Windmills: A book of fables

by Gilbert Cannan

XII: THE NUNNERY

As Edmund disappeared through a gap in the hedge I was attacked by a mob of women, screaming at the top of their voices. They talked me into a state of stupefaction and led me dazed in the direction of a great building which I had taken for a factory or workhouse. Here with the leader of my captors I was hustled through a little gate with the mob outside hooting and yelling:

“Man! Man! Man!”

I was flung into a cell and left there to collect my wits, which I found hard of doing, for I was near the limits of my endurance, and I did not see how I could hold out against the numbing influence of such absolute feminism. In the society to which I had been accustomed men, whatever their misdeeds, had always treated women with indulgence, but here the life of a man was one long expiation for the crime of having been born. I had spirit enough left in me to revolt, but my feeling could only express itself in bitter tears. I wept all night without ceasing, and the next day I was so weak and ill that I slept from utter exhaustion.

Bread and water were handed in to me through a hole in the door, but the bread was sour and the water was foul to my taste. Once again I fell a victim to the sense of hallucination, and when at last the door of my cell was opened and a human figure entered I was half-convinced that I was honoured with a visitation by an angel. I fell on my knees and the “angel” called me to my senses by saying:

“Fool, get up.”

I obeyed and my visitor informed me that she was the Medical Superintendent come to inspect me. I was ordered to strip and stand in the middle of the cell while the superintendent walked round me and surveyed me as farmers do with cattle. She prodded my flesh and asked me my age and what illnesses I had had. She sounded my lungs and tested my heart and appeared to be well satisfied. As she scanned my person there came into her eyes a quizzical, humorous look, in which there was a certain kindly pity, so that I was reassured and plucked up courage to ask where I was and what was going to be done with me. I was told that I was in the great nunnery of O, and that my destiny depended upon her report. I asked her to make it a good one and she laughed. I laughed too, for indeed mine was a most ridiculous position, standing there stark naked under her scrutiny. It became necessary for me to cover myself, and when I had done so we still stood there laughing like two sillies. She said:

“You’ll do.”

“For what?”

“I can give you a certificate for fatherhood.”

I gasped and protested that I was married, and expressed my horror of any such misconduct as she proposed. She ignored my protest and said:

“The mothers of your children will be carefully chosen for you.”

On that I roared with laughter. The idea was too preposterous. The superintendent reproved me and said that any ordinary man would give his eyes to be in my position, which I owed entirely to my wonderful physique. I declared my unwillingness and demanded as an American citizen to be set at liberty. She told me that the idea of nationality was not recognised and that I must serve the human race in the way marked out for me. “How?” said I. “Marked out for me? By whom?” I was assured by my own physical fitness. I protested that I could not look upon fatherhood as a career, but was told that I must consider it among the noblest. I maintained that it could never be for a man more than an incident, significant and delightful no doubt, but no more to be specialized in than any other natural function. Argument, however, was impossible, for on this subject the superintendent’s humour deserted her. However, her interest was roused and she was more friendly in her attitude, and consented to explain to me the institution which she served. It was not in the old sense a nunnery, for its inmates were not vowed to seclusion, and though portraits of William Christmas were plentiful on its walls, there was no formal devotion to his memory. It was literally a garden of girls. Female children were brought from the affiliated crèches to be trained and educated for the functions of life to which they were best fitted. The intelligent were equipped for the sciences, the strong for agriculture, the quick and cunning for industry, the beautiful for maternity. Male children were farmed out and given no instruction whatever, since they needed no intelligence for the duties they had to perform. “But the birth-rate?” I said, and received the answer: “Should never be such as to complicate the problem of food. It is better to have a small sensible population than one which is driven mad by its own multitude.”

I was far from convinced and said: “Such a world might a student of bees dream of after a late supper of radishes.”

My new friend replied that I had not lived through the nightmare of the great wars, or I would be in a better position to appreciate the blessings of a scientific society. She admitted that men were perhaps treated with undue severity, but added that, for her part, she believed it to be necessary for the gradual suppression of the masculine conceit and folly which had for so long ravaged the world. In time that would right itself, the severity would be relaxed, and men would assert an undeniable claim to a due share in the benefits of civilisation. In the meanwhile, she would do all in her power to befriend me. I implored her to certify me unfit for fatherhood, but she would only yield so far as to declare that I was in need of a month’s recuperation and distraction.

With that ended my interview with that extraordinary woman, who in happier circumstances would have been a glory to her sex.

I was presently removed from my cell to a pleasant room in the lodge by the gate, and I was made to earn my keep by working in the garden. At the end of a week I was despatched by road to the capital to appear there before the examining committee of the department of birth.