The Machine Stops | Page 7

own. It
was just what the Committee thought, when they threatened me with
Homelessness."
At this she grew angry. "I worship nothing!" she cried. "I am most
advanced. I don't think you irreligious, for there is no such thing as
religion left. All the fear and the superstition that existed once have
been destroyed by the Machine. I only meant that to find out a way of
your own was--Besides, there is no new way out."

"So it is always supposed."
"Except through the vomitories, for which one must have an
Egression-permit, it is impossible to get out. The Book says so."
"Well, the Book's wrong, for I have been out on my feet."
For Kuno was possessed of a certain physical strength.
By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was
examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed.
Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to
let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life
to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees
to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might
measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he
not? In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount
Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the
Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the
Machine may progress eternally.
"You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say 'space is
annihilated', but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof.
We have lost a part of ourselves. I determined to recover it, and I began
by walking up and down the platform of the railway outside my room.
Up and down, until I was tired, and so did recapture the meaning of
'Near' and 'Far'. 'Near' is a place to which I can get quickly on my feet,
not a place to which the train or the air-ship will take me quickly. 'Far'
is a place to which I cannot get quickly on my feet; the vomitory is 'far',
though I could be there in thirty-eight seconds by summoning the train.
Man is the measure. That was my first lesson. Man's feet are the
measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body
is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong. Then I
went further: it was then that I called to you for the first time, and you
would not come.
"This city, as you know, is built deep beneath the surface of the earth,
with only the vomitories protruding. Having paced the platform outside

my own room, I took the lift to the next platform and paced that also,
and so with each in turn, until I came to the topmost, above which
begins the earth. All the platforms were exactly alike, and all that I
gained by visiting them was to develop my sense of space and my
muscles. I think I should have been content with this--it is not a little
thing,--but as I walked and brooded, it occurred to me that our cities
had been built in the days when men still breathed the outer air, and
that there had been ventilation shafts for the workmen. I could think of
nothing but these ventilation shafts. Had they been destroyed by all the
food-tubes and medicine-tubes and music-tubes that the Machine has
evolved lately? Or did traces of them remain? One thing was certain. If
I came upon them anywhere, it would be in the railway-tunnels of the
topmost storey. Everywhere else, all space was accounted for.
"I am telling my story quickly, but don't think that I was not a coward
or that your answers never depressed me. It is not the proper thing, it is
not mechanical, it is not decent to walk along a railway-tunnel. I did
not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I feared
something far more intangible--doing what was not contemplated by
the Machine. Then I said to myself, 'Man is the measure', and I went,
and after many visits I found an opening.
"The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light, artificial light;
darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap in the tiles, I
knew that it was an exception, and rejoiced. I put in my arm--I could
put in no more at first--and waved it round and round in ecstasy. I
loosened another tile, and put in my head, and shouted into the
darkness: 'I am coming, I shall do it yet,' and my voice reverberated
down endless passages. I seemed to hear the spirits of