3. The Service of the Earthling

by H.G. Wells

　　Section 1

　　The man to whom Mr. Barnstaple, after due inquiries, went to talkwas named Sungold. He was probably very old, because there werelines of age about his eyes and over his fine brow. He was a ruddyman, bearded with an auburn beard that had streaks of white, and hiseyes were brown and nimble under his thick eyebrows. His hair hadthinned but little and flowed back like a mane, but its copper-redcolour had gone. He sat at a table with papers spread before him,making manuscript notes. He smiled at Mr. Barnstaple, for he hadbeen expecting him, and indicated a seat for him with his stout andfreckled hand. Then he waited smilingly for Mr. Barnstaple to begin.

　　"This world is one triumph of the desire for order and beauty inmen's minds," said Mr. Barnstaple. "But it will not tolerate oneuseless soul in it. Everyone is happily active. Everyone butmyself.... I belong nowhere. I have nothing to do. And no one--isrelated to me."

　　Sungold moved his head slightly to show that he understood.

　　"It is hard for an Earthling, with an earthly want of training,to fall into any place here. Into any usual work or any usualrelationship. One is--a stranger.... But it is still harder to haveno place at all. In the new work, of which I am told you know mostof anyone and are indeed the centre and regulator, it has occurredto me that I might be of some use, that I might indeed be as goodas a Utopian.... If so, I want to be of use. You may want someonejust to risk death--to take the danger of going into some strangeplace--someone who desires to serve Utopia--and who need not haveskill or knowledge--or be a beautiful or able person?"

　　Mr. Barnstaple stopped short.

　　Sungold conveyed the completest understanding of all that was inMr. Barnstaple's mind.

　　Mr. Barnstaple sat interrogative while for a time Sungold thought.

　　Then words and phrases began to string themselves together in Mr.Barnstaple's mind.

　　Sungold wondered if Mr. Barnstaple understood either the extent orthe limitations of the great discoveries that were now being madein Utopia. Utopia, he said, was passing into a phase of intenseintellectual exaltation. New powers and possibilities intoxicatedthe imagination of the race, and it was indeed inconceivable that anunteachable and perplexed Earthling could be anything but distressedand uncomfortable amidst the vast strange activities that mustnow begin. Even many of their own people, the more backwardUtopians, were disturbed. For centuries Utopian philosophers andexperimentalists had been criticizing, revising and reconstructingtheir former instinctive and traditional ideas of space and time, ofform and substance, and now very rapidly the new ways of thinkingwere becoming clear and simple and bearing fruit in surprisingpractical applications. The limitations of space which had seemedfor ever insurmountable were breaking down; they were breaking downin a strange and perplexing way but they were breaking down. It wasnow theoretically possible, it was rapidly becoming practicablypossible, to pass from the planet Utopia to which the race hadhitherto been confined, to other points in its universe of origin,that is to say to remote planets and distant stars.... That was thegist of the present situation.

　　"I cannot imagine that," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"You cannot imagine it," Sungold agreed, quite cordially. "But it isso. A hundred years ago it was inconceivable--here."

　　"Do you get there by some sort of backstairs in another dimension?"said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　Sungold considered this guess. It was a grotesque image, he said,but from the point of view of an Earthling it would serve. Thatconveyed something of its quality. But it was so much morewonderful....

　　"A new and astounding phase has begun for life here. We learnt longago the chief secrets of happiness upon this planet. Life is good inthis world. You find it good?... For thousands of years yet it willbe our fastness and our home. But the wind of a new adventure blowsthrough our life. All this world is in a mood like striking camp inthe winter quarters when spring approaches."

　　He leant over his papers towards Mr. Barnstaple, and held up afinger and spoke audible words as if to make his meaning plainer.It seemed to Mr. Barnstaple that each word translated itself intoEnglish as he spoke it. At any rate Mr. Barnstaple understood. "Thecollision of our planet Utopia with your planet earth was a verycurious accident, but an unimportant accident, in this story. Iwant you to understand that. Your universe and ours are two out ofa great number of gravitation-time universes, which are translatedtogether through the inexhaustible infinitude of God. They aresimilar throughout, but they are identical in nothing. Your planetand ours happen to be side by side, so to speak, but they are nottravelling at exactly the same pace nor in a strictly paralleldirection. They will drift apart again and follow their severaldestinies. When Arden and Greenlake made their experiment thechances of their hitting anything in your universe were infinitelyremote. They had disregarded it, they were merely rotating some ofour matter out of and then back into our universe. You fell intous--as amazingly for us as for you. The importance of our discoveriesfor us lies in our own universe and not in yours. We do not wantto come into your universe nor have more of your world come intoours. You are too like us, and you are too dark and troubled anddiseased--you are too contagious--and we, we cannot help you yetbecause we are not gods but men."

　　Mr. Barnstaple nodded.

　　"What could Utopians do with the men of earth? We have no stronginstinct in us to teach or dominate other adults. That has beenbred out of us by long centuries of equality and free co-operation.And you would be too numerous for us to teach and much of yourpopulation would be grown up and set in bad habits. Your stupiditieswould get in our way, your quarrels and jealousies and traditions,your flags and religions and all your embodied spites andsuppressions, would hamper us in everything we should want to do. Weshould be impatient with you, unjust, overbearing. You are too likeus for us to be patient with your failures. It would be hard toremember constantly how ill-bred you were. In Utopia we found outlong ago that no race of human beings was sufficiently great, subtleand powerful to think and act for any other race. Perhaps alreadyyou are finding out the same thing on earth as your races come intocloser contact. And much more would this be true between Utopiaand earth. From what I know of your people and their ignorance andobstinacies it is clear our people would despise you; and contemptis the cause of all injustice. We might end by exterminating you....But why should we make that possible?... We must leave you alone.We cannot trust ourselves with you.... Believe me this is the onlyreasonable course for us."

　　Mr. Barnstaple assented silently.

　　"You and I--two individuals--can be friends and understand."

　　"What you say is true," said Mr. Barnstaple. "It is true. But itgrieves me it is true.... Greatly.... Nevertheless, I gather, I atleast may be of service in Utopia?"

　　"You can."

　　"How?"

　　"By returning to your own world."

　　Mr. Barnstaple thought for some moments. It was what he had feared.But he had offered himself. "I will do that."

　　"By attempting to return, I should say. There is risk. You may bekilled."

　　"I must take that."

　　"We want to verify all the data we have of the relations of ouruniverse to yours. We want to reverse the experiment of Arden andGreenlake and see if we can return a living being to your world. Weare almost certain now that we can do so. And that human being mustcare for us enough and care for his own world enough to go back andgive us a sign that he has got there."

　　Mr. Barnstaple spoke huskily. "I can do that," he said.

　　"We can put you into that machine of yours and into the clothes youwore. You can be made again exactly as you left your world."

　　"Exactly. I understand."

　　"And because your world is vile and contentious and yet has somestrangely able brains in it, here and there, we do not want yourpeople to know of us, living so close to you--for we shall be closeto you yet for some hundreds of years at least--we do not want themto know for fear that they should come here presently, led bysome poor silly genius of a scientific man, come in their greedy,foolish, breeding swarms, hammering at our doors, threatening ourlives, and spoiling our high adventures, and so have to be beatenoff and killed like an invasion of rats or parasites."

　　"Yes," said Mr. Barnstaple. "Before men can come to Utopia, theymust learn the way here. Utopia, I see, is only a home for thosewho have learnt the way."

　　He paused and answered some of his own thoughts. "When I havereturned," he said, "shall I begin to forget Utopia?"

　　Sungold smiled and said nothing.

　　"All my days the nostalgia of Utopia will distress me."

　　"And uphold you."

　　"I shall take up my earthly life at the point where I laid it down,but--on earth--I shall be a Utopian. For I feel that having offeredmy service and had it accepted, that I am no longer an outcast inUtopia. I belong...."

　　"Remember you may be killed. You may die in the trial."

　　"As it may happen."

　　"Well--Brother!"

　　The friendly paw took Mr. Barnstaple's and pressed it and the deepeyes smiled.

　　"After you have returned and given us your sign, several of the otherEarthlings may also be sent back."

　　Mr. Barnstaple sat up. "_But_!" he gasped. His voice rose high inamazement. "I thought they were hurled into the blank space of someouter universe and altogether destroyed!"

　　"Several were killed. They killed themselves by rushing down theside of the old fortress in the outer darkness as the crag rotated.The men in leather. The man you call Long Barrow--"

　　"Barralonga?"

　　"Yes. And the man who shrugged his shoulders and said, 'What wouldyou?' The others came back as the rotation was completed late in theday--asphyxiated and frozen but not dead. They have been restored tolife, and we are puzzled now how to dispose of them.... They are ofno use whatever in this world. They encumber us."

　　"It is only too manifest," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"The man you call Burleigh seems to be of some importance in yourearthly affairs. We have searched his mind. His powers of belief arevery small. He believes in very little but the life of a cultivatedwealthy gentleman who holds a position of modest distinction in thecouncils of a largely fictitious empire. It is doubtful if he willbelieve in the reality of any of this experience. We will make sureanyhow that he thinks it has been an imaginative dream. He willconsider it too fantastic to talk about because it is plain he isalready very afraid of his imagination. He will find himself back inyour world a few days after you reach it and he will make his way tohis own home unobtrusively. He will come next after you. You willsee him reappear in political affairs. Perhaps a little wiser."

　　"It might well be," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"And--what are the sounds of his name?--Rupert Catskill; he too willreturn. Your world would miss him."

　　"Nothing will make him wiser," said Mr. Barnstaple with conviction.

　　"Lady Stella will come."

　　"I am glad she has escaped. She will say nothing about Utopia. Sheis very discreet."

　　"The priest is mad. His behaviour became offensive and obscene andhe is under restraint."

　　"What did he do?"

　　"He made a number of aprons of black silk and set out with them toattack our young people in an undignified manner."

　　"You can send him back," said Mr. Barnstaple after reflection.

　　"But will your world allow that sort of thing?"

　　"_We_ call that sort of thing Purity," said Mr. Barnstaple. "But ofcourse if you like to keep him...."

　　"He shall come back," said Sungold.

　　"The others you can keep," said Mr. Barnstaple. "In fact you willhave to keep them. Nobody on earth will trouble about them verymuch. In our world there are so many people that always a few aregetting lost. As it is, returning even the few you propose to domay excite attention. Local people may begin to notice all thesewanderers coming from nowhere in particular and asking their wayhome upon the Maidenhead Road. They might give way under questions....You cannot send any more. Put the rest on an island. Or somethingof that sort. I wish I could advise you to keep the priest also. Butmany people would miss him. They would suffer from suppressed Purityand begin to behave queerly. The pulpit of St. Barnabas satisfies arecognized craving. And it will be quite easy to persuade him thatUtopia is a dream and delusion. All priests believe that naturallyof all Utopias. He will think of it, if he thinks of it at all,as--what would he call it--as a moral nightmare."

　　Section 2

　　Their business was finished, but Mr. Barnstaple was loth to go.

　　He looked Sungold in the eye and found something kindly there.

　　"You have told me all that I have to do," he said, "and it is fullytime that I went away from you, for any moment in your life is moreprecious than a day of mine. Yet because I am to go so soon and soobediently out of this vast and splendid world of yours back to mynative disorders, I could find it in my heart to ask you to unbendif you could, to come down to me a little, and to tell me simply andplainly of the greater days and greater achievements that are nowdawning upon this planet. You speak of your being able presentlyto go out of this Utopia to remote parts in your universe. Thatperplexes my mind. Probably I am unfitted to grasp that idea, butit is very important to me. It has been a belief in our world thatat last there must be an end to life because our sun and planetsare cooling, and there seems no hope of escape from the littleworld upon which we have arisen. We were born with it and we mustdie with it. That robbed many of us of hope and energy: for whyshould we work for progress in a world that must freeze and die?"

　　Sungold laughed. "Your philosophers concluded too soon."

　　He sprawled over the table towards his hearer and looked himearnestly in the face.

　　"Your Earthly science has been going on for how long?"

　　"Two hundred--three hundred years."

　　Sungold held up two fingers. "And men? How many men?"

　　"A few hundred who mattered in each generation."

　　"We have gone on for three thousand years now, and a hundred milliongood brains have been put like grapes into the wine-press ofscience. And we know to-day--how little we know. There is never anobservation made but a hundred observations are missed in the makingof it; there is never a measurement but some impish truth mocksus and gets away from us in the margin of error. I know somethingof where your scientific men are, all power to the poor savages!because I have studied the beginnings of our own science in the longpast of Utopia. How can I express our distances? Since those days wehave examined and tested and tried and retried a score of new waysof thinking about space, of which time is only a specialized form.We have forms of expression that we cannot get over to you so thatthings that used to seem difficult and paradoxical to us--thatprobably seem hopelessly difficult and paradoxical to you, lose alltheir difficulty in our minds. It is hard to convey to you. We thinkin terms of a space in which the space and time system, in terms ofwhich you think, is only a specialized case. So far as our feelingsand instincts and daily habits go we too live in another such systemas you do--but not so far as our knowledge goes, not so far asour powers go. Our minds have exceed our lives--as yours will.We are still flesh and blood, still hope and desire, we go to andfro and look up and down, but things that seemed remote are broughtnear, things that were inaccessible bow down, things that wereinsurmountable lie under the hollows of our hands."

　　"And you do not think your race nor, for the matter of that, ours,need ever perish?"

　　"Perish! We have hardly begun!"

　　The old man spoke very earnestly. Unconsciously he parodied Newton."We are like little children who have been brought to the shores of alimitless ocean. All the knowledge we have gathered yet in the fewscore generations since first we began to gather knowledge, is likea small handful of pebbles gathered upon the shore of that limitlesssea.

　　"Before us lies knowledge, endlessly, and we may take and take, andas we take, grow. We grow in power, we grow in courage. We renewour youth. For mark what I say, our worlds grow younger. The oldgenerations of apes and sub-men before us had aged minds; theirnarrow reluctant wisdom was the meagre profit, hoarded and stale andsour, of innumerable lives. They dreaded new things; so bitterlydid they value the bitterly won old. But to learn is, at length, tobecome young again, to be released, to begin afresh. Your world,compared with ours, is a world of unteachable encrusted souls, ofbent and droning traditions, of hates and injuries and such-likeunforgettable things. But some day you too will become again likelittle children, and it will be you who will find your way throughto us--to us, who will be waiting for you. Two universes will meetand embrace, to beget a yet greater universe.... You Earthlings donot begin to realize yet the significance of life. Nor weUtopians--scarcely more.... Life is still only a promise, still waitsto be born, out of such poor stirrings in the dust as we....

　　"Some day here and everywhere, Life of which you and I are butanticipatory atoms and eddies, Life will awaken indeed, one andwhole and marvellous, like a child awaking to conscious life. Itwill open its drowsy eyes and stretch itself and smile, looking themystery of God in the face as one meets the morning sun. We shallbe there then, all that matters of us, you and I....

　　"And it will be no more than a beginning, no more than a beginning...."

　　CHAPTER THE FOURTH

　　THE RETURN OF THE EARTHLING

　　Section 1

　　Too soon the morning came when Mr. Barnstaple was to look his lastupon the fair hills of Utopia and face the great experiment to whichhe had given himself. He had been loth to sleep and he had sleptlittle that night, and in the early dawn he was abroad, wearing forthe last time the sandals and the light white robe that had becomehis Utopian costume. Presently he would have to struggle into socksand boots and trousers and collar; the strangest gear. It wouldchoke him he felt, and he stretched his bare arms to the sky andyawned and breathed his lungs full. The valley below still drowsedbeneath a coverlet of fleecy mists; he turned his face uphill, thesooner to meet the sun.

　　Never before had he been out among the Utopian flowers at such anearly hour; it was amusing to see how some of the great trumpetsstill drooped asleep and how many of the larger blossoms werefurled and hung. Many of the leaves too were wrapped up, as limp asnew-hatched moths. The gossamer spiders had been busy and everythingwas very wet with dew. A great tiger came upon him suddenly out of aside path and stared hard at him for some moments with round yelloweyes. Perhaps it was trying to remember the forgotten instincts ofits breed.

　　Some way up the road he passed under a vermilion archway and went upa flight of stone stairs that promised to bring him earlier to thecrest.

　　A number of friendly little birds, very gaily coloured, flew abouthim for a time and one perched impudently upon his shoulder, butwhen he put up his hand to caress it it evaded him and flew away.He was still ascending the staircase when the sun rose. It was asif the hillside slipped off a veil of grey and blue and bared thegolden beauty of its body.

　　Mr. Barnstaple came to a landing place upon the staircase andstopped, and stood very still watching the sunrise search andquicken the brooding deeps of the valley below.

　　Far away, like an arrow shot from east to west, appeared a line ofdazzling brightness on the sea.

　　Section 2

　　"Serenity," he murmured. "Beauty. All the works of men--in perfectharmony...minds brought to harmony...."

　　According to his journalistic habit he tried over phrases. "Anenergetic peace...confusions dispersed.... A world of spirits,crystal clear...."

　　What was the use of words?

　　For a time he stood quite still listening, for from some slope abovea lark had gone heavenward, spraying sweet notes. He tried to seethat little speck of song and was blinded by the brightening blueof the sky.

　　Presently the lark came down and ceased. Utopia was silent, exceptfor a burst of childish laughter somewhere on the hillside below.

　　It dawned upon Mr. Barnstaple how peaceful was the Utopian airin comparison with the tormented atmosphere of earth. Here wasno yelping and howling of tired or irritated dogs, no braying,bellowing, squealing and distressful outcries of uneasy beasts, nofarmyard clamour, no shouts of anger, no barking and coughing, nosounds of hammering, beating, sawing, grinding, mechanical hooting,whistling, screaming and the like, no clattering of distant trains,clanking of automobiles or other ill-contrived mechanisms; thetiresome and ugly noises of many an unpleasant creature were heardno more. In Utopia the ear like the eye was at peace. The airwhich had once been a mud of felted noises was now--a purifiedsilence. Such sounds as one heard lay upon it like beautifulprinting on a generous sheet of fine paper.

　　His eyes returned to the landscape below as the last fleecy vestigesof mist dissolved away. Water-tanks, roads, bridges, buildings,embankments, colonnades, groves, gardens, channels, cascades andfountains grew multitudinously clear, framed under a branch of darkfoliage from a white-stemmed tree that gripped a hold among therocks at his side.

　　"Three thousand years ago this was a world like ours.... Think ofit--in a hundred generations.... In three thousand years we mightmake our poor waste of an earth, jungle and desert, slag-heap andslum, into another such heaven of beauty and power....

　　"Worlds they are--similar, but not the same....

　　"If I could tell them what I have seen!...

　　"Suppose all men could have this vision of Utopia....

　　"They would not believe it if I told them. No...

　　"They would bray like asses at me and bark like dogs!... They willhave no world but their own world. It hurts them to think of anyworld but their own. Nothing can be done that has not been donealready. To think otherwise would be humiliation.... Death,torture, futility--anything but humiliation! So they must sit amongtheir weeds and excrement, scratching and nodding sagely at oneanother, hoping for a good dog-fight and to gloat upon pain andeffort they do not share, sure that mankind stank, stinks and mustalways stink, that stinking is very pleasant indeed, and that thereis nothing new under the sun...."

　　His thoughts were diverted by two young girls who came running oneafter the other up the staircase. One was dark even to duskinessand her hands were full of blue flowers; the other who pursued herwas a year or so younger and golden fair. They were full of thelimitless excitement of young animals at play. The former one wasso intent upon the other that she discovered Mr. Barnstaple with asqueak of surprise after she had got to his landing. She stared athim with a quick glance of inquiry, flashed into impudent roguery,flung two blue flowers in his face and was off up the steps above.Her companion, intent on capture, flew by. They flickered up thestaircase like two butterflies of buff and pink; halted far aboveand came together for a momentary consultation about the stranger,waved hands to him and vanished.

　　Mr. Barnstaple returned their greeting and remained cheered.

　　Section 3

　　The view-point to which Lychnis had directed Mr. Barnstaple stoodout on the ridge between the great valley in which he had spent thelast few days and a wild and steep glen down which ran a torrentthat was destined after some hundred miles of windings to reach theriver of the plain. The view-point was on the crest of a crag, ithad been built out upon great brackets so that it hung sheer over abend in the torrent below; on the one hand was mountainous sceneryand a rich and picturesque foam of green vegetation in the depths,on the other spread the broad garden spaces of a perfectedlandscape. For a time Mr. Barnstaple scrutinized this glen intowhich he looked for the first time. Five hundred feet or so belowhim, so that he felt that he could have dropped a pebble upon itsoutstretched wings, a bustard was soaring.

　　Many of the trees below he thought must be fruit trees, but theywere too far off to see distinctly. Here and there he coulddistinguish a footpath winding up among the trees and rocks, andamong the green masses were little pavilions in which he knew thewayfarer might rest and make tea for himself and find biscuits andsuch-like refreshment and possibly a couch and a book. The wholeworld, he knew, was full of such summer-houses and kindly shelters....

　　After a time he went back to the side of this view-place up whichhe had come, and regarded the great valley that went out towards thesea. The word Pisgah floated through his mind. For indeed below himwas the Promised Land of human desires. Here at last, establishedand secure, were peace, power, health, happy activity, length of daysand beauty. All that we seek was found here and every dream wasrealized.

　　How long would it be yet--how many centuries or thousands ofyears--before a man would be able to stand upon some high place onearth also and see mankind triumphant and wholly and for ever atpeace?...

　　He folded his arms under him upon the parapet and mused profoundly.

　　There was no knowledge in this Utopia of which earth had not thegerms, there was no power used here that Earthlings might not use.Here, but for ignorance and darkness and the spites and malice theypermit, was earth to-day....

　　Towards such a world as this Utopia Mr. Barnstaple had been strivingweakly all his life. If the experiment before him succeeded, ifpresently he found himself alive again on earth, it would still betowards Utopia that his life would be directed. And he would not bealone. On earth there must be thousands, tens of thousands, perhapshundreds of thousands, who were also struggling in their minds andacts to find a way of escape for themselves and for their childrenfrom the disorders and indignities of the Age of Confusion, hundredsof thousands who wanted to put an end to wars and waste, to heal andeducate and restore, to set the banner of Utopia over the shams anddivisions that waste mankind.

　　"Yes, but we fail," said Mr. Barnstaple an walked fretfully to aidfro. "Tens and hundred of thousands of men and women! And we achieveso little! Perhaps every young man and every young woman has hadsome dream at least of serving and bettering the world. And weare scattered and wasted, and the old things and the foul things,customs, delusions, habits, tolerated treasons, base immediacies,triumph over us!"

　　He went to the parapet again and stood with his foot on a seat, hiselbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, staring at theloveliness of this world he was to leave so soon....

　　"We could do it."

　　And suddenly it was borne in upon Mr. Barnstaple that he belongednow soul and body to the Revolution, to the Great Revolution thatis afoot on earth; that marches and will never desist nor restagain until Old Earth is one city and Utopia set up therein. Heknew clearly that this Revolution is life, and that all other livingis a trafficking of life with death. And as this crystallized out inhis mind he knew instantly that so presently it would crystallizeout in the minds of countless others of those hundreds of thousandsof men and women on earth whom minds are set towards Utopia.

　　He stood up. He began walking to and fro. "We shall do it," he said.

　　Earthly thought was barely awakened as yet to the task andpossibilities before mankind. All human history so far had beenno more than the stirring of a sleeper, a gathering discontent, arebellion against the limitations set upon life, the unintelligentprotest of thwarted imaginations. All the conflicts andinsurrections and revolutions that had ever been on earth were butindistinct preludes of the revolution that has still to come. Whenhe had started out upon this fantastic holiday Mr. Barnstaplerealized he had been in a mood of depression; earthly affairs hadseemed utterly confused and hopeless to him; but now from theview-point of Utopia achieved, and with his health renewed, he couldsee plainly enough how steadily men on earth were feeling their waynow, failure after failure, towards the opening drive of the finalrevolution. He could see how men in his own lifetime had beenstruggling out of such entanglements as the lie of monarchy, thelies of dogmatic religion and dogmatic morality towards publicself-respect and cleanness of mind and body. They struggled nowalso towards international charity and the liberation of theircommon economic life from a network of pretences, dishonesties andimpostures. There is confusion in all struggles; retractions anddefeats; but the whole effect seen from the calm height of Utopiawas one of steadfast advance....

　　There were blunders, there were set-backs, because the forces ofrevolution still worked in the twilight. The great effort and thegreat failure of the socialist movement to create a new state in theworld had been contemporaneous with Mr. Barnstaple's life; socialismhad been the gospel of his boyhood; he had participated in itshopes, its doubts, its bitter internal conflicts. He had seen themovement losing sweetness and gathering force in the narrowness ofthe Marxist formulae. He had seen it sacrifice its constructivepower for militant intensity. In Russia he had marked its abilityto overthrow and its inability to plan or build. Like every liberalspirit in the world he had shared the chill of Bolshevik presumptionand Bolshevik failure, and for a time it had seemed to him that thisopen bankruptcy of a great creative impulse was no less and no morethan a victory for reaction, that it gave renewed life to allthe shams, impostures, corruptions, traditional anarchies andascendencies that restrain and cripple human life.... But now fromthis high view-point in Utopia he saw clearly that the Phoenix ofRevolution flames down to ashes only to be born again. While thenoose is fitted round the Teacher's neck the youths are reading histeaching. Revolutions arise and die; the Great Revolution comesincessantly and inevitably.

　　The time was near--and in what life was left to him, he himselfmight help to bring it nearer--when the forces of that last and realrevolution would work no longer in the twilight but in the dawn,and a thousand sorts of men and women now far apart and unorganizedand mutually antagonistic would be drawn together by the growth ofa common vision of the world desired. The Marxist had wasted theforces of revolution for fifty years; he had had no vision; he hadhad only a condemnation for established things. He had estrangedall scientific and able men by his pompous affectation of thescientific; he had terrified them by his intolerant orthodoxy; hisdelusion that all ideas are begotten by material circumstances hadmade him negligent of education and criticism. He had attempted tobuild social unity on hate and rejected every other driving forcefor the bitterness of a class war. But now, in its days of doubtand exhaustion, vision was returning to Socialism, and the drearyspectacle of a proletarian dictatorship gave way once more toUtopia, to the demand for a world fairly and righteously at peace,its resources husbanded and exploited for the common good, its everycitizen freed not only from servitude but from ignorance, and itssurplus energies directed steadfastly to the increase of knowledgeand beauty. The attainment of that vision by more and more minds wasa thing now no longer to be prevented. Earth would tread the pathUtopia had trod. She too would weave law, duty and education intoa larger sanity than man has ever known. Men also would presentlylaugh at the things they had feared, and brush aside the imposturesthat had overawed them and the absurdities that had tormented andcrippled their lives. And as this great revolution was achieved andearth wheeled into daylight, the burthen of human miseries wouldlift, and courage oust sorrow from the hearts of men. Earth, whichwas now no more than a wilderness, sometimes horrible and at bestpicturesque, a wilderness interspersed with weedy scratchings forfood and with hovels and slums and slag-heaps, earth too would growrich with loveliness and fair as this great land was fair. The sonsof earth also, purified from disease, sweet-minded and strong andbeautiful, would go proudly about their conquered planet and lifttheir daring to the stars.

　　"Given the will," said Mr. Barnstaple. "Given only the will."...

　　Section 4

　　From some distant place came the sound of a sweet-toned bellstriking the hour.

　　The time for the service to which he was dedicated was drawing near.He must descend, and be taken to the place where the experiment wasto be made.

　　He took one last look at the glen and then went back to the broadprospect of the great valley, with its lakes and tanks and terraces,its groves and pavilions, its busy buildings and high viaducts, itswide slopes of sunlit cultivation, its universal gracious amenity."Farewell Utopia," he said, and was astonished to discover howdeeply his emotions were stirred.

　　"Dear Dream of Hope and Loveliness, Farewell!"

　　He stood quite still in a mood of sorrowful deprivation too deep fortears.

　　It seemed to him that the spirit of Utopia bent down over him like agoddess, friendly, adorable--and inaccessible.

　　His very mind stood still.

　　"Never," he whispered at last, "for me.... Except to serve.... No...."

　　Presently he began to descend the steps that wound down from theview-point. For a time he noted little of the things immediatelyabout him. Then the scent of roses invaded his attention, and hefound himself walking down a slanting pergola covered with greatwhite roses and very active with little green birds. He stoppedshort and stood looking up at the leaves, light-saturated, againstthe sky. He put up his hands and drew down one of the great blossomsuntil it touched his cheek.

　　Section 5

　　They took Mr. Barnstaple back by aeroplane to the point upon theglassy road where he had first come into Utopia. Lychnis came withhim and Crystal, who was curious to see what would be done.

　　A group of twenty or thirty people, including Sungold, awaited him.The ruined laboratory of Arden and Greenlake had been replaced byfresh buildings, and there were additional erections on the furtherside of the road; but Mr. Barnstaple could recognize quite clearlythe place where Mr. Catskill had faced the leopard and where Mr.Burleigh had accosted him. Several new kinds of flowers were nowout, but the blue blossoms that had charmed him on arrival stillprevailed. His old car, the Yellow Peril, looking now the clumsiestpiece of ironmongery conceivable, stood in the road. He went andexamined it. It seemed to be in perfect order; it had been carefullyoiled and the petrol tank was full.

　　In a little pavilion were his bag and all his earthly clothes. Theywere very clean and they had been folded and pressed, and he putthem on. His shirt seemed tight across his chest and his collardecidedly tight, and his coat cut him a little under the arms.Perhaps these garments had shrunken when they were disinfected.He packed his bag and Crystal put it in the car for him.

　　Sungold explained very simply all that Mr. Barnstaple had to do.Across the road, close by the restored laboratory, stretched a lineas thin as gossamer. "Steer your car to that and break it," he said."That is all you have to do. Then take this red flower and put itdown exactly where your wheel tracks show you have entered your ownworld."

　　Mr. Barnstaple was left beside the car. The Utopians went backtwenty or thirty yards and stood in a circle about him. For a fewmoments everyone was still.

　　Section 6

　　Mr. Barnstaple got into his car, started his engine, let it throbfor a minute and then put in the clutch. The yellow car began tomove towards the line of gossamer. He made a gesture with one handwhich Lychnis answered. Sungold and others of the Utopians alsomade friendly movements. But Crystal was watching too intently forany gesture.

　　"Good-bye, Crystal!" cried Mr. Barnstaple, and the boy respondedwith a start.

　　Mr. Barnstaple accelerated, set his teeth and, in spite of his willto keep them open, shut his eyes as he touched the gossamer line.Came that sense again of unendurable tension and that sound like thesnapping of a bow-string. He had an irresistible impulse to stop--goback. He took his foot from the accelerator, and the car seemed tofall a foot or so and stopped so heavily and suddenly that he wasjerked forward against the steering wheel. The oppression lifted. Heopened his eyes and looked about him.

　　The car was standing in a field from which the hay had recentlybeen carried. He was tilted on one side because of a roll in theground. A hedge in which there was an open black gate separatedthis hay-field from the high road. Close at hand was a boardadvertisement of some Maidenhead hotel. On the far side of the roadwere level fields against a background of low wooded hills. Awayto the left was a little inn. He turned his head and saw WindsorCastle in the remote distance rising above poplar-studded meadows.It was not, as his Utopians had promised him, the exact spot of hisdeparture from our earth, but it was certainly less than a hundredyards away.

　　He sat still for some moments, mentally rehearsing what he had todo. Then he started the Yellow Peril again and drove it close upto the black gate.

　　He got out and stood with the red flower in his hand. He had to goback to the exact spot at which he had re-entered this universe andput that flower down there. It would be quite easy to determine thatpoint by the track the car had made in the stubble. But he felt anextraordinary reluctance to obey these instructions. He wanted tokeep this flower. It was the last thing, the only thing, he had nowfrom that golden world. That and the sweet savour on his hands.

　　It was extraordinary that he had brought no more than this with him.Why had he not brought a lot of flowers? Why had they given himnothing, no little thing, out of all their wealth of beauty? Hewanted intensely to keep this flower. He was moved to substitutea spray of honeysuckle from the hedge close at hand. But then heremembered that that would be infected stuff for them. He must doas he was told. He walked back along the track of his car to itsbeginning, stood for a moment hesitating, tore a single petal fromthat glowing bloom, and then laid down the rest of the great flowercarefully in the very centre of his track. The petal he put in hispocket. Then with a heavy heart he went back slowly to his car andstood beside it, watching that star of almost luminous red.

　　His grief and emotion were very great. He was bitterly sorrowfulnow at having left Utopia.

　　It was evident the great drought was still going on, for the fieldand the hedges were more parched and brown than he had ever seen anEnglish field before. Along the road lay a thin cloud of dust thatpassing cars continually renewed. This old world seemed to himto be full of unlovely sights and sounds and odours already halfforgotten. There was the honking of distant cars, the uproar ofa train, a thirsty cow mourning its discomfort; there was theirritation of dust in his nostrils and the smell of sweltering tar;there was barbed wire in the hedge near by and along the top of theblack gate, and horse-dung and scraps of dirty paper at his feet.The lovely world from which he had been driven had shrunken now toa spot of shining scarlet.

　　Something happened very quickly. It was as if a hand appeared for amoment and took the flower. In a moment it had gone. A little eddyof dust swirled and drifted and sank....

　　It was the end.

　　At the thought of the traffic on the main road Mr. Barnstaplestooped down so as to hide his face from the passers-by. For someminutes he was unable to regain his self-control. He stood withhis arm covering his face, leaning against the shabby brown hood ofhis car....

　　At last this gust of sorrow came to an end and he could get inagain, start up the engine and steer into the main road.

　　He turned eastward haphazard. He left the black gate open behindhim. He went along very slowly for as yet he had formed no ideaof whither he was going. He began to think that probably in thisold world of ours he was being sought for as a person who hadmysteriously disappeared. Someone might discover him and he wouldbecome the focus of a thousand impossible questions. That wouldbe very tiresome and disagreeable. He had not thought of this inUtopia. In Utopia it had seemed quite possible that he could comeback into earth unobserved. Now on earth that confidence seemedfoolish. He saw ahead of him the board of a modest tea-room. Itoccurred that he might alight there, see a newspaper, ask adiscreet question or so, and find out what had been happening tothe world and whether he had indeed been missed.

　　He found a table already laid for tea under the window. In thecentre of the room a larger table bore an aspidistra in a big greenpot and a selection of papers, chiefly out-of-date illustratedpapers. But there was also a copy of the morning's Daily Express.

　　He seized upon this eagerly, fearful that he would find it full ofthe mysterious disappearance of Mr. Burleigh, Lord Barralonga, Mr.Rupert Catskill, Mr. Hunker, Father Amerton and Lady Stella, notto mention the lesser lights.... Gradually as he turned it over hisfears vanished. There was not a word about any of them!

　　"But surely," he protested to himself, now clinging to his idea,"their friends must have missed them!"

　　He read through the whole paper. Of one only did he find mention andthat was the last name he would have expected to find--Mr. FreddyMush. The Princess de Modena-Frascati (nee Higgisbottom) Prize forEnglish literature had been given away to nobody in particular byMr. Graceful Gloss owing to "the unavoidable absence of Mr. FreddyMush abroad."

　　The problem of why there had been no hue and cry for the othersopened a vast field of worldly speculation to Mr. Barnstaple inwhich he wandered for a time. His mind went back to that bright redblossom lying among the cut stems of the grass in the mown fieldand to the hand that had seemed to take it. With that the door thathad opened so marvellously between that strange and beautiful worldand our own had closed again.

　　Wonder took possession of Mr. Barnstaple's mind. That dear world ofhonesty and health was beyond the utmost boundaries of our space,utterly inaccessible to him now for evermore; and yet, as he hadbeen told, it was but one of countless universes that move togetherin time, that lie against one another, endlessly like the leaves ofa book. And all of them are as nothing in the endless multitudes ofsystems and dimensions that surround them. "Could I but rotate myarm out of the limits set to it," one of the Utopians had said tohim; "I could thrust it into a thousand universes."...

　　A waitress with his teapot recalled him to mundane things.

　　The meal served to him seemed tasteless and unclean. He drank thequeer brew of the tea because he was thirsty but he ate scarcelya mouthful.

　　Presently he chanced to put his hand in his pocket and touchedsomething soft. He drew out the petal he had torn from the redflower. It had lost its glowing red, and as he held it out inthe stuffy air of the room it seemed to writhe as it shrivelledand blackened; its delicate scent gave place to a mawkish odour.

　　"Manifestly," he said. "I should have expected this."

　　He dropped the lump of decay on his plate, then picked it up againand thrust it into the soil in the pot of the aspidistra.

　　He took up the Daily Express again and turned it over, trying torecover his sense of this world's affairs.

　　Section 7

　　For a long time Mr. Barnstaple meditated over the Daily Express inthe tea-room at Colnebrook. His thoughts went far so that presentlythe newspaper slipped to the ground unheeded. He roused himselfwith a sigh and called for his bill. Paying, he became aware of apocket-book still full of pound notes. "This will be the cheapestholiday I have ever had," he thought. "I've spent no money at all."He inquired for the post-office, because he had a telegram to send.

　　Two hours later he stopped outside the gate of his little villa atSydenham. He set it open--the customary bit of stick with which hedid this was in its usual place--and steered the Yellow Peril withthe dexterity of use and went past the curved flower-bed to thedoor of his shed. Mrs. Barnstaple appeared in the porch.

　　"Alfred! You're back at last?"

　　"Yes, I'm back. You got my telegram?"

　　"Ten minutes ago. Where have you been all this time? It's more thana month."

　　"Oh! just drifting about and dreaming. I've had a wonderful time."

　　"You ought to have written. You really ought to have written....You _did_, Alfred...."

　　"I didn't bother. The doctor said I wasn't to bother. I told you.Is there any tea going? Where are the boys?"

　　"The boys are out. Let me make you some fresh tea." She did soand came and sat down in the cane chair in front of him and thetea-table. "I'm glad to have you back. Though I could scold you....

　　"You're looking wonderfully well," she said. "I've never seen yourskin so clear and brown."

　　"I've been in good air all the time."

　　"Did you get to the Lakes?"

　　"Not quite. But it's been good air everywhere. Healthy air."

　　"You never got lost?"

　　"Never."

　　"I had ideas of you getting lost--losing your memory. Such thingshappen. You didn't?"

　　"My memory's as bright as a jewel."

　　"But where did you go?"

　　"I just wandered and dreamt. Lost in a day-dream. Often I didn'task the name of the place where I was staying. I stayed in one placeand then in another. I never asked their names. I left my mindpassive. Quite passive. I've had a tremendous rest--from everything.I've hardly given a thought to politics or money or socialquestions--at least, the sort of thing _we_ call social questions--orany of these worries, since I started.... Is that this week'sLiberal?"

　　He took it, turned it over, and at last tossed it on to the sofa."Poor old Peeve," he said. "Of course I must leave that paper. He'slike wall-paper on a damp wall. Just blotches and rustles and failsto stick.... Gives me mental rheumatics."

　　Mrs. Barnstaple stared at him doubtfully. "But I always thoughtthat the Liberal was such a safe job."

　　"I don't want a safe job now. I can do better. There's other workbefore me.... Don't you worry. I can take hold of things surelyenough after this rest.... How are the boys?"

　　"I'm a little anxious about Frankie."

　　Mr. Barnstaple had picked up the Times. An odd advertisement inthe Agony column had caught his eye. It ran: "Cecil. Your absenceexciting remark. Would like to know what you wish us to tell people.Write fully Scotch address. Di. ill with worry. All instructionswill be followed."

　　"I beg your pardon, my dear?" he said putting the paper aside.

　　"I was saying that he doesn't seem to be settling down to business.He doesn't like it. I wish you could have a good talk to him. He'sfretting because he doesn't _know_ enough. He says he wants to bea science student at the Polytechnic and go on learning things."

　　"Well, he can. Sensible boy! I didn't think he had it in him. Imeant to have a talk to him. But this meets me half-way. Certainlyhe shall study science."

　　"But the boy has to earn a living."

　　"That will come. If he wants to study science he shall."

　　Mr. Barnstaple spoke in a tone that was altogether new to Mrs.Barnstaple, a tone of immediate, quiet, and assured determination.It surprised her still more that he should use this tone withoutseeming to be aware that he had used it.

　　He bit his slice of bread-and-butter, and she could see thatsomething in the taste surprised and displeased him. He glanceddoubtfully at the remnant of the slice in his hand. "Of course,"he said. "London butter. Three days' wear. Left about. Funny howquickly one's taste alters."

　　He picked up the Times again and ran his eye over its columns.

　　"This world is really very childish," he said. "Very. I hadforgotten. Imaginary Bolshevik plots. Sinn Fein proclamations. ThePrince. Poland. Obvious lies about the Chinese. Obvious lies aboutEgypt. People pulling Wickham Steed's leg. Sham-pious article aboutTrinity-Sunday. The Hitchin murder.... H'm!--rather a nasty one....The Pomfort Rembrandt.... Insurance.... Letter from indignant peerabout Death Duties.... Dreary Sport. Boating, Tennis, Schoolboycricket. Collapse of Harrow! As though such things were of theslightest importance!... How silly it is--all of it! It's likecoming back to the quarrels of servants and the chatter ofchildren."

　　He found Mrs. Barnstaple regarding him intently. "I haven't seen apaper from the day I started until this morning," he explained.

　　He put down the paper and stood up. For some minutes Mrs. Barnstaplehad been doubting whether she was not the victim of an absurdhallucination. Now she realized that she was in the presence of themost amazing fact she had ever observed.

　　"Yes," she said. "It is so. Don't move! Keep like that. I know itsounds ridiculous, Alfred, but you have grown taller. It's notsimply that your stoop has gone. You have grown oh!--two or threeinches."

　　Mr. Barnstaple stared at her, and then held out his arm. Certainlyhe was showing an unusual length of wrist. He tried to judge whetherhis trousers had also the same grown-out-of look.

　　Mrs. Barnstaple came up to him almost respectfully. She stood besidehim and put her shoulder against his arm. "Your shoulder used to beexactly level with mine," she said. "See where we are now!"

　　She looked up into his eyes. As though she was very glad indeed tohave him back with her.

　　But Mr. Barnstaple remained lost in thought. "It must be the extremefreshness of the air. I have been in some wonderful air....Wonderful!... But at my age! To have grown! And I _feel_ as thoughI'd grown, inside and out, mind and body."...

　　Mrs. Barnstaple presently began to put the tea-things together forremoval.

　　"You seem to have avoided the big towns."

　　"I did."

　　"And kept to the country roads and lanes."

　　"Practically.... It was all new country to me.... Beautiful....Wonderful...."

　　His wife still watched him.

　　"You must take _me_ there some day," she said. "I can see that ithas done you a world of good."

　　THE END