Anthem [another edition] | Page 9

We would accept our Life Mandate, and we would work for
our brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin against them, which they
did not know, but we knew. So we were happy, and proud of ourselves and of our victory
over ourselves. We raised our right arm and we spoke, and our voice was the clearest, the
steadiest voice in the hall that day, and we said:
"The will of our brothers be done."
And we looked straight into the eyes of the Council, but their eyes were as cold {+as+}
blue glass buttons.
So we went into the Home of the Street Sweepers. It is a grey house on a narrow street.
There is a sundial in its courtyard, by which the Council of the Home can tell the hours of
the day and when to ring the bell. When the bell rings, we all arise from our beds. [-They-]
{+The+} sky is green and cold in our windows to the east. The shadow on the sundial
marks off a half-hour while we dress and eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where there
are five long tables with twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups on each table. Then we
go to work in the streets of the City, with our brooms and our rakes. In five hours, when
the sun is high, we return to the Home and we eat our midday meal, for which one-half
hour is allowed. Then we go to work again. In five hours, the shadows are blue on the
pavements, and the sky is blue with a deep brightness which is not bright. We come back
to have our dinner, which lasts one hour. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight
column to one of the City Halls, for the Social Meeting. Other columns of men arrive
from the Homes of the different Trades. The candles are lit, and the Councils of the
different Homes stand in a pulpit, and they speak to us of our duties and of our brother

men. Then visiting Leaders mount the pulpit and they read to us the speeches which were
made in the City Council that day, for the City Council represents all men and all men
must know. Then we sing hymns, the Hymn of Brotherhood, and the Hymn of Equality,
and the Hymn of the Collective Spirit. The sky is a soggy purple when we return to the
Home. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to the City Theatre for three
hours of Social Recreation. There a play is shown upon the stage, with two great choruses
from the Home of the Actors, which speak and answer all together, in two great voices.
The plays are about toil and how good it is. Then we walk back to the Home [-is-] {+in+}
a straight column. The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready
to burst through. The moths beat against the street lanterns. We go to our beds and we
sleep, till the bell rings again. The sleeping halls are white and clean and bare of all
things save one hundred beds.
Thus have we lived each day of four years, until two springs ago when our crime
happened. Thus must all men live until they are forty. At forty, they are worn out. At
forty, they are sent to the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones live. The Old Ones
do not work, for the State takes care of them. They sit in the sun in summer and they sit
by the fire in winter. They do not speak often, for they are weary. The Old Ones know
that they are soon to die. When a miracle happens and some live to be forty-five, they are
the [-ancient ones,-] {+Ancient Ones,+} and [-the-] children stare at them when passing
by the Home of the Useless. Such is to be our life, as that of all our brothers and of the
brothers who came before us.
Such would have been our life, had we not committed our crime which {+has+} changed
all things for us. And it was our curse which drove us to our crime. We had been a good
Street Sweeper and like all our brother Street Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know.
We looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the earth. And when we
cleaned the yard of the Home of the Scholars, we gathered the glass vials, the pieces of
metal, the dried bones which they had discarded. We wished to keep these things and to
study them, but we had no place to hide them. So we carried them to