He passed through, and the anaesthetic fumes suddenly became intensified. I heard the creak as of a chair inside the structure, a sigh, and the soft dabbing of a wet sponge. That was all, and the mob, struck silent, began to shuffle, and then to murmur. I saw the rat-faced man slinking away.
“This,” said my guide, “is popularly called the Comfortable Bedroom. The old man can no longer produce his hektone and a quarter monthly, and his grandson, who has the right to take over the burden, has just been mated. Most of our old qualify for life in senility, but no doubt he dissipated his credit margin in youth. Again, many prefer to go this way. Now if he had been a woman he would have been accredited thirty hektones for each child supplied to the State. That is Doctor Sanson’s method of assuring productivity.”
But I broke from the man in horror, forcing my passage through the crowd, which was dispersing already. I ran on through hall after hall, approaching the central part of the building, until I was again blocked by a crowd, this time of young men and women in blue, who were reading a lengthy list of letters and figures, suspended high in the center of this chamber. Most of these young people were in pairs, and, as they read, they nudged each other and exchanged facetious phrases.
But one pair I saw who, with clasped hands, turned wretchedly away and passed back slowly toward the entrance.
“This is more cheerful than the Comfortable Bedroom,” murmured a voice at my side.
The new speaker was a dapper young fellow with a small, pert mustache and an air of insinuating familiarity. He placed his hand upon my arm to detain me as I started to move away.
“The kindly Council, which relieves old age of the burden of life, also provides that the life to come shall be as efficient for productivity as possible,” he said. “I see you are a stranger and may not know that these young people are here to learn the names of their mates.”
“Do you mean that the Council decides whom each man or woman is to marry?” I asked.
“To mate? Yap, in ordinary cases. There is no mating for one-fourth of the population—that is to say, those of the morons whose germ-plasm contains impure dominants, and who are yet capable of sufficient productivity to be permitted to reach maturity. Grade 2, the ordinary defectives, who number another fourth of the people, are at present mated, though Doctor Sanson will soon abolish this practice. The sexes of this class are united in accordance with their Sanson rating, with a view to eliminating the dominants.”
“And these are defectives of what you call Grade 2?” I asked.