“What do you mean exactly?” I said.
“We have no compulsory attendances; we have no forms to fill up; we are not required to keep a diary; we are not required to read the Monthly Gazette of Instructions, nor play any part in State ceremonies. Indeed, if I could talk to my friends who are here I should have little to complain of on the score of personal comfort.”
“Then why do you speak of the difficulty of preserving your sanity?” I said, rather thoughtlessly, I am afraid.
“Why do you think I am here at all?” he replied, for the first time speaking fiercely. “I could have my liberty to-day if I chose, could I not?” Then he went on, not angrily but more bitterly, “Did I say I could have my liberty? No; that is not true. I could go out of here tomorrow, but I should not be at liberty. I stay here, because here I am only a prisoner—outside I should be a slave. How long have you been in Meccania did you say?”
“About five months,” I said.
“And you are free to go back to your own country?”
“Certainly,” I said—“at least, I hope so.”
“Then go as soon as you can. This is no fit place for human beings. It is a community of slaves, who do not even know they are slaves because they have never tasted liberty, ruled over by a caste of super-criminals who have turned crime into a science.”
“I have not heard the ruling classes called criminals before,” I said. “I am not sure that I understand what you mean.”