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03 - The Machine Stops - E M Forster · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Homeless. During the years that followed Cuno's escapade,
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Speaker 1: two important developments took place in the machine. On the surface,
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Speaker 1: they were revolutionary, but in either case men's minds had
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Speaker 1: been prepared beforehand, and they did but express tendencies that
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Speaker 1: were latent already. The first of these was the abolition
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Speaker 1: of respirators. Advanced thinkers like Vashti had always held it
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Speaker 1: foolish to visit the surface of the Earth. Airships might
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Speaker 1: be necessary, but what was the good of going out
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Speaker 1: for mere curiosity and crawling along for a mile or
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Speaker 1: two in a terrestrial motor. The habit was vulgar and
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Speaker 1: perhaps faintly improper. It was unproductive of ideas and had
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Speaker 1: no connection with the habits that really mattered. So respirators
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Speaker 1: were abolished, and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors,
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Speaker 1: and except for a few lecturers who complained that they
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Speaker 1: were debarred access to their subject matter, the development was
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Speaker 1: accepted quietly. Those who still wanted to know what the
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Speaker 1: Earth was like had, after all, only to listen to
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Speaker 1: some gramophone or to look into some cinematophote, And even
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Speaker 1: the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on
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Speaker 1: the sea was nonetheless stimulating when compiled out of other
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Speaker 1: lectures that had already been delivered on the same subject.
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Speaker 1: Beware of first hand ideas, exclaimed one of the most
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Speaker 1: advanced of them. First Hand ideas do not really exist.
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Speaker 1: They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear.
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Speaker 1: And on this gross foundation, who could erect a philosophy.
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Speaker 1: Let your ideas be second hand, and, if possible, tenth hand,
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Speaker 1: for then they will be far removed from that disturbing
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Speaker 1: element direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject
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Speaker 1: of mine, the French Revolution. Learn instead, would I think
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Speaker 1: that en Chermond thought, Urizen thought, Gutsch thought, Ho Young thought,
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Speaker 1: Chibo Singh thought, Lafcadio Hearn thought, Carlyle thought. Mirabeau said
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Speaker 1: about the French Revolution. Through the medium of these eight
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Speaker 1: great minds, the blood that was shed at Paris and
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Speaker 1: the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified
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Speaker 1: to an idea which you may employ most profitably in
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Speaker 1: your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are
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Speaker 1: many and varied. For in history, one authority exists to
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Speaker 1: counteract another. Urazen must counteract the skepticism of how young
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Speaker 1: and enchremon I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutsch.
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Speaker 1: You who listen to me are in a better position
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Speaker 1: to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your
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Speaker 1: descendants will be even in a better position than you,
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Speaker 1: for they will learn what you think I think. And
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Speaker 1: yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And
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Speaker 1: in time, his voice rose, there will come a generation
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Speaker 1: that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colorless,
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Speaker 1: a generation seraphically free from taint of personality, which will
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Speaker 1: see the French Revolution, not as it happened, nor as
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Speaker 1: they would like it to have happened, but as it
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Speaker 1: would have happened had it taken place in the days
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Speaker 1: of the machine. Tremendous applause greeted this lecture, which did
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Speaker 1: but voice a feeling already latent in the minds of men,
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Speaker 1: a feeling that terrestrial facts must be ignored, and that
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Speaker 1: the abolition of respirators was a positive gain. It was
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Speaker 1: even suggested that airships should be abolished too. This was
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Speaker 1: not done because airships had somehow worked themselves into the
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Speaker 1: machine system, but year by year they were used less
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Speaker 1: and mentioned less by thoughtful men. The second great development
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Speaker 1: was the re establishment of religion. This too had been
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Speaker 1: voiced in the celebrated lecture. No one could mistake their
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Speaker 1: reverent tone in which the peroration had concluded, and it
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Speaker 1: awakened a responsive echo in the heart of each Those
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Speaker 1: who had long worshiped silently now began to talk. They
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Speaker 1: described the strange feeling of peace that came over them
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Speaker 1: when they handled the book of the machine, the pleasure
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Speaker 1: that it was to repeat certain numerals out of it,
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Speaker 1: however little meeting those numerals, conveyed to the outward ear,
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Speaker 1: the ecstasy of touching a button, however unimportant, or ringing
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Speaker 1: an electric bell, however superfluously. The machine, they exclaimed, feeds
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Speaker 1: us and clothes us and houses us. Through it, we
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Speaker 1: speak to one another. Through it, we see one another.
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Speaker 1: In it, we have our being. The machine is the
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Speaker 1: friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition. The machine
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Speaker 1: is omnipotent, eternal. Blessed is the machine. And before long
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Speaker 1: this elocution was printed on the first page of the book,
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Speaker 1: and in subsequent editions, the rituals swelled into a complicated
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Speaker 1: system of praise and prayer. The word religion was sedulously avoided,
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Speaker 1: and in theory the machine was still the creation and
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Speaker 1: the implement of man. But in practice all save a
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Speaker 1: few retrogrades worshiped it as divine, nor was it worshiped
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Speaker 1: in unity. One believer would be chiefly impressed by the
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Speaker 1: blue optic plates through which he saw other believers, Others
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Speaker 1: by the mending apparatus, which sinful Cudo had compared to worms,
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Speaker 1: another by the liths, another by the book, and each
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Speaker 1: would pray to this or to that, and ask it
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Speaker 1: to intercede for him with the machine as a whole
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Speaker 1: persecution that was also present. It did not break out,
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Speaker 1: for reasons that will be set forward shortly, but it
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Speaker 1: was latent, and all who did not accept the minimum
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Speaker 1: known as undenominational mechanism lived in danger of homelessness, which
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Speaker 1: means death, as we know. To attribute these two great
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Speaker 1: developments to the Central Committee is to take a very
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Speaker 1: narrow view of civilization. The Central Committee announced the developments,
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Speaker 1: it is true, but they were no more the cause
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Speaker 1: of them than were the kings of the imperialistic period
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Speaker 1: the cause of war. Rather, did they yield to some
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Speaker 1: invincible pressure which came no one knew whither, and which,
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Speaker 1: when gratified, was succeeded by some new pressure equally invincible.
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Speaker 1: To such a state of affairs, it is convenient to
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Speaker 1: give the name of progress. No one confessed the machine
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Speaker 1: was out of hand. Year by year it was served
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Speaker 1: with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence. The better a man
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Speaker 1: knew his own duties upon it, the less he understood
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Speaker 1: the duties of his neighbor. And in all the world
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Speaker 1: there was not one who understood the monster as a whole.
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Speaker 1: Those master brains had perished. They had left full directions,
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Speaker 1: it is true, and their successors had, each of them
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Speaker 1: mastered a portion of those directions. But humanity, in its
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Speaker 1: desire for comfort, had overreached itself. It had exploited the
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Speaker 1: riches of nature too far, quietly and complacently. It was
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Speaker 1: sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the
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Speaker 1: progress of the machine. As for Vashti, her life went
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Speaker 1: peacefully forward until the final disaster. She made her room
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Speaker 1: dark and slept, She awoke and made the room light.
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Speaker 1: She lectured and attended lectures. She exchanged ideas with her
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Speaker 1: innumerable friends, and believed she was growing more spiritual. At times,
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Speaker 1: a friend was granted euthanasia and left his or her
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Speaker 1: room for the homelessness that is beyond all human conception.
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Speaker 1: Vashi did not much mind. After an unsuccessful lecture, She
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Speaker 1: would sometimes ask for euthanasia herself, but the death rate
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Speaker 1: was not permitted to exceed the birth rate, and the
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Speaker 1: machine had hitherto refused it to her. The troubles began quietly,
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Speaker 1: long before she was conscious of them. One day, she
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Speaker 1: was astonished at receiving a message from her son. They
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Speaker 1: never communicated, having nothing in common, and she had only
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Speaker 1: heard indirectly that he was still alive and had been
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Speaker 1: transferred from the northern hemisphere, where he had behaved so mischievously,
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Speaker 1: to the southern, indeed, to a room not far from
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Speaker 1: her own. Does he want me to visit him? She thought,
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Speaker 1: Never again, never, and I have not the time. No,
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Speaker 1: it was madness of another kind. He refused to visualize
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Speaker 1: his face upon the blue plate, and, speaking out of
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Speaker 1: the darkness with solemnity, said, the machine stops. What do
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Speaker 1: you say? The machine is stopping. I know it, I
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Speaker 1: know the signs. She burst into a peal of laughter.
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Speaker 1: He hurt her and was angry, and they spoke no more.
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Speaker 1: Can you imagine anything more absurd, She cried to a friend,
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Speaker 1: A man who was my son, believed that the machine
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Speaker 1: is stopping. It would be impious if it was not mad.
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Speaker 1: The machine is stopping. Her friend replied, what does that mean?
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Speaker 1: The phrase conveys nothing to me, nor to me he
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Speaker 1: does not refer I suppose to the trouble there has
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Speaker 1: been lately with the music. Oh no, of course not.
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Speaker 1: Let us talk about music. Have you complained to the authorities, Yes,
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Speaker 1: and they say it wants mending, and referred me to
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Speaker 1: the committee of the mending apparatus. I complained of those curious,
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Speaker 1: gasping sighs that disfigure the symphonies of the Brisbane school.
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Speaker 1: They sound like someone in pain. The Committee of the
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Speaker 1: mending apparatus say that it shall be remedied shortly, obscurely. Worried,
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Speaker 1: she resumed her life. For one thing, the defect in
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Speaker 1: the music irritated her. For another thing, she could not
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Speaker 1: forget Kuno's speech. If he had known that the music
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Speaker 1: was out of repair, he could not know it, for
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Speaker 1: he detested music. If he had known that it was wrong,
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Speaker 1: the machine stops was exactly the venomous sort of remark
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Speaker 1: he would have made. Of course, he had made it
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Speaker 1: at a venture. But the coincidence annoyed her, and she
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Speaker 1: spoke with some petulance to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus.
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Speaker 1: They replied, as before, that the defects would be set
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Speaker 1: right shortly, shortly, at once. She retorted, why should I
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Speaker 1: be worried by imperfect music? Things are always put right
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Speaker 1: at once. If you do not mend it at once,
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Speaker 1: I shall complain to the Central Committee. No personal complaints
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Speaker 1: are received by the Central Committee. The Committee of the
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Speaker 1: Mending Apparatus replied, through whom am I to make my complaint?
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Speaker 1: Then through us I complain, Then your complaints shall be
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Speaker 1: forwarded in its turn? Have others complained? This question was unmechanical,
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Speaker 1: and the Committee of the Mending Apparatus refused to answer it.
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Speaker 1: It is too bad, she exclaimed to another of her friends.
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Speaker 1: There never was such an unfortunate woman as myself. I
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Speaker 1: can never be sure of my music. Now it gets
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Speaker 1: worse and worse each time I summon it. I too
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Speaker 1: have my troubles, the friend replied, Sometimes my ideas are
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Speaker 1: in interrupted by a slight jarring noise. What is it?
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Speaker 1: I do not know whether it is inside my head
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Speaker 1: or inside the wall complaint. In either case, I have complained,
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Speaker 1: and my complaint will be forwarded in its turn to
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Speaker 1: the Central Committee. Time passed, and they resented the defects
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Speaker 1: no longer. The defects had not been remedied, but the
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Speaker 1: human tissues in that latter day had become so subservient
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Speaker 1: that they readily adapted themselves to every caprice of the machine.
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Speaker 1: The sigh of the crisis of the Brisbane Symphony no
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Speaker 1: longer irritated Vashti. She accepted it as part of the melody.
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Speaker 1: The jarring noise, whether in the head or in the wall,
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Speaker 1: was no longer resented by her friend. And so with
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Speaker 1: the moldy artificial fruit, and so with the bath water
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Speaker 1: that began to stink, and so with the defective rhymes
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Speaker 1: that the poetry machine had taken to emit all were
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Speaker 1: bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten.
10:53
Speaker 1: Things went from bad to worse unchallenged. It was otherwise
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Speaker 1: with the failure of the sleeping apparatus that was a
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Speaker 1: more serious stoppage. There came a day when over the
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Speaker 1: whole world, in Sumatra, in Wessex, in the innumerable cities
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Speaker 1: of Courland and Brazil. The bends, when summoned by their
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Speaker 1: tired owners, failed to appear. It may seem a ludicrous matter,
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Speaker 1: but from it we may date the collapse of humanity.
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Speaker 1: The committee responsible for the failure was assailed by complainants,
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Speaker 1: whom it referred as usual to the Committee of the
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Speaker 1: Mending Apparatus, who in its turn assured them that their
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Speaker 1: complaints would be forwarded to the central Committee. But the
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Speaker 1: discontent grew, for mankind was not yet sufficiently adaptable to
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Speaker 1: do without sleeping. Someone is meddling with the machine they began.
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Speaker 1: Someone is trying to make himself king. To reintroduce the
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Speaker 1: personal element. Punish that man with homelessness. To the rescue,
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Speaker 1: avenge the machine, Avenge the machine, war, kill the man.
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Speaker 1: But the Committee of the Mending Apparatus now came forward
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Speaker 1: and allayed the panic with well chosen words. It confessed
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Speaker 1: that the mending Apparatus was itself in need of repair.
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Speaker 1: The effect of this frank confession was admirable, of course,
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Speaker 1: said a famous lecturer, he of the French Revolution, who
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Speaker 1: gilded each new decay with splendor. Of course, we shall
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Speaker 1: not press our complaints. Now the mending apparatus has treated
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Speaker 1: us so well in the past that we all sympathize
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Speaker 1: with it and will wait patiently for its recovery. In
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Speaker 1: its own good time, it will resume its duties. Meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: let us do without our beds, our tabloids, our little wants,
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Speaker 1: such I feel sure would be the wish of the
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Speaker 1: machine thousands of miles away. His audience applauded. The machines
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Speaker 1: still linked them under the seas, beneath the roots of
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Speaker 1: the mountains, where in the wires through which they saw
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Speaker 1: and heard the enormous eyes and ears that were their heritage,
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Speaker 1: and the hum of many workings clothed their thoughts in
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Speaker 1: one garment of subserviency. Only the old and the sick
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Speaker 1: remained ungrateful, For it was rumored that euthanasia too was
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Speaker 1: out of order, and that pain had reappeared among men.
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Speaker 1: It became difficult to read. A blight entered the atmosphere
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Speaker 1: and dulled its luminosity. At times Vashti could scarcely see
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Speaker 1: across her room. The air too was foul loud, were
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Speaker 1: the complaints impotent in the remedies heroic? The tone of
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Speaker 1: the lecturer as he cried, courage, courage, what matter? So
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Speaker 1: long as the machine goes on to it, the darkness
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Speaker 1: and the light are won. And though things improved again
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Speaker 1: after a time, the old brilliancy was never recaptured, and
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Speaker 1: humanity never recovered from its entrance into twilight. There was
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Speaker 1: an hysterical talk of measures of provisional dictatorship, and the
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Speaker 1: inhabitants of Sumatra were asked to familiarize themselves with the
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Speaker 1: workings of the central power station, the said power station
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Speaker 1: being situated in France. But for the most part, panic reigned,
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Speaker 1: and men spent their strength praying to their books tangible
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Speaker 1: proofs of the machine's omnipotence. There were gradations of terror.
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Speaker 1: At time came rumors of hope. The mending apparatus was
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Speaker 1: almost mended, The enemies of the machine had been got under.
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Speaker 1: New nerve centers were evolving, which would do the work
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Speaker 1: even more magnificently than before. But there came a day when,
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Speaker 1: without the slightest warning, without any previous hinted feebleness, the
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Speaker 1: entire communication system broke down all over the world, and
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Speaker 1: the world as they understood it ended. Vashti was lecturing
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Speaker 1: at the time and her earlier remarks had been punctuated
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Speaker 1: with applause. As she proceeded, the audience became silent, and
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Speaker 1: at the conclusion there was no sound. Somewhat displeased, she
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Speaker 1: called to a friend who was a specialist in sympathy.
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Speaker 1: No sound, doubtless, the friend was sleeping, and so with
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Speaker 1: an ext friend whom she tried to summon, and so
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Speaker 1: with the next until she remembered Kuno's cryptic remark, the
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Speaker 1: machine stops. The phrase still conveyed nothing. If eternity was stopping,
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Speaker 1: it would of course be set going shortly. For example,
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Speaker 1: there was still a little light and air. The atmosphere
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Speaker 1: had improved a few hours previously. There was still the book,
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Speaker 1: and while there was the book, there was security. Then
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Speaker 1: she broke down for a whi. With the cessation of
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Speaker 1: activity came in unexpected terror. Silence. She had never known silence,
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Speaker 1: and the coming of it nearly killed her. It did
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Speaker 1: kill many thousands of people outright. Ever since her birth,
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Speaker 1: she had been surrounded by the steady hum. It was
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Speaker 1: to the ear what artificial air was to the lungs,
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Speaker 1: and agonizing pains shot across her head, and scarcely knowing
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Speaker 1: what she did. She stumbled forward and pressed the unfamiliar button,
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Speaker 1: the one that opened the door of her cell. Now
15:27
Speaker 1: the door of the cell worked on a simple hinge
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Speaker 1: of its own. It was not connected with the central
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Speaker 1: power station dying far away in France. It opened, rousing
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Speaker 1: immoderate hopes in Vashti, for she thought that the machine
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Speaker 1: had been mended. It opened, and she saw the dim
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Speaker 1: tunnel that curved far away towards freedom. One look, and
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Speaker 1: then she shrank back, for the tunnel was full of people.
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Speaker 1: She was almost the last in that city to have
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Speaker 1: taken alarm. People at any time repelled her. And these
15:55
Speaker 1: were nightmares from her worst dreams. People were crawling about.
15:58
Speaker 1: People were screaming, whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other,
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Speaker 1: vanishing in the dark, and ever and anon being pushed
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Speaker 1: off the platform onto the live rail. Some were fighting
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Speaker 1: round the electric bells, trying to summon trains which could
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Speaker 1: not be summoned. Others were yelling for euthanasia, or for respirators,
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Speaker 1: or blespheming the machine. Others stood at the doors of
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Speaker 1: their cells, fearing, like herself, either to stop in them
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Speaker 1: or to leave them. And behind all the uproar was silence,
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Speaker 1: the silence which is the voice of the earth and
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Speaker 1: of the generations who have gone. No, it was worse
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Speaker 1: than solitude. She closed the door again and sat down
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Speaker 1: to wait for the end. The disintegration went on, accompanied
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Speaker 1: by horrible cracks and rumbling. The valves that restrained the
16:42
Speaker 1: medical apparatus must have weakened, for it ruptured and hung
16:45
Speaker 1: hideously from the ceiling. The floor heaved and fell and
16:49
Speaker 1: flung her from her chair. A tube oozed towards her
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Speaker 1: serpent fashion, and at last the final horror approached. Light
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Speaker 1: began to ebb, and she knew that civilization's long day
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Speaker 1: was closed. She whirled round, praying to be saved from
17:03
Speaker 1: this at any rate, kissing the book, pressing button after button.
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Speaker 1: The uproar outside was increasing and even penetrated the wall. Slowly,
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Speaker 1: the brilliancy of her cell was dimmed. The reflections faded
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Speaker 1: from her metal switches. Now she could not see the
17:17
Speaker 1: reading stand, now, not the book, though she held it
17:20
Speaker 1: in her hand. Light followed the flight of sound. Air
17:24
Speaker 1: was following light, and the original void returned to the
17:26
Speaker 1: cavern from which it had been so long excluded. Fashti
17:30
Speaker 1: continued to whirl like the devotees of an earlier religion, screaming, praying,
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Speaker 1: striking at the buttons with bleeding hands. It was thus
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Speaker 1: that she opened her prison and escaped. Escaped in the spirit,
17:42
Speaker 1: at least, so it seems to me. Ere My meditation
17:44
Speaker 1: closes that she escapes in the body. I cannot perceive
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Speaker 1: that she struck by chance the switch that released the door,
17:52
Speaker 1: and the rush of foul air on her skin. The loud,
17:55
Speaker 1: throbbing whispers in her ears told her that she was
17:57
Speaker 1: facing the tunnel again, and that tremendous platform on which
18:00
Speaker 1: he had seen men fighting. They were not fighting now.
18:04
Speaker 1: Only the whispers remained, and the little whimpering groans. They
18:07
Speaker 1: were dying by the hundreds out in the dark. She
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Speaker 1: burst into tears. Tears answered her. They wept for humanity,
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Speaker 1: those two, not for themselves. They could not bear that
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Speaker 1: this should be the end. Ere's silence was completed. Their
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Speaker 1: hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important
18:25
Speaker 1: on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the
18:28
Speaker 1: noblest of all creatures, visible man, who had once made
18:31
Speaker 1: God in his image, and had mirrored his strength on
18:33
Speaker 1: the constellations. Beautiful naked man was dying strangled in the
18:37
Speaker 1: garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled,
18:41
Speaker 1: and here was his reward. Truly, the garment had seemed
18:44
Speaker 1: heavenly at first, shot with the colors of culture, sown
18:47
Speaker 1: with the threads of self denial, and heavenly it had
18:50
Speaker 1: been so long as it was a garment, and no
18:52
Speaker 1: more so long as man could shed it at will
18:55
Speaker 1: and live by the essence that is his soul, and
18:57
Speaker 1: the essence equally divine, that is his body. The sin
19:01
Speaker 1: against the body. It was for that that they wept
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Speaker 1: in chief, the centuries of wrong, against the muscles and
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Speaker 1: the nerves, those five portals by which we can alone
19:10
Speaker 1: apprehend glausing it over with talk of evolution, until the
19:14
Speaker 1: body was white pap the home of ideas as colorless, less,
19:19
Speaker 1: sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.
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Speaker 1: Where are you? She sobbed his voice in the darkness,
19:27
Speaker 1: said here is there any hope? Kuno none for us?
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Speaker 1: Where are you? She crawled towards him over the bodies
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Speaker 1: of the dead. His blood spurted over her hands. Quicker
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Speaker 1: he gasped, I am dying. But we touch, we talk,
19:48
Speaker 1: not through the machine he kissed her. We have come
19:53
Speaker 1: back to our own We die, but we have recaptured
19:56
Speaker 1: life as it was in Wessex when Alfred overthrew the Danes.
20:00
Speaker 1: We know what they know outside, those who dwelt in
20:03
Speaker 1: a cloud that is the color of a pearl. But, Cuno,
20:06
Speaker 1: is it true? Are there still men on the surface
20:09
Speaker 1: of the earth? Is this this tunnel does poisoned darkness? Really?
20:13
Speaker 1: Not the end? He replied. I have seen them, spoken
20:18
Speaker 1: to them, Love them. They are hiding in the mist
20:21
Speaker 1: and the ferns until our civilization stops. To day they
20:24
Speaker 1: are the homeless. Tomorrow, Oh tomorrow, some fool will start
20:28
Speaker 1: the machine again. Tomorrow, never said Cuno. Never, humanity has
20:34
Speaker 1: learnt its lesson. As he spoke, the whole city was
20:38
Speaker 1: broken like a honeycomb. An airship had sailed in through
20:41
Speaker 1: the vomitory into a ruined wharf. It crashed downwards, exploding
20:45
Speaker 1: as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its wings
20:48
Speaker 1: of steel. For a moment they saw the nations of
20:51
Speaker 1: the dead, and before they joined them scraps of the
20:54
Speaker 1: untainted sky. End of chapter three, End of The Machine
21:00
Speaker 1: Stops by E. M. Forster