“We would starve else. We have no credit. Contributions to the State granaries are not accepted from men, nor are men allowed to trade direct with the stores.”
“But cannot they revolt and use their strength?”
“The strange thing is,” said the Professor, “that men cannot now endure the sight of each other. They are as jealous of each other as women were in the old days. Besides, writing is forbidden, and no book is allowed save the posthumous works of the lecherous William. The libraries were destroyed on the same day as the arsenals. Intelligence is gagged. Thrift and a terrible restless activity are now our only virtues.”
“And art?”
“Art? How should there be art? It was never more than the amusement of women in their idleness. They are no longer idle and I must admit that they are admirably methodical in their work, energetic and straightforward as men never were. But it is ill living in a woman-made world and I shall not be sorry when death comes.”
VI: OBSEQUIES
Death came to the old man that night, and so surprised him that he was unable to feel anything. I had been put to sleep in the same room with him and was awakened by his talking. He was delivering himself of what sounded like a lecture, but he broke off in the middle to say:
“This is very astonishing. I am going to die.”
I struck a light, and there he was lying with a smile of incredulity upon his face, and I thought that, if we were sentient beings when we were born, so and not otherwise we would accept the gift of life. So and not otherwise do we greet all manifestations of life which have not become familiar through habit.
I was grateful to the old man for giving me the key to my own frame of mind. I spoke to him, but he was dead.