Book the Second - Quarantine Crag - 1. The Epidemic

by H.G. Wells

　　Section 1

　　The shadow of the great epidemic in Utopia fell upon our little bandof Earthlings in the second day after their irruption. For more thantwenty centuries the Utopians had had the completest freedom frominfectious and contagious disease of all sorts. Not only had thegraver epidemic fevers and all sorts of skin diseases gone out ofthe lives of animals and men, but all the minor infections of colds,coughs, influenzas and the like had also been mastered and ended. Byisolation, by the control of carriers, and so forth, the fatal germshad been cornered and obliged to die out.

　　And there had followed a corresponding change in the Utopianphysiology. Secretions and reactions that had given the bodyresisting power to infection had diminished; the energy thatproduced them had been withdrawn to other more serviceableapplications. The Utopian physiology, relieved of these merelydefensive necessities, had simplified itself and become more directand efficient. This cleaning up of infections was such ancienthistory in Utopia that only those who specialized in the history ofpathology understood anything of the miseries mankind had sufferedunder from this source, and even these specialists do not seem tohave had any idea of how far the race had lost its former resistanceto infection. The first person to think of this lost resisting powerseems to have been Mr. Rupert Catskill. Mr. Barnstaple recalled thatwhen they had met early on the first morning of their stay in theConference Gardens, he had been hinting that Nature was in someunexplained way on the side of the Earthlings.

　　If making them obnoxious was being on their side then certainlyNature was on their side. By the evening of the second day aftertheir arrival nearly everybody who had been in contact with theEarthlings, with the exception of Lychnis, Serpentine and threeor four others who had retained something of their ancestralantitoxins, was in a fever with cough, sore throat, aching bones,headache and such physical depression and misery as Utopia hadnot known for twenty centuries. The first inhabitant of Utopia todie was that leopard which had sniffed at Mr. Rupert Catskill onhis first arrival. It was found unaccountably dead on the secondmorning after that encounter. In the afternoon of the same dayone of the girls who had helped Lady Stella to unpack her bagssickened suddenly and died....

　　Utopia was even less prepared for the coming of these diseasegerms than for the coming of the Earthlings who brought them. Themonstrous multitude of general and fever hospitals, doctors, drugshops, and so forth that had existed in the Last Age of Confusionhad long since passed out of memory; there was a surgical servicefor accidents and a watch kept upon the health of the young, andthere were places of rest at which those who were extremely oldwere assisted, but there remained scarcely anything of the hygienicorganization that had formerly struggled against disease. Abruptlythe Utopian intelligence had to take up again a tangle of problemslong since solved and set aside, to improvise forgotten apparatusand organizations for disinfection and treatment, and to return toall the disciplines of the war against diseases that had marked anepoch in its history twenty centuries before. In one respect indeedthat war had left Utopia with certain permanent advantages. Nearlyall the insect disease carriers had been exterminated, and rats andmice and the untidier sorts of small bird had passed out of theproblem of sanitation. That set very definite limits to the spreadof the new infections and to the nature of the infections thatcould be spread. It enabled the Earthlings only to communicate suchailments as could be breathed across an interval, or conveyed by acontaminating touch. Though not one of them was ailing at all, itbecame clear that some one among them had brought latent measlesinto the Utopian universe, and that three or four of them hadliberated a long suppressed influenza. Themselves too tough tosuffer, they remained at the focus of these two epidemics, whiletheir victims coughed and sneezed and kissed and whispered themabout the Utopian planet. It was not until the afternoon of thesecond day after the irruption that Utopia realized what hadhappened, and set itself to deal with this relapse into barbaricsolicitudes.

　　Section 2

　　Mr. Barnstaple was probably the last of the Earthlings to hear ofthe epidemic. He was away from the rest of the party upon anexpedition of his own.

　　It was early clear to him that the Utopians did not intend to devoteany considerable amount of time or energy to the edification oftheir Earthling visitors. After the eclaircissement of the afternoonof the irruption there were no further attempts to lecture to thevisitors upon the constitution and methods of Utopia and only somevery brief questioning upon the earthly state of affairs. TheEarthlings were left very much together to talk things out amongthemselves. Several Utopians were evidently entrusted with theircomfort and well-being, but they did not seem to think that theirfunctions extended to edification. Mr. Barnstaple found much toirritate him in the ideas and comments of several of his associates,and so he obeyed his natural inclination to explore Utopia forhimself. There was something that stirred his imagination in thevast plain below the lake that he had glimpsed before his aeroplanedescended into the valley of the Conference, and on his secondmorning he had taken a little boat and rowed out across the lake toexamine the dam that retained its waters and to get a view of thegreat plain from the parapet of the dam.

　　The lake was much wider than he had thought it and the dam muchlarger. The water was crystalline clear and very cold, and therewere but few fish in it. He had come out immediately after hisbreakfast, but it was near midday before he had got to the parapetof the great dam and could look down the lower valley to the greatplain.

　　The dam was built of huge blocks of red and gold-veined rock, butsteps at intervals gave access to the roadway along its crest. Thegreat seated figures which brooded over the distant plain had beenput there, it would seem, in a mood of artistic light-heartedness.They sat as if they watched or thought, vast rude shapes, halfmountainous, half human. Mr. Barnstaple guessed them to be perhapstwo hundred feet high; by pacing the distance between two ofthem and afterwards counting the number of them, he came to theconclusion that the dam was between seven and ten miles long. On thefar side it dropped sheerly for perhaps five hundred feet, and itwas sustained by a series of enormous buttresses that passed almostinsensibly into native rock. In the bays between these buttresseshummed great batteries of water turbines, and then, its first taskdone, the water dropped foaming and dishevelled and gathered inanother broad lake retained by a second great dam two miles or soaway and perhaps a thousand feet lower. Far away was a thirdlake and a third dam and then the plain. Only three or fourminute-looking Utopians were visible amidst all this Titanicengineering.

　　Mr. Barnstaple stood, the smallest of objects, in the shadow of abrooding Colossus, and peered over these nearer things at the hazylevels of the plain beyond.

　　What sort of life was going on there? The relationship of plain tomountain reminded him very strongly of the Alps and the great plainof Northern Italy, down into which he had walked as the climax ofmany a summer holiday in his youth. In Italy he knew that thosedistant levels would be covered with clustering towns and villagesand carefully irrigated and closely cultivated fields. A densepopulation would be toiling with an ant-like industry in theproduction of food; for ever increasing its numbers until thoseinevitable consequences of overcrowding, disease and pestilence,established a sort of balance between the area of the land and thenumber of families scraping at it for nourishment. As a toiling mancan grow more food than he can actually eat, and as virtuous womencan bear more children than the land can possibly employ, a surplusof landless population would be gathered in wen-like towns andcities, engaged there in legal and financial operations against theagriculturalist or in the manufacture of just plausible articles forsale.

　　Ninety-nine out of every hundred of this population would beconcentrated from childhood to old age upon the difficult task whichis known as "getting a living." Amidst it, sustained by a pretenceof magical propitiations, would rise shrines and temples, supportinga parasitic host of priests and monks and nuns. Eating and breeding,the simple routines of the common life since human societies began,complications of food-getting, elaborations of acquisitiveness and atribute paid to fear; such would be the spectacle that any warm andfertile stretch of earth would still display. There would be gleamsof laughter and humour there, brief interludes of holiday, flashesof youth before its extinction in adult toil; but a driven labour,the spite and hates of overcrowding, the eternal uncertainty ofdestitution, would dominate the scene. Decrepitude would come bysixty; women would be old and worn out by forty. But this Utopianplain below, sunlit and fertile though it was, was under anotherlaw. Here that common life of mankind, its ancient traditions, itshoary jests and tales repeated generation after generation, itsseasonal festivals, its pious fears and spasmodic indulgences,its limited yet incessant and pitifully childish hoping, and itsabounding misery and tragic futility, had come to an end. It hadpassed for ever out of this older world. That high tide of commonliving had receded and vanished while the soil was still productiveand the sun still shone.

　　It was with something like awe that Mr. Barnstaple realized howclean a sweep had been made of the common life in a mere score ofcenturies, how boldly and dreadfully the mind of man had taken hold,soul and body and destiny, of the life and destiny of the race. Heknew himself now for the creature of transition he was, so deep inthe habits of the old, so sympathetic with the idea of the new thathas still but scarcely dawned on earth. For long he had known howintensely he loathed and despised that reeking peasant life whichis our past; he realized now for the first time how profoundly hefeared the high austere Utopian life which lies before us. Thisworld he looked out upon seemed very clean and dreadful to him.What were they doing upon those distant plains? What daily life didthey lead there?

　　He knew enough of Utopia now to know that the whole land would belike a garden, with every natural tendency to beauty seized upon anddeveloped and every innate ugliness corrected and overcome. Thesepeople could work and struggle for loveliness, he knew, for his tworose growers had taught him as much. And to and fro the food folkand the housing people and those who ordered the general life went,keeping the economic machine running so smoothly that one heardnothing of the jangling and jarring and internal breakages thatconstitute the dominant melody in our earth's affairs. The ages ofeconomic disputes and experiments had come to an end; the right wayto do things had been found. And the population of this Utopia,which had shrunken at one time to only two hundred million, was nowincreasing again to keep pace with the constant increase in humanresources. Having freed itself from a thousand evils that wouldotherwise have grown with its growth, the race could grow indeed.

　　And down there under the blue haze of the great plain almost allthose who were not engaged in the affairs of food and architecture,health, education and the correlation of activities, were busiedupon creative work; they were continually exploring the worldwithout or the world within, through scientific research andartistic creation. They were continually adding to their collectivepower over life or to the realized worth of life.

　　Mr. Barnstaple was accustomed to think of our own world as a wildrush of inventions and knowledge, but all the progress of earth fora hundred years could not compare, he knew, with the forward swingof these millions of associated intelligences in one single year.Knowledge swept forward here and darkness passed as the shadow ofa cloud passes on a windy day. Down there they were assaying theminerals that lie in the heart of their planet, and weaving a web tocapture the sun and the stars. Life marched here; it was terrifyingto think with what strides. Terrifying--because at the back ofMr. Barnstaple's mind, as at the back of so many intelligent minds inour world still, had been the persuasion that presently everythingwould be known and the scientific process come to an end. And thenwe should be happy for ever after.

　　He was not really acclimatized to progress. He had always thoughtof Utopia as a tranquillity with everything settled for good. Evento-day it seemed tranquil under that level haze, but he knew thatthis quiet was the steadiness of a mill race, which seems almostmotionless in its quiet onrush until a bubble or a fleck of foamor some stick or leaf shoots along it and reveals its velocity.

　　And how did it feel to be living in Utopia? The lives of the peoplemust be like the lives of very successful artists or scientificworkers in this world, a continual refreshing discovery of newthings, a constant adventure into the unknown and untried. Forrecreation they went about their planet, and there was much loveand laughter and friendship in Utopia and an abundant easy informalsocial life. Games that did not involve bodily exercise, thosesubstitutes of the half-witted for research and mental effort, hadgone entirely out of life, but many active games were played for thesake of fun and bodily vigour.... It must be a good life for thosewho had been educated to live it, indeed a most enviable life.

　　And pervading it all must be the happy sense that it mattered; itwent on to endless consequences. And they loved no doubt--subtly anddeliciously--but perhaps a little hardly. Perhaps in those distantplains there was not much pity nor tenderness. Bright and lovelybeings they were--in no way pitiful. There would be no need forthose qualities....

　　Yet the woman Lychnis looked kind....

　　Did they keep faith or need to keep faith as earthly lovers do? Whatwas love like in Utopia? Lovers still whispered in the dusk.... Whatwas the essence of love? A preference, a sweet pride, a delightfulgift won, the most exquisite reassurance of body and mind.

　　What could it be like to love and be loved by one of these Utopianwomen?--to have her glowing face close to one's own--to be quickenedinto life by her kiss?...

　　Mr. Barnstaple sat in his flannels, bare-footed, in the shadow ofa stone Colossus. He felt like some minute stray insect perchedupon the big dam. It seemed to him that it was impossible thatthis triumphant Utopian race could ever fall back again from itsmagnificent attack upon the dominion of all things. High andtremendously this world had clambered and was still clambering.Surely it was safe now in its attainment. Yet all this stupendoussecurity and mastery of nature had come about in the little spaceof three thousand years....

　　The race could not have altered fundamentally in that briefinterval. Essentially it was still a stone-age race, it was nottwenty thousand years away from the days when it knew nothing ofmetals and could not read nor write. Deep in its nature, arrestedand undeveloped, there still lay the seeds of anger and fear anddissension. There must still be many uneasy and insubordinatespirits in this Utopia. Eugenics had scarcely begun here. Heremembered the keen sweet face of the young girl who had spokento him in the starlight on the night of his arrival, and the noteof romantic eagerness in her voice when she had asked if LordBarralonga was not a very vigorous and cruel man.

　　Did the romantic spirit still trouble imaginations here? Possiblyonly adolescent imaginations.

　　Might not some great shock or some phase of confusion still bepossible to this immense order? Might not its system of educationbecome wearied by its task of discipline and fall a prey to theexperimental spirit? Might not the unforeseen be still lying in waitfor this race? Suppose there should prove to be an infection inFather Amerton's religious fervour or Rupert Catskill's incurablecraving for fantastic enterprises!

　　No! It was inconceivable. The achievement of this world was toocalmly great and assured.

　　Mr. Barnstaple stood up and made his way down the steps of the greatdam to where, far below, his little skiff floated like a minuteflower-petal upon the clear water.

　　Section 3

　　He became aware of a considerable commotion in the Conferenceplaces.

　　There were more than thirty aeroplanes circling in the air anddescending and ascending from the park, and a great number of bigwhite vehicles were coming and going by the pass road. Also peopleseemed to be moving briskly among the houses, but it was too far offto distinguish what they were doing. He stared for a time and thengot into his little boat.

　　He could not watch what was going on as he returned across the lakebecause his back was towards the slopes, but once an aeroplane camedown very close to him, and he saw its occupant looking at him as herowed. And once when he rested from rowing and sat round to look hesaw what he thought was a litter carried by two men.

　　As he drew near the shore a boat put off to meet him. He wasastonished to see that its occupants were wearing what looked likehelmets of glass with white pointed visors. He was enormouslyastonished and puzzled.

　　As they approached their message resonated into his mind."Quarantine. You have to go into quarantine. You Earthlings havestarted an epidemic and it is necessary to put you into quarantine."

　　Then these glass helmets must be a sort of gas-mask!

　　When they came alongside him he saw that this was so. They were madeof highly flexible and perfectly translucent material....

　　Section 4

　　Mr. Barnstaple was taken past some sleeping loggias where Utopianswere lying in beds, while others who wore gas-masks waited uponthem. He found that all the Earthlings and all their possessions,except their cars, were assembled in the hall of the first day'sConference. He was told that the whole party were to be removed toa new place where they could be isolated and treated.

　　The only Utopians with the party were two who wore gas-masks andlounged in the open portico in attitudes disagreeably suggestive ofsentries or custodians.

　　The Earthlings sat about in little groups among the seats, exceptfor Mr. Rupert Catskill, who was walking up and down in the apsetalking. He was hatless, flushed and excited, with his hair in somedisorder.

　　"It's what I foresaw would happen all along," he repeated. "Didn't Itell you Nature was on our side? Didn't I say it?"

　　Mr. Burleigh was shocked and argumentative. "For the life of me Ican't see the logic of it," he declared. "Here are we--absolutely theonly perfectly immune people here--and we--_we_ are to be isolated."

　　"They say they catch things from us," said Lady Stella.

　　"Very well," said Mr. Burleigh, making his point with his long whitehand. "Very well, then let _them_ be isolated! This is--Chinese; thisis topsy-turvy. I'm disappointed in them."

　　"I suppose it's their world," said Mr. Hunker, "and we've got to dothings their way."

　　Mr. Catskill concentrated upon Lord Barralonga and the twochauffeurs. "I welcome this treatment. I welcome it."

　　"What's your idea, Rupert?" said his lordship. "We lose our freedomof action."

　　"Not at all," said Mr. Catskill. "Not at all. We gain it. We are tobe isolated. We are to be put by ourselves in some island ormountain. Well and good. Well and good. This is only the beginningof our adventures. We shall see what we shall see."

　　"But how?"

　　"Wait a little. Until we can speak more freely.... These are panicmeasures. This pestilence is only in its opening stage. Everythingis just beginning. Trust me."

　　Mr. Barnstaple sat sulkily by his valise, avoiding the challenge ofMr. Catskill's eye.