From the school we went to the workshop. On the way home we stopped at one of the open-air moving picture shows, and saw two or three dramatized versions of public affairs. Ingenious mechanism synchronized the movements of the figures upon the screen, which were in stereoscopic relief, with speeches made through the telephone funnels. These, David said, took the place of newspapers when the socialized State destroyed the printed news-sheet by the simple process of killing the advertising.
We also looked inside the district art gallery. None of the pictures antedated the year 1978, and each illustrated some phase of the new civilization in an educational way. I must not forget to say that later I found a novel in David’s home, which Elizabeth must have read in her schoolgirl days. The scene was laid in the early twentieth century, and the story dealt with the adventures of a young man of property, depicting the romance of his care-free life. A moral at the end, and copious footnotes, inserted by the Council’s order, drew attention to the improvement in the human lot since that barbarous period.
So, day by day, I waited, and my eyes were opened more and more to my environment. Daily I expected the Council summons that did not come, and daily the constraint grew. I was thinking of suggesting to David that I should be located among the other strangers in place of continuing to accept his hospitality; but before I could decide to approach him an incident occurred which revealed to me the existence of conditions which, unintelligible though they were, made me decide to approach David again with a view to a mutual understanding.
David was at the Strangers’ Bureau and would not return for at least two hours. Under Elizabeth’s instruction I had made swift progress in understanding the combinations of syllables that make up the written language. I had just begun, in fact, to master the ingenious Brebœuf system, whereby the simpler of the syllables have been combined to form the written speech of four of the five Provinces. David had told me that the Council’s inability to enforce the invented language Spekezi as the universal tongue, had been one of the severest shocks that the new civilization had received. Then came Brebœuf with his universal syllabic symbols.
Now, if the written language were merely pictorial, it could have been used to represent all the languages on earth. But since it is syllabic, and therefore depicts words instead of ideas, it was a supreme achievement to have invented a written language adapted to four tongues. The Brebœuf system is based, of course, upon the common Latin and Sanskrit elements. Brebœuf, who was one of the last of the classical scholars, was rewarded, as is well known, by being freed from the defectives’ art factories in his old age, and pensioned.
However, it was not my purpose to touch upon this matter. My interest was beginning to flag, and I was paying more attention to Elizabeth than to the lesson. I was trying to trace in her features some elusive resemblance to Esther. I was wondering whether I could ever become a normal citizen of this strange world. Suddenly the telephone funnel shouted Elizabeth’s name.
She sprang from her chair and rushed into her bedroom, which was next to the external elevator shaft. Her expression and gestures alarmed me so greatly that I ran after her. When I reached her door I saw her standing in the middle of the room, deathly white, and clenched in her hand was a knife, which she was aiming at her heart.
I ran into the room and wrested the weapon from her grasp. She fell upon the floor unconscious. All the while this was happening the funnel was shouting stridently, “Elizabeth!” “Elizabeth!” together with the string of letters and figures that completed her nomenclature.
I went to the funnel and lied to the voice. “She is not here,” I said.
“Then tell her, when she returns, that the price of the dress will be five units more, on account of the new wool schedule,” the voice responded.