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10 - Anthem - Ayn Rand · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Chapter ten. We are sitting at a table. We were writing this upon
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  paper made thousands of years ago. The light is dim and we cannot see
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  the golden one, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient
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  bed. This is our home. We came upon it to day at sunrise.
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  For many days we have been crossing a chain of mountains. The forest
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  rose among cliffs, and whenever we walked out upon a barren stretch of rock,
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  we saw great peaks before us in the west, and to the north
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  of us, and to the south. As far as our eyes could see.
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  The peaks were red and brown, with the green streaks of forest as
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  vanes upon them, with blue mists as veils over their heads. We had
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  never heard of these mountains, nor seen them marked on any map. The
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  uncharted forest has protected them from the cities and from the men of the cities.
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  We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones rolled from
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  under our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks below farther and farther
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  down, and the mountains rang with each stroke, and long after the strokes
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  had died. But we went on, for we knew that no men would
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  ever follow our track nor reach us here. Then to day, at sunrise
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  we saw a white flame among the trees, high on a sheer peak before
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  us. We thought that it was a fire, and we stopped. But
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  the flame was unmoving, yet blinding as liquid metal. So we climbed towards
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  it through the rocks, and there before us, on a broad summit,
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  with the mountains rising behind it, stood a house such as we had never
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  seen, and the white fire came from the sun on the glass of its
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  windows. The house had two stories and a strange roof, flat as a
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  floor. There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows
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  went on straight around the corners. Though how this house kept standing we could
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  not guess. The walls were hard and smooth of that stone, unlike stone
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  which we had seen in our tunnel. We both knew it without words.
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  This house was left from the unmentionable times. The trees had protected it from
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  time and weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather.
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  We turned to the golden one and we asked, are you afraid?
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  But they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we
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  threw it open, and we stepped together into the house of the unmentionable times.
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  We shall need the days and the years ahead to look, to learn,
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  and to understand the things of this house. To day, we could
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  only look and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the
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  heavy curtains from the windows, and we saw that the rooms were small,
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  and we thought that not more than twelve men could have lived here. We
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  thought it strange that man had been permitted to build a house for only twelve.
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  Never had we seen rooms so full of light. The sun rays danced
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  upon the colors, colors in more colors than we thought possible, we who
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  had seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones, and the
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  gray. There were great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was
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  not glass, for when we looked upon it, we saw our own bodies
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  and all the things behind us, as on the face of a lake.
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  There were strange things which we had never seen, and the use of which
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  we do not know. And there were globes of glass everywhere in each room,
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  the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had seen in
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  our tunnel. We found the sleeping hall, and we stood in awe upon
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  its threshold, for it was a small room and there were only two beds
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  in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we
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  knew that only two had lived here. And this passes understanding. What kind
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  of world did they have? The men of the unmentionable times? We found
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  garments, and the golden one gasped at the sight of them, for they
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  were not white tunics nor white togas. They were of all color, no
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  two of them alike. Some crumbled to dust as we touched them, but
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  the others were of heavier cloths, and they felt soft and new in our
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  fingers. We found a room with walls made of shelves, which held rows
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  of manuscripts from the floor to the ceiling. Never had we seen such a
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  number of them, nor of such strange shape. They were not soft and
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  rolled, They had hard shells of cloth and leather. And the letters on
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  their pages were small, and so even that we wondered at the men who
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  had such handwriting. We glanced through the pages, and we saw that they
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  were written in our language. But we found many words which we could not
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  understand. Tomorrow we shall begin to read these scripts. When we had seen
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  all the rooms of the house. We looked at the Golden One, and
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  we knew the thought in our minds. We shall never leave this house,
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  we said, nor let it be taken from us. This is our home
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  and the end of our journey. This is your house, Golden One,
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  and ours, and it belongs to no other men whatever. As far as
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  the earth may stretch, we shall not share it with others. And we
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  share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor our hunger.
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  So be it to the end of our days, Your will be done,
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  they said. Then we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of
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  our home. We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under
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  our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh to
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  be cooked in a strange copper pot we found in a place of wonders,
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  which must have been the cooking room of the house. We did this work
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  alone, for no words of ours could take the Golden One away from the
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  big glass, which is not glass. They stood before it, and they
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  looked and looked upon their own body. When the sun sank beyond the mountains,
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  the Golden One fell asleep on the floor amidst jewels and bottles of crystal
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  and flowers of silk. We lifted the golden one in our arms, and
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  we carried them to a bed, their head falling softly upon our shoulder.
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  Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the room of the
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  manuscripts, and we sat by the window, for we knew that we could
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  not sleep tonight. And now we look upon the earth in the sky.
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  The spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to
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  be borne. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a
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  spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give,
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  nor what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits.
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  It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us. We
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  are to speak, We are to give its goal, its highest meaning,
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  to all this glowing space of rock and sky. We look ahead. We
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  beg our heart for guidance and answering this call. No voice has spoken,
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  yet we have heard. We look upon our hands. We see the dusts
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  of centuries, the dusts which hid great secrets and perhaps great evils. And
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  yet it stirs no fear within our heart, but only silent reverence and pity,
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  may knowledge come to us? What is this secret our heart has understood,
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  and yet will not reveal to us, although it seems to beat as
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  if it were endeavoring to tell it. End Chapter ten,