The statement had not aroused his curiosity at the moment, but a little later, when he confronted the embodiment of its meaning, he murmured aloud in his astonishment. He found himself walking in a spacious corridor, beneath a roof of semi-opaque, greenish glass, and between walls that seemed of solid crystal, stretching onward as far as the eye could reach. A bar of sunlight, striking through aslant from somewhere outside, painted a central glowing prismatic patch of color, which reflected itself in countless wavering gleams of orange and purple all about him. A curious moving glitter, as of fountains noiselessly at play, traversed the upper surface of these glass walls, and flashed confusion at his first scrutiny. Then he gave a schoolboy’s shout of joy and rushed forward to the nearest side. He was in a giant aquarium—and these were actual fishes of the sea swimming placidly before him! Even as he stared in bewildered pleasure, with his nose flattened against the glass, there lounged toward him, across the domed back of a king-crab, the biggest conger he had ever imagined to himself. He put up a hand instinctively to ward off the advance of the impassive eel—then laughed aloud for glee.
“Oh, this is worth all the rest!” he cried to Emanuel.
“Yes, good idea, isn’t it?” said the other. “It was my wife who suggested it. We had started making our own glass—and really this was a most intelligent way of using it. In time I think it will be of great value, too. We have some clever men down here, from time to time, to study the specimens. I’m sorry no one is here for the moment. I thought at first of building a residence for them, and putting it all at their disposal in a regular way as a kind of marine observatory, like that at Naples. But after all, it would hardly be fair to the system. My first duty is to my own people, and we’ve got some young men of our own who are making good use of it. There are a hundred or more of these tanks, and we are fitting up electrical machinery to get automatic control of the water supply, and to regulate the temperature more exactly. But beyond the spectacle of the fishes themselves—our people make holiday excursions here every fortnight or so—and certain things we learn about food and fecundation and so on, I don’t know that there’s much to be said for the practical utility of this department. Further on you will see the oyster and mussel beds, and the lobsters and crabs. I attach much more importance to the experiments we are making out there. There seems almost no limit to what can be done in those fields, now that we have learned how to go to work. It is as simple a matter to rear lobsters as it is to rear chickens.”
“But it is all wonderful!” cried Christian, once more. “But tell me—this costs a great sum of money. I am afraid to think how much. Is it your hope—shall you ever get a profit from it?”
Emanuel smiled. “There is no question of profits,” he explained, gently. “The System as a whole supports itself—or rather is entirely capable of doing so. The capital that I have spent in putting the System upon its feet, so to speak, I count as nothing. It belonged to the people who had been with us all these centuries and I have merely restored it to them. In the eyes of the law it is all mine, and from that point of view I am a much richer man than I was before the System began. But in practice it belongs to all my people. I take enough to live as befits my station; each of the others has enough to maintain him in his station, comfortably and honorably. Whatever the surplus may be, that is devoted to the objects which we all have in common. You see it is simplicity itself.”
“But that is like my brother Salvator’s doctrine,” said Christian. “It is socialism, is it not?” Emanuel’s fine brows drew together in an impatient frown. “Please do not use that word,” he said, with a shade of annoyance in his tone. “The very sound of it affronts my ears. Nothing vexes me more than to have my work unthinkingly coupled with that monstrous imposture. If you will think of it, I am more opposed to what is called socialism than anybody else on earth. I have elaborated the one satisfactory system, on lines absolutely opposed to it. I furnish the best weapon for fighting and slaying that pernicious delusion that the whole world offers. So you see, I have a right to protest when people confuse me with my bitterest antagonist.”
“Pardon!” said Christian, with humility. “I am so badly informed upon all these matters!”
“Ah, well, you will understand them perfectly, all in good time,” his cousin reassured him in a kindly way.
Christian drew a furtive sigh as they moved along. To his fancy the large fishes in the tanks regarded him with a sympathetic eye.