“I wonder what this street was like before?” Kuks said, glancing at the Gramophone. “Was it always like this?”
“Let’s hear it then.”
Kuks took the apparatus out of its case and wound it up.
The passersby at first did not pay any mind to the two old men and their machine. They thought it was a demonstration of some strange oration or a play. They couldn’t place the source of the sounds emanating from the strange shell, resembling an ear.
A few adolescents gathered around the apparatus, but they could barely understand what they were hearing.
“Gramophone of the Ages” once again strung thousands and tens of thousands of words and sounds over the the quiet, plaintive squeak of the cylinder.
Everything was so mundane, so normal for the old, bygone reality.
Someone was being beaten. Someone screamed. Someone chased a thief and arrested him.
Yelling and swearing gave way to the calls of coach drivers and pedestrians. Plaintive songs and pleas of the beggars often cut through the usual sounds of street life. After three hours of the apparatus’ work, the old men heard the screams of people being murdered and violated. It was a pogrom…
After a while, the apparatus attracted a curious crowd.
“What play is that?” they asked Kuks.
Kuks chuckled bitterly. “It’s not a play, citizens! It’s life! The very life of this street, its biography. In a few days, the Academy of Sciences will accept ‘Gramophone of the Ages,’ and from this prototype many copies will be made, and you will be able to learn the history of every stone, every clod of earth. Citizens, stones are the silent witnesses of the terrible human history. But they are silent just for the time being. Surely you heard the expression ‘the stones will cry out’? Now they are crying out. Listen how much misery and desperation, human tears and human blood is known to every stone of the old world order, and listen how they speak, those very stones, when science gives them a way of telling what they know.”
People stared at Kuks and only dimly understood his speech. He spoke for a while, sincerely and passionately, but they still could not grasp his meaning.
Wild screams ripped from the shell, moans and bitter humiliations of the beggars, so ordinary back in the day; the shouts of the policemen and the dull din of the tormented serfs, working against their will to exhaustion.
People heard the living terrible sounds of the bygone lives as if they were just a nightmare.
The old people understood and went quickly by, and the young ones lingered, looking around with surprise, their faces grimacing in pain and disgust.
6. IN THE “ABILITIES AND CALLINGS CHAMBER”
Tilibom gave up completely.
“You are a great man, Kuks,” he said. “I am won over by your invention. But you know, human history is terrifying. In books and even in pictures it’s not nearly as horrible as in the living sounds. Yesterday, when you were not around, I availed myself to the apparatus and listened to my own apartment. In the stairwell, there is a large, porous, chipped stone. Curse it, but I swear to you, it used to be an executioner’s block, or else I was delirious and hallucinating. Screams. Can you see, just screams and moans of the tortured, beheaded, slashed…Then I went to the garden with the apparatus, and there it was the same: everywhere there was crying, yelling, slapping, taunting, violence…And only once in a while there would be some trite words of love. Sparse, repetitive love confessions and violence—this is the main axis of human history. When you read about it, it’s not so bad, but when you hear their live voices, all these groans, screams, and pleading, it is terrible, inexplicable, and scary. You are a great man, Kuks, because you made inanimate objects speak.”
Kuks thanked him for the compliment, and added, “That is all great, but I am not yet sure what use ‘Gramophone of the Ages’ will find. You see, people don’t get it. In socialist schools they teach them how to build the future, rather than familiarize the students with the details of the past. Obviously they don’t have time to pay attention to old things. My apparatus, I imagine, would only be an aid to the historians, and we better forget about widespread use.”
“That’s understandable, Kuks! Interest in the sick and corrupt past can only cause a sick and corrupt present, but if the present is joyful and beautiful…”
“Tomorrow I’ll turn the apparatus to the Academy. But today I’d like to do an experiment in the “Abilities Chamber.” I have classes there today; come with me, if you’d like.”
“Let’s go.”
The “Abilities and Callings Chamber” was a large hall, occupied mostly by specialized equipment and devices. All workers who were unhappy with their labor, who felt indifferent toward their work, came here.
They asked the specialists to help them figure out the causes and give advice, and in some cases suggest whether they should take up another occupation, and what kind. The Chamber itself was an entryway to several buildings, united under the name of “Experience Workshops.”
The Experience Workshops were a wondrous sight. All sorts of work was being done there, and the results were at times spectacular: a poor plumber would turn out to be a talented actor, a terrible actor harbored a calling for canning herring, and a teacher had a knack for beekeeping.
The volume of work for the Chamber and the Workshops grew smaller every year, since the perfected schools lessened its burden by helping the students figure out their abilities and decide on the fitting profession.
Kuks was assigned to talk to a tall, sulking young man, with a widely developed jaw and narrow sunken eyes. The young man was incredibly strong—his uncommon strength showed in his long, knotted arms with heavy muscle bulges.
“Have a seat. What do you do?”
“I am a mason. I pulverize stones into gravel.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
“Four years, since the termination of my education.”
“Why is your work a burden to you?”
“I get sad when I work, and it decreases my productivity.”
“Were you interested in your work before?”
“I was.”
“What were you experiencing during work then?”
“In the beginning, I could not break apart especially hard stones, and I tried to learn that skill. It was pleasing, to see a gigantic stone shatter to smithereens with two or three blows of my hammer. After a while, this pleasant feeling dulled. So I had to amuse myself somehow during work. I imagined that the stones had faces, and if I liked the face, I would put the stone aside, and if not—I would shatter it. One day, a giant stone reminded me of a snarling, disgusting cur, and I broke it ferociously. And I feel that this work is awakening my worst instincts…The most pleasant part of my work is when I imagine an interesting face and I try to carve features into it—nose, eyes…but then I become less productive, and I lag behind all my comrades.”
“You should take up the art of sculpture, this much is clear. Once you start doing that, you will feel right in your proper place.”
The mason excitedly thanked Kuks and headed to the Experience Workshop, to apply to the sculpture program.
“See what became of the judiciary courts in socialist society?” Kuks smiled at Tilibom. “I wonder what those youths would say if they learned about the courts of old? There is an old courthouse nearby; now it’s just a museum, and no one will prevent us from listening to the memories of its walls, ceilings, and wooden floors.”
Kuks invited a few visitors of the Chamber to come along, and headed with them to the museum.
“Gramophone of the Ages” worked better than ever before.
Kuks and Tilibom sat transfixed.
One bright, terrifying scene from the court replaced another. The thundering orations of the prosecutors, witnesses’ testimonies, judges’ rejoi
nders, cries of the accused and of the convicted—everything was terrifyingly fascinating.
Like a moment, a few hours flew by.
When Kuks and Tilibom came to, they traded bewildered looks—none of the young people remained.
They probably grew bored and left, preoccupied with their lives and their work, with figuring out their abilities, their healthy and vivacious thirst for creative fulfillment.
7. EVENING
Ceremoniously the enormous red sun was setting.
The laborers had long ago returned home from their factories, workshops, and offices. The streets were being watered, and above the roofs, mechanical music of the buildings poured in pleasant waves.
On the tall building of “The Nightly Cine-Newspaper” the workers readied to print the most important news of the day on the darkened sky; they were waiting for the sun to set completely.
Young people scattered to gardens and parks, and their laughter filled the alleys. The moving flying theaters amused and distracted the passersby. Sometimes the public would join the actors, and the crowd put together and acted out an improvised play, and the spectators and the performers delighted together, their voices joining in shared jubilation.
When the sky grew dark, it displayed many important daily items: the manufacturing output, which was of interest to everyone, because everyone owned the means of production; the latest innovations developed in various spheres; the outlook and directives for the next day; and the news received from other cities and countries.
Those so inclined could attend hundreds of cinema theaters, showing the work events from the previous day, the life of the entire city and its offices, and much more.
Some went to watch the updates from schools and children’s communes, others—from factories, yet others—of theaters. And some were interested in watching the goings-on in the streets filmed just the day before.
Philharmonic orchestras played, choirs sang.
There were also “Quiet Neighborhoods,” where those who desired complete rest could retire to.
Kuks and Tilibom sat on the roof of the enormous building where Kuks’ apartment was. The old men silently read the evening celestial newspaper, and then discussed, like all the other city denizens, what they had read.
“Not a word about my invention, ha ha,” Kuks chuckled.
“Any day we’ll read about it,” Tilibom comforted his friend. “Soon we’ll read about it, and your mug will be in every cinema.”
8. THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES SCANDAL
Finally the testing of the “Gramophone of the Ages” was done, and it was time to turn it in to the Academy of Sciences.
Kuks did it not without excitement.
The Academy had gathered the cream of human genius and knowledge. Because they were to investigate the new invention, they invited the representatives from every prominent Academy of Sciences in Europe.
They tested the “Gramophone of the Ages” the entire week.
The trial run of the wondrous apparatus caused, unfortunately, two misfortunes. One of the scientists, the creator of “New Ethics,” was present when the apparatus ran in the garden, under an ancient oak tree.
It turned out that a man was executed by a firing squad under that oak, and the plea of the condemned was truly terrible: Go ahead, shoot, just not in the face!
That request of some man killed by no one knew who made such a sad impression that the sensitive creator of the New Ethics started striking his head against the ground and, as his further behavior clarified, had gone insane.
The second misfortune was no less tragic.
When the apparatus started to reproduce with merciless clarity the scene of a landowner torturing his serf in another garden, and the garden came alive with hair-raising screams of the tormented, an old revolutionary present among the scientists lunged at the apparatus, threw it on the ground, and started stomping on it with his feet.
In the overall din, it was impossible to hear what the agitated revolutionary was yelling.
Kuks lay on the ground in a deep swoon.
Once he came to and calmed down a bit, they invited him to join the scientists’ gathering.
Weary and broken, he entered the hall, expecting sympathy and thinking of whether the apparatus could be fixed.
But to his surprise, no one offered any sympathy, and no one even objected to the apparatus’s destruction.
“Your invention, citizen,” they told him, “is great, but unfortunately it is completely useless. Let us forever curse the old order! We don’t need its moans, we don’t need its horrors. We don’t want to listen to its dreadful voices. Let it be cursed forever! Kuks, look out of the window. Today is a celebration. Look at our children, listen to their voices—healthy and happy, listen and tell us: isn’t it a sacrilege to simultaneously hear the horrors coming out of your demonic machine? You are a genius, Kuks, but in the name of our new joyful order sacrifice your genius. Don’t torment us. We don’t want to know and hear the bygone world we left behind forever.”
Kuks wanted to object that he did not agree, that even today he saw many imperfections that could be removed precisely by his machine, but he was spent, objected weakly, and no one listened to him.
9. THE SAD FATE OF “GRAMOPHONE OF THE AGES”
Kuks gathered his mutilated apparatus and trudged home. At home, Tilibom was waiting for him.
Kuks told him about his ordeal. Tilibom listened and said, “But they are right, Kuks! You know, ever since I learned about the Gramophone, I lost my inner peace. I am bewildered. I am sad. I cry often. I started doubting you and your friendship. I did not tell you, but I ran the apparatus in my apartment, and heard many underhanded things you were kind enough to say in my house while I was absent.”
“Then please explain, weren’t you trying to seduce my dearly departed wife, Manya?”
“Yes, it is so. We are worth each other, of course. The old order with its hypocrisy, lies, betrayals, and underhandedness isn’t entirely burned out from our souls, but we probably should not revive it in our memories.”
Kuks stayed silent.
“And besides the personal grossness,” Tilibom continued, “my ears are constantly filled with moans, screams, swearing, and curses the old world was brimming with, and with which now every stone is crying out, thanks to your infernal machine—and every piece of drywall, every inanimate object. Oh, I am happy that ‘Gramophone of the Ages’ is no more! I am very happy.”
Kuks kept quiet.
Once Tilibom had left, he lay on a couch and gave himself to thinking.
The mutilated “Gramophone of the Ages” sat on the floor. A few cylinders, driven by inertia, kept moving, and occasional random phrases and words, picked up at different times, kept spewing forth.
The old order was breathing its last breath inside the machine, cursed out and spoke out the dull, mundane words of its cruelty, boredom, banality, and ennui.
“Punch you in the face,” bluntly barked the machine.
“Shut up!”
“Oh hello, it’s been a long time!”
“Leave me alone, I have no change. God will provide.”
“Ow! No, daddy, please don’t hit me, I won’t do it again!”
“Bastard! Cur! Piece of…keep working, dog!”
“Silence!”
“I’ll shoot you like an animal!”
“I love you, Linochka…I adore you!”
“Here’s your tip, waiter.”
And so on, and so on.
Disconnected words and sentences, but all equally dreadful, in all languages, kept spilling from the machine. Kuks jumped to his feet and started stomping on the machine, to further its demise, like that revolutionary at the Academy.
Then he stopped, scratched his bald pate, and said, softly,
“Yes, let the past disappear. We don’t need…no more.”
David Lindsay (1876–1945) was an English writer who was influenced by the work of Jules Verne as well as Norse mythology, but in a much different way than E. R. Eddison. While Eddison focused on the storytelling and mythology of Norse sagas, Lindsay was drawn to the exploration of existence through philosophy. He was highly intellectual and had a passion for writing, but unfortunately he never achieved any kind of success with his books. A Voyage to Arcturus is considered by many to be a masterpiece; however, it sold less than six hundred copies when first published in 1920. His subsequent novels, The Haunted Woman, Sphinx, and The Ancient Tragedy (published as Devil’s Tor after so many rejections), had a similar lack of success, both critically and in sales. This left him penniless as well as a tragic, pessimistic figure. A Voyage to Arcturus remains an inspiration to generations of writers of the fantastic, including C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Indeed, it is truly one of the most imaginative and unique novels of the twentieth century. This selection is a chapter from this thought-provoking novel where we follow Maskull, a man who seeks adventure, traveling to the planet Tormance in the Arcturus star system.
Joiwind
(EXCERPT FROM A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS)
David Lindsay
IT WAS A DENSE NIGHT when Maskull awoke from his profound sleep. A wind was blowing against him, gentle but wall-like, such as he had never experienced on earth. He remained sprawling on the ground, as he was unable to lift his body because of its intense weight. A numbing pain, which he could not identify with any region of his frame, acted from now onward as a lower, sympathetic note to all his other sensations. It gnawed away at him continuously; sometimes it embittered and irritated him, at other times he forgot it.
He felt something hard on his forehead. Putting his hand up, he discovered there a fleshy protuberance the size of a small plum, having a cavity in the middle, of which he could not feel the bottom. Then he also became aware of a large knob on each side of his neck, an inch below the ear.
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy Page 118