“Perhaps you can tell me,” I said, “something which has puzzled me ever since I came here, and that is—Why your Super-State occupies itself so meticulously with such things as Music, and the Drama, and Art. Such interests seem rather foreign to the main purpose for which, as I understand it, the great statesmen who have made Meccania what it is, designed it.”
“I have often wondered the same thing myself,” replied Musch. “I can only say that if all this side of life were left unregulated, the life of the State would be incomplete. Sooner or later the consciousness of the State must embrace all things.”
I said no more, and this was the last I saw of poor Musch, for next day he was ill, and I was taken by another Sub-Conductor, whose name was Grovel, to see the Mechow Memorial Museum. Almost everything in Mecco is a sort of memorial or reminder of Prince Mechow. Mechow Street, Mechow Square, the Mechow Monument, Mechow Park, the Mechow Palace, Mechow Hotels meet one at every turn. There are even Mechow whiskers, of a pattern seldom seen outside Meccania, but immensely popular among middle-aged officials of the Third and Fourth Classes. Curiously enough, I learnt that the higher officials rather resent the wearing of this style of whisker by subordinate officials, but as it is a sort of symbol of loyalty it is not considered proper to repress it.
The Museum is near the square and is the largest biographical museum in existence. It contains a model of the house Prince Mechow was born in, with all his clothes and toys, all the schoolbooks he used, and models of all the rooms he lived in, including his bedrooms. One room contains all the letters he wrote, all the letters written to him, all the minutes he wrote as a Civil servant, the very pens he used, the office furniture, etc. etc. The library contains not only the books he read, and the few he wrote, but an enormous number of books and pamphlets written about him personally and about all his work.
Besides his printed speeches, which run into many volumes, there are phonographic records of them, which are ‘performed’ daily in a special hall, to youths and girls from the High Schools.
One large room contains models of all the towns in Meccania, as they were before his reforms and as they are now. Another room is devoted to the great Monument. It contains the original plans and models, as well as a model of all the copies erected in various towns. Adjoining this room is a large collection of photographs of Prince Mechow, casts of his face and waxwork models of him as he appeared on several great historical occasions. One case in the library struck me as very characteristic. It was a series of volumes in folio, sumptuously bound. The first was entitled Prince Mechow as Statesman; and there were at least thirty others with such titles as Prince Mechow as Subject, Prince Mechow as Conservative, Prince Mechow as Reformer, Prince Mechow as Student, Prince Mechow as Author, Prince Mechow as Orator, Prince Mechow as Philosopher, Prince Mechow as Husband and Father, Prince Mechow as Agriculturist, Prince Mechow’s Taste in Art, Prince Mechow’s Taste in Music, Prince Mechow’s Taste in Literature, Prince Mechow’s Taste in Nature, Prince Mechow’s Loyalty, Prince Mechow’s Generosity, Prince Mechow’s Pets, Prince Mechow’s Religion.
CHAPTER VII
A MECCANIAN APOSTLE
It was a week or two after my visit to the Mechow Museum that I made the acquaintance of one of the Foreign Observers who was staying at the hotel. A day or two before, I had been sent for by the Hotel Manager, and had been presented with a small certificate authorising me to take my meals in the common dining-room, and to converse with other foreigners whose names I was instructed to enter in my diary. I had previously noticed a certain gentleman from Luniland whose face seemed familiar to me. On this particular evening he came across to my table and introduced himself as Mr. Johnson, a friend of Mr. Yorke, in whose house I had stayed and where he had met me. We soon fell into conversation, and when dinner was over we retired for a long chat to a corner of the smoke-room. It appeared that he had been in Mecco over a year, and had travelled also in various parts of the country. In fact, this was his second visit, he said, his first having been made a few years before. He was a man of about forty-five, tall and slim, with a rather large bony nose and a grave but kindly expression. His manner was quiet and dignified, and at first he spoke with a certain obvious restraint; but afterwards he became more genial and was rather humorous, after the manner of many of his countrymen.
“I should rather like to ask what you think of this country, but it would hardly be fair, because the chances are that every word we say here is overheard. I always suspect they have one of those beastly contrivances fixed in the walls, to enable the manager or somebody representing the Authorities to listen to everything that goes on. I don’t much mind if they turn me out of their precious country, but I wouldn’t like to get you into trouble. Anyhow, I believe if we were to begin talking in my language, which I remember you speak very well, we should presently have somebody round reminding us that it is against the rules.”