth, with only
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the vomitories protruding. Having paced the platform outside my own room, I took
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the lift to the next platform and paced that also, and so with each
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in turn, until I came to the topmost above, which begins the earth.
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All the platforms were exactly alike, and all that I gained by visiting
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them was to develop my sense of space and my muscles. I think I
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should have been content with this, It is not a little thing. But
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as I walked and brooded, it occurred to me that our cities had been
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built in the days when men still breathed the outer air, and that there
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had been ventilation shafts for the workmen. I could think of nothing but these
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ventilation shafts. Had they been destroyed by all the food tubes and medicine tubes
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and music tubes that the machine has evolved lately, or did traces of them
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remain? One thing was certain. If I came upon them anywhere, it
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would be in the railway tunnels of the topmost story. Everywhere else all space
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was accounted for. I am telling my story quickly. But don't think that
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I was not a coward, or that your answers never depressed me. It
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is not the proper thing. It is not mechanical. It is not decent
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to walk along a railway tunnel. I did not fear that I might tread
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upon a live rail and be killed. I feared something far more intangible,
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doing what was not contemplated by the machine. Then I said to myself,
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man is the measure. And I went, and after many visits I found
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an opening. The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light
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artificial light. Darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap
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in the tiles, I knew it was an exception and rejoiced. I put
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in my arm I could put in no more at first, and waved it
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round and round. In ecstasy. I loosened another tile and put in my
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head and shouted into the darkness, I am coming. I shall do it
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yet, and my voice reverberated down endless passages. I seemed to hear the
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spirit of those dead workmen who had returned each evening to the starlight into their
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wives, and all the generations who had lived in the open air, called
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back to me. You will do it, Yet you are coming. He
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paused, and absurd as he was. His last words moved her. For
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Kuno had lately asked to be a father, and his request had been refused
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by the committee. His was not a type that the machine desired to hand
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on. Then a train passed, it brushed by me. But I thrust
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my head and arms into the hole. I had done enough for one day,
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so I crawled back to the platform, went down in a lift and
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summoned my bed. Ah what dreams? And again I called you, and
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again you refused. She shook her head and said, don't don't talk of
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these terrible things. You make me miserable. You are throwing civilization away.
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But I had got back the sense of space, and a man cannot rest.
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Then I determined to get in at the hole and climb the shaft,
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and so I exercised my arms day after day. I went through ridiculous movements
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until my flesh ached and I could hang by my hands and hold the pillow
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of my bed outstretched for many minutes. Then I summoned a respirator and started.
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It was easy at first, and the mortar had somehow rotted, and
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I soon pushed some more tiles in and clambered after them into the darkness,
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and the spirits of the dead comforted me. I don't know what I mean
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by that. I just say what I felt. I felt for the first
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time that a protest had been lodged against corruption, and that even as the
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dead were comforting me, so I was comforting the unborn. I felt that
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humanity existed, and that it existed without clothes. How can I possibly explain
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this? It was naked, humidity seemed naked. And all these tubes and
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buttons and machineries neither came into the world with us, nor will they follow
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us out, nor do they matter supremely while we are here. Had I
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been strong, I would have torn off every garment I had and gone out
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into the outer air unswaddled. But this is not for me, nor perhaps
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for my generation. I climbed with my respirator and my hygienic clothes and my
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dietetic tabloids. Better thus than not at all. There was a ladder made
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of some primeval metal. The light from the railway fell upon its lowest wrongs,
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and I saw that it led straight upwards out of the rubble at the
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bottom of the shaft. Perhaps our ancestors ran up and down it a dozen
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times daily in their building. As I climbed, the rough edges cut through
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my gloves so that my hands bled. The light helped me for a while,
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and then came darkness and worse still, silence, which pierced my ears
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like a sword. The machine hums. Did you know that its hum penetrates
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our blood? It may even guide our thoughts? Who knows I was getting
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beyond its power? Then I thought, this silence means that I am doing
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wrong. But I heard voices in the silence, and again they strengthened me.
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He laughed, I had need of them. The next moment I cracked
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my head against something. She sighed, I had reached one of those pneumatic
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stoppers that defend us from the outer air. You may have noticed them on
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the air ship. Pitch dark, my feet on the wrongs of an invisible
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ladder, my hands cut. I cannot explain how I lived through this part,
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but the voices still comforted me, and I felt for fastenings. The
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stopper, I suppose, was about eight feet across. I passed my hand
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over it as far as I could reach. It was perfectly smooth. I
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felt it almost to the center, not quite to the center, for my
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arm was too short. Then the voice said, jump. It is worth
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it. There may be a handle in the center, and you may catch
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hold of it, and so come to us your own way. And if
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there is no handle, so that you may fall and are dashed to pieces,
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it is still worth it. You will still come to us your own
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way. So I jumped. There was a handle, and he paused.
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Tears gathered in his mother's eyes. She knew that he was faded. If
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he did not die to day, he would die tomorrow. There was not
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room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled,
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she was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always
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been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy
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to whom she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to
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whom she had given his first lessons in the book? The very hair that
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disfigured his lips showed that he was reverting to some savage type on ativism.
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The machine can have no mercy. There was a handle, and I did
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catch it. I hung tranced over the darkness and heard the hum of these
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workings as the last whisper in a dying dream. All these things I had
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cared about, and all the people I had spoken to through tubes appeared infinitely
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little. Meanwhile, the handle revolved, My weight had set something in motion,
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and I spanned slowly. And then I cannot describe it. I was
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lying with my face to the sun shine. Blood poured from my nose and
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ears, and I heard a tremendous roaring. The stopper, with me clinging
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to it, had simply been blown out of the earth, and the air
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that we make down here was escaping through the vent into the air above.
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It burst up like a fountain. I crawled back to it for the upper
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air hurts, and as it were, I took great SIPs from the edge.
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My respirator had flown goodness knows where, and my clothes were torn.
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I just lay with my lips close to the hole, and I sipped until
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the bleeding stopped. You can imagine nothing so curious this hollow in the grass.
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I will speak of it in a minute. The sun shining into it,
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not brilliantly, but through marble clouds, the peace, the nonchalance,
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the sense of space, and brushing my cheek the roaring fountain of our artificial
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air. Soon I spied my respirator bobbing up and down in the current.
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High above my head, and higher still were the many airships. But no
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one ever looks out of airship, and in my case, they could not
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have picked me up. There I was stranded. The sun shone a little
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way down the shaft and revealed the topmost wrong of the ladder, but it
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was hopeless trying to reach it. I should either have been tossed up again
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by the escape, or else have fallen in and died. I could only
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lie on the grass, sipping and sipping, and from time to time glancing
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around me. I knew that I was in Wessex, for I had taken
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care to go to a lecture on the subject before starting. Wessex lies above
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the room in which we are talking now. It was once an important state.
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Its kings held all the southern coast from the Andred's Wall to Cornwall,
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while Wansdyke protected them on the north, running over the high ground. The
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lecturer was only concerned with the rise of Wessex so I do not know how
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long it remained in international power, nor would the knowledge have assisted me to
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tell the truth. I could do nothing but laugh during this part. There
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was I with a pneumatic stopper by my side and a respirator bobbing above my
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head. Imprisoned all three of us in a grass grown hollow that was edged
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with fern. Then he grew grave again. Lucky for me that it was
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a hollow, for the air began to fall back into it and to fill
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it as water fills a bowl. I could crawl about. Presently I stood,
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I breathed a mixture in which the air that hurts predominated whenever I tried
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to climb the sides. This was not so bad. I had not lost
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my tabloids and remained ridiculously cheerful. And as for the machine, I forgot
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about it altogether. My one aim now was to get to the top where
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the ferns were, and to view whatever objects lay beyond. I rushed the
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slope. The new air was still too bitter for me, and I came
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rolling back after a momentary vision of something gray. The sun grew very feeble,
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and I remembered that he was in Scorpio. I had been to a
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lecture on that too. If the sun is in scorpio and you are in
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Wessex, it means that you must be as quick as you can or it
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will get too dark. This is the first bit of useful information I have
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ever got from a lecture, and I expect it will be the last.
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It made me try frantically to breathe the new air and to advance as far
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as I dared out of my pond. The hollow filled so slowly at times
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I thought that the fountain played with less vigor. My respirators seemed to dance
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nearer the earth. The roar was decreasing. He broke off. I don't
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think this is interesting to you. The rest will interest you even less.
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There are no ideas in it, and I wish I had not troubled you
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to come. We are too different. Mother, She told him to continue.
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It was evening before I climbed the bank. The sun had very nearly
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slipped out of the sky by this time, and I could not get a
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good view. You, who have just crossed the roof of the world will
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not want to hear an account of the little hills that I saw low colorless
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hills. But to me they were living, and the turf that covered them
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was a skin under which their muscles rippled. And I felt that those hills
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had called with incalculable force to men in the past, and that the men
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had loved them. Now they sleep, perhaps forever, they commune with humanity
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in dreams. Happy the man, Happy the woman who awakes the hills of
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Wessex, For though they sleep, they will never die. His voice rose
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passionately, Cannot you see, cannot all your lectures see that it is we
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who are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is
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the machine. We created the machine to do our will, but we cannot
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make it do our will. Now it has robbed us of the sense of
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space and of the sense of touch. It has blurred every human relation and
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narrowed down love to a carnal act. It has paralyzed our bodies and our
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wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The machine develops,
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but not on our lines. The machine proceeds, but not to our goal.
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We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries. And
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if it could work without us, it would let us die. Oh,
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I have no remedy, or at least only one to tell men again and
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again that I have seen the hills of Wessex as Alfred saw them when he
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overthrew the Danes. So the sun set, I forgot to mention that a
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belt of mist lay between my hill and other hills, and that it was
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the color of pearl. He broke off for the second time. Go On,
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said his mother wearily. He shook his head. Go On, nothing
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that you say can distress me. Now I am hardened. I had meant
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to tell you the rest, but I cannot. I know that I cannot.
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Good Bye. Vashti stood irresolute. All her nerves were tingling with his
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blasphemies. But she was also inquisitive. This is unfair, she complained.
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You have called me across the world to hear your story, and hear it.
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I will tell me as briefly as possible, for this is a disastrous
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waste of time. Tell me how you return to civilization, Oh that,
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he said, starting you would like to hear about civilization? Certainly, had
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I got to where my respirator fell down? No, but I understand everything.
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Now you put on your respirator and managed to walk along the surface of
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the earth to a vomitory, and there your conduct was reported to the Central
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Committee by no means. He passed his hand over his forehead, as if
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dispelling some strong impression. Then resuming his narrative, he warmed to it again.
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My respirator fell about sunset. I had mentioned that the fountain seemed feebler.
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Had I not yes about sunset? It let the respirator fall, As
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I said, I had entirely forgotten about the machine, and I paid no
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great attention at the time, being occupied with other things. I had my
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pool of air into which I could dip when the outer keenness became intolerable,
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and which would possibly remain for days, provided that no wind sprang up to
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disperse it. Not until it was too late did I realize what the stoppage
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of the escape implied. You see, the gap in the tunnel had been
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mended the mending apparatus. The mending apparatus was after me. One other warning
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I had, but I neglected it. The sky at night was clearer than
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it had been in the day, and the moon, which was about half
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the sky behind the sun, shone into the dell at moments quite brightly.
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I was in my usual place on the boundary between the two atmospheres when I
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thought I saw something dark move across the bottom of the dell and vanish into
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the shaft. In my folly, I ran down. I bent over and
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listened, and I thought I heard a faint scraping noise in the depths at
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this but it was too late. I took alarm. I determined to put
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on my respirator and to walk right out of the dell. But my respirator
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had gone. I knew exactly where it had fallen, between the stopper and
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the aperture, and I could even feel the mark that it had made in
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the turf. It had gone, and I realized that something evil was at
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work, and I had better escape to the outer air. And if I
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must die, die running towards the cloud that had been the color of a
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pearl. I never started out of the shaft. It is too horrible.
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A worm, a long, white worm, had crawled out of the shaft
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and was gliding over the moonlit grass. I screamed. I did everything that
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I should not have done. I stamped upon the creature instead of flying from
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it, and it at once curled around my ankle. Then we fought the
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worm let me run all over the dell, but edged up my leg as
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I ran. Help, I cried, that part is too awful. It
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belongs to the part that you will never know. Help, I cried,
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Why cannot we suffer in silence? Help? I cried? Then my feet
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were wound together. I fell. I was dragged away from the deer ferns
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in the living hills and passed the great metal stopper. I can tell you
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this part, and I thought it might save me again if I caught hold
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of the handle. It also was enwrapped it also. Oh, the whole
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dell was full of the things. They were searching it in all directions.
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They were denuding it, and the white snouts of others peeped out of the
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hole, ready if needed. Everything that could be moved. They brought brushwood,
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bundles of fern, everything, and down we all went, intertwined into
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hell. The last things that I saw ere the stopper closed after us,
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were certain stars, and I felt that a man of my sort lived in
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the sky. For I did fight. I fought till the very end,
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and it was only my head hitting against the ladder that quieted me. I
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woke up in this room. The worms had vanished. I was surrounded by
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artificial light, artificial air, artificial peace, and my friends were calling to
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me down speaking tubes, to know whether I had come across any new ideas
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lately. Here his story ended, discussion of it was impossible, and Vashti
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turned to go It will end in homelessness, she said quietly. I wish
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it would, retorted Cuno, the machine has been most merciful. I prefer
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the mercy of God. By that superstitious phrase, do you mean that you
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could live in the outer air? Yes? Have you ever seen round the
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vomitories the bones of those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion? Yes,
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they were left where they perished for our edification. A few crawled away,
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but they perished too. Who can doubt it? And so with the homeless
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of our own day. The surface of the earth supports life no longer.
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Indeed, ferns and a little grass may survive, but all higher life forms
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have perished. Has any airship detected them? No, has any lecturer dealt
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with them? No? Then why this obstinacy? Because I have seen them?
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He exploded, Seen what? Because I have seen her in the twilight,
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because she came to my help when I called, Because she too was
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entangled by the worms, and luckier than I, was killed by one of
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them, piercing her throat. He was mad Vashti departed, nor in the
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troubles that followed did she ever see his face again. End of chapter two.