The coming of the Amazons

It is now one week since the termination of the extraordinary adventure which happened to me in this, the third week in November 1929. Every detail, even to the least conversation is clear in my memory as I start to set down my strange revelation. I, John Bogardus, graduate of Harvard and Oxford, descendant of a virile patroon ancestry, now in my thirty-second year make this record, that my fellow men, at present supinely indifferent to the alarming portent of the feminist uprising, may perceive before it is too late, the hideous catastrophe toward which in the relentless war of the sexes we are blindly drifting.

On the fifteenth of November I had sought refuge at my club in the company of my old friend Dr. Sachaloff, a biologist in the —— Foundation, whose propensity to think out loud had proved exceedingly irritating to the mediocrity of his associates.

We had lunched and wined in a manner befitting [Pg viii]the cellar inherited from my paternal grandfather, and luncheon over, the conversation had run along lines of scientific speculation into the future of society and the possibilities of the prolongation of life. Dr. Sachaloff, sure of my confidence, had permitted his imagination the unpardonable scientific liberty of prophecy. He declared that while the complete conquest of the natural processes of decay must still be regarded as an impossibility, still, with the elimination of present scourges and a fuller control of the glandular sources of energy, theoretically (a word which he pronounced with deliberate emphasis) the span of life might eventually be prolonged from two to three hundred years. However, he qualified this audacity by adding that the birth of new diseases must be reckoned with. I immediately broached an idea which had been long in my mind.

“If,” I began eagerly, “organic bodies can be kept long periods free from decomposition by freezing processes and human beings thrown into a cataleptic state which so nearly resembles death as to defy the acutest observer, why couldn’t a man by some induced hypnotic catalepsy be then subjected to an intense refrigeration and kept alive in cold storage over a long period of years?”

“Port like this,” said Dr. Sachaloff raising his [Pg ix]glass to the light, “is a great stimulation to the imagination.”

“Come now—” I replied with a wheedling smile, “in a mood of pure speculation?”

“But what about the mystery of hibernation,” I persisted. “Is that not a similar arrestation of life? Curious in the larger forms of animal life, more and more inexplicable as we descend into the reptiles and bacterial phenomena.”

“Strange you should have mentioned hibernation,” he said with an expression in his eyes that struck me. I taxed him with concealing his real opinion.

“What is true to any form of life may be possible to all,” I continued. “We need not accept all the stories of toads being shut up for ten—twenty years, but the authentic records are startling enough.”

“And is not hibernation a state of induced catalepsy—self hypnotism if you will?”

He admitted at last with a glance over his shoulder that, theoretically (again he dwelt on the word) there was ground for speculation. Then having sworn me into secrecy, he disclosed to me that he [Pg x]had long considered the problem, that in fact he had constructed a machine with which he intended to conduct certain experimental tests with animals. The hypnotic state of catalepsy, he explained, was really so essential that unless some human being could be induced to make the experiment he had doubts of arriving at any conclusions of significance.

“What a pity you are young, happily married and possessed of an excellent liver,” he concluded looking at me hungrily. “Think what it would be to wake up in another century.”

“But does such a machine exist?” I asked doubtfully, knowing his reputation as a practical joker.

“Come armed then,” he replied smiling. “However, John,” he continued glancing at the table, “your wine was good, too good. Remember that the conversation was not serious.”

I left the Club about four o’clock and proceeded [Pg xi]homeward by way of Park Avenue. I had hardly gone a block when a familiar voice called me and I looked up into the charming eyes of Kitty Dalgleesh.

“Why, John, you were in the clouds,” she exclaimed laughingly. “What can be worrying you, the happily married man?”

“Perhaps I was worrying about you,” I said maliciously, for I was sensitive to the jibes of my friends at my complete and astonishing domestication.

My eyebrows went up at this impertinence, but Kitty was irresistible with her dimple and I yielded to temptation.

“Seriously, why don’t you start marrying?” I said drawing her arm through mine.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t marry Ernesta. You’d have been only a lady’s maid, Ernesta is too publicly brilliant for you. But I didn’t foresee [Pg xii]sister Emelia.” She thought a moment, “You look disconcertingly happy. It’s quite discouraging.”

“Just because I didn’t want to marry you, then and there, doesn’t mean I didn’t love you, John.”

“Oh, no. I’m not starting a flirtation with you,” she said disengaging her arm. “I might have if you were unhappy. However, one word of advice,—for your own good.”

“Beware! You have married two mothers-in-law, mother and sister. Dear me, you don’t seem to respond. You are happy, John. I’m running away.”

The suggestion that Kitty had artfully implanted in my imagination disturbed me though I tried to shake it off. It was in line with my own growing forebodings.

When I entered my home, I found tea spread and a group of women listening to Mrs. Agatha Billings laying down the daily law with occasional sallies from Ernesta. My mother-in-law is a woman of terrific dignity; calmly impressive as the classic portraits of Martha Washington whom she resembles. Ernesta is a young Amazon, who leads parades of protest on horseback, who writes Latin [Pg xiii]poetry, has taken her bar examination and spends five thousand a year on her clothes.

Mrs. Billings was sitting like a statue of Memnon, planted in her opinions, and remaining thus rigidly entrenched gestured only with her fingers. Ernesta, on the contrary, strode up and down, using her hands like an Italian, throwing off her arguments like the brilliant cadenza of a coloratura soprano. Emelia, my wife, listened modestly but rapturously. There were present the militant Mrs. Zanzigger, head of an impressive concentration of women’s clubs and two stern faced delegates, with heavy wrinkled boots, from affiliated societies across the sea.

I excused myself wearily and slipped into a further library where I could hear but not be seen. On the table, placed there for my education, were the works of Bertrand Russell, Elinor Keyes, Havelocke Ellis, and the whole gamut of the psycho-analysts. I took up a volume, concentrated, yawned and put it down.

“The history of society wherever we study it profoundly is simply the record of the warfare of the sexes. No wonder then that marriage must remain the battle ground.”

“But,” objected Mrs. Zanzigger, who was militant but not advanced, “in modern marriage, with equal division of economic responsibility and a common standard of moral judgment, isn’t an intellectual companionship possible?”

“After sixty, perhaps,” interrupted Ernesta. “But where sex is involved it is inevitable that each through the instinct of jealousy and possession will always seek to limit the liberty of the other. You can never change the essential quality of marriage. What we must look forward to is the shifting of authorities. Man-made marriage is a failure. The salvation of society is in the future of woman.”

“The salvation of civilization, of all economic and political reform is in the true development of woman,” corrected my mother-in-law in her coldly treble voice.

“Mrs. Billings is right, quite right,” broke in a guttural Scandinavian voice. “Society has gone as far as it can go under the man era. All men understand is the instinct they were born with, to wrestle and claw and fight down one another.”

I yawned again and peeped into the pages of “Marriage and Morals.” I knew the arguments by heart....

“What becomes of men is unimportant,” said Ernesta parading the floor. “They will return to their clubs probably. The woman’s movement has only just begun. Suffrage is the first step. What are we going to do with marriage, with the home, with the children? Is woman to remain an adjunct or free herself as a completed individuality? We must destroy all traditional inhibitions; the fear complexes that are holding her back. We must make her look on herself not as man’s equal but as man’s superior.”

“If the children are to be kept in the home,” said the guttural voice, “what then?”

“Then the man must look after them,” said Ernesta to the accompaniment of a ripple of laughter. “The age of physical force is over. The age of intellect is coming. Only physical force has kept woman as the mistress of man and the nurse of his children. When machinery has neutralized muscle, a woman will be able to run the machinery as well as man.”

“Our program should be political action, to enlarge our economic progress,” said Mrs. Billings. “We should always have in view, as Ernesta has correctly expressed my views, that ahead of us is the [Pg xvi]dawn of a higher civilization, freed from old superstitions and based on logic and scientific readjustments. Only women have the imagination and courage to bring that about.”

After this I heard only confusedly, my head must have begun to nod, for sounds and forms became confused and my book slid to the floor.

All at once—a brilliant light seemed to play about me. I started up and found myself on a stretcher in the laboratory of my friend Dr. Sachaloff, with two white clad nurses bending over me. My friend came over.

“Well, John, if you still wish to back out, this is your last chance. Everything is ready. You’ve stood the preliminary tests astonishingly well. Heart action, liver, blood and respiration, perfect. Do you feel any discomfort?”

“I’ve had you in a cataleptic state for just eight hours at a temperature as low as forty degrees. The thing is practically possible without a doubt. Is it all aboard for the twenty-first century?”

“I wouldn’t change places with you for the world. On with the great adventure!”

“Bon voyage, you lucky dog!” said Sachaloff [Pg xvii]grasping my hand. “Now look me fixedly in the eyes, so.”

I saw the steely eyes, through the bushy dark whiskers, felt a sudden pain from the pressure of the fingers on my brow and again all outlines became watery and evasive.

My first sensation on awakening was of being submerged and fighting my way back to the surface. Then a murmur of women’s voices.

“He’s breathing naturally now, but keep the pulmonator ready in case of a relapse.”

My mouth was forced open and some liquid of a salty taste ran like fire down my throat.

“Raise him to ten above zero, but slowly and hold it there for ten minutes. Then continue to heat the body gradually until we reach forty. How is the heart action?”

After that I must have lapsed into unconsciousness again, for the next impressions were fitful and interrupted like the lifting and settling of a fog at sea. Gradually under the effects of some powerful [Pg 2]restorative I became feebly awake, but every sensation of the body was diminished. I heard sounds as though from a great distance. From time to time I was aware of the same salty, fiery liquid passing down my throat. My eyes perceived the glimmerings of a colored light and my body felt in its numbness a touch of warmth, as though a myriad of small flies were delicately passing over the dried surfaces of my skin. This feeling of returning sensation became more acute. I opened my eyes, but the effort was like a straining of the back muscles to raise an unaccustomed weight. I tried to raise my hand but found no reaction. Again I went through the mental processes of ordering my limbs to move only to find that not the slightest physical response occurred. My mind was awake, my body asleep. Some heavy substance enclosed my eyes and let in a diluted minimum of feeble purple light.

My first thought was that I was coming out of ether but my brain was clearing so rapidly that I rejected this explanation. I tried to remember and discovered that my memories were clear. I recalled distinctly the last words of my friend, Dr. Sachaloff, the boring sensation of his eyes above me and the pleasant sensation of fading consciousness. Was I awake or in the grip of an artificial dream induced [Pg 3]by an opiate? Were the voices I heard about me simply the figments of my imagination?

At this moment I felt a sensation of warmth at the back of my neck which gradually extended over my back and down my arms like the tingling heat of a myriad electric needles.

“I hear you. Everything is going well. Relax completely. I am going to put you to sleep again while we complete the defrigeration of your body. By tomorrow all will be normal.”

“What beautiful teeth and all his own,” I heard another voice say as I passed blissfully into unconsciousness.

When I awoke for the second time, I found myself strapped to a stretcher, enveloped in warm soft coverings. My head alone was free to move but a bandage over my eyes shut out all opportunity to see what was transpiring about me. At the motion of my head a soft hand was placed on my shoulder and a voice said:

“Very well, but be careful to obey implicitly my directions. Otherwise you may be blinded by too sudden an exposure to the light.”

“I am giving you a fortifying solution to strengthen your eyesight. Open your eyes and keep them open. Does that hurt?”

“Now I am letting in the light gradually. If you feel any strain tell me at once.”

I became aware of the same misty violet light that I remembered on first awakening. This dissolved [Pg 5]into a greyish blue, to be succeeded by a green changing to orange. This process of gradual modification lasted about two hours, without having produced any disagreeable effect. My eyes were again washed out and a pair of greyish glasses replaced the weight on my forehead. I sat up and looked about me.

The first thing I perceived was a great stretch of blue sky without horizon. At the same time I was aware of a pleasant floating motion. My first thought was that I was on the deck of a ship, riding on a lazy sea. But a second glance showed neither masts nor funnels to mar the blue unity above me. I soon recognized that I was in an open air hospital, with rows of white cots and moving white-clad nurses. Probably, I was on top of a modern skyscraper, two or three thousand feet from the ground. A score of women in loose Grecian robes were standing around, gazing at me with the utmost curiosity. Two things struck me at once. They were all of a uniform stature, at least seven feet in height, slender, broad-shouldered, and all had the blue eyes and pale yellow hair of the true Scandinavian blonde. Furthermore as far as I could judge, they appeared all to be of an age between twenty-five and thirty. One who evidently was of superior rank approached and put me through the following interrogatory:

“A month. We have purposely extended the defrigeration process in your case to eliminate all danger of sudden shock.”

Strange to say I felt no giddiness. From my first awakening, I had been prepared to find Dr. Sachaloff’s experiment successful, though I confess the extent of my journey through time was unexpected.

There was an outburst of exclamations at this. I felt myself the cynosure of all eyes.

“Nevertheless I repeat the date was November 15, 1929, tenth year of prohibition, and two weeks after the collapse of the stock market in the reign of Mr. Hoover.”

I heard a murmur in which I distinctly caught the words, “prohibition,” “stock market,” “Hoover,” pronounced in various degrees of incomprehension.

“You speak of things that are strange to us. For the moment we’ll postpone our inquiry until you have had time to thoroughly recover. But first, what is your name?”

“Why the name of the father and mother—the name of the children. Family name—name of the family.” I looked around at their puzzled expressions and a light dawned on me. “What—doesn’t the family exist? Has marriage been abolished?”

My interlocutor made a sign to her companions who withdrew, and approaching me said gently:

“Bogardus, if what you say is true, you will find many startling changes. You must prepare yourself, but your arrival here is so revolutionary that in the interests of science we must guard against any shock that might affect your brain.”

In my impatience, I started to make a feverish protest but a hand laid on my lips stopped me short.

“Never fear. I shall take the best of care of you. Tomorrow, we’ll talk over many things. Now as the weather bureau is turning on the rain tonight, we must hurry down.” She stopped and looking at me with a fascinated intentness said, “Bogardus, you have the most beautiful hair and teeth I’ve ever seen. And I love your eyes and smile. We don’t have males like you now-a-days.”

She put her arms under me and lifted me lightly up, holding me a moment suspended. Her blue eyes were close over mine, she was smiling with a smile that was tantalizing, magnetic, and ardently possessive. She reminded me, yes, all at once she reminded me of Ernesta.

I could not meet the flame in her glance, my eyelids closed and with a sigh, my head relaxed against her protecting breast.

My unconsciousness induced by weakness was only temporary. When I came to myself presently, I found myself in what I took at first to be a light diving suit, but which I divined was to protect me from the cold of the journey down. The helmet was open and I availed myself of the opportunity to explore more minutely. The deck, which I judged must be the top of a gigantic dirigible, extended almost a mile in every direction, rising and falling gently with the air currents. A number of electric heating plants in the shape of semaphores distilled a pleasant atmosphere of about 60 degrees. Near where we were standing a score of aeroplanes were parked, but of a shape that resembled nothing I remembered. At first sight they appeared to be large toadstools about twenty feet over the wing surface, and with light basket attachments on wheels. While I watched, these cars were constantly rising or descending, but with a lightness that was extraordinary in its precision. In fact, at that moment a machine arrived out of the [Pg 10]blue, hung a moment over our heads and settled down among the others with hardly a foot to spare on either side.

“Try walking about a little,” said Acquilla who was standing at my side, her helmet in her hand.

She put on her helmet, signified to me to close mine and led me to a tiny aeroplane, the body of which reminded me of our own taxis. I sank back in the cushioned seat and examined it carefully with a little trepidation. In front of us an automaton in shape like a giant insect had its multiple antennae fixed on the levers. Acquilla turned a switch. Immediately a low purring sound began above us as we rose easily in the air, poised a moment and shot off into space.

“Of course we could put on electronized belts and walk,” said Acquilla relaxing in the seat beside me. “But if you’ve never done it before it might be distressing.”

“What, you have overcome the force of gravity?” I said astonished. “You can walk on air?”

“Oh, long ago. Michaelson’s discovery of the disassociation of protons is over a hundred years old now.”

So many revolutionary ideas had crowded in upon my imagination, that for the moment I postponed the flood of questions on the tip of my tongue. Besides, I was too keen for first impressions to wish to have my attention diverted. I looked up and saw that the floating island which we had just left was a raft at most only twenty feet in thickness and consequently, unless supported by some extraordinary new chemical gas, owed its stability to a new principle. I next examined with care the aeromat in which we were riding. The first thing that struck me was that except for the purring sound I had first heard, it was virtually noiseless. Nor could I discern any signs of a gasoline tank. To my question, Acquilla pointed to a small box, about a foot square placed before us which she called the electronoid and which she assured me contained enough energy to fly twenty thousand miles if necessary.

“Besides which,” she added, “we carry an auxiliary battery from which we can get any amount of energy from the wireless power stations at Niagara [Pg 12]or Fundy. But that is only in case of emergency,—if we should run short out at sea.”

“No indeed, I have given the directions to the machinot. There is nothing to worry about.”

“Why that’s the abc’s of mechanics.” She drew my attention to the telescopic lenses which were set in either side of the machinot’s head and which evidently signalled the approach of an impending aeroplane. “The magnetic field immediately operates and the aeromat veers to the right until the passing is completed and then returns to its course. In a highway the machine slows up as it approaches congestion. A collision is quite impossible, for both machines come to a standstill if forced too close to each other. It’s warm enough now to take off your helmet. Besides, the car is automatically heated.”

We were now about two miles above the earth. The aeromat checked its forward progress and began to descend perpendicularly with an easy fluttering of its circular wings. I craned forward [Pg 13]eagerly, my brain thrilling at the thought of the immensity of the great city I was now to witness after two hundred and fifty years. By now New York must have a population of thirty or forty millions, skyscrapers reaching a mile into the air, hanging gardens in the skies, with superimposed layers of activity.

“I should like to fly around Manhattan—as low as possible. Could this be done?”

I craned out of the window eagerly and immediately recognized the familiar configuration of the landscape, Long Island and the thin tongue of Manhattan. We descended rapidly and my perplexity increased. Instead of the towering skyline of lower Broadway, I seemed to distinguish the spreading green of wooded lawns.

“You are talking of things that happened a long while ago. I keep forgetting that you lived in the age of materialism. New York, of course, was [Pg 14]completely destroyed for the first time in 1984 and resettled only a hundred years ago.”

“Wait.” I grasped her arm excitedly and gazed out. We were now perhaps two hundred feet above what was old Staten Island.—Before me the island of Manhattan rose distinctly, at least one hundred and fifty feet above water level.

I continued to gaze at the great promontory with its villas and parks, its terraced descents to the water and but for the fact that from above I had unmistakably recognized the topography, I should have refused the evidence of my own eyes. Acquilla repeated the question.

“Changed? Everything. Not only has a city of ten million inhabitants disappeared—buildings that rose a thousand feet into the air—but something has happened to the ground itself. The New York that I knew was a low flat island. What has happened? A volcanic disturbance?”

“Oh, I see, that’s what puzzles you, Bogardus,” said Acquilla, smiling. “Of course the New York you see is built on the ruins of two other civilizations. The immense buildings you speak of are buried in these artificial heights. It’s like Rome, you know, that was built and rebuilt on the ruins [Pg 15]of former cities. New York, of course, has been twice destroyed. Once in 1984, at the period of the European conquest and again in 2080, when it was voluntarily levelled under the first years of the Matriarchal era.” She gave a quick glance, noting probably the rising excitement in my eyes and fearing too great a strain on my dizzy imagination, said, “Enough for the moment, Bogardus. You will have to accustom yourself to many things. Close your eyes now and don’t ask any more questions.”

Her arm drew my head to her shoulder. Her warm lips closed my eyelids. Intoxicated, I yielded again to her superior strength. Indeed my head was in such a state of turbulent anarchy that I began to be afraid for my reason.

“There, poor dear. I’ve been terribly thoughtless in tiring you like this. Relax now and I’ll promise to take better care of you in the future.”

When I opened my eyes again we had come to rest in front of a long Georgian villa of some colored material in the midst of a charming English park.

Acquilla’s arms slipped under me and raising me tenderly from the car, set me down on the steps where a dozen lengthy dogs of a variety unfamiliar to me immediately fawned at my side. Acquilla [Pg 16]leaned over and pulled a series of levers. The car immediately moved off lightly to a hangar in the elms about a half a mile down the lawn.

“Can you walk? A little weak? Take my arm. An electric bath will set you up.” She glanced backwards over the green vista and then at the clear sky, “We’re down just before the rain.”

I followed the direction of her hand and perceived some ten miles distant a score of gigantic pylons, which I calculated must be at least three to four thousand feet in height, about whose soaring tops light lavender clouds were piling up, until presently the whole sky was veiled in a purplish mist through which long electric streamers were playing.

“What, you are enabled to generate rain by electricity?” I cried suddenly enlightened.

“Oh, we have been able to control the weather for over fifty years,” Acquilla announced in a matter-of-fact way. “We do all our raining at night of course. Every day is just like what you have witnessed.”

“I can understand your bringing on a rain storm. Even in my day we had developed that principle. But how are you able to prevent storms?”

“By applying the reverse of the principle, of course. These great pylons with their enormous dynamos are likewise great condensers. In the daytime they absorb the moisture in the air and at night they release it. But it is starting to rain already,” she continued, putting her arm about my waist. “Let’s go in.”

The home of Acquilla was on a monumental scale designed in the form of a Greek cross with wings two stories high, capped with a long slanting roof, the façade brilliantly colored in rich purple tints, relieved by black and white marble pilasters. The doors opened at a wave of her hand and we entered a corridor fully thirty feet in height. A brilliantly colored machinot, shaped like a beetle rose from its seat, received our coats and disappeared. We went about forty feet forward and found ourselves in a great colonnaded circular room, rising some ninety feet to a tinted glass roof. An elevator concealed in the wall took us lightly to the next floor which was given over to the sleeping apartments. My own room was on the scale of an Italian palace of the middle ages, with transparent walls of glass bricks, so that in the daytime the effect was similar to living in the open sunlight. Outside the arrival of the rain had obscured the sky and brought on a sudden darkness, but as we arrived, [Pg 19]the whole house, by some invisible process was gradually flooded with artificial daylight. Acquilla, noticing my curiosity, said:

“The lights are regulated automatically by a simple contrivance that keeps a fixed glow. The principle of the ancient thermostat.”

“But there are no lamps. And though, of course, the principle of indirect lighting,” I continued, glancing up at the cornices, “was used in my day, it was, of course, simply the reflection from bulbs concealed behind the walls.”

The word bulbs puzzled her. I explained at length our system of wiring which excited her curiosity and astonishment.

“How strangely archaic, but then of course you ignored the true relation of electricity, gravity, and heat. Though later, Zugg and Plumpf must have suspected the truth. Of course today there are not many secrets in the physical world. Light is generated like heat and radiated through the house. The floors and walls are porous, that is the whole secret. But there is too much to tell you to begin tonight. A half an hour’s bath before dinner is what you need to relax and stimulate you.”

We descended and traversing the theatre which was the main axis of the house, entered a further wing, after passing through a series of doors which [Pg 20]opened at a peculiar wave of her hand and closed behind us automatically. I stopped with an exclamation of delight. We were in a thermal bath such as Rome in all its days of aesthetic splendor had never produced. Instead of marble the walls, the floors, the pool were made of the same brilliant glass colored in opalescent tones. The water itself was amethyst shot through with quivering rays of red and violet streamers. The air was delicately perfumed with a scent resembling heliotrope, while the sides of the pool were carpeted with thick rugs of a yielding softness.

A female attendant, who for a moment I took for an automaton, rose and bowed at our entrance. Acquilla slipped from the Grecian robe which was her only garment and advanced to the edge of the pool. I hesitated a moment with that sense of modesty which is inherent in the male, but perceiving the complete naturalness of her gesture, I realized quickly that a false show of prudery would render me ridiculous. I gave my toga to Mag, who smiled at me entranced, and followed Acquilla.

I now noticed with interest certain physical changes that the scientific evolution had made in the female figure. From the flat waist upward it was the torso of a man, powerfully muscled, broad [Pg 21]over the shoulders and flat breasted, due to the fact, as I learned later, that for over two centuries no woman had nursed her own child. For the rest, though she overtopped me by a clear foot, it was the graceful, lithe figure of the young Mercury one sees in medieval art. But my feeling of aesthetic admiration was rudely dispelled. Turning to Mag, who was staring at me with fascinated eyes, Acquilla lifted the lovely golden curls from her head and stood before me absolutely bald. I could not repress an exclamation of dismay.

“That is the price women have to pay for the supremacy of their intelligence,” said Acquilla.

“What! Science that has worked such miracles has not been able to prevent baldness?”

“Those of the Histrionic caste keep theirs much longer,” Acquilla replied, “but we of the Philosophers and Scientists lose ours at fifty.”

“Oh, not so old,” Acquilla replied with a touch of asperity. “How old are you?”

“Really, if it weren’t for your teeth and hair I should have said a hundred.”

I glanced at the perfect lustre of her teeth and [Pg 22]shuddered. Was that possible too? But I mastered my fears and replied according to etiquette:

“I am hardly seventy-six at that.” She extended her hand, took mine and led me into the perfumed pool.

Before I could digest the import of her last remark, the colored water closed over us and I immediately rose to the surface with the resiliency of a rubber ball. Indeed I presently found, such was the density of the water, that I remained floating on the surface without the slightest effort. At the same time, due no doubt to the electric charges, I was conscious of a feeling of extraordinary physical stimulation, like the caresses of a myriad of miniscule fingertips running over my body.

“Relax and don’t talk, dear man,” said Acquilla, “and you will see how refreshed your mind will be.”

At the same moment, above us, a panorama of shifting hues passed as the clouds pass on a clear autumn day, while the air was filled with the slumberous, subdued notes of a great orchestra; strains that vaguely pleasantly reminded me of the “Après-midi d’un Faun.”

“This is an entirely different principle,” said [Pg 23]Acquilla. “Each chord has a color value so that as you listen to music, your eye at the same time receives an identical impression. It is an aesthetic emotion extremely restful and stimulating for the brain. But don’t talk. Relax completely for ten minutes.”

I obeyed and experienced a sensation of being transported into a fairy world of morphine enchantment. I seemed to be drowsily gazing up at the rich deep green of velvety woodland recesses, which gradually became alive with the golden hues of autumn leaves. This dissolved into the deep crystalline blue of the open sky with lazy white clouds piling up in harmonious languor. All the shock and strain of the day on my perplexed brain passed away. I felt calm and unvexed. Then with the changing rhythms, the fleecy skies took on the brilliant red and purples of such a sunset as one remembers over the tourmaline waters of the Bay of Naples. The effect on me was one of a complete mental invigoration and a new eagerness to explore my incredible adventure. The voice of Acquilla recalled me.

She rose from the pool, the water falling from her lovely glistening sides, like the petals of drifting cherry blossoms. We passed into a warmer room [Pg 24]where my body dried immediately under the contact of pleasant vapors. Then resuming our robes we passed into another wing.

“That astonished you,” said Acquilla putting on a wig of silvery blue which became her immensely. “But of course in your time you bathed in porcelain boxes! And yet two thousand years before you the Romans had opened the way to the aesthetic life. Are you hungry?”

“Yes, that is a long while,” replied Acquilla without a trace of a smile. As a matter of fact my laugh seemed to excite her curiosity, for she gave me a quick look in which I detected a touch of anxiety.

The dining room which was of the proportions of a banquet hall, was in a luminous emerald green with black marble columns and ivory trims. I was not surprised to find a low table scarcely two feet in height surrounded by couches resembling Recamier sofas.

“You should never have departed from them.” Acquilla waved me to a couch and disposed herself [Pg 25]on one opposite. “It is quite a masculine repast I have ordered tonight, in consideration of your long fasting. I myself eat sparingly.”

A curious thing happened. The two dogs immediately came and crouched adoringly at my feet.

“How odd,” said Acquilla. “I’ve never seen them pay the slightest attention to any male before.”

I confess this allusion to her past struck me disagreeably, for already romance was stirring in my imagination.

She touched a signal and the centre of the table sunk on some mechanism under the floor.

“And now, Bogardus, while we are waiting, you can imagine how curious I am to hear your first question.”

“You will never guess what it will be,” I said smiling. “It is in fact very mundane, but in a sense it was the great question of my time.”

“Oh.” Acquilla regarded me with a look of disappointment. “But that is no problem at all. I [Pg 26]run this place on a dozen machinots, a gardener and Mag, my housekeeper.”

“But even if you have one servant, my dear Acquilla, you have the servant problem, haven’t you?”

“But how else can you handle servants? I simply hypnotize them and suggest to them each morning what they shall do during the day. That eliminates all possibility of error or misunderstanding.”

“Wonderful! And to think no one ever thought of it in my day. Perfect, and so simple!” The idea appealed to my sense of humor. I flung myself back among the cushions and laughed until I cried. All at once I felt Acquilla’s hand on my shoulder and saw her bending anxiously over me.

“What, you have never heard of laughter?” A sudden revelation came to me at her blank seriousness. “Good heavens, women have abolished laughter!”

“Laughter—laughter? I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”

I remembered swiftly that I had never seen Acquilla laugh. It was true. Acquilla had never laughed. No one laughed now in this era of pure reason! I shrank back staring at her and a sudden suspicion came to me. Acquilla was not human, Acquilla too was an automaton.

I felt the warm flesh under mine. I examined the clear texture minutely. The veins were there, red and finely blue. Acquilla was human. Then softly I passed my fingers caressingly over the molded forearm.

“That is strangely pleasant, Bogardus,” she said at once. “But now your face is contorted again. Is that laughter?”

She resumed her seat. The centre of the table rose, charged with curious silver and ivory dishes, which to my whetted appetite appeared alarmingly inadequate. But the presence of certain promising flagons reassured me. I sat up hungrily for my first meal after two hundred and fifty years with this amazing young Amazon of seventy-six, who was bald as Socrates, strong as Achilles and totally devoid of a sense of humor.

“My dear Acquilla,” I said beaming. “You will teach me many things but I shall teach you how to laugh.”

Acquilla cast a swift glance at the centre of the table, and drawing a silver platter towards her on which were a dozen colored bottles about the size of egg cups, said:

“You are like all men, I see,” she answered gravely. “Always jumping at conclusions. What I am eating is exactly what you will partake of, only it is in the form of extracts and quite as delicious too, I assure you. As for your fear of compressed tablets, it is groundless. Until the age of seventy, modern dietetics long ago recognized the value of bulk in food. It is only when the problem of preserving tissues and health is one of arrestation rather than development of the vitamins that we eliminate bulk for chemical values. I can recommend the soup, Bogardus, it is a pot-au-feu such as I am certain you have never tasted.”

Saying which she took a little bottle at her side, unscrewed it, and poured a few drops into a silver cup the size of a liqueur glass.

At her direction I unscrewed, not without effort, the upper half of a silver melon and discovered the receptacle filled with a liquid of peculiarly agreeable odor. I tasted it and looked at her in surprise.

“It has been aging twenty-five years,” said Acquilla proudly. “What, that surprises you? True, you applied the principle only to wines and liqueurs; but if the principle, which is after all but the evaporation of noxious gases holds true in one case why not in another?”

“Look at the seal and the date. It comes from the kitchen of the celebrated André Poullardier of Rouen. But eat sparingly. It is very rich and there are other surprises for you.”

Another dish hermetically sealed was opened in a similar manner, and displayed three tender trout au bleu cooked in white wine and seasoned with some herbs that recalled sarriette and cress.

“Acquilla, I am relieved, relieved and delighted,” I said after the first gustatory satisfaction. “My [Pg 31]fears were groundless. Your cook is worthy of the progress of science.”

“My dear Bogardus,” Acquilla replied with an evident satisfaction at my increasing amazement. “We have progressed beyond cooks and the hazards of cooking. There are great central restaurants for every day. But all you taste tonight is imported from France, and if I say it, it was prepared by the greatest chefs of the last fifty years. What, you are astonished? But there is nothing more simple. There is no greater difficulty today in preserving a dish at exactly the temperature at which it should be served, than to keep the human body in a process of refrigeration a hundred years. You see?”

“I see at once,” I replied, for already I could feel in my mind a new attitude, the scientific attitude of the 22nd century. “But the mechanics interest me.”

“I shall show you through my culinary library—in its day it was quite famous. The fish is by Grisset of Tours. No one has ever surpassed him in his specialty. After this I am offering you as a special treat, for I have only fifty examples of it left, the masterpiece of Raoul Binard signed by him 2145 as you will see; ortolans farcis au truffles, and braised [Pg 32]in endives and Beaujolais. For dessert you will have a pineapple glacéed in madeira and champagne. The wine is worthy of the rest, I assure you. The vintages are now exceedingly rare.”

The wines, as she had prophesied, were fragrant and delicious; a mild white wine that resembled an excellent Meursault and a red with the flavor of Romany, only clearer and not so heady.

“I must confess that never in my life have I dined so miraculously,” I said, reclining gorgeously.

“There it is before you.” She leaned over, took up a thin, delicately modelled pipe, and filling it with a fine brown powder, offered it to me, at the same time arranging one for herself. The extract, for such I judged it to be, was of a flavor superior to anything I had ever known before, about the strength of a vintage Havana cigar.

“Blissfully.” I settled back languidly among the cushions. “And now tell me. How am I here?”

Acquilla blew a thin vapor into the air and reclined—a charming figure among the purple cushions. Seeing her thus, I was again agreeably [Pg 33]reminded of the young Ernesta. To dine on the food of the gods and to have a goddess looking at you with tender eyes, a goddess smitten as goddesses were, by the yearning for a mortal; what could a man ask more of Paradise?

Divinely content and my imagination mellowed by exquisite vintages I threw the reins to my fancy. A fig for that wig or any wig in the world! In the days of the Roi Soleil and his Watteau Duchesses, who but a peasant ever exposed her own hair! Really Acquilla’s headdress was the creation of an artist and the blue and silvery threads in the softened lights gave a harlequin illusion to the scene.

But all at once I remembered Emelia. I set it down to my credit, absurd as it may seem. For the Bogarduses have always stood four-square for the sanctity of the home, the law of the land and the conservative tradition. But an instant’s reflection revealed to me the absurdity of my scruples. Emelia was with history, and I in command of the present, a bachelor again in an age to which no bachelor could object. I turned toward the lovely creature and smiled languorously as a Pacha in his seraglio might have smiled, in his omnipotence.

“You were found about a quarter of a mile from here,” said Acquilla returning my smile. “In the course of a series of excavations I have been undertaking [Pg 34]to determine the location of your great museum. You were discovered in a steel vault, that had been strangely preserved by a network of beams which had collapsed in a manner to surround you with the protection of an outer shell. It was due to your being in this pocket that you have survived the destruction that was prevalent about you.”

Acquilla took up a wireless telephone and gave an order. The table sank by the same invisible service and presently returned with an atlas. I opened it eagerly to the plate of Manhattan and stared at it in perplexity.

“Oh, no, on the contrary we find it already over-crowded,” said Acquilla. She leaned forward and placed her finger on a spot.

“Then we must be directly above the junction of Park Avenue and Seventy-Ninth Street, and the museum—” I stopped again and stared at the map, “But what is this?”

All at once I divined what had happened. In the general collapse of the skyscrapers which had raised the level of Manhattan from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, the Park had retained its level and filled up with the water released from the broken mains. I explained to Acquilla.

“Probably the museum, being located on Fifth Avenue, was buried under the opposite apartment houses. If I was found here, you were within two hundred yards of your objective.”

“What a treasure you are going to be to the archeologists, Bogardus,” exclaimed Acquilla.

I was gazing at the map eagerly and indeed with a certain sadness. There were, it is true, indications of public squares and buildings, but though they were on a majestic scale, it was plain to see that New York, my New York, had been blotted out. An involuntary feeling of local pride brought with it a sharp chagrin.

“In your day,” remarked Acquilla reflectively, “under your dreadful materialistic system, you crowded a million—

“How dreadful, ten million human beings where fifty thousand hardly find space enough now!”

“Good heavens, but then,” I sat up, staring at her. “But then, how many human beings have survived on this continent?”

“I can tell you that exactly as I happen to be on the International Control of Population Board. All this, of course, Bogardus, you realize is the subject of the most careful regulation. For, as you will learn, it is the foundation of our modern individualization. For the rest of the world the figure with certain seasonal fluctuations is placed at two million, six hundred thousand. Five hundred thousand each for Europe, South America, and Africa. One hundred thousand for Australia, and a million for Asia.”

“That, Bogardus, is a matter of history; the rise of womankind,” said Acquilla proudly. “But perhaps it would make it simpler for you to comprehend the changes that have taken place, if I took things in order.” She looked about reflectively a moment. “If you were put in the Frigidrome in 1929—”

“The World War? Is that what you called that little struggle? Because after all it settled nothing, did it? The first true mondial conflict came in 1984 though there were local conflicts before that; the Japanese-Russian War of 1955, which brought all Asia, including Siberia, into the Oriental Empire; the breaking up of the British Empire and the Unification of Europe under the Germans in 1965.”

“The Russians had only manpower and inaccessibility in their favor, and to science these two factors are negligible. Of course, Bogardus, you recognize that the object of all the great male civilizations [Pg 38]was to crush all competition by evolving a superior form of destruction.”

“Why? Look at history. What is it? It is simply the record of a scientifically organized minority overcoming less martially intelligent masses. You are not convinced? Surely you do not ascribe it to moral virtues. Take your America. The white race conquered the red because ten intelligent men with muskets could slaughter a thousand ignorant savages. Take the conquest of Africa by a handful of Europeans. You do not claim it was superior courage?”

“Because you looked at civilization only from your egocentric point of view. The courage was always on the side of the savage, fighting against incomparable odds. The intelligence was back of the guns. Do you see my point?”

“There is something in your theory,” I said. With the traditional instinct of the male, I have never cared to reason with the opposite sex, but in this instance my curiosity got the better of me. “Yes, there is a great deal in what you say.”

“It is the accepted commonplace of history,” [Pg 39]said Acquilla sharply. “It was the Macedonian Phalanx that established the Empire of Alexander. The fleets of Athens brought the Periclean Age. Rome? The Legions. Mohammedanism? The utilization of religious fanaticism as a military weapon. Sea power made Portugal, then Spain, then the British Empire. Napoleon’s Empire? A new art of war, crashing through decayed traditions. Germany? Germany failed in 1914 because it discovered no new principle, because it did not wait for its scientists.”

“It would have succeeded if it had developed the submarine and the use of poison gas before it started its conquests. To conquer the world, one must find a new principle of destruction.”

“What do you know of the United States, Bogardus?” said Acquilla, preparing to enjoy my astonishment. “You speak of a nation that in 1930 had existed only a century and a half.”

“Yet in my day it was admitted to be the greatest country in the world in power and in resources,” I protested loyally. “You can’t deny that.”

“A country that fatuously developed the great standardized age of materialistic wealth and forgot [Pg 40]to protect itself. A country that drove all Europe into a defensive alliance; by not only exacting a yearly tribute, but by its blind policy of tariff discriminations, aroused the passions and hatreds of Europe’s Socialistic masses. The United States never fought a great war until 1984 and then it was completely destroyed.”

“True, these things were after your day. While Japan and China were organizing Asia, Germany and France united into one state, crushed Russia and England, and having founded the United States of Europe conquered the Americas.”

“It was then that New York was destroyed?” I said faintly, feeling my head go round.

“New York and every city, every village, on the continent, Bogardus, was razed to the ground. During this period the population of America and Europe was of course decimated. That was a war.”

“Ten years later, in 1994, came the real World War; the teeming manpower of Asia against the laboratories of Germano-France. Again history repeated itself. The great discoveries of Europe’s scientists, particularly the perfecting of electronic energy and the destructive Z-rays with which a hundred [Pg 41]aeroplanes were able to destroy all forms of life, wiped out in seven days the menace of Cathay forever.”

“Bogardus, like all men you are a sentimentalist,” said Acquilla calmly. “You are for little wars, but you stop at pursuing your ideas to a logical conclusion. To end war, a world calamity was necessary to destroy the cause of all war.”

“Really? In your day, your men philosophers and economists never perceived the obstacle to the establishment of a final scientific civilization.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea, unless it can be the conflict of nationalities.”

“Over-population, and its concentration in the cities, that and nothing else.”

“Over-population has been the source of all wars and all poverty since men began to congregate in social bodies. The rise of the metropolis has been the doom of the nation. Consider Babylon, Sardanapolis, Rome, Alexandria, London, and New York. But no man perceived that, or at least if he [Pg 42]did perceive it, had the courage to advocate the depopulation of the world. That was the first great advance of the feminine state.”

“All your political failures were due to your obsession of exalting the mass over the individual. What an insensate appetite you had for population! What a horrible negation of human life it was! What a society of vermin your great cities must have been! Democracy, Socialism, Communism; each was an inevitable step forced upon you by your distention of the mass. And the science you boasted of! And your age of efficiency! Did you ever have, as we have, a yearly world survey as to the adjustment of population to that progress of mechanics which continually eliminates human labor?”

“I have no answer,” I replied dumfounded. “It all seems so simple as you state it. Though,” I added, lighting up, “I do seem to remember some serious suggestion that science should take a holiday!”

“The wrong way to approach the problem,” said Acquilla, shaking her head. “Our civilization is based on a hundred acres to each woman.”

“Oh, absolutely, for the last one hundred and fifty years, from 2030 when the collapse of male [Pg 43]civilization became evident to all, and men were finally disenfranchised.”

“But—” I stopped, confused by the flood of questions which rose to my lips.

Acquilla who had been watching me carefully and had noticed my heightened color and startled eyes, here interposed.

“I think, Bogardus, we have talked seriously enough for the first day. In fact, I’m afraid in my eagerness that I have gone too far ahead.”

I passed my hand over my forehead and noticed how the veins in my temples quivered.

“I feel as though I had been transplanted to a strange planet. Everything is gone that I knew or could reason by. It leaves me with the feeling of terrible depression, a terrible loneliness.”

“Come. We will relax. I have a surprise for you. Dianne, the famous soprano, and Schiappa are singing in ‘Tristan’ tonight. A familiar sensation is just the mental relaxation that you need. Though I must say to your credit, you extraordinary man, that you have stood the shock remarkably well. In some cases of early Frigidrome treatment, we have had serious lapses into brain disorders.”

I rose and followed Acquilla to the circular theatre which I learned formed the principal axis of every house.

“There are a number of interesting things going on,” said Acquilla, “particularly in Arcturus III, where there is a war on with Stella IV. Then you will be interested in the historical records of the wars of 1984 and 1994, but not tonight. Nine o’clock. The opera is beginning.”

She went to a switchboard at one side and made certain adjustments. A heavy screen immediately shut out the glass dome above us through which the stars had been shining down.

“Easiest thing in the world. It will probably be more interesting to you to have a front seat. Afterwards, if the orchestra is too loud, we can move back.”

She extinguished the lights and took a place at [Pg 45]my side. All at once the theatre, for such I must call it, was flooded with light and before my astounded eyes I beheld a vast rippling of waters, while the air was filled with the opening bars. Across the glistening green seas under the blue dome a ship grew out of the horizon and bore down upon us with colored sails bellying above the glistening of iron and bronze upon the decks. The prelude closed and with a sudden shift, I found myself literally on the deck, so complete was the illusion presented. The figures appeared not only in their natural size and color, but in three dimensions so that I could not repress an exclamation of astonishment, so life like was the corporeal illusion. The orchestra was hidden and reinforced by new varieties of wind and string instruments that were exceedingly pleasant to the ear. The stage, needless to say, had disappeared. Above us was the cloud-swept sky, about us the grey-blue splash of waves. We were within twenty feet of the principal actors, who for all purposes of illusion, might have been bodily in the room.

Though only an amateur in my love of music, I perceived at once certain agreeable innovations. The stilted dramatic action had been replaced by a naturalness of movement which nevertheless harmonized with the melodic rhythm. The music, [Pg 46]likewise, due no doubt to our proximity, was no longer delivered with the need of filling a vast auditorium, but phrased with a delicacy that revealed a hundred new shades. As for the performance of the celebrated Dianne, I cannot express my admiration. Isolde in her hands was no longer a stalking classical puppet of conventionality, a thinly disguised sophisticate, but a tempestuous, savage nature, barbaric and impulsive as a wild animal. She was strangely slender and youthful and eschewing the traditional flaxen wig, had the blue-black hair and the clear azure eyes of the dark Scandinavian, eyes which suggested now the mysteries of black caverns, now the leap of free seas. To my imagination at least, the impersonation, cleared of all artificiality, transported me back with an utter absence of criticism into the elemental, even brutal passions of a barbaric race.

I had never seen anything more entrancing than the lithe grace of her feline movements, nor listened with more troubled ecstasy to the thrill of her warm, full-throated notes. Whether art or nature, she was the woman of a forgotten age that never knew the sophisticated mincings of our modern coquettes, but were swept into turbulent, even tragic passions by elemental emotions. At the first glance of her startled eyes I fell hopelessly, headlong in love, love [Pg 47]at first sight, as sudden, as poignant as though I had received the blow between my eyes.

So swift, so overwhelming was the shock that it blotted out all pale memories of my youth, Ernesta, Kitty, Emelia, even the radiant Acquilla, so fragrantly close to my side, Acquilla who a moment before seemed offered up to me in some incredible dream from the Arabian nights. And yet I did not even know if Dianne still existed or was nothing but the empty record of a great artist of another century.

But Schiappa’s performance of ‘Tristan’ aroused my indignation. Due to the female domination of the new society, an incredible liberty had been taken with the part. A complete transposition of rôles had been worked. It was Isolde now who visualized the possessive passion and Tristan the surrender. If it had not been so monstrously grotesque I should have burst into laughter. As it was, I was left staring and dumfounded.

“Well, Bogardus,” said Acquilla, when the opera had ended and the theatre emerged from its darkness, “I am anxious to know what your criticisms will be. For of course you lived when the Wagnerian tradition was still young.”

“I am overwhelmed,” I replied, coming out of the revery into which the exquisite performance of [Pg 48]Dianne had plunged me. “But first of all, thank heavens, that you have found a genius to edit the score.”

“In what way? But that must have taken place in the last century then,” Acquilla added, after a minute’s reflection.

“In the first place, you have cut the heavy anti-climax at the end of the second act, where King Mark surprises the lovers and given it the natural dramatic expression it demanded.”

I described the lengthy and ponderous recital of King Mark’s grievances, which to my modest imagination had always been an anti-climax to the glorious mounting ecstasy of the lovers’ song.

“But even in your day, you edited and rearranged Shakespeare, why not Wagner, who after all, was not a dramatist?”

“True, but men are traditionalists,” I replied ironically. “You see, you women have brought a fresh point of view to the consideration of all things.”

“True,” said Acquilla, without smiling, “Dianne will be tremendously interested.”

“Of course she exists. Oh, I see. You thought perhaps you were listening to a record taken fifty or a hundred years ago?”

“Nothing would surprise me, even to find that she was an automaton,” I answered, laughing. “You know, for a moment I wasn’t sure about you.”

“We have evolved automatons that are really extraordinary,” said Acquilla, looking at me with the mystified expression which she assumed whenever I gave way to my hilarity. “But they remain machines. No indeed, Dianne is very much alive. She has only just begun her career.”

I breathed a grateful sigh. At least then, the divine creature who had captured my imagination would have her own hair and teeth! But I checked my eagerness, for I was suddenly aware of a new flame in Acquilla’s steel-blue eyes, and though the world was topsy-turvy and women more so than anything else, I suspected that certain primal characteristics had not changed. So I answered with a show of casualness.

“Yes, there are a number of criticisms I could make, but probably they would not interest a prima donna.”

“We’ll talk to her now.” Acquilla rose, and opening a partition in the wall, disappeared. A moment later, she returned. “We’ll get her in a few moments, as soon as central locates her. Of course, Bogardus, that was a television record taken two years ago, but surely that doesn’t astonish you?”

“The theory, of course, had been established,” I answered with some pride, “but the complete achievement is astonishing. But then Acquilla, are there no more theatres?”

“Why should there be any theatres?” said Acquilla. “A theatre was simply a limited convention, where only a few hundred persons at a time could enjoy a performance and for that, think how conventionalized your theatre and opera had to be! It was only your great poets, like Shakespeare and the Greeks, who intuitively wrote for the future. To think that your actors performed on a stage with artificial trees and skies! Surely you do not regret such performances when you can have life itself?”

“Why, of course! How could anyone live differently? The theatre is the home! The theatre is the world before us; history, music and the drama; the past and the actual. Surely, Bogardus, you recognize that the stage as you saw it, was simply a [Pg 51]conventionalized barrier between the free imagination of the creative artist and his audience.”

“I agree heartily,” I said enthusiastically, “and I can hardly wait to see more.”

“Now you are greatly excited again,” said Acquilla, “and I thought to relax you. I think Bogardus, I shall have to send you off to sleep.”

But at this moment, a low chiming rhythm sounded in the room, and Acquilla rising, disappeared through a partition.

“We are lucky. Dianne is in Chicago and will dine with us tomorrow night. Come, she is eager to talk to you.”

I rose and resolved to conceal my emotion, entered a secret closet in the wall, about twenty feet square, with some form of opaque glass forming the sides. Acquilla closed the door behind us and touched a switch. Instantly the figure of Dianne appeared before me, as distinctly as though she were sitting in the room. From the intense curiosity in her eyes, I divined that my presence was equally clear to her.

“So you are the man from the twentieth century?” her lovely voice said as distinctly as though she were at my side. “You cannot imagine what excitement your arrival has caused. Tell me, what did you think of my Isolde?”

“It was worth waiting two centuries to hear,” I began, but feeling the compliment rather banal, I hastened to say, “Acquilla tells me you are dining with us tomorrow night. We can discuss it then.”

“Did you find it changed? It satisfies you? Have I departed too much from tradition?” she asked rapidly.

“I don’t want compliments,” she said, smiling with pleasure, more at the intensity of feeling in my voice than at my halting words. “What was there to criticize?”

“In your performance—nothing,” I said emphatically. “The conception of Tristan, perhaps, was rather—rather—”

“Too masculine,” she interrupted avidly. “I knew it. I have always said so!” she continued with a satisfaction that showed me that the feminine in the artist had not changed so much.

“On the contrary—I found—what shall I say—I found it rather too feminine.”

“Feminine?” she cried, opening her lovely grey-blue eyes. “But I don’t understand, I thought it lacked rugged strength.”

“My dear Dianne,” I said, smiling, “I do not know what your new civilization has done to my [Pg 53]fellowmen, but I assure you in my time, virility, robustness, vigor were qualities we associated with the male sex.”

“Oh—” Her glance rested on mine in renewed curiosity. “I see. How curious! That is a new point of view.”

“But rather hard to make comprehensible to a modern audience,” she said doubtfully. “You are different, Bogardus, very different. Your voice is different. You look at me differently, straight in the eyes. Yes, strangely, disconcertingly different.”

“You too,” I was about to continue, in the more personal tone her look seemed to permit, when the presence of Acquilla at my back recalled my caution. “At any rate,” I added, carefully, “even if we quarrel, our discussion promises to be interesting.”

“Well, if I can put off an engagement, I’ll come,” she answered in a changed voice, which for the moment puzzled me. “Thanks all the same, Acquilla. Your find ought to prove most instructive, I’m sure.”

“Oh, in a stagey sort of way,” I replied on my guard. “Is she intelligent?”

“As a matter of fact, I had to be polite, but one or two things in her performance rather shocked me. For instance, Isolde should be played as a blonde.”

“That is part of her capriciousness. She never will consent to appear as a blonde. There are, of course, strong differences between the blondes and the brunettes as we breed them, and to tell you a little secret, the brunettes are extremely jealous of us.”

I suspected that this remark would lead to new revelations in this strictly scientific society, but already overwhelmed by the mystery of the new knowledge to be acquired, I did not persist.

Acquilla took my hand and led me to my room, where I perceived a low broad couch, soft and covered with silken cushions.

“Bed-clothes? Did you put on clothes to go to bed?” said Acquilla with a drawing of her eyebrows.

“I see. But the upper sheet—and the blanket—and the bedspread—and the comforter?”

“What, you actually slept beneath all that! How unhygienic! No wonder you all died young!”

“Don’t you realize, my dear, that the human body like any other animal body craves air and sunshine? Throw off your toga and try the couch. You will find it deliciously soft. As for catching cold, that is impossible. We adjust the temperature of the room by this thermostat. So. Now you have the warm dry glow you require for perfect rest.”

“And you sleep without anything on,” I said hesitating, “the whole year round?”

“Naturally. Night is the great renovator. Not only does the body require contact with oxygen but we charge the atmosphere with invigorating electric currents. Even the air you will breathe will be modified according to your chemical needs. Tomorrow when you have been thoroughly examined [Pg 56]your chemical formula will be worked out. I am speaking of course of the abc’s of modern scientific prolongation of life.”

“So this at last is the fountain of youth,” I exclaimed, extending my arms languorously to the warm incoming current. “I can feel my eyes closing already!”

“Well—good night!” said Acquilla after a moment’s hesitation, and taking me up into her arms she whispered, “You are unlike any man I ever knew. What is it that draws me so to you with such strange and bewildering force? Are you glad that it was I that found you?”

I nodded shyly, with a twentieth-century prudery, hoping desperately that she would go and leave me alone. But as she remained staring at me entranced, there was no help for it. I slipped from my garment and flung myself on the couch which was indeed of a voluptuous softness truly astounding.

“Good night, dear—I can hardly keep my eyes open—tired, so tired—so many bewildering things—”

She slipped from the room, extinguishing [Pg 57]the lights. My twentieth-century inhibitions, of course! Ridiculous? Yes, even archaic, such prudery! For after all I freely acknowledge the superiority of this new self-unconsciousness. Besides, even in my day were there not enfranchised spirits on the beaches of Scandinavia and Russia, to say nothing of Germany?

Acquilla was right. After a moment I found myself perfectly accustomed to the new hygiene. In fact nothing could have been more delightful than this warm indolence, lying under the great panorama of the stars that shone down on me through the transparency above, as they shone down once on the Garden of Eden.

But for a long time I was unable to close my eyes. All the startling discoveries of the day surged through my head in a confused torrent. What did I know after all? Even the hints that Acquilla had dropped added to my mystification. All had changed that I had known, but what had replaced the old in this era of women’s ascendancy? A world where a billion and a half human beings had been wiped out of existence! A world where all social traditions seemed to have been discarded! And in all this mystery what had become of man? Had we evolved into a state of polyandry and communism? Gradually these disturbing speculations [Pg 58]passed away. I grew drowsy with some faint perfume that pervaded the room. I thought of Dianne with a quickening of my imagination. I thought of Acquilla too with an involuntary admiration, and yet with an instinctive apprehension.

Acquilla and Dianne, both beautiful, yet so differently appealing. Acquilla who stimulated my mind and drew me to her with a soberer affection, Dianne who fascinated me dangerously and set my blood to racing with the flame of her young passion. Acquilla or Dianne? Perhaps in this new society Acquilla and Dianne—and thus deliciously perplexed I fell asleep.

When I awoke it was late in the morning and my imagination still, confused, listened for the warring jangle of the noises of New York. I sat up, stared about me and realization returned. Whether on account of the chemical infusion or the charge of electricity, I found the air more delicious than any I had yet breathed. I awoke refreshed and with an extraordinary sense of well being and following Acquilla’s directions, touched a button at my bedside. Almost immediately the languor of the atmosphere changed to an invigorating glow. I rose and started to examine my surroundings when the voice of Acquilla said:

I turned hastily, snatching a dressing robe about me, with that instinctive modesty which is so difficult for a man to forget. To my amazement the room was empty, though the voice continued. “I have been called to a special meeting of the Population [Pg 60]Council in New Orleans and won’t be back until late. However, the housekeeper has her instructions and you will find the library and the astronomical parlor enough to interest you until my return.”

Following the direction of the voice I discovered a minute disk in the wall. The mystery was after all only a commonplace. Acquilla had used a dictaphone which had probably been automatically released when I had changed the temperature.

There were no windows in the room but the glass walls, due no doubt to some infiltrating lighting control were now so transparent that I had a clear view of the scenery for miles about. Due to the present height of the New York mesa I could discern not only the Sound and the entire bay of New York but far down the Atlantic coast—an incomparable spectacle. From where I was, down to the old Battery, there were magnificent villas glittering in coats of many colors through the vistas of noble parks. Immense pylons stretched up into the sky, either the gigantic weather transformers I had seen or colossal plants for transmitting energy. Aeroplanes flashed against the blue like the migrations of swiftly moving birds or floated nearby like lazy clusters of poising butterflies. The speed of some of the larger ones held me fascinated. I [Pg 61]judged rightly that they were huge transatlantic carriers for the projectile-like speed of their streaking across the sky was like the path of a shooting star across the night.

I was in the midst of these observations when Mag the housekeeper entered to receive my orders. I tried to explain to her unsuccessfully my need of a razor, but after witnessing the bewilderment on her face gave up the attempt.

When I ran my hand expressively over the blue stubble on my cheeks her curiosity and amazement knew no bounds.

“But don’t men have mustaches or beards?” I exclaimed with a full portraying gesture.

“Goats have hair on their faces like that, not men,” she replied, opening her eyes.

I looked at her sharply but remembering that a sense of humor had evidently departed with the descent of my sex, I said:

“Very well, I shall raise a beard if only to show the modern woman what magnificent creatures men once were.”

“You are indeed curiously beautiful, Bogardus,” she said in a low voice, casting down her glance. “And your voice is so deep and your body is so strong for a man!”

Though Mag was square and built like a blacksmith, [Pg 62]I confess this humble admiration was inspiring to me and opened agreeable vistas for the future.

“Gallia is the great Æsthete who discovered the new method of tissue preservation. If you will come down to the bath now I will inform her.”

Gallia, like the generality of her caste, was a brunette, with black olive-shaped eyes and a delicate, slightly acquiline nose. She came forward graceful and fragrant, and putting her arms about me embraced me cordially, a greeting which I later discovered had replaced the crude handshake of our male civilization.

“What a magnificent specimen you are, Bogardus,” she said, looking me over with the glance of a connoisseur. “Really, when we see what demigods men once were, it is a disgrace to reflect on how we have let your sex deteriorate.”

“Good,” I said somewhat embarrassed at her frank admiration. “At least you do not share the common prejudice.”

“There are, of course, dominant reasons for our [Pg 63]present social state from a political and philosophic point of view,” Gallia replied with a precautionary glance at Mag. “But looking at the matter purely from the science of eugenics, I maintain that for the proper breeding of the superlative female, it is necessary to regenerate the mental capacities and initiatives of the male. Besides, men educated by women will possess totally different characteristics.”

“But minorities are always the most powerful elements politically. It was a minority that brought about woman suffrage in my day.”

“Later,” she replied, frowning significantly in the direction of the housekeeper, “it will be interesting to learn by what methods. At present I have a duty in the interests of science, to determine what effect your long preservation may have had on the glandular and nervous system. You see, Bogardus, the principles of frigiferous arrestation of life have only been tested by short periods of from fifty to sixty years. Your arrival is of course quite the most important scientific event that has occurred.”

I divined from her manner that political questions had to be treated with discretion, and so postponed [Pg 64]until later the many questions which occurred to me as to the status of my sex. We entered a laboratory directly above the bath where I was subjected to a series of tests which resembled the metabolism examination of my day.

“Everything is normal,” said Gallia delighted. “I can find no disturbance whatsoever. In fact for a man of sixty—”

“True, I forget. You come from an age when the glandular secrets of youth were still a closed book. That is the reason for my mistake. You see we begin invigoration treatments immediately at the completion of the body growth—that is about the age of twenty. In your case, I shall have to treat you intensively. It will be most interesting. I shall work out the nutrition formulas and the chemistry of the air you must have at night. Meanwhile the ordinary daily regime will work wonders.”

“Gallia, I am curious to know to what extent you have been able to prolong life.”

“We have still to submit to the tests of experience,” she replied. “We have it is true only begun our exploration, and today there are only a few [Pg 65]living who have reached the age of a hundred and seventy. Theoretically, there is no reason why we cannot with our present knowledge extend life to four or five centuries. We have eliminated the ravages of such diseases as tuberculosis and cancer, pneumonia and paralysis, but to be strictly scientific, we may have to encounter new types of diseases which will have to be studied and conquered.”

“Then there are persons who actually wish to live two hundred and three hundred years in this world?”

“That is the trouble. You see with the perfection of the Frigidrome, particularly with the proof of its efficacy which you have supplied, Bogardus, there will be an overwhelming demand to be translated from century to century.”

“Exactly. But until we can supply the demand, you realize that it is a privilege that has to be restricted. It is now an honor conferred for distinguished services.”

“Then I may hope for another voyage into the future in as favorable a state as the present.”

She smiled at me the flitting Latin smile that is reflected in the eyes and, Mag being absent, embraced me with a warmth that was more than professional, and which I confess I returned with such interest that she gave a little gasp of pleasure.

“Oh! That is not at all like a man!” She gave me a long, veiled glance and added, “Really, your case is so important I shall have to treat it personally.”

For two most agreeable hours I received a treatment under Gallia’s directions, which consisted of an immersion in a chemical bath, a massage with some violet ray machine and the application of delicious unguents which left my skin aglow and sensitively alive. From Gallia I learned that the day of every woman began at five o’clock with two hours devotion to this meticulous care of the body, as the first obligation of a civilized state. No woman, it appeared, ever took more than four hours sleep, except in the nascent and child-bearing periods. Sleep, to the extent in which we indulged ourselves, was an excess as injurious as drunkenness or gluttony. All that Gallia had to say struck me as of exceeding good sense, and I promised to follow rigorously her precepts.

After her departure breakfast was served while I [Pg 67]reclined on a divan. The repast consisted of a variety of fruits; a syrup formed on the basis of honey but not so oppressively saccharine; coffee, which had a vintage of twenty years and a light breakfast food which was a mélange of different vitamins exceedingly pleasant and appetizing. I complimented Mag, but expressed a masculine desire to indulge in the morning newspaper.

“Or has the newspaper been abolished as a male distraction?” I asked facetiously.

Mag returned with a record about the size of an ordinary spool and placed it in a small receptacle, explaining that the broadcasting from the central station was recorded on these disks which could be turned on later at will.

I found as I had expected that the circumstances of my arrival occupied the place of honor. But what astonished me was to discover that the gist of my inquiries and the long explanations of Acquilla the night before were rendered with an amazing fidelity. I surmised that by some hidden recording device every word of our conversation had been transmitted. The portrait given of me was flattering, though certain liberties were taken with the [Pg 68]amazement and admiration I had displayed for the marvels of the new civilization. But this I put down to the editorial tradition of local pride. The news of the day was given briefly without the embellishments to which we are accustomed; important discoveries in the social organization of Arcturus III made possible by the micro-photostatic enlargement of astronomical records; the launching of a new luminous fringe in the Paris fashions; the meeting of the Population Council in New Orleans to deal with an unforeseen outcrop of twins; the opening of the new Frigidrome in the tunnelled vaults of the Palisades, capable of accommodating a thousand new inmates, etc. There were talks on health, a description of a new symphony, the arrival of a hundred Scandinavian males and the excitement caused by their striking personal appearance. All this, while interesting, left me with a feeling of depression.

“But isn’t there a man’s section; a sport page, you know? You don’t understand? Don’t men play football or baseball or golf or tennis? Isn’t there a world’s heavyweight champion?”

“You make me fear the worst,” I said dejectedly. I rose. “Never mind. I’ll visit the grounds for a little walk and then return to the library.”

When I stepped out onto the broad lawn a machinot was cutting the grass, seated on an electric machine which he guided so deftly that I watched entranced the mathematical inevitability of his movements.

Here again unwillingly I have to admit the fertility of the feminine imagination. Truly the vanity of man could only create gods or automatons in his own image. It may be debatable whether two legs are not sufficient, but certainly any knowledge of the marvels of the insect world should have convinced us of the utter inadequacy of two hands. Not only were the machinots supplied with numerous antennae, but instead of the restricted human orbit of vision they were supplied with the myriad faceted eyes of the bee, which communicated to their intricate mechanism what we lack—a complete vision. While I was watching, one of the machinots in crossing the lawn evidently ran down, for it came to a complete stop, sending out a radio call to the head mechanic. Another machinot operating [Pg 70]a lawnmower arrived within ten feet of the obstruction, stopped, turned out and as deliberately readjusted itself to its appointed path!

Other automatons were spraying the orchards, and running cultivators through the flower gardens. What cultivation of the soil was done was evidently only of an ornamental nature. Vegetables and cereals for the table were raised elsewhere, for no home cooking was necessary, with their thermostatic devices and their central cooking stations.

The servants’ quarters (all were women, including the gardener and the mechanic) were behind a thicket about a quarter of a mile from the house and constructed on a curious principle. At first glance it resembled a circus tent and on closer inspection I found the analogy more striking. The entire house was suspended by cables from a central pole or tower, about twenty feet in diameter, which beside an elevator, contained heating, lighting and air circulating equipments. The ground floor was given over to a garage for the aeromats. On the second floor were three large bedrooms and a bath, a laboratory and a large living room or theatre. Above was a sheltered open roof banked with flowers, very pleasant and comfortable. The curious thing about these houses, which I found, later, were manufactured [Pg 71]in a standardized form, was that they were designed to be lifted from their sockets and transported by aeroplanes to any distance and again set up with only the necessity of providing an emplacement, thus obviating the necessity of separate summer and winter homes.

I was in the midst of these investigations when Mag informed me that I was wanted on the radio. The way she conveyed the message with a sort of sly impertinence, convinced me that it could not be Acquilla. I returned to the house greatly intrigued. Who could it be? A reporter seeking an interview? An offer for a vaudeville engagement? A moving picture contract? Or simply an invitation from the Sons of some Native State to be the speaker of honor at their annual banquet.

“How ridiculous,” I thought suddenly. “All such things are vanished with the age of publicity. Or have they?”

I went into the television chamber and found myself looking into the troubling eyes of the charming Dianne.

“I heard in the morning news that Acquilla had to go to New Orleans,” she said with a significant smile, “and stole this opportunity for a tête-à-tête.”

“You were casual enough last night,” I remarked, trying to assume an indifference that my racing pulse violently denied.

“You forget that Acquilla was present,” replied Dianne, looking at me tenderly. “But first, go to the direction box and press the button that is illuminated by a green fight. That is the isolator. There is no need of anyone listening in on our conversation. You’ve done it? Good. Now we can lunch together—just by ourselves.”

“True, you are still a barbarian, Bogardus. But I find a certain charm in that,” she added with one of those appraising smiles with which women in my [Pg 73]day used to suggest that the approach to intimacy need not be unnecessarily prolonged. “Well, to explain to you the simplest thing in the world; have your lunch served before you, I will do the same and we shall talk as we eat. You look surprised? Why, I often lunch with friends in Paris or Vienna.”

Now as a matter of pride I had promised myself to show no astonishment, whatever I discovered in my new experience. But this time I was caught as flat as a country bumpkin translated to the complexities of the metropolis. To hide my confusion I turned and gave my orders to Mag, who received them with such evident ill-humor that I had to speak to her sharply. The table was brought. I sat down and so complete was the illusion that my fascinating companion appeared to be seated across it enjoying my bewilderment.

Of all the innovations which I had encountered so far, I must say that this one pleased me the most; for not only were you free to select or leave your company at a moment’s impulse, but each was assured of the menu he preferred. What terrors of the society I had known could have been eliminated by this simple device! To recover my authority, I leaned forward and said:

“My dear Dianne, there is one thing must be understood between us. There is no use telling you [Pg 74]that I adored you from the moment I saw you. And I am going to be bold enough to say that I felt at once the attraction was mutual. However, I refuse to be treated like—well, like what you call a man today. In other words I forbid you to make love to me,” I concluded with a smile.

“And I want it distinctly understood that I am a man of my day and not a spineless dehydrated invertebrate your civilization has probably made of my noble sex.”

Dianne’s glance met the ardor of my gaze without yielding, but I was gratified to observe a pleasant convulsive shudder of her adorable shoulders.

“How strange, but how thrilling! Go on, Bogardus,” she said. It was not so much feminine coquetry as a feline curiosity.

“My adorable Dianne,” I continued. “This is quite the most alluring way of staging a romance one could imagine. In my day, it was the telephone which supplied the thrills. But how simple and primitive compared to this.”

“Then I have the advantage over you. I assure you I am already head over heels in love. Was anything ever more delightful or more tantalizing? I sit here. I look into your lovely eyes. I hear your charming voice. I watch every graceful movement of your body and when I reach out my hand, you elude me. What wouldn’t our coquettes have given to possess such a power of mystification!”

I reflected. I did not wish to appear too modest. After all, history was as I chose to create it and this feeling I must confess gave me an extraordinary assurance.

“In my day, your sex pretended to be the courted, though a great many satirists insisted the opposite was true. However, I was never exactly lonely.”

“How strange to hear a man talk like this, but go on. I like it, though it gives me a funny feeling when you look at me so boldly.”

“Dianne,” I said, beginning to lose my head a little. “You, a great artist should know great loves. Scientifically and socially, I confess, you have done miracles, but what have you not lost in the conquest—laughter and love!”

“Stop. It is impossible to give a sentimental note to the name of Bogardus—”

“How delightful. But Jacko, my dear—laughter—what do you mean by laughter? Is it those funny faces you made a while ago?”

“Laughter,” I said majestically, “was undoubtedly the invention of the first man who challenged the phantoms of the gods who oppressed him. Laughter is the will to be happy despite all the sorrow and suffering life is afflicted with. It is man’s triumph over his destinies.”

“True!” I said, struck by the thought. “Perhaps without tears, laughter is impossible.”

“It is possible,” I said, struck by a sudden inspiration. “Tonight we shall see.”

“What of it?” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “After all, Acquilla is a woman of seventy-six and youth must be served!”

“True, but Acquilla is implacable and if she even suspected that you were going to escape her—”

“I must tell you all the truth,” said Dianne making up her mind abruptly. “For you should be warned. You see, your arrival has caused a tremendous commotion. For Bogar—for Jacko, you are not like the men of today. You represent another civilization. You are so resplendently what men must have been. And just now that is very dangerous, dangerous to you!”

“Because in the last ten years, there has grown up a new radical school that is preaching the rehabilitation of men.”

“Exactly. You see how disturbing your arrival [Pg 78]is to the powers that be. You will be brought before the Supreme Council—I know for a fact that already they have been deliberating over your case. Be on your guard when you are questioned—” Dianne stopped and leaning forward plunged her glance into mine. “Be careful for my sake.”

“Now you are making love to me, which is contrary to orders,” I said smiling. “But what danger do I run?”

“Oh, no, but you would be returned to the Frigidrome and sent into another century.”

“I see, an ingenious way of abolishing capital punishment.” But despite my bravado, I felt the beginnings of uneasiness. “Is the situation really so serious?”

“Yes. For already the male suffrage movement is a problem. Acquilla has tremendous power. She can protect you so long as she is personally interested—”

“Say ‘for my sake’ again,” I said, looking at her boldly, “but drop your eyes as you say it.”

Dianne glanced at me in surprise, her glance wavered a moment and then fell away.

“Ah, my darling Dianne,” I cried, “if only I could jump through space and snatch you up in my arms this very moment.”

“Truly, dear, you have the weirdest effect on me. I have never known anything quite—quite like this before.”

“Dianne darling, I promise you that you will know what love once meant between man and woman,” I continued impulsively. “Not your eugenic, cold-blooded matings, but the love that stirs and tortures you, the love that is pleasure and pain, that is madness and ecstasy, that takes its moment and accepts the price, whatever it has to pay.”

I stretched out my hands and Dianne’s lovely fingers, as her flushed face turned to me, seemed already to yield to my clasp, when suddenly with a click, the whole mirage vanished before my eyes. The door opened and Mag came in.

“Acquilla is just returning,” she said looking at me sulkily. “Quick. Keep her outside, while I get the table out of sight.”

From which, I gathered that certain primitive instincts still persisted and that Mag, after the tradition of servants, had been listening at the door.

I went outdoors with some trepidation, striving to assume a natural air and dreadfully conscious of a feeling of guilt. But instead of Acquilla’s Dionysian figure I found no one. I returned and summoned Mag.

“You’d talked long enough with that hardened woman,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

The girl’s eyes filled with tears, she stammered, tried to meet my eyes and ran away.

“Good heavens, here’s a bit of comedy,” I thought, suddenly enlightened. “Mag jealous! Acquilla, Dianne, Gallia and now even Mag! Is it possible that the mere sight of a man as he used to be is going to work such havoc?”

I must confess that my anger vanished in a laugh, and though I have always held myself without much vanity this revelation of my devastating attractions was not at all displeasing.

I presently repaired to the library, which I found to consist of thousands of carefully packed reels, all arranged according to subjects. For instance, I found under ancient history that the siege of Troy was given with a faithful visualization of the Homeric legend accompanied by a lecture explanatory of customs and traditions; the French revolution and the Civil War were not only historically analyzed but actually laid before my eyes. My curiosity was naturally directed to the fate of my native city. I searched in the section entitled 20th Century and found a reel, labelled Apotheosis of Material Civilization, which I immediately placed in the projection and returned to my seat, with what emotion may be imagined.

Before my eyes rose the colossal city of my dreams, a vast intricate triple metropolis, with superimposed avenues, crowded with traffic; the two lower strata vibrantly brilliant in an electric flood; the upper interlaced with vertiginous spans that supported great concourses, lined with trees and parkways. The Pennsylvania and Grand Central Stations, trebled in stature, discharged passengers [Pg 83]on the concourses of the middle stage which was reserved for pedestrians solely. The scene which had evidently been filmed at the opening of business, showed the ceaseless inflow of vast multitudes which were regimented according to destination and marched in military formation under the vigilant control of thousands of traffic officers. Heavy traffic and incoming automobiles were rigorously kept on the lower avenue, and only private automobiles of the greatest luxury circulated above. Each block was treated as an architectural entity rising five hundred feet and flanked with enormous towers at each corner with a central landing place for aeroplanes which swarmed over the sky. Seen thus with its standardized armies of workers it resembled nothing else than a cross section of an ant hill or a beehive.

But, abruptly, when my curiosity was just aroused, the scene shifted to the new capital, Europa, showing the great woman scientist, Selma Benegal, in her laboratory, experimenting with electronic disassociation and the startling discovery of the deadly electroid ray. Next came the declaration of war by the feminine controlled states of Europe on the Americas; the consternation in New York, the panic in the Senate at Washington as President McGuffy at the wireless telephone, indignantly [Pg 84]demanded of Europa some justifying explanation.

Reply of the European Council. An epochal note relegating to the dust heap all the hypocrisies of the old man-made diplomacy:—“Europe makes war because Europe is ready to conquer!”

Then, while my head swam, came in quick succession shots of the hasty assemblage of the volunteer air forces of America; politicians proclaiming that America was rising like one man; while all the time the great European armada of the air was seen embarking in the night, a hundred armored aeroplanes equipped with the new Z-ray destroyers.

While I sat thus twisting my hands, I beheld the dreadful meeting at dawn and the sickening destruction of the feeble American forces as the Z-rays, with the crash of thunderbolts withered everything that opposed them. I saw the armada sweep on toward New York; the panic in Babylon; the first bolts toppling over the skyscrapers; crazed multitudes flinging themselves from the topmost windows. I saw New York collapse like an ant hill under the fall of an immense foot.

No words can picture the satanic grandeur of this destruction. The electroid rays seemed to have the quality of paralyzing all life, either because joined to some deadly chemical or because the immense concussion produced sudden deadly vacuums. [Pg 85]From the air the tottering city swayed and crumbled into unrecognizable heaps of stone and steel, while great sheets of fire a hundred feet in height leaped over the destruction. Millions died instantly of suffocation or fright while the armada, passing on, swept the country like a plague of fiery locusts, destroying every vestige of plant and animal life.

I turned away in horror and rushed into the open air, where I must have swooned, for the next thing I remember I was in Acquilla’s arms and Acquilla’s voice, alarmed and compassionate, was calling my name.

“What happened, Bogardus dear?” said Acquilla, passing her hand gently over my forehead.

“That awful picture,” I said with a shudder. “How could human beings be so fiendish?”

“Oh, you have been looking at the destruction of New York,” Acquilla said, looking at me curiously. “And it has upset you as much as that? And you are a representative of the war age—the age of war? So men were not so different after all?”

I put her arm from me indignantly and mastered my emotion, ashamed before a woman to have so betrayed my britannic ancestry.

“Your attitude surprises me,” said Acquilla reflectively. “What sentimental creatures you men were after all. What horrifies you? That you saw millions wiped out in an instant? But was there anything less horrible in men dying by the hundreds of thousands?”

“Really, Bogardus, do you believe that war was not always directed at the women and children? Is it easier to die suddenly or to live blankly and carry on the burden of life? Who suffered most in your romantic age, the lover who died or the lover who remained? As for the horror you imagine, stop and think on this. The destruction you saw was instantaneous, the vibration of the electroid ray paralyzes every nerve instantly. There is no more experience with pain than a bolt of lightning gives. Such a death was virtually an unconscious blotting out. Yet at the same epoch in your sentimentality, you gave to your criminals an instantaneous merciful death and allowed the ones you loved, to die in prolonged agonies. Isn’t that true?”

“You have enslaved my sex, because you say, it lived only to kill. Yet on what have you founded your civilization of peace? On the most gigantic holocaust that the imagination could conceive. I call that inconsistent.”

“You have brought up the fundamental difference between the sexes. You men were ever slaves to tradition and your consistency on which you pride yourselves was after all only a servitude to a rooted idea which no longer served. There is woman’s superior mentality. We never ask is a thing right, but is it necessary. Your vanity made you believe you could foresee all future conditions. We simply say the present has no relation to the past, because new conditions and not old ones determine our decisions.”

“I have heard such stuff before,” I said, irritated at my own lack of resource.

For some reason Acquilla did not wish to further antagonize me. She took my hand tenderly and said:

“I must make allowance for your man’s point of view, dear Bogardus. I don’t want to annoy you. I am simply comparing different viewpoints. After all, remember that life is the cheapest thing in the [Pg 88]world and it matters little how or when we go. You will do us the justice as you see us, to realize that if we have not yet conquered death, we never permit suffering, and though we had to decimate the world to do it, we have produced a state where hunger, poverty, sickness and suffering are unknown. You are not angry with me, Bogardus,” she concluded, holding out her arms with a charming gesture.

I yielded to the embrace but with a certain obstinacy which she must have felt, for she began to display the most tender solicitude to win me out of the stubbornness of my mood.

“Dianne is dining with us tonight and bringing Dulcina, the great composer, and Carrilla, who plays divinely. You will see that the aesthetics of living has not been lost in our feminine age. Come, we’ll plan the dinner together and you shall order the banquet as the Epicures of your day would have done. There you men remain supreme.”

I understood the reasons of her flattery, but was somewhat mollified by it. Yet as I took her hand and followed her to the culinary libraries, I was curiously conscious that in this scene I had behaved strangely like a woman and Acquilla had had all the masculine advantages. This irritated me and I resolved not to appear again at such a disadvantage.

I had made no reference to my luncheon and I must admit that I was considerably perplexed as to what course to pursue. Due to the abrupt interruption of my tête-à-tête with Dianne, we had been unable to agree upon a story. Of Mag I felt reasonably sure, for to betray me would be to implicate herself, but what if Dianne herself should make a slip before I could warn her? However, my short experience with that fascinating person had revealed to me enough of the eternal feminine to trust to her ingenuity.

“My dear Acquilla, I should be a thousand miles away from here, but the opportunity to talk a second time to your strange visitor from another world was too tempting, even if I am going to quarrel with him over my interpretation.”

“We shall quarrel certainly, for you have done dreadful things to poor Tristan!”

“What a funny custom. Let me try it,” said Dianne, glancing at Acquilla. “Gracious, how strong and vibrant your hand is! Why do you suppose people ever greeted each other like that? And your face is all covered with hair, like a wild animal.”

I was explaining my predicament when Dulcina and Carrilla entered, the last a statuesque blonde with a wig of flaming purple hair. When Dulcina approached and kissed me on the cheek in the accepted modern style, I purposely returned it with more warmth than I had shown.

Acquilla, to my delight, immediately began to consider the famous aesthete with marked aversion, and to further aggravate her suspicions, I confess that during the evening, I pretended to be greatly attracted. Again, I must refer to a curious phenomenon. With Dianne I felt always the traditional male superiority; but with Acquilla, despite every effort, I felt myself constantly resorting to those [Pg 91]devious ways of concealment that left me with a bewildered sense of a transmuted sex.

Our dinner, needless to say, was of the same high order of gastronomic delicacy as my first. The four Amazons were of faultless beauty, slender and regal in their graceful limbs and tinted headdresses, so that my imagination mellowed by the exquisite vintages, pictured myself in the court of some mythological divinity surrounded by her nymphs. Yet the fascination that Dianne had imposed on my senses from the first view, was imperative and exclusive of all other desires. Dinner over, the conversation naturally developed into a series of cross-examinations on the habits and manners of the twentieth century, which I sustained with spirit. Dulcina was particularly interested in the aesthetic life of my sex.

“Is it true, Bogardus,” she said, “at a time when certainly women must have discarded the absurdities of hoop-skirts, corsets and powdered headdresses that you men continued to dress in the livery of your butlers?”

“Dulcina, I shall not attempt to defend myself. On this point I admit you score heavily. Nothing could have been more absurd than the clothes to which we were subjected. In fact, in an age when [Pg 92]societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals flourished, no one ever thought of a society for the prevention of cruelty to men.”

“I have seen curious drawings of the times,” said Dulcina, “but I confess I cannot comprehend them. Explain please, Bogardus, the strange way you dressed.”

“It is easier to explain how, than why,” I continued. “In the first place when women’s dress did not weigh more than two to three pounds, we were staggering about in clothes that weighed five to six times as much. We wore heavy stiff hats, like inverted kettles and almost as heavy, that shut out all air from our heads. We wore collars as rigid as boards about our necks that strangled our throats in a way no human being would have treated a dog, and at night we placed another rigid white board over our chests and for some mysterious reason exposed it proudly to the public view. But worst of all, while we encouraged our women to display themselves in bright colors, exquisitely blended and designed, we confined ourselves to browns and greys and went into mourning each night.”

“And yet in the past—you had Rome and Athens! Even in the middle ages, you men in your dress rivalled the male plumage in nature. How [Pg 93]could such an absurdity happen then? And why did you endure it so long without a revolt?”

“Perhaps,” said Acquilla maliciously, “it may have been that women never really accepted democracy.”

“I make no defence,” I said shrugging my shoulders again. “I have suffered too much.”

“Wouldn’t it be fair to say, Bogardus,” said Acquilla slyly, “that this is another proof that men were traditional and women the pioneers of the imagination?”

“Yet the curious thing, Dulcina, is that the great designers of the fashions were always men.”

“Certainly. In certain things, Bogardus, we freely admit that the talents of men have remained supreme.” There was some objection to this, but Dulcina persisted, “Who are the great chefs today? Men. Who sets the fashions? The men of Paris. [Pg 94]Who are the great producers of masques and spectacles? Men. And of course, when you come to the great composers and painters—”

“How about mathematics? In my day, though women distinguished themselves in every other field—higher mathematics was a closed door.”

“Yes,” Acquilla admitted grudgingly. “In that one branch of science we admit the natural talent of the male mind. When you go to the Astrodrome you will see how we use it. But after all it is a deductive quality, rather than a creative one.”

“It produced an Einstein,” I said warmly. “By the way, in your stupefying progress, have you succeeded in understanding the Einstein theories?”

“That exploded theory is taught in the primary schools as a scientific curiosity,” Acquilla responded crushingly. But after a glance at the irritation which must have been evident on my face, she said, with that new solicitude her voice took on when she spoke to me. “However, Bogardus, we would be most ungenerous if we devoted the evening to an attack on the civilization of our guest. You have a treat before you, Carrilla has promised to give us the great Stars Symphony by Fliederfeldt, the famous composer of the twenty first century!”

The thought that came to me instantly was that my ears were now about to be assailed by a cacophony [Pg 95]of strident noises along the lines of that modern school which in my day had gone over to the rhythm of locomotives and trip hammers.

“The orchestron was not known to you,” said Acquilla, motioning me to a seat on the couch beside her. “I think you have a surprise waiting for you.”

Carrilla who had been unusually silent, gazing at me with that entranced concentration I was learning to expect, allowed herself to be persuaded after the manner of all great artists, before going to a large instrument which resembled more an organ than a piano. At the first bars, I exclaimed in surprise:

“But it’s impossible! She is not playing herself. It is the record of a great symphony orchestra!”

“It is an orchestra, true,” said Dulcina, gratified by my astonishment, “but it is played by a single performer.”

“Forgive me this interruption, my dear Carrilla,” I said, “but before you begin, explain to me how it is possible for you to produce on a keyboard, not only the sounds of wind instruments which our organs did imitate, but the clear and definite notes of violins and cellos.”

“After all, it is quite simple,” Carrilla said, indicating to me an elaborate keyboard. “If anyone had thought of it in your day, I’m sure they would have invented it. There is but one gamut and all the orchestron does is to reproduce the notes of all instruments. You see, here are the strings and these delicately adjusted instruments are the bows. As for the flutes and the horns, if a human mouth can blow into them, surely a mechanical device can do so.”

“It is wonderfully designed,” I said, staring into the intricate mechanism, “but how are you able to control these multiple instruments under one direction, particularly when one part of your orchestra is playing one theme against another?”

“It is a complicated art, of course,” said Carrilla proudly, “and certain mechanical devices are necessary. For instance, when the strings are carrying the theme, this device insures the repetition of the motif. Music is after all only the mathematics of melody. It has its repetitions, iterations and progressions. I indicate the theme on the keyboard while underneath by these different pedals I throw it into the different instruments I desire. Do you see? So. Here are the flutes, now I close the flutes and bring up the cellos, now both mingle and [Pg 97]now one plays this simple theme against the other. Is it clear?”

“Clear as the suspension of the solar system in space. Since we see it, it is so, but just as miraculous.”

“Recline and I shall play—just for you,” she said in a low voice, pressing my hand.

I returned and placed myself between Acquilla and Dianne, agreeably intoxicated by their fragrant personalities, while Carrilla began to play. Even now I cannot believe the testimony of my senses. All I can say is that apparently Carrilla at the keyboard seemed to play upon an invisible orchestra as deftly as though she were rendering a simple performance on the pianoforte. Possibly the orchestron was merely a glorified organ. The thought occurred to me. But if so, it was unlike any organ I had ever listened to and there was not the faintest note of the piping tremolo I associated with that instrument.

After this divine music, Dianne without rising, sang to Carrilla’s accompaniment, the air of Elsa from Lohengrin (Wagner alone seemed to have survived) and another that resembled somewhat the salute to the sun in Coq d’Or. She was so close that I could almost feel the passing of the lovely [Pg 98]liquid notes against my cheek. Once in an impassioned burst I felt her hand slip into mine and lie there all tremulous with emotion. My own senses were now in such a whirl by the magnetism of her nearness that fearing to betray myself, I sat up at the conclusion of her song and said:

“Carrilla and Dianne, for pity’s sake, no more! If I listen any longer to your ravishing music, I shall feel myself back on Calypso’s island bewitched by the songs of sirens. And you know what happened to those who listened?” I drew a long sharp breath and to recover some calm added, “Oh, by the way, I have one complaint to make, but that is a serious one. Who emasculated the rôle of Tristan in the otherwise perfect performance I witnessed yesterday?”

“While it is true that the passion of love overwhelms each at the drinking of the love potion, Tristan is a magnificent male, a hero of a hundred battles, one of the famous knights of legend. But you make him a pliant shrinking personality dominated by Isolde.”

“But after all, Tristan is a man!” exclaimed Dianne, after a chorus of exclamations.

“Even a love potion could not have made the regal Isolde fall in love with an invertebrate like that.”

“Historically he is right,” said Dulcina, “I have always maintained that we should produce the opera to represent the times.”

“My dear ladies, let me tell you frankly that what you defend is nothing but nature faking. Why, in the second act,” I continued, boiling at the recollection, “in the sublimest love scene of all drama, how do you represent it? By Isolde putting her arm around Tristan and pillowing his head on her shoulder! If you don’t see the absurdity of that, there is no sense of humor left in the world. No, really it is too funny!”

At this memory, and the blank seriousness of their looks, I was seized with a sudden uncontrollable spasm of hilarity. I laughed, holding my sides until the tears ran down my cheeks.

“Are you in such dreadful pain,” cried Dianne, seizing my arm with a warmth that should have betrayed [Pg 100]her personal interest, while Dulcina and Carrilla stood frightened and helpless staring at me.

“Laughing, that’s what he called it,” Acquilla explained. “No, I assure you he is not suffering. He will be quite normal in a moment!”

I mastered my emotion, but the ludicrousness of their perplexed concern for me so overcame me, that again I doubled up. When at last I was master of myself, I said:

“It is true you have abolished laughter! What a revelation!” I cried, struck by a sudden enlightenment. “It must be true then, that women never really had a sense of humor and only counterfeited our inexplicable amusement!”

“How can I explain the nature of laughter to those who have never laughed? And yet, wise women of the twenty-second century, don’t you realize that laughter has overthrown kings and gods? When men slunk in the woods and feared the night and the storm and shivered under the tyranny of fear and superstition, it was the first man who dared to laugh at a clay god, who made men gods of men themselves. You want to know [Pg 101]what it is to laugh?” I concluded. “I will teach you as we taught our babies!”

“I am willing to try,” said Acquilla, nerving herself in the interest of science.

I took the lovely ankle firmly in my hand and ran my fingertips lightly over the sole of her foot.

“No—but it’s very strange. No, Bogardus, let go of my foot. I can’t stand any more. It—it—”

“Oh how—oh, how it tickles!” she cried and suddenly began to laugh. “Oh, how funny—how queer—but oh, how delightful. I do, I do like it!”

Dulcina, Carrilla and Dianne each in their turn clamored for the experiment, and each was hilariously initiated into the lost art.

“There,” I exclaimed, pointing to Acquilla, who was laughing at their first contortions, “now she is laughing at you.”

“I am laughing because they are making such strange faces,” said Acquilla, wiping the tears from her eyes.

At this moment Mag entered with a tray. I waited my moment and suddenly pulled the rug from under her. The four women burst out laughing at the sudden sprawling descent. But all at once Acquilla frowned and with a gesture of dismissal to the maid, said:

“Laughter in that case was simply an atavistic sense of superiority. It was because Mag was placed in a ludicrous light, that our self-superiority expressed itself in a laugh. But that is only a trivial and a very obvious side.”

“Wait!” Acquilla stopped me with a frown. “You have done a daring and it may be an unwise thing, Bogardus. There are illimitable consequences to what you have taught us. Perhaps this is what was meant by the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

“Acquilla, how ridiculous!” exclaimed Dulcina, and to my horror began to giggle.

“There you see,” said Acquilla sombrely. “The poison has already begun to act! Bogardus, answer my question.”

When Acquilla was in this mood the effect was terrifying. A sudden hush ensued and I caught an admonishing glance from Dianne.

“You say, Bogardus, that laughter has overthrown tyrannies and superstitions. That is good. But answer me truthfully: has it never destroyed the reputation of a genius or caused the decadence of a great civilization?”

“Of many, Bogardus. Was not Pericles driven out by ridicule and weren’t the greatest of the Greek tragedians made the butt of the coarse humor of Aristophanes and his school? And in a larger sense, did not the most brilliant of your civilizations lapse into an intellectual and political decadence when the Athenians had learned to turn everything into ridicule?”

“You are ascribing to one cause what must have been the result of many. And I may remind you that Æschylus, Euripides and Sophocles have remained among the immortals.”

“You are adroit, Bogardus, but you are temporizing. Let us go further. Answer me honestly. Was not the spirit of irony directed against your most sacred institutions? And wasn’t the object of your so-called humorists to ridicule everything [Pg 104]you held by; the family relationship, marriage, the established church, your statesmen, your professors and your traditions?”

“True. Our satirists and comedians amused themselves at the expense of marriage, love, fidelity, domestic bliss, the older generation; but Acquilla,” I added artfully, “was the attack unjustified? And since you have abolished marriage and the home, and parentage and romance, is it not fair to ascribe some part in the new enlightenment to that same masculine spirit of irony which undermines with ridicule what you have destroyed with your logic?”

“You argue glibly,” said Acquilla, in the usual feminine way, “but one thing is clear from your own words—this thing you exalt as laughter, which I call the spirit of irony, has been a cruel and destructive force, and when it dominates a society it destroys it. I see the danger now, and Dulcina, Carrilla, Dianne, I expressly enjoin on you that what has happened here tonight, through a careless whim, must go no further.”

“Really, my dear,” said Dulcina, laughing, “you are just a little put out by the brilliant exposition of a mere man and trying to magnify into an affair of state what is a game for children.”

“I think Bogardus has argued brilliantly and revealed to us a surprising breadth of view. I am [Pg 105]more of a masculinist than ever,” said Carrilla, coming to me and looking deep into my eyes. “And if he displeases you I shall be delighted to take him home with me.”

“Carrilla, you are frivolous,” said Dianne, rising angrily. “I quite agree with Acquilla, and I am confident that when Bogardus has had time to become acquainted with our institutions he will be the last to advocate the introduction of any spirit of criticism.”

“Why, I thought you stood for the regeneration of men,” said Dulcina, turning on Dianne. “At least you have said so a hundred times. It is you who are inconsistent! I agree with Carrilla—Bogardus has convinced me. The suppression of the male sex as it is carried on today is contrary to nature and justice!” She turned to me and taking my hand added: “Bogardus, all you say interests me intensely, and I invite you now to return with me and let me personally act as your guide.”

“Suppose we leave the choice to Bogardus himself,” said Dianne, looking angrily at the other two.

Acquilla, who had watched this scene with frowning brow interrupted with a peremptory gesture. “For shame! We are acting like a group of silly [Pg 106]men! Enough! When I need advice or assistance I shall know where to find it.” She rose, ending the evening. “It is late and Bogardus is still in need of strength and sleep. Good night!”

Carrilla and Dulcina shrugged their shoulders and embraced me, with a warmth that had been entirely lacking in their first contact, but when I felt the lovely arms of Dianne about me, my pulse began to race.

“Be careful, Jacko,” she whispered in my ear. “You went too far. Acquilla is alarmed and Acquilla is implacable. Good night, my adorable one!”

The sensation of having thrown the apple of discord among these beautiful creatures was, I confess, humorously satisfactory to my vanity. But heeding Dianne’s warning look, and intimidated by the angry fire in the eyes of Acquilla, I resolved that discretion was the better part of valor. When we were left alone, I held out my hand and said, smiling:

“Dear Acquilla, I see that even now discussions are dangerous between the sexes, but since we are alone, let me admit that I see a great deal for serious consideration in what you have said.”

“They are only Histriones and Æsthetes,” said Acquilla, her brow clearing, “and their faculties are [Pg 107]all emotional. You are a man of such sound sense that I am confident of your final judgment. But meanwhile no more such experiments as tonight, Bogardus.”

“I promise,” I replied, smiling a relieved smile. “So it’s understood we shall laugh no more!”

“Oh, well,” replied Acquilla, looking at me with a tender light in her eyes. “I don’t say never. It wasn’t so painful. But only when we are alone, dear.”

“When you look at me like that,” I said, with assumed dizziness, “my head goes round. I—I feel—”

Acquilla sprang forward and lifted me clear in her strong arms as I pretended to reel and fall.

“Poor dear! You are still not strong!” she said, holding me as a child, and bending over my eyes. “Forgive me! I must take better care of you. Better, dear?”

Thanks to my duplicity, I was carried upstairs and put to bed, but the kiss that Acquilla laid on my lips burned into me. Again I lay awake a long time [Pg 108]dreaming of Dianne and Acquilla, realizing all at once the dangers and perplexities with which my situation was now fraught;—I, of the now decidedly weaker sex, alone and unprotected, at the mercy of this resplendent but ruthless and unmoral Amazon.

When I awoke, Acquilla was standing at the side of my couch. I rubbed my eyes. The room through its glass walls was flooded with an agreeable modified sunlight.

“You’ve slept a whole day, but now you ought to feel splendidly,” she replied eagerly.

“It’s true. I don’t remember when I’ve felt so alive and keen. And I feel a wolfish appetite.”

“How fast your hair grows,” said Acquilla passing her hand over my face, “and how wiry it is.”

“Oh, not for a long while here. In Southern races you occasionally see curious throwbacks. How funny it feels,” she added, again taking liberties with my chin. “You know I rather like it.”

“Acquilla,” I said solemnly, “I am beginning to be worried about my fellow men. What have you done with your brothers?”

“I’m afraid you will be rather upset,” she said, [Pg 110]smiling, “but you are so different from the men of today. You are a reasoning creature and will understand, I am sure.”

We breakfasted out of doors, in a charming little bower of fragrant roses. A machinot waited on us with a dexterity that was little short of uncanny. Twice during the meal Acquilla rose and went into the house, probably to give the orders for the day. Each time true to the precepts of an excellent training, I rose and waited until she resumed her seat.

“A gentleman in my day always rose when a lady did,” I answered with a touch of asperity. “It was a deference we paid the sex of our mothers. We called it good manners.”

“What a strange idea. You placed women on an inferior scale and flattered them by treating them as your superiors.”

“What inconceivable sentimentalists you men really were,” continued Acquilla reflectively.

“It was an attitude, of course, that descended [Pg 111]from the age of chivalry—the service of the strong towards the weak.”

“Well, it seems now the situation is reversed. May I ask what is your attitude to my unfortunate sex?”

This question evidently perplexed Acquilla for reasons I was to learn later. Perhaps she regretted the indiscretion of her previous remarks. But after a moment she replied.

“As a sex, yes, we consider the male inferior, though, of course, we make exceptions in the case of outstanding merit. To a small element who distinguish themselves in the arts and sciences we give modified political rights—chiefly advisory.”

“Oh, men have been disfranchised for over a century,” said Acquilla carelessly. “The age of reason could not have been achieved in any other way.”

“Why not? They are quite happy, I assure you. There are a few radical thinkers among us who have lately raised the cry of votes for men, [Pg 112]but this heresy is confined chiefly to the brunettes and the Histriones. It will die out naturally.”

“But the men themselves,” I exclaimed indignantly. “After all, there is the appeal to force.”

“What can they do? They are outnumbered twenty five to one. My dear man, let me urge you to put aside your incurable sentimentality and your traditional way of looking at things, and try to appreciate the age of reason, in which you are now living. Soon, you will see how your males are living and enjoying themselves—and afterwards tell me candidly if we have not solved the sex problem.”

“One man to twenty five women!!” I cried, hearing nothing else. “But then you must have deliberately suppressed, socially murdered—”

“All that was done long ago,” said Acquilla interrupting. “Don’t excite yourself so, Bogardus. How like a man! Emotion should never precede knowledge. How agitated you are before you have even investigated.”

“Naturally. When the male civilization collapsed in the sanguinary World War it would have been a tragic futility to have returned man to power again, wouldn’t it?”

“You have said it. But don’t forget that an Amazon civilization existed three thousand years ago.”

“And this Amazon state, is it modelled on our communistic or despotic theories?”

“You may call it a despotism, but it has certainly nothing to do with communism or socialism.”

“How absurd! You will be quoting to me the sentimentalities of Rousseau and your Declaration of Independence! ‘All men are created free and equal.’”

“My dear Bogardus, that was a male egotism. All men created free and equal! No woman ever really believed that!”

“There you have scored,” I cried laughing. “I must admit that women did not believe that.”

“Exactly, and that is true in our sex, too. Even with our scientific methods of advanced eugenics, we create types but never equalities.”

“You can’t guess? And yet it was written on the walls of history for anyone to recognize. Well, Bogardus, I’ll help you. But first, you had a civilization based on the family. The fatherhead of course.”

“The kinghead, of course. Then oligarchies, democracies, and demagogueries. Now what were they based on? The army, the church or the mob.”

“But after all, what makes the difference between human beings, the superior mind and the average?”

“In your days power became an artificial inheritance. In our days power is knowledge.”

“Knowledge is power. I remember writing that as a child in a Spencerian copy book, I think,” I said meditatively.

“Our state of course, is founded on the University, as any logical civilization must be. Success is simply the process of elimination. That is what the University accomplishes scientifically and impartially.”

“But then,” I asked, remembering certain remarks, [Pg 115]“you are organized on a system of castes.”

“True. We have rejected your democratic sentimentalisms and have returned to the first principle of nature, the survival of the fittest. With that we have adopted Napoleon’s conception of an aristocracy of achievement.”

“Very good,” I said, “and all you say interests me keenly. For Acquilla, you must know that there were many solitary thinkers, even in my day, who held with you. In fact, the British sought to reinvigorate their own aristocracy by the generous introduction of strong new personalities. But the weakness in all such systems is, of course, in the decline in vigor and effort which comes with the generations that inherit. How do you handle the second generation?”

“It is a pleasure to converse with you, Bogardus,” said Acquilla, brightening up. “Truly, you have the mind of a woman. The answer is simple. You have correctly pointed out the danger of all inherited institutions. We have eliminated it.”

“You—you suppress the children of your aristocracy?” I cried, gazing at her in horror.

“Not exactly. But we have suppressed the family which amounts to the same thing. You see, [Pg 116]as our great philosopher, Manfreda, has pointed out in her epochal work which led to the final abolishment of your archaic tribal institutions, not only did the family idea constitute a rebellious element in society but—”

“Oh, you must read Manfreda, the greatest creative thinker of all times. You didn’t understand? But what is the object of the family; the strong must carry with them the weak. The moment a leader begins to provide for his family, his loyalty is to his children and not to the state. The parasitic second generation of which you speak retained artificial power, only by inheritance. Is that plain?”

“Furthermore, Bogardus, was not the family in itself an institution curiously contrary to the principle of the survival of the fittest?”

“Was it not generally the weak that preyed upon the strong? In the family as you knew it, how often was the strongest member sacrificed for the incompetents?”

“I am reflecting—yes—and many incidents come to my mind that bear out your statement. But—”

“There is no other possible. So you see until you are conversant with our new institutions and manners, you cannot argue on morality in the terms of the twentieth century, any more than you would have argued then in the terms of the middle ages.”

“To go back a little,” I said, keenly interested, I must confess, “may I ask some questions?”

“You have abolished marriage and the family, I perceive, but how do you handle the question of the children?”

“The determination of sex was solved in the last century. Birth control was in force all over the world long before that.”

“Permit? It is obligatory. As science has diminished the need of labor, we have met the challenge [Pg 118]of the machine by successively reducing the population. Anything else would be unscientific. The production of females and males is fixed for each country by the World Commission, of which I am a member. Our decisions are immutable and never disobeyed.”

“Fundamental laws are reduced to the smallest number and any wilful infraction is punishable by death. In the case of the resistance of a community we would wipe out that community,” Acquilla concluded calmly.

“In your day,” replied Acquilla quickly, “you had thousands of laws and expected them all to be broken.”

“The infraction of any law must be punishable by death if there is any necessity for the law.”

“There are no unjust laws because there is no oppression of the individual. As for the death penalty (which of course, is simply the arrestation of life by means of the Frigidrome) you would be astonished to see how it has simplified the observance.”

“I shall reserve my opinion to our discussion on morality,” I said obstinately. “But to continue; what do you do with the children when they are born?”

“They are removed to the state nurseries immediately and brought up in community.”

“Science has demonstrated that children to be entirely normal, must be removed from the dangers of the mother or father complex. But Freud and Bertrand Russell, in your day, must have realized that.”

“The mother and father complex, it is true, were held responsible for many things.”

“You see we have really broken up the home in the interest of the children.”

“I am trying to acquire your modern point of view,” I answered feebly. “One thing occurs to me; why go through the torture of childbirth at all?”

“In the first place childbearing has now no discomforts. [Pg 120]In the second place it is a duty imposed by the state and finally it has been established that it is a process of nature that is essential to the complete health and mental vigor of a woman.”

“No, but the children of each caste, yes. For, Bogardus, it would be absurd to say that a child of mine has no greater equipment than the child of a servant.”

“Eugenics has taught us to develop inherited characteristics. We breed not only for physical form but for developed tendencies. A great scientist or a philosopher in her offspring, with the proper mating, produces a finer brain, naturally. Nothing more complex in that than breeding for speed in horses or scent in dogs.”

“The highest caste is called the Minervenes. This comprises the highest types of mind, the scientists, the philosophers, the teachers, the doctors and the governors or administrators.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean by lawyers. What were lawyers? Do you mean law makers?”

“On the contrary.” I hesitated before an obvious witticism before replying. “Lawyers interpreted the laws. In my day there were so many laws and so often in conflict that no one ever contemplated any step without recourse to a lawyer.”

“There is no one to leave property to. Everything returns to the state, and the state fixes the income of each according to merit.”

“Then there were the corporation lawyers who found the way to accomplish results that were seemingly forbidden by laws.”

“But the criminal lawyers—surely there must be someone to represent the individual who is accused of breaking your laws?”

“Well, manifestly someone with the knowledge [Pg 122]of the law must advise the accused and plead his case before the jury.”

“My dear Bogardus, criminology is an exact science, as you will see. We have judges but no juries.”

“Confusion, mystification. We simply bring the accused before the judge and ask him one question.”

“But a lie is impossible. We apply the scientific test, the detecto-vibrator, that records the truth or falsity of the answer by the nervous reaction. That principle surely was known in your day.”

“True, but not in use. Manifestly then, there is no need of lawyers. This, I admit cheerfully, is a great progress. Please continue.”

“The Minervenes are, of course, the supreme directing body in the state. Then there are the Histriones who compose all the liberal professions, the writers, musicians, actors, artists and architects. Socially they rank with the Minervenes, but politically they have nothing to do with [Pg 123]the direction of the government, except as they may indirectly influence ideas.”

“Submit? Inferiority? They claim it as their right to be exempt from any such burden. Why should anyone with a creative gift wish to have her valuable time diverted to the dry routine of government?”

“The third caste is the Vulcates, our great mechanics and engineers. The fourth the Æsthetes, the arbiters of fashions, the decorators, the great culinary artists, all those who study the greatest enjoyment to be had out of life. The fifth are the Cerenes, the agricultural producers, farmers, cattlewomen, dairywomen, wine makers. The sixth caste, the Mercurenes, the artisans and manufacturers, and finally the seventh caste, the Domesticates, the servants, the clerks, and the police.”

“And are these castes rigid? Is there no hope of rising from one caste to another?”

“There is nothing rigid about any of them, Bogardus, because there is no inheritance. A woman’s caste is determined by her education. Opportunity is open to everyone according to their merits. You will see how this works out.

“Now,” said Acquilla, pointing to the open lawn at the bottom of the park, where an aeromat was descending at this moment. “But I have a busy day in Europa and will have to leave you to another guide.”

“I thought her interesting, more so than Carrilla or Dianne, who are amusing but like all artists interested only in themselves,” I replied adroitly. Again I was conscious of a translated personality in the domineering presence of the Minervene, as though the sexes were reversed and I was resorting to the artifices of the weaker.

“Dulcina is even more vain and egotistical,” said Acquilla peremptorily, “and knows nothing outside her own talent.”

Before I could venture another guess, my lovely Dianne stepped out of the aeromat and said, “Doctrina has an important meeting and asked me to take her place.”

Acquilla did not look any too well pleased at this substitution, but as she had no time to lose she made the best of it.

“How in the world did you manage it?” I exclaimed when Dianne and I had soared lightly into the clear air.

“Oh, we Histriones are privileged to lie a little now and then,” said Dianne with the smile of a naughty child. “Were you disappointed it wasn’t Dulcina?”

“Acquilla is a cerebral. I am not worried about her. I shall never be jealous of a Minervene, I promise you.”

“She is very intelligent,” I remarked, unwilling to surrender any advantage.

“Are you trying to make me jealous!” exclaimed Dianne, taking me in her arms with a savagery that crushed my body to hers.

“If you hurt me, I shall hurt you!” she said, showing her sharp white teeth. But instantly she relaxed under my mocking gaze. “Please, Jack dear, don’t stir me up. Things are bad enough as they are.”

“How am I ever going to escape from Acquilla?” I said dejectedly, but at this moment looking down, I perceived we were about five hundred feet over the East River, which was spanned by a dozen great bridges at least a quarter of a mile in width.

“But aren’t those palms and cork trees below me?” I exclaimed, peering over.

“Yes. By the control of the Gulf Stream we have been able to procure a temperate zone as far north along the Atlantic coast as Newfoundland. It is middle Athena but the temperature is not below sixty.”

“You have changed the course of the Gulf Stream! Then you have changed history.”

“No. Of course, the strategic position we have allows us to deflect the stream after it leaves the Gulf. We divide it and send a part to the coast of [Pg 127]Greenland, which has developed an entirely new civilization.”

“Really I don’t know—it’s all engineering and I never could understand mathematics.”

“My darling Dianne, how refreshing to find a woman who doesn’t know something! But you speak of Greenland as we did. Then countries have retained their identities?”

“Certainly. Women have a horror of uniformity and standardization. Climate, we know, influences the types of human brains. We do everything to preserve the genius of local areas. Internationally we govern as little as possible.”

“There is a loose alliance, of course, but there are broad divisions you did not have. There are four great states. Amazonia, which extends from Florida to Baffin Bay and as far west as the Appalachians; Dixie, which starts from Panama and goes to the Rockies; Illinois, which takes in the great lakes and the midwestern basin, and California, which takes in the whole western coast.”

“Each state produces what it is best fitted for. We have a supreme council, it is true, that controls such vital matters as health, climate, population and the distribution of energy, but in an age of pure reason it is impossible that any injustice should be done.”

“Later you will understand. Our solidarity is the solidarity of the whole human race. We are united in the pursuit of great scientific achievements. Education has broken down the barriers of prejudices and greeds. But what do you wish most to see? The hospitals, schools or museums? I must take you somewhere, you know!” she added, glancing at me with adorable mischief in her eyes.

“There is just one thing I want to see above all others,” I exclaimed instantly. “I want to see my fellow men.”

“Do you realize that since I have been here I haven’t seen a single man! Do you wonder at my curiosity? Where are they? When I try to open the subject with Acquilla she always evades me. You at least will tell me the truth.”

Dianne hesitated a moment and then leaning forward, gave certain directions to the machinot, who flew rapidly down Long Island.

“It is a dangerous thing I am doing,” she said frowning. “Dangerous perhaps for both of us. It will make Acquilla my enemy for life, but since you ask, my darling, I can’t refuse.”

“I know you have carried your subordination of my sex to the extent of shutting them out of all public life. Do you also bring them up in ignorance, that they have forgotten what they once were?” I asked indignantly.

“Oh no, it is only the personal contact and the public appearance that is eliminated. They go to school and college—a television college, of course. For those who have a natural talent the higher education is open. But few avail themselves of the privilege. You will find, dear, a great change in your fellow men. You must be prepared.”

“Segregated of course, but really, Jack dear, they are quite happy with their existence and [Pg 130]everything is done for their physical comforts.”

“So that is the level to which they have sunk,” I said oppressed by the prospect.

“I realize now,” said Dianne, gazing at me with undisguised admiration, “how changed men will seem to you. But if you find any trace of dissatisfaction, it will be I who will be surprised. Look over there. We are approaching the first of the Clubs.”

“Clubs? Is that what you call these prisons?” I exclaimed, perceiving an immense park surrounded by high walls.

We flew over the enclosure which was an immense tract about the size of lower Manhattan with a dozen golf courses and two stadiums, in one of which I observed the familiar sight of a gridiron with a football match in progress.

“Couldn’t we see the game?” I said eagerly, thrilling with the memories of my college enthusiasms.

“No. Impossible. Women are barred from the Clubs by an ancient tradition. But we can stop and watch for a while.”

The aeromat sank to a distance of five hundred feet above the ground and remained poised by some [Pg 131]gyroscopic device. Dianne handed me a telescopic helmet which not only brought the whole scene to my eyes in the minutest detail, but recorded the slightest sounds.

“But these are women!” I exclaimed after one quick glance around at the brightly colored togas which crowded the auditorium.

I looked closer and observed that on one side of the arena the entire section was occupied by men dressed in black. When I inquired of Dianne she said:

“Men take these contests very seriously, Jack, and defeat is considered such a disgrace that the losing club goes into mourning until the stain is wiped out by victory. This Spartan attitude on the part of their supporters is believed to inflame the eleven with the spirit to win or die. Of course, this is a development of sport since your day which must be surprising to you.”

I looked at Dianne from the corner of my eye, but evaded comment. Since the experiment on the soles of her feet, I had begun to wonder if a sense of humor were not beginning to develop.

“But why don’t they begin to play?” I asked, [Pg 132]observing the field covered with a score of figures in conclave.

“I confess, dear, that I am not familiar with the great masculine sport,” said Dianne, “but I believe that such a vast body of legislation has grown up about the game that not only each player has to be watched by two officials, but each team has to be represented by legal experts to argue on the interpretations which may arise.”

“The club community has nothing to do with the state,” said Dianne. “Inside their walls, men are allowed to organize themselves as they see fit. That’s why a great many atavistic customs have been retained. For example, they say everything there is run by committees.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Dianne, really alarmed, “and I beg of you, if you love me, don’t ask anything of the kind. You must watch every step, dear, for our happiness depends on your discretion. You have enemies, determined enemies already—”

Before I could reply the air was filled with a [Pg 133]terrific din. I looked down and observed the section of bright colors fluttering in a state of the wildest hysteria.

Through the portals at the north end I observed the irruption of a band of Dionysian revellers performing the most curious revolutions, shaking tambourines and leaping to great heights in the air. Behind with their hands on each others’ shoulders the eleven and substitutes marched in military formation. The appearance of the home team completed the frenzy in the stands which burst into a triumphant paean under the skillful guidance of a score of cheer leaders.

Hardly had the pandemonium subsided than the turn of the visitors came—but with what a difference! The sections of mourners rose and stood with bared heads while the procession led by similarly black clad figures with the colors furled and wrapped around in crepe entered and approaching the home stands, passed with solemnly uplifted hands, as the gladiators about to die before Caesar once saluted him. From the adherents a funereal chant rose in barbaric acclaim. It needed no effort of my memory to realize that the team was being expected to do or die. I am not ashamed to confess, that the noble spectacle so moved me [Pg 134]that my eyes filled with tears and I had to turn my head lest Dianne should surprise my emotion.

“What magnificent specimens,” I exclaimed when I could master my voice. “But they are giants compared to the others,” I added, for in general the spectators I had observed, were small and effeminately slight, whereas the players were Goliaths.

“We breed the athletes solely for these spectacles,” said Dianne. “They are really good for nothing else and we never mate them with the higher castes.”

“The officials are searching the players, of course, before the game begins.”

These preliminaries were conducted with the minute fidelity of a police force. Not only were the nose guards, head guards, neck protectors, ear mufflers, shoulder, knee and elbow protectors searched for any metallic substance, but the soles of the shoes were displayed against the possibility of murderous spikes. That these precautions were not unnecessary was evidenced by the storm of boos and groans which accompanied the unmasking of several players, when the offenders were on the opposing side.

The game, though so extremely sanguinary as to [Pg 135]require the constant passage of the stretcher bearers, I found dull, due to the fact that at every moment the officials inflicted a penalty which necessitated lengthy discussions and so encumbered the field that it was impossible to follow the play. From the frequent casualties I gathered that the game had returned to first principles and that after the forcible elimination of the star players the result as in my day would be left to the multitude of substitutes.

“Plenty. The game has been ruined by the legislators,” I replied. “And to call such beings men makes me hot with anger!”

“I knew how you would feel,” she said taking my hand and looking at me affectionately. “And don’t regret that you can’t visit the Clubs. Really, you would be bored to death. Don’t waste any sympathy over their condition. They are a lazy indulged lot and not in the least rebellious.”

“But is no work required of them?” I asked frowning as we rose and flew toward the south.

“True, but they live separately. Men in general [Pg 136]are simply the breeders who live a pampered existence from twenty to thirty-five.”

“And then do you operate a sort of slaughter of the drones?” I asked ironically.

“Yes, of course. Oh, we do not exterminate them,” she added, observing my start of horror. “We simply consign them to the Frigidrome with the records of their get. Occasionally if the Eugenics board is not satisfied with the strain in some particular caste, we restore the strongest breeders for further service.”

“Ended and cast off at the age of thirty-five!” I said bitterly, for the degradation of my sex aroused in me the flame of revolt.

I was silent, sunk in my black mood, nor could any of Dianne’s enticements draw me out of my depression. I think it was then that the call came to me to dedicate myself to the cause, as from the blue a voice called to Joan of Arc to lead her country out of defeat and despair. For suddenly I felt uplifted with a new revealing purpose. Things should not continue as they were. I would not tamely witness the humiliation of my brothers. What man had once been he should become again. Then and there I dedicated myself to the cause. I would be the John of Arc of my sex, even if the end too were martyrdom!

“Jack dear—darling, what is it! You look so strange,” cried Dianne, who had been watching my gloomy abstraction.

I looked at her and was conscious that in that brief interval of time something had changed between us. I loved her—my senses rioted under the flame in her eyes, but I was no longer the irresponsible John Bogardus of a moment ago. I belonged to the cause and the cause came first.

“Dianne, my beloved Dianne,” I said, taking her hand gently. “I must tell you the truth.”

“Oh, not that!” she cried, for love had awakened the eternal feminine, “your eyes, your voice frighten me.”

“You were right! If I could only have remained ignorant, how happy we could have been,” I said sadly. “But now that I have seen,” I continued with flashing eyes, “my whole nature protests against this slavery you have placed on my sex. I shall never, never know a quiet moment until I have changed all this!”

“I do not know yet, but I do know that somehow, some day, I know it, I feel it, Dianne, I shall be the instrument to deliver my brothers out of their bondage!”

“How your eyes shine,” said Dianne, clasping her hands and gazing rapturously at me. “You are like a god in his wrath.”

She flung her arms about me, holding me to her in the terror of her passion. I tried to comfort her, felt a certain giddiness myself, and firmly drew the lovely arms from my neck.

“Tell the machinot to fly to paradise,” I cried with a happy laugh. And for the rest of the day suspended indolently above the clouds we dismissed our fears and there was no further talk of politics.

Fortunately Acquilla had not yet returned from Europa. Before the jealous eyes of Mag, we sought to conceal our happiness, foolishly believing, as lovers will, that they can look on each other without betraying the kindling in their glances. My head was still giddy with the fantasy of this miraculous day with my bewildering Dianne, alone in the clear ether, even the world shut out by the fleecy canopies of the clouds beneath us. But the moment I had gone to my room the sternness of my resolve returned. And a little guilty, like a neophyte who has forgotten his vows, I consecrated myself anew, determined to conquer my passion for Dianne, if it should begin to interfere with the accomplishment of my purpose.

When I descended to the bath, Mag was waiting for me with eyes red with weeping. I determined to make sure of her loyalty, so laying my hand on her shoulder, I said gently:

The poor girl was struck all in a heap. Her glance dropped before mine and bursting into tears she vowed that never, never, would she betray me! I rewarded her with a smile and a pat on the shoulder and descended gratefully into this healing bath of all the senses. There I spent some time turning over in my mind my future activities as a militant suffragist.

I had scarcely finished dressing when Acquilla returned. At the first glance I saw all the anxiety which was torturing her imagination. Acquilla was jealous as only a woman can be, to whom love comes late in life. During her going to and fro she must have had time to turn over the sudden appearance of Dianne, and the intuitions of a jealous woman had led her to the correct solution that Dulcina had been used as a blind to screen my true feelings for Dianne. But perceiving the lugubriousness of my expression, she had a momentary flash of hope. Perhaps we had quarreled!

“Something is wrong, dear?” she said, holding me off and searching anxiously in my face.

“You are right,” I replied sternly, “something is wrong. But something that cannot be dismissed in a word. If you please, we will wait until after dinner.”

“You are angry with me?” she exclaimed with such sharp suffering in her voice, that, realizing all the torments of jealousy she must have been suffering during the day, I could not resist a movement of sympathy. I pressed her hand in mine and allowed a smile to soften the severity of my look.

“Not with you personally,” I replied, shaking my head. “But much will depend on your attitude.”

She was devoured with anxiety during dinner, for she scarcely touched her extracts, while I, on the contrary, after the fashion of men, fortified myself copiously. But all at once the perplexity in her eyes cleared and sitting up unexpectedly she cried:

“Your intuitions are right,” I said sternly to avoid explanations. “I have seen that shameful prison you call a Club, I have seen what you call men assembled in a football arena; and I have learned precisely what humiliating positions they occupy in your state.”

My anger brought back her calm. Since the contest was to be on intellectual grounds she recovered her authority.

“I suspected it,” she said acidly. “Dianne has done a wrong, a dangerous thing. I myself would have guided you when the time was ripe. But this premature introduction before you have a true conception of what our civilization has accomplished has, as I foresaw, worked on your sentimental nature.”

“Certainly. What do you object to? You have learned that men are kept simply as breeders, privileged to be free of all care and responsibility. And you are in a rage. Why? Is it because we have taken from the male instinct the inhibitions that he rebelled against in your day? Come, let us be frank! How many men you knew would have rebelled against this existence they now enjoy?”

“My dear Acquilla!” I started to say, then coughed and stopped. I realized that I was meeting the adroit feminine mind and that above everything I must keep cool and avoid being put on the defensive. I rose, took a turn about the room and sat down.

“It is not simply that you have made specialists [Pg 143]of my sex,” I said with an attempt at irony, “but the cold-blooded way in which you carry out your intentions!”

“You have gone a little further than the insects which you admire so much. I suppose I should return thanks for that. But I do not. I have now recognized that sentimentality plays no part in a woman’s nature. But I was not prepared for the machine-like efficiency—”

“Do you deny that at the age of thirty-five men are disposed of in a sort of slaughter of the drones?”

“Oh, I see,” said Acquilla. She looked at me with one of her irritating smiles and replied, “But how did you treat my sex when you had a man-made civilization?”

“I asked you a simple question, dear. How did you treat my sex when you had a man-made civilization? After thirty-five what was there in life for the generality of women?”

“The drudgery of the home, the servitude to [Pg 144]their children. No, Bogardus, at thirty-five or before when men were still young, women were ended. They had lost their value as women and were esteemed according to their value as nurses and housekeepers. The final cruelty you inflicted on them was to let them grow old. We are much more humane.”

“You look on history as simply a war of the sexes?” I said hotly, for the degradation of my sex as I successively comprehended it, made it difficult to restrain my anger.

“Of course. So long as civilization had to rise through physical force, the male ascendency was inevitable. Granted. But the moment that scientific discoveries did away with the necessity of multitudes for cannon fodder and replaced blind hands by intelligent machines women were freed from their need of your physical protection. In the last phases of your civilization, though you did not perceive the underlying conflict, were you not aware that economically, and in a measure morally, the women you rated as the weaker sex were really the despots of your existences?”

Some curious trick of habit made me glance over my shoulder for the shadow of my mother-in-law before replying:

“When you say morally, I do not entirely agree. [Pg 145]Economically, yes, there is no doubt that the expenditure of women for luxuries was out of all proportion. But allowing the past to lie,” I said, striving to be diplomatic, “tell me, Acquilla, in your opinion, is this warfare of the sexes, as you call it, to endure forever? Do you not in some future state of society conceive of the possibility of men and women equally intelligent living together in harmony? For, after all, without too much vanity, do you not prefer to converse on equal terms as you have with me, than to treat men simply as playthings of your passions?”

“Possibly,” she said after a moment, “what you suggest is in the future when we have completely achieved the freedom of the individual, but the moment is not now.”

“That is not quite honest,” said Acquilla reprovingly. “The nature of man cannot be changed in a few hundred years.”

“Why not experiment? What is there to fear now that the age of reason is so completely achieved?”

“The passion for conquest. Even today, despite all our discoveries in the field of Eugenics the male child’s first impulse is to wrestle down his companions. [Pg 146]What is the passion for sport you have just witnessed—more intense than ever—but an evolution of the desire to kill? You men seek to destroy your opponents not to play with them. You make of your games battles. You hate those with whom you contend.”

“That is an exaggeration,” I interrupted, and then stopped. “At least in my day it was only when we were young, when in school and college we were given an exaggerated idea of winning for the glorification of a mass ideal. Besides, even then, we did not take ourselves too seriously.”

“Then why this hysterical frenzy you saw in the mob of spectators—a frenzy like the blood lust of the Roman arena? No, no, dear man, put away your pride and prejudices. They are out of place. You are a man of the past with a singularly honest and reasoning brain, but don’t deceive yourself. The nature of man is the same today as yesterday or tomorrow. If we should listen to the sentimentalist and restore him to equality in our civilization, the world would return to war within a generation.”

Was it true? I was silent, troubled, finding no conviction in my self-interrogatory.

Acquilla was too clever to pursue her advantage. She rose and coming to me took my hand.

“I wished to spare you all this, dear,” she said in a swift change of mood. “My only thought was to lead you gradually to a perception of why the great adventure on which we are embarked cannot now be entrusted to a divided authority.”

“Answer me this, Acquilla,” I said looking at her fixedly, “am I a free agent or am I simply your prisoner, delightful as that sentence may be?”

“That is a problem that is still to be decided by the Supreme Council,” she replied. “A very perplexing problem. Whether you will be interned or treated as a distinguished visitor depends on you, my dear. Now do you understand all my solicitude?”

The thought that I could play upon my hold over her to add a new ally, occurred to me. I said in a conciliatory tone, though I must confess with a certain pleasant provocation:

“My lovely Amazon, don’t you see that it is just because I am unlike your foolish males of today—that it is my intelligence which attracts you.”

“To be truthful,” she said looking at me boldly, “it is that, and a good deal more than that.”

“Then to continue in a truthful mood, is it not the man of yesterday that is the true mate of the woman of today?”

“I can admit all that between us two, yes—and yet I can deny it in its public application,” replied Acquilla with that annoying obstinacy of cerebral women that destroys the necessary illusion in romance.

“Oh, foolish man, are you going to spoil everything with your eternal consistency?” she added, devouring me with eyes that were awake with passion.

Consistency? No, certainly not! If I had been in love with her, I should have flung consistency to the winds. But having Dianne in all my veins, I replied, adroitly:

“My charming Acquilla, I shall not pretend to be more obtuse than I am. The time has come when we must understand each other. You also must understand one thing: I am what I am—a man brought up in the strictest traditions of the Dutch Reformed Church; proud of my name and my ancestry. No Bogardus has ever temporized or yielded an inch to any doctrine that would upset the sanctity of marriage—”

To my astonishment Acquilla began to laugh. I cannot describe it as a complete laugh, but it was undeniably a titter.

“You yourself have taught me the use of irony,” [Pg 149]she said noticing my astonishment. “Really aren’t you a little ridiculous, dear?” she added, passing her fingers through my hair. “Since marriage no longer exists, what has the Dutch Reformed Church to do with us?”

I put her hand firmly from me with as much dignity as I could muster and suddenly inspired, said:

“It means that I keep my standards as you keep yours. When I take my mate it shall be for life. If you love me as your attitude implies—”

“Stop!” I said, as a maiden might have interposed. “I ask no confession, but understand this, Acquilla: no matter how dazzling your position, I refuse to be yours for a day or month. Your past is not my affair, but in the future there must be no other man. Your free companion for life—never your plaything for an hour!” And as she stood staring at me absolutely dumfounded, I added in the best dramatic manner: “All or nothing!”

With which I escaped for fear of spoiling my climax by an uncontrollable gasp of laughter. I went to my room and stifled my hysterical laughter as best I could. But all at once a thought sobered me. Suppose, blinded by passion, she should [Pg 150]agree? Here was a predicament. I rose and went to the door to lock it. But of course, in these modern days, bars and bolts did not exist. At last in despair—for what was I in strength compared with this amazing Amazon—I drew my bed across the door and lay down.

Twice before I fell off to sleep, I heard her footsteps hesitating outside, and once—though it might have been my imagination—I thought someone pressed softly on the door.

When I saw Acquilla the next morning, I was shocked by the restlessness and fatigue in her eyes.

“Badly,” she snapped back, and until the end of breakfast not another word did she volunteer. However, she continued to stare at me with such a look of frustrated perplexity that if I had not been secretly delighted with the success of my artifice, I should have been embarrassed. As it was, I had trouble in concealing my elation, for my thoughts were racing. If only a spark of the eternal feminine still slumbered in Acquilla! What a day it would be for the cause! At the end of breakfast, she said abruptly:

“All or nothing,” I repeated in a way to have excited the admiration of the empress who had invented the phrase.

Acquilla sprang up nervously and went inside. [Pg 152]She was away for over an hour and I was wondering if she meant to sulk through the day when she returned, gentleness itself.

“Explain to me about the Dutch Reformed Church,” she said anxiously, taking my hand in both of hers and looking earnestly in my eyes.

I was in the midst of a fervid eulogy on that bulwark of my ancestors, when an aeromat poised above us and began to descend. I stopped with an involuntary wavering of my voice.

“Who do you think has come for you, Bogardus?” she said softly, but with the intentness of a cat.

The idea came to me that she had brought Dianne back to learn the truth in a difficult confrontation.

“No—not Dianne,” she replied slowly, not entirely the dupe of my manner, “nor Dulcina either. This time it is really Doctrina, the head of the University.” But all at once her antagonism vanished and leaning close to me, she said hurriedly: “She is the enemy of all males—and oh, my dear, be careful! Consider every word you say. Beware of every trap she may put you, for this afternoon you must appear before the Supreme Council. [Pg 153]I should not warn you, I know, but I cannot help it, my beloved—”

She drew back hastily as Doctrina approached. Whatever reliance, in my new Casanovian fatuity, I might have put in the strength of my newly revealed sex appeal, one glance at Doctrina rudely dispelled my illusions. She marched up the lawn like a procession of one, nodded to Acquilla and gave me the conventional embrace. But the peck on my cheeks was more like a bite than a kiss. We disliked each other intuitively, cordially and immediately.

“Were you anyone of importance in your day?” she demanded, eyeing me unfavorably.

“Socrates, you may remember, claimed he was the wisest of men because he knew he knew nothing,” I replied, bowing.

I thought this rather neat and disarming, but Doctrina was impermeable. There was something Prussian in the massiveness of her jowl and the lantern-like eyes that faced me down.

“Well, perhaps even so we may learn something,” she said, turning to Acquilla, who was preparing to depart to the aero hospital.

“You will find him not only intelligent,” said [Pg 154]Acquilla to give me a hint, “but most appreciative of the progress we have made.”

“Humph—we shall see,” replied Doctrina, turning on her heel and gesturing to me to follow.

I raised my eyebrows involuntarily at this abruptness, and caught the agonized look of Acquilla fixed on me entreatingly. I nodded encouragingly and followed my new cicerone, resolved to give her no cause for complaint. After all when one belongs to a cause, discretion is as necessary as courage.

“What do you know about the position of children in our civilization?” said Doctrina when we had risen.

“I know that in the pursuit of the noblest object of human life, the liberation of the individual,” I replied from memory, “you have abolished marriage and the home!”

“Well, go on,” said Doctrina in a noncommittal voice as I paused for approval.

“That in order to do away with the evil of motherhood and the clash of the generations, the children are taken as soon as born and entrusted to the state.”

“So far, correct,” Doctrina said rather unwillingly, “but you forget—”

“Oh, yes,” I interjected hastily, “the new science likewise frees the child from the evils of the mother and father complex. We heard a good deal about that too, in our day,” I added proudly.

“Really? Then why didn’t you act upon it?” said Doctrina, in whom the repressed mother-in-law instinct that must slumber in every woman, had turned blood to acid. “Those archaic tribal institutions you clung to—motherhood and the home, were responsible for all the inhibitions, abnormalities, psychoneurotics that made you human beings slaves of prejudices and fears.”

I was seized with a hot indignation and a hasty retort was on my lips at this blasphemy, but I remembered in time and controlled myself with difficulty.

“All unnecessary. The child develops quicker when thrown on his own initiative and subjected to the stimulation of competition with other children. We will begin with the state nurseries and the primary schools,” she added, pointing to a long wooded tract about the middle of Long Island.

We alighted on a great star-shaped campus, the [Pg 156]administration hall in the center with hospitals like great glass hangars at the apexes. The new-born infants were being classified and registered according to their caste, receiving a disk which indicated the strain of the mother and father, for statistical purposes presumably.

“The child is subjected to the first physical tests immediately,” said Doctrina. “In the exceedingly rare instances where some unforeseen conjunction of inherited strains has produced a defection, we of course, do not permit it to grow up to a life of misery.”

“Of course,” said Doctrina noticing my emotion. “In your sentimental day you preferred, in order to save your own sensibilities, to condemn it to a tragic existence.”

“You will be surprised to know that even in my day such a course had its male adherents,” I replied defiantly. “But then even in your scientific breeding, failures do result.”

“Less than one hundredth of one percent,” replied Doctrina. “Strangely enough, these throwbacks occur in the higher castes.”

“So it appears, for of course, with us the brain [Pg 157]has become tremendously developed. That is one reason why, in the case of the male, we have found it advisable to perfect the physical vigor at the expense of the mental.”

I had all I could do not to betray myself at this insolence. As it was, I could not help saying: “But tell me, why, Doctrina, you are so set against the male?”

“I was born in a time when the memory of the male catastrophe was still fresh. I do not theorize. I know. Are you defending that era of tragic futility?”

“God forbid!” I hastened to reply. “I am only curious. But men of genius, for I believe that genius still shows itself in my decadent sex, are not then permitted to breed?”

“On the contrary, but not to mate with those castes which have reached a high degree of mentality. We find the best results come from a union with the Cerenes particularly those that live habitually in the mountains.”

The hospitals though on a grander scale, I found in their material arrangements much like our own, with the exception of course, of the ingenuous devices by which light and air were continuously provided. All the nurses were of the lithe physical type of Acquilla, though the visiting doctors inclined [Pg 158]to the brunette type, not over six feet, and thinner. Two things struck my attention at once, the absence of eyeglasses and operating rooms. Surgery, it appeared, had passed out of general use with the knowledge of the glandular organization of the body and was only reserved for accidents and the experimental laboratories. The uniform good eyesight was achieved, first by selective breeding and more particularly with the discovery of what might be called ocular calisthenics, exercises by which the eye was strengthened in youth.

Needless to say, my appearance excited the greatest curiosity, for the circumstances of my arrival had evidently been widely broadcast. However, the prestige of Doctrina commanded such universal deference that all curiosity was within the bounds of good manners.

“The first stage,” said Doctrina, resuming her lecture as we passed to the kindergarten, “is in the education of the mind how to study. We discover the aptitude of each child and concentrate on the things it likes to achieve the ideal of perfection. Later when the mind has acquired the habit of concentration, we introduce those subjects which are difficult to it. Needless to say, we consider this period the most critical and the indications we discover as to the quality and fineness of the mind [Pg 159]are seldom in error. In other words by the age of five it is possible to make the division of the castes with unfailing accuracy.”

“In your time yes, from faulty early training and also from the error of subjecting an abnormal mind to a normal routine. In our practice we are, of course, aided by the knowledge of the inherited tendencies. Such children are the object of special attention.”

“Not entirely. Only we have reversed the process. We begin, as I said, by intensive training along lines of natural aptitude in order to produce the enthusiasm for knowledge. Later sometimes as late as ten or eleven, we broaden the horizon along the lines of general knowledge.”

“Really, Bogardus, for the clever man you are supposed to be, that is a strange question.”

I did not perceive immediately the reason for her astonishment, so I answered, somewhat piqued:

“I do not see anything strange in my perfectly natural curiosity. In my day we were graduated from college at twenty-two, and spent from two [Pg 160]to six years in supplementary schools if we chose the profession of medicine or law or architecture.”

“In the higher castes we never cease to attend the University,” said Doctrina crushingly. “As we conceive life as a pursuit of knowledge, we naturally never cease our studies. Even Acquilla gives ten hours a week to following the lectures of our greatest teachers.”

“Certainly not. Why should it be? How absurd! The education of Domesticates is completed at the age of eight; the Cerenes have two years longer, the Vulcates likewise, the Æsthetes at twelve.”

“We have abbreviated the period of childhood. In your day you spent half your life in the simplest preparation of how to live. With us the age of puberty is the one of complete maturity and the end of primary education. That,” she added acidly, “would be about the same as your college matriculation.”

“But, Doctrina,” I persisted, carried away with my resentment, “if there is no maternal instinct left—”

“These are the real mothers,” said Doctrina with a gesture that embraced the entire organization. “Because a woman bore a child, voluntarily or involuntarily, you ascribed to her maternal qualities. Rubbish! Sentimentality! Bearing of children has nothing to do with the maternal instinct! A woman is either egocentric or egofugal. In your day how many women, genuine mothers, were forced to sit and starve themselves in a lonely spinsterhood?”

“It is true!” I exclaimed involuntarily, “and I say now as I said then, that the cruelest thing our society did was to deny the right of every woman who wanted, to have a child!”

Doctrina looked at me with almost a human sympathy and continued in a less bellicose tone:

“That remark does you honor. Any woman who loves children and wishes to find her happiness in their upbringing is privileged to enter this sisterhood. For remark another thing, which the later [Pg 162]psycho-analysts recognized, the maternal instinct is not necessarily confined to one’s own child, but goes out to all.”

“Even to friends and husbands,” I added smiling. “All this is undeniably true.”

“More than this we recognize that in man too, this instinct exists and we permit a teaching brotherhood.”

“It is useless,” Doctrina said severely. “The monasteries which are devoted to the care of the young males from five to ten are never entered by an outsider except a Minervene of the highest academic rank. You see,” she added, “that in the treatment of your sex, we strive to live up to a standard of enlightened justice. What they crave we supply—with certain limitations.”

I opened my mouth to debate this ex-parte assertion, but again refrained. My reticence had been rewarded by a friendlier attitude. Until I had appeared before the Supreme Council and had some inkling of the treatment to be accorded to me, I decided not to show my hand.

“The Histriones and the Minervenes, being the superior intellectual castes, never complete their education. But now since we have the time, on the [Pg 163]way to the University, we can stop at our Museum of Archeology.”

At the Museum we found a sizable crowd—all women of course—about the halls devoted to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My appearance, needless to say, created such a disturbance among the younger elements that Doctrina, I believe, seriously considered forcing me to take a veil. Fortunately a few peremptory commands, delivered in her best Prussian style, had the effect of clearing the halls.

The Museum, I confess fascinated me, for in a glance I felt myself in a cemetery of familiar things. The first thing I saw was full-sized reproduction of a locomotive and a section of rail labelled:

That the railroad had disappeared before the development of highways and motor buses, I was prepared to believe, but not to find that the automobile likewise was a thing of the past which was gone, with the ship—all cumbersome and unnecessary in this age of amphibian aeroplanes able to remain stationary [Pg 164]at any height or to streak across the sky with the speed of projectiles. There were life-size reproductions of the customs and manners of our day, and I must admit, in comparison with the ease and grace of the modern garment, that at the sight of the incredible fashions which once afflicted the men of my day, I had to acknowledge defeat. We had of course, but a moment before we were forced to depart for the city, or rather the University of New York.

I found the University laid out on the star-shaped plan which was evidently their favorite concentration. The avenues were fully a hundred yards in width and the buildings on that monumental scale which one sees only at St. Peter’s and the Vatican. In the centre of each building was an immense dome-shaped theatre which I learned was used for the reproduction in living pictures of the records of historical events and astronomical and scientific phenomena. There were at least a dozen of these star-shaped campuses extending over a great area and surrounded by grouped quadrangles where the students lived.

What struck me at once was the small number of students, not exceeding a hundred to each separate college; the uniformity of the type and the air of extreme seriousness in all their contacts.

“Acquilla told me New York consisted of fifty thousand inhabitants,” I said turning to Doctrina in surprise. “But from what I see, there are only a tenth of that number.”

“This represents only the higher University. The industrial city is across the river and residential New York of course, extends a hundred miles in every direction.”

“As a rule a girl enters here at the age of twelve and completes her preliminary general education in two years, when she is allotted her caste group number according to her capabilities. She then pursues her higher studies for from five to ten years returning for six months every fifth year until the age of thirty. At that time if she is of the Minervene caste she is privileged to return for two hours a day for the rest of her existence.”

“The University then is not simply the political symbol of the state, but its social centre as well?”

“Exactly, and there are of course, according to her attainments, inner circles to which she is privileged to enter. But I have promised to bring you, Bogardus, to the Academy and we must not be late.”

We had been flying gently over the ground as [Pg 166]Doctrina had been demonstrating the organization of the buildings and now came to light near one of the charming groves of red woods which lay between the points of the star. A score of magnificent trees fully one hundred and fifty feet in height blotted out the warmth of the noonday sun and made a Parnassian retreat.

“How is it possible,” I exclaimed, “to produce such trees in less than two centuries?”

“Oh, there have been discoveries in horticulture that will surprise you,” said Doctrina, enjoying my astonishment. “It is now just as easy to stimulate the growth of a tree, as it is that of a human being. These trees you see are not more than fifty years old. But that is child’s play to what has been done. An acre of farmland now produces five crops a year by the use of the new nitrates and intensified cultivation under water. We’ll leave the car here.”

We descended and walked toward the grove. My appearance as usual, created a commotion and instantly the air above was clouded over by hundreds of small aeroplanes which hovered over us like the migration of birds.

“Curious how excited people are over your coming,” said Doctrina, acidly. “I suppose it is because you are over a hundred and fifty years older than anyone who has yet come to us.”

Strangely enough this thought had not yet impressed itself on me. It was true! I was actually two hundred and eighty years old and in comparison Acquilla with the bloom of her seventy-eight years, was a mere child! I drew a long breath, stretched myself on the points of my toes and was reassured by a feeling of extraordinary youth and vitality.

“You are privileged, indeed, Bogardus,” said Doctrina, leading the way in the grove, “for you are going to meet our great Manfreda and the Supreme Council of Amazonia, an honor that never before has been given to a man.”

The Supreme Council were seated in a semi-circle at the foot of a magnificent redwood, nine in number, Acquilla’s seat being at one end. At my approach they rose with a curiosity which showed in the alacrity of their greeting, despite all their efforts at repression. I felt no timidity. In fact it was with a certain confident pride that I enjoyed this opportunity of presenting to the leaders of the new matriarchal state, a not at all ill-formed example of the sex which for four thousand years of authentic history had ruled the world. I had of course, no way of estimating their age but their pleasing physical appearance and apparent youth made it very easy to grasp each one strongly by the hand and to look into her eyes with a touch of that possessive masculine admiration which was instinctive in my day. My manly appearance, the deep resonance of my voice, the male challenge in my look and I believe, a certain magnetism in the handshake to which they were not accustomed [Pg 169]made a distinct impression. At least this was my belief and I set it down in no spirit of conceit, but simply for its significance as it affected surprising later developments.

The introduction over, I took my seat opposite, and studied my distinguished hosts with the same curiosity which they in turn bent on me. In the centre sat the famous philosopher and law giver, Manfreda. She seemed older than her associates, and like Doctrina had the look of a man in the fifties, and this was true of Directa, the executive head of the state. (I learned afterwards that their extreme absorption in the matters of intellect had removed them from the pardonable vanities of the flesh, just as formerly holy men of the east retired to fasting and contemplation.) Outside of this triumvirate that dominated the Amazon civilization by right of authority and achievement, the others were finely cut variations of the prevailing blonde types, Amazons with regular features, blue eyes and the lithe bodies of young males. The composition of the council interested me; Germa representing the sciences of research; Stella, astronomy; Acquilla, medicine in its universal state; Electra, the laboratories and the sources of energy; Candora, history and philosophy, while Dulcina sat as the representative of the caste of the Histriones.

I had hardly made these rapid observations when Manfreda with the dignity of a supreme judge, turned to her associates:

“In order not to confuse Bogardus, if it is your pleasure, I shall put to him the general questions which I know are in all our minds. At a later day, each may interrogate him according to her special field.” She turned to me. “You of course, Bogardus, realize the importance of your discovery to us. Until your arrival, the principle of the Frigidrome preservation of life was ascribed to Coperta in 2085. Will you give us as completely as possible the account of your revolutionary experience.”

I repeated the details I had already supplied to Acquilla, who at the end of my recital, remarked:

“Though the crude use of hypnotism to produce a cataleptic stage is decidedly archaic in this day when the glandular relationships are better understood, there is no question that the principle of the Frigidrome must be ascribed to Sachaloff, and I have already taken steps to do justice to his discovery.”

“There can be no question of that,” said Manfreda while the others nodded acquiescence. “And now to the purpose of our inquiry. The great world conflict which took place at the end of the twentieth century, Bogardus, was of such devastating [Pg 171]character, that the records of previous civilization were blotted out in great measure. You can supply us not only with much valuable historical detail, but can give us an intimate judgment on the questions which interest us profoundly. You lived at the close of the great era of materialism when the male mechanico-civilization finally suppressed all individualism under a standardized collectivism.”

“I am a little bewildered,” I said tentatively, “we spoke of standardization it is true, but in my day there was no such suppression of that individualism of which you speak.”

“Bogardus is speaking of 1929,” said Candora, interrupting. “The spread of standardization into the industrial domination of the state must have just been perceptible.”

“You speak of things I did not witness,” I replied, more and more confused. “To aid me in my recital, would it be possible to tell me briefly just what happened in the fifty years after my disappearance. For at that time, far from seeking war, the peoples of the world had not only founded a League of Nations, but had agreed on a general reduction of armaments.”

“True. After 1919 there was a general revolt against war as visualized by armaments. But the [Pg 172]industrial conflict remained more intense than ever. War in the last analysis is the correction for over-population, as over-population is the cause of war. While the progress in hygiene and the control of disease increased enormously the population, the production of automatic machinery continually diminished the need of man power. What was bound to happen? It became a competition for the survival of the economically fittest nation. What was this but a war of attrition and starvation? In order to compete internationally the nations of the world were forced to change their political structure. They became great business exporting corporations. The trusts were reestablished, merged and formed one gigantic trust. This may interest you.”

“In fact I am listening, Candora,” I exclaimed, “and yet all this was prophesied.”

“By prophets without honor in their own countries,” explained Candora, smiling.

“By 1955, there were four great trusts. The Steel Trust had absorbed all its dependents, the railroads, the automobile, the construction trusts, the harvester and the cement trust. Second the Mercantile Trust, had absorbed the food trust and the chain stores. The Power Trust had absorbed the [Pg 173]chemical trust and the electric trust. Finally the Money Trust had been formed from the banking trust with its chain branches and the investment trusts. In the second step the Money Trust absorbed all other trusts and produced the economy of one selling office for the entire nation.”

“Momentarily, yes. The industry of the entire country was financed from a central bank and distributed from a unified distributing system.”

“Exactly. You went to the same distributing centre for eggs or a thousand tons of steel, a suit of clothes or a 520,000 horse power dynamo. In a way the industrial apotheosis was sound and you will see that we have retained its essential quality.”

“Because in your hands it was for the purpose of conquest and subjection of other nations. You men, Bogardus, were extremely illogical beings. You erected your civilization on the survival of the fittest and yet you did nothing to apply that principle internally. The Spartans are the only example of a logical civilization for they did expose their weaklings to die. So when the whole world was in the grip of an economic war, you continued [Pg 174]to breed instead of applying the scientific principle of depopulation. But men have always been unscientific breeders. It was only when women assumed direction of the state that the problem could be treated from the standpoint of the nation.”

“Candora, I have heard a great deal in criticism of my sex since my arrival here,” I interjected irritated beyond measure, “and a great deal of talk about the abuse of over-population. I am willing to admit the admirable results of the decimation of the inhabitants of the earth. I gladly, even enthusiastically, admit that you, in your restoration of the world to the individual have corrected the dreadful mass tyranny to which we men had condemned society. I likewise admire the way you breed to perfected types. But,” here I turned to my auditors, “is it not justice to admit that in order to have lifted man from the brute to the gods, it was necessary first to multiply? If mankind had simply reproduced itself like the elephant, man would be as extinct today as the dodo. I am not defending war today, but without war would there have been any civilization? When men multiplied rapidly they began to move over mountains and across the seas and to do so, they had to invent and to invent is to progress. Therefore, at least admit that only the male instinct to breed could [Pg 175]have raised us to the civilization of the twentieth century. Remember that I am speaking in defence of my embattled sex.”

There was a murmur of approbation, rather grudgingly given, it seemed to me, but Germa, Stella and Dulcina, who represented the new radical school of thought, beamed on me enthusiastically. Candora, however, showed a strong atavistic tendency to be irritated by contradiction. She hesitated and finally said:

“As an historian, it would be idle for me to deny the truth of what you state. But in a way it only proves my contention; the male state was instinctive and traditional. You were committed to one principle and could not rise above it.”

“Let us leave till later what—after all, must be a philosophical discussion,” I said, well pleased with the effect I had produced. “Let me continue my questions.”

“Well, what?” said Candora, not relishing the turn, while Acquilla looked at me anxiously.

“You speak of the formation of great industrial oligarchies and their final absorption into one great national industry—then we did come to socialism?”

“Not at all, socialism preached the equality of men and the industrial state was founded on a [Pg 176]recognition of their inequalities. Socialism is international and this on the contrary, was pure chauvinism; the standardization of all activities for the better crushing out of foreign competition.”

“No, because men had become so standardized in their thinking and habits that individualism could only exist among the leaders.”

“They were bought up with the magazines and the radio trust in a central control under the Mercantile Trust which in turn disappeared with the arrival of the newspaper of the air.”

“But if America was able to organize itself with such scientific concentration, why did it fail?”

“Because fatuously believing in pacific ideals, it did not protect itself. Equally fatuously you believed that you could impoverish other nations by economical pressure without their having recourse to primitive methods of retaliation. That is what happened. Europe, unable to meet the competition of America, founded first the central state of Europe, and by means of the Electronoid ray discovered in the laboratories of Europa, obliterated American civilization, prior to the subjugation of [Pg 177]Asia. These, Bogardus, are what are known as the world wars.”

Candora, at a nod from Manfreda, resumed her seat. Several of the council strained forward as though to question me, but Manfreda with a slight peremptory gesture of her uplifted fingers, enforced silence.

“Bogardus,” she began, in her ever dispassionate voice, “you have heard of the reasons which culminated in the final world catastrophe, and the end of the male civilization. Later on you will be given an opportunity to study it in more detail. Now, if you are ready, I should like to put to you some questions of a general nature.”

I bowed and glanced around the semi-circle, noting at once, a whispered consultation to my left. All at once Stella spoke:

“Manfreda, without desiring in any way to influence the witness, does it not seem only fair that he should be informed of the real purpose of this inquiry?”

“I regard the interruption as unfortunate,” said Manfreda, acidly, “and designed only to affect the impartiality of the testimony.”

“Permit me, in the interests of justice, to record my objection with Stella’s,” said Dulcina.

Though I did not then grasp the full import of [Pg 178]the dissension, I was not without certain suspicions.

“Would it not be better if I were represented by counsel?” I said, ironically.

“In my day,” I answered facetiously, “when a board of inquiry was held to discover the truth, each witness always appeared with one or more lawyers who advised him when to refuse to answer.”

“But if the object was to discover the truth, what right had he to refuse to answer?”

“He could not be proved guilty unless the board had equally good lawyers—and all traditions were scrupulously observed.”

“If I may remark,” said Doctrina, who had been fidgetting, “Bogardus is speaking of a time when the curiously archaic jury system existed and judges were regarded as presiding legal hosts. It is well to remember that in those days of male-made justice, that it was necessary to convince every one of twelve jurors to procure a verdict. If one disagreed the accused was acquitted.”

“Oh, more than that,” I added, “he was entitled [Pg 179]to consider himself as publicly vindicated. I gladly surrender to your jury system, Doctrina.”

My admission evidently created a most favorable impression, for Manfreda, stilling the chorus of surprised interjections, said in a more cordial voice:

“Bogardus, you are so clearly a man of intelligence and observation, that I feel it is only a recognition of your manifested open-mindedness to inform you of the underlying purpose of this inquiry. There has risen lately among certain of the younger group, a school of radicals which is urging the social and political re-establishment of man. I, myself, have no part in such sentimentalism, but in this council, this new issue is represented by Germa, Stella and Dulcina.”

“I thank you for the warning,” I replied instantly, “and though my male instinct will naturally desire to do full justice to a departed society, I assure you that everything I have seen here has filled me with such amazement and admiration that I would be incapable of distorting the facts as I have known them.”

Dulcina and Stella smiled on me with a personal pride as though I were an excellent exponent of their political opinions, and Manfreda, after a moment’s deliberation, said:

“We, of course, are anxious to have your personal testimony as to the success or failure of the institutions you knew. You were a democracy. You believed that all men were free and equal. The phrase of Lincoln was government of the people, by the people and for the people! High ideals if sentimental ones. Actually how were you governed?”

I had intended to be an honest witness, but this first question threw me into perplexity. I found myself seeking in my imagination for ingenuous excuses.

“At that time,” I said by way of preface, “it is only fair to state that a large part of the population was of recent immigration, that there were no fixed classes and that the object of everyone was to rise in the social scale by prospering financially. Also,” I added shrewdly, “you must remember that women shared the suffrage.”

“To be honest, I must confess that we were badly governed, but no worse than the people deserved.”

“Because—well, because a large proportion of the people were indifferent to how they were governed. [Pg 181]In many cases only a small fraction of the electorate took the trouble to vote. In our big cities despite occasional revolts, we were in the hands of political machines who fattened on their opportunities of selling offices and privileges. In some cases, they were in direct alliance with criminals.”

“So well known that the public was quite indifferent as to which side robbed them.”

“But outside their cities which, of course, suffered from the evils of over-population, in the general country, what was the state of law and order?”

I could not but admit that as respecting the observance of law, I had no defence to offer.

“However,” I hastened to add, “it is only fair to remark that in 1929 we were in a transitional stage. New experiments in government and new authorities in social and religious forms had to be worked out and if the surface indications were chaotic, I [Pg 182]believe it was simply the ferment that accompanies the rise of new standards and the re-establishing of authority.”

“In a way you are right,” said Manfreda, nodding, “for the age of standardization that followed was at least a return to discipline. But I am anxious to know what was the position of the university in all this?”

“Again I must plead that the universities too, were in a transitional stage,” I said frowning, for I feared this question.

“They were passing through a period of great material building; providing for the future, by the laying down of great laboratories and recitation halls; expanding their housing and the income available for their faculties.”

“With the notable exceptions of the technical schools, the universities were intent on raising the standards of the mass.”

“But if you admit democracy as a principle of civilization, Bogardus, this would seem a natural and laudable object. You hesitate. Is it possible that the mass did not respond?”

“I cannot truthfully claim that the average college [Pg 183]student of my day was occupied with the pursuit of knowledge. A college experience was regarded as a school for character. It was a sort of social melting pot which at the time certainly had a certain value. A man who was an outstanding figure in his class—”

“Well, no. A man who excelled in running and jumping, or in the control of round balls, whether baseball or golf or tennis or football, or a man who had certain natural social gifts, undoubtedly profited by these attainments in college by making certain restricted groups called societies or clubs and in after life by the friendships thus formed with powerful elements in society.”

“But those in control of the universities, for you must have had men of pre-eminent intellectual abilities on your faculties, did they look with favor on such a distortion of values?”

“Individually no. Collectively they acquiesced in the program of material expansion which tolerated this system in order to use it.”

“By the bequests of millions of dollars which they received by an adroit appeal to the emotional quality of loyalty to the Alma Mater.”

“But then in general, the university as you say was really a school for character with certain resemblances to the gymnasium and the gladiatorial arena.”

“Of course, certain elements did pursue the acquisition of knowledge as their prime object,” I hastened to add, feeling that I had drawn too dark a picture, “and in later life they did rise to intellectual prominence and received recognition.”

“By the conferring of honorary degrees and sometimes by the belated recognition of a class dinner—twenty years later.”

“Let us pass to another subject,” said Manfreda, after a significant glance at Stella and Dulcina, who were manifestly depressed. “We are curious to know at first hand, something of the institution of marriage as practiced in its last phases.”

“Is it true, Bogardus, that in your day when a man and a woman lived together under the institution which you called marriage, that they were compelled to promise to live together and remain faithful to each other for life?”

“But if that is so, how was it possible for them to divorce later? For if I am right, divorce as an institution, began about this time to have equal popularity.”

“The marriage ceremony,” I replied, after a moment’s deliberation, “was, of course, a survival of ancient times. It had a certain ceremonial picturesqueness. It was taken symbolically, like the account of the creation in the Old Testament.”

“Well,” I resumed, beginning to flounder, “for instance, the expression ‘Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder’ was undoubtedly a relic of that time when the belief was that marriages were made in heaven.”

“A few—well, perhaps many. In my day, many politicians still believed in Jonah and the whale.”

“Legally—as far as the state was concerned—for infidelity, for excessive cruelty, for failure to support. As a religious ceremony, to divorce and remain in the church was more difficult, but certain cases were recognized as permitting annulment.”

“Then if the divorce was granted, how was the guilty party punished? A prison sentence, or social ostracism?”

“I am bound to admit that with the exception of a certain annoying financial penalty called alimony, that there was no loss of standing.”

“But why didn’t you change this obsolete ceremony to an agreement to live together until each desired to part?” interjected Candora.

“What you suggest is undoubtedly relevant, Candora,” I returned. “But you forget that we were living under old institutions, and that the maintenance of the home was the object of the church and the state.”

“Because the more children the greater the strength of the church and the state.”

“Always the same error,” said Manfreda, turning to the council. “You see how man’s mistaken obsession for population enslaved the individual and forced him to archaic tyrannies that were not above the level of the early tribal state. And now, Bogardus, in those marriages which did not terminate in divorce, would you say that in practice a larger percent were happy?”

“Let me preface my answer,” I replied, “it is easy to pick out the shortcomings and failures of marriage as you have done. Most writers and philosophers of my time did so. There was no other institution that was so widely and continuously discussed with a sincere desire to find a solution. I perceive now, since my arrival here, that we lived in a sentimental age. Undoubtedly you have eliminated the greater part of the suffering and hardships to which we were subjected. But in our time, the union of man and woman was not a eugenic episode, but an emotional urge. If it ended too often in disillusionment, it had its compensations and to experience the height of a passion, we were willing to take the consequences. We called it youth, and youth I perceive has been abolished, along with middle age.”

Stella and Dulcina’s eyes shone on me with such brilliance that, encouraged, I continued:

“It is easy indeed, Manfreda, to criticize and you will admit that I have not sought to avoid your criticisms, though each one has been designed to force me to condemn my sex. Very well, I admit as you want me to do, that we lived in a chaotic state of society, that our ideals were for the most part materialistic, that our democracy was usually a complaisant indifference to the rule of plunderers, and that mediocrities led us rather than supermen. This is true. But it was also an age of liberation that produced a ferment of rebellion against traditions. We were not smugly contented but dared to question our gods. We applied a new searching scientific method to every relation in life. We were explorers, rebels. Because an idea was new, we wished to try it out even if we suffered for it. We men conquered the air and the depths of the sea, we dared to seek the riddles of life, of space and of eternity. We produced exceptional minds to do this. If in our political society, we lacked pre-eminent leaders, at least this is what we accomplished. We gave to the masses an opportunity to enjoy life, such as kings in the middle ages had never possessed. We no sooner invented, than we adapted the invention to the mass. What great [Pg 189]emperor before the year 1820, ever lived in a palace, lighted by electricity, heated mechanically, was able to move at a hundred miles an hour, had the world’s journal brought before his eyes each day, and listened to great artists, great orchestras and famous men and women at great distances. Yet, that is what the age you call materialistic did for those who formerly would have lived in poverty and dirt, in unsanitary hovels, who used to eat meat once a week, if at all, never touched butter and were tied to the spot where they were born. Isn’t this to the credit of man?”

Several of the council sprung up to respond, agitated by the heat of my defence but Manfreda silenced them and without departing from the philosophic calm of her even tone said:

“All this is true if we admit that the object of civilization is to produce multitudes and to raise the level of a low average. That, Bogardus, is not our conception. We stand for the selection of the fittest, not the multiplication of a cheap article which your democracy did, in men as in machines. But to answer you. It is true your time saw a marvelous advance in science, but to what did you apply the noblest creations of the scientific imagination? Every new discovery was immediately put to the perfecting of the art of destruction. [Pg 190]The railroads became the arteries of military communication. The automobile followed them and produced the dreadful juggernaut of the armored tank. You mastered the wisdom of the fishes to do what—to make war more horrible on the sea. You conquered the secret of the birds in order to destroy whole country sides from the air. Your scientists evolved high explosives, poison gases, your mathematicians calculated the trajectory of projectiles that could bombard cities fifty miles distant and range-finding devices to locate unseen enemies. The telephone, the telegraph, the camera all became part of this perfected military organization. You discovered the principle of wireless transmission of energy to direct torpedos in the water and aeroplanes to bombard from the sky. Even your artists were enlisted. Your musicians wrote military marches, or glorified war and heroes in their symphonies. Your painters not only invented camouflage but exalted the conqueror in historic decorations. I can admit all that you record of the fertility of an inventive age and answer that your genuises were but the servants of man’s brutal conception of war as the sum of all talents and all energies within a state.”

At this moment the air was filled with the pleasant [Pg 191]sound of chimes. Manfreda rose and advancing towards me said:

“Enough for today. You have an open mind, Bogardus. Keep it open and judge our civilization fairly, having known the old. I am certain the result will bring small comfort to those sentimentalists who today would have us imperil all that we have achieved, by the dangerous doctrine that men should be restored to equality with women.”

Whatever the result of my first encounter with Manfreda, it was evident to me from the flattering expressions I received, that the spectacle of a mere man, stating his contentions with lucidity and inspiration, had made a marked impression on my hearers.

Acquilla pressed my arm with a new tenderness as we departed but I was surprised to notice on her forehead a foreboding frown.

“You have created a profound effect, Bogardus,” she said, when we were alone, “too profound I’m afraid. Be on your guard and don’t let your enthusiasms lead you into an imprudence. Remember this is a woman’s world and sentiment plays no part in it. What I can do I shall do to preserve your liberty of action,” she added in a tender tone, “but you must do nothing to make it difficult.”

Had I realized then the import of her fears, my pardonable elation would have been chilled indeed.

“When shall I really know how men live under this civilization?” I asked eagerly.

“This evening,” Acquilla answered, “I shall take you to the Promenade of the Males, but before that, I shall give you a great sensation.”

“We are going to the great Astrodrome in the Berkshire valley.” Acquilla took up the telephone and gave the order to the machinot. Instantly the aeroplane turned towards the northeast and shot off at a speed of a thousand miles an hour; yet so easy was the motion that only the slipping by of the landscape below betrayed our vertiginous pace.

I was prepared of course, to find a great observatory far surpassing our feeble edifices, but accustomed as I was now to the stupendous, I could not resist an exclamation of amazement. Below us in the pleasant valley of the Housatonic was what I at first took to be batteries of gigantic siege guns on immense concrete emplacements.

“They must be telescopes of course,” I said recovering from my stupefaction. “But if you were to tell me that the war of the worlds was imminent and that you were preparing against an invasion of the Martians—I could easily believe you.”

“Always thinking in terms of war! How like a man!” said Acquilla, but with the affectionate superiority that in my day the husband was gratified to show his wife. “As you surmised they are great telescopes, at least seventy in number, but as you will see, they are also immense inter-stellar radio receiving stations as well as transmitters.”

“Mars? That would be pastime for children, but wait and learn for yourself.”

We began to settle gently on the great common and despite every intention to repress my amazement, I remained gazing open-mouthed. Seen from below, the mammoth proportions of these cupolas and stretching barrels, dwarfed the imagination. Several of the telescopes were two to three thousand feet in length, so grim, so formidable and so menacing in their confrontation of the firmament above, that were they instruments of destruction I could well imagine them capable of blotting out the moon in a single terrific blast.

We approached the principal observatory which was so vast that St. Peter’s might have formed an ante-room.

“When you enter here,” said Acquilla, “enter in reverence. To us, it is a temple in which lie the illimitable mysteries of what the human mind can achieve.”

I saw her eyes lit with visions and her cheeks suffused with emotion. I, myself, felt the contagion and with quickened pulses, followed her into the great dome of what I found to be the central recording station. Around the great hall were written in letters of gold, six feet high, the famous prophecy of Manfreda:

While I was still lost in the immensity of the cathedral spaces, Stella approached. She embraced me, but in a more restrained manner than that to which by now, I had become accustomed. In type she of course, resembled the blonde litheness of Acquilla, but with a more ascetic maturity in her expression.

“You come in good time, Bogardus,” she exclaimed. “For you will witness a sight no one in your day could ever have dreamed of—the most magnificent spectacle in creation—the explosion of a sun twenty thousand light years away.”

“Oh, there is no hurry,” said Stella, smiling at my excitement. “We have a good three quarters of an hour ahead of us.”

“Explain to Bogardus first,” said Acquilla, “how greatly we have extended our vision of the known astral world since his day.”

“But first explain,” I objected, “why there are so [Pg 196]many observatories. Why more than one? Acquilla tells me there are at least seventy.”

“Seventy-three and there ought to be twenty times that number,” replied Acquilla shaking her head. “You see, Bogardus, with the immense range of the modern telescope which the discovery of the high-magnification of inter-stellar radioactivity has brought us, the field of sight has become so vast that one of these great telescopes can cover no more than the space occupied by our sun in the firmament. It is true that with the great stations in Europe and Asia, not to speak of ours in Arizona and the West, over three thousand telescopes are concentrated on a minute observation of the stars—but what an inadequate patch that represents!”

“There is no mathematical figure that can give any adequate estimate,” said Stella. “Roughly speaking, there are a hundred million stars of a size greater than our own sun which we can place under accurate observation and see as clearly as you saw Mars.”

“Certainly, but the computation is so intricate, that it requires ten years steady application of our finest mathematicians.”

“Oh, all the old parallaxes were wrong,” replied Stella. “The Einstein theories which seemed so revolutionary in your day have all had to be adjusted to the new theory of Ir-relativity—yes, a truly complex computation.”

“Can it be expressed in any words that will give us a glimpse at least of its character?” said Acquilla curiously.

“Quite impossible! The simplest computation and I cite it to you to show you how intricate the whole problem has to be—is one you can perhaps understand. If an electric stream transverse another of equal strength so as to bisect it perpendicularly, the arrestation of the speed of the bisector can be nicely calculated. But if you vary the relative potency of the two streams and the angle of the crossing you naturally must have different variations.”

“All theories are simple, if you don’t try to understand them,” I said gravely.

“Well, would you believe that is only the abc’s of the problem. We know now that space is a great electric sea, of which the currents are formed by myriads of light rays, crossing and recrossing, [Pg 198]impinging on each other, causing countless intricate refractions and deviations. It is to bring order into these formerly undivided factors—the unsuspected, seemingly irrelative factors, that we have had to promulgate our new theory. The Einstein theory was founded on new principles of relativity, the new theory is, of course, based on the discovery that nothing in creation is irrelative to the consideration of the properties of an apparent mass. When you realize, Bogardus, that the rays from the star Abacadabrun must traverse the paths of hundreds of thousands of planets’ streams—but you are perhaps a mathematician?”

“Thank God, no!” I exclaimed holding my head. “My dear Stella, show me everything, but for heaven’s sake don’t, don’t, I beg you, try to explain anything!”

“Thanks, Bogardus, my head is reeling too,” said Acquilla, and to my amazement, she began to laugh.

“No, no, it is nothing,” said Acquilla hastily, making me a sign to be silent. “I never could understand mathematics, anyhow. But now Stella, leaving us outside the higher knowledge, explain to Bogardus the organization of your plant.”

Stella, abandoning the subject rather reluctantly, [Pg 199]drew my attention to a great number of doors leading to a hundred receiving rooms in each of which one could follow on a circular glass plate the observations of the different telescopes (these observations were likewise radioed to the receiving sets in the home theatres). Whenever it was desirable to concentrate on some unusual phenomena, the moving picture record was placed in the great magnifiers underneath the floor and the projection thrown on the top of the dome above our heads.

“But you will see for yourself,” said Stella breaking off. “We have just time—”

At this moment, like the voice of the call boy in the theatre, a mechanical voice cried:

“Place yourself here,” said Stella, indicating one of several inclined couches and throwing herself down on one. “To give you some idea of what you are witnessing, I have arranged an interesting visualization. Here is the star as it appears to the naked eye.”

The little dot of light grew into a perceptible twinkle, became a ball of fire, expanded with alarming rapidity until I shrank from it in alarm as though it were going to burst over me.

“There,” said Stella when on the surface of the cupola appeared a luminous whirling molten mass almost the size of a football, revolving with staggering velocity. “We are now about to witness the gestation of a new solar system. And remember this happened twenty thousand years—light years—ago. Look!”

All at once the spinning mass threw off a number of flaming particles which slowly proceeded in different directions leaving the main mass reduced at least a half in diameter.

“Gradual! Have you forgotten the distance we are looking across and that the slightest fraction of space traversed has to be reckoned in hundreds of thousands of miles?”

“True, I forgot,” I said humbly. “But then, Stella, you can follow the whole process to the final stabilization of a new solar system.”

“Certainly. Within a day the minor satellites [Pg 201]will be arrested in their flight. Before a week is over the whole new gravital balance will be accomplished.”

“Oh, but this is an hourly spectacle in infinity, if our telescopes only knew where to find them.”

“You have seen all in principle,” said Stella, flooding the room with light. “Yes, the first time you see it, it is tremendously impressive. Think, Bogardus, that we can now trace the whole creation of a world from the first solar paroxysm to the beginnings of an atmosphere, to the arrival of planets and the beginnings of vertebrate existence.”

“And there are billions of solar systems in infinity, Bogardus, all in different stages of growth or decay. Think of the achievements of astronomy that lie ahead of us, when we have adequate facilities for observation. When I think what another age may know!” added Stella, shaking her head impotently.

“It would be amusing to show him life on some nearby planet,” suggested Acquilla.

“Every world has been at some time inhabited but with various forms of life. But to understand the infinite complexities of nature you must understand this. It was only the vanity of man” (she pronounced the word with the accent of Acquilla’s superior disdain) “that could conceive of intelligent life only in his own image. There are worlds where the inhabitants resemble us, but there are myriads of civilizations, perhaps at a much greater development than ours, where the dominant vertebrates are plainly of birdlike characteristics, or insects, or, various curious strains of fauna.”

“Insects—creating an intelligent world, thinking, conversing, imagining?” I cried incredulously.

“Why not? The determination of the dominant vertebrate in any world is largely a conjunction of accidents, in the first sanguinary struggles for existence. Yes, indeed, the insect worlds are of an astonishing degree of intelligence. You will be surprised to know that Neptune is inhabited by a race plainly derived from an insect ancestry.”

“Bogardus, think a moment. The common flea or the grasshopper, has relatively a vastly superior muscular strength than man. And when you have insects ten times the size of a woman!”

“Show me at once and don’t tantalize me with your explanations,” I exclaimed feverishly.

“Here then, is a typical Neptunian community of today,” said Stella, leading the way into a small hall and signalling for a reel. “You see the type has some resemblance to the dragon fly, or the winged ant that we know. It is a true matriarchal state from the beginning, and for that reason has probably developed so rapidly. You speak of insects. Imagine woman twenty feet tall, equipped with wings and not two hands and feet but eight. Imagine the strength imparted and the power of locomotion that we cannot possess!”

It was true, the Neptunians were of undoubted insect characteristics and as Stella had so proudly proclaimed, of a true matriarchal civilization. For I observed that, as in the ant colonies in this world, the male workers were rooted to the soil, while the female of a surpassing loveliness of gay colors and slender bodies had that gift of soaring, which we fondly dream of for ourselves in an angelic state. Presently I perceived an army of toiling ape-like laborers.

“What are these strange slave-like figures that are laboring on that great pyramid?” I asked in wonder.

“Speaking in terms of ourselves, they are undoubtedly an arrested development of ape or if you please, human beings. The pyramid you speak of is undoubtedly a great telescopic emplacement, immeasurably greater than any we have achieved. Now, look as we explore the country. You will see any number of these pyramidical structures. Some are for astronomical observations and others are for radio transmission.”

“Oh, for fifty years, we have been signalling back and forth. When the interstellar radiophone is an accomplished fact, as it is a proved theory for radios, and has the speed of light, we may in a hundred or five hundred years be able to receive messages that are passing us every instant of our day.”

“Nothing surprises me any longer,” I said bravely. “But if you can perceive each other, why cannot you communicate intelligently?”

“It is, of course, an insect language, and there is the difficulty. When we shall have learned the basis of insect communication here, we shall have taken a great step forward. We have already over a hundred of our great scientists engaged in this study. It is possible that this language is based on a musical vibration.”

“What other strange civilizations are in the wonders of your firmament?” I asked eagerly.

“There are over a hundred known planets, where the great bird civilizations flourish. If I had time, I could show you an example, for in beauty of color and form, nothing excels them. There are worlds where the feline or the canine is supreme and of course, backward civilizations where huge mammals live in crude organizations.” Stella stopped and gazed at me a moment. “Really, Bogardus, to see your wonder and enthusiasm is like a tonic to one who like myself is daily oppressed by the limitations we struggle against. If it seems to you we have accomplished miracles since your day, why should we doubt the genius that is imagination in woman, to conquer the seemingly impossible?”

“What is there left?” said Stella sadly. “What, rather, have we accomplished? We can see, we may soon hear from planet to planet. But what shall we see and hear? Civilizations, that were, but are no longer. The thing that depresses us, is the tragically slow speed of light. Will any force yet undreamed of be discovered that can outdistance the beam that can only crawl through space at 184,000 miles a second? Will it ever be possible [Pg 206]with all our knowledge, to visit other worlds, or must we remain eternally rooted here? And the problem of life itself? What a stupefying mystery, akin to infinity! We know that it can be prolonged immeasurably. Is the conquest of immortality possible? Have other worlds solved it? And you stand amazed, Bogardus, before the little veil we have lifted for you.”

The great scientist seemed to have forgotten our presence as she stood immersed in the terrifying consideration of these mysteries.

“She may remain hours in her abstraction,” she whispered to me. “What a mind! What an imagination!”

“Can we visit some of the observatories? I should like to see the great telescope in operation.”

“We shall return often, though the daily records are available to us at home. However, instead of visiting personally the different plants, which would be fatiguing, we can see everything we wish from a television hall.”

We entered a cabinet, similar to the one in which I had lunched with Dianne at Acquilla’s house and installed ourselves. But at the first interior of a [Pg 207]great cupola with its cyclopian telescopic eye, I cried:

“Of course. There are hundreds of them employed in the higher mathematics and problems of intricate research.”

What I saw before me was a creature with a magnificent head it is true, but the body of a frail child of eight or nine.

“I see what surprises you,” said Acquilla quickly. “But you must not judge by appearances. Really, though it has taken us generations, we have at last bred the true mathematical type. They have none of those physical appetites or deviations, that afflict us, Bogardus. They are intellectual Buddhas, the ascetic-saints of science. They live in their visions, in a world of their own.”

“I prefer the slaves of the Neptunian insects,” I exclaimed indignantly, “at least they could roam in the outer air. But these deformed dwarfs are nothing but inhuman calculating machines.”

I saw then hundreds of gnomes in a long, low building—a monastery in fact; moving about the great esplanade gesticulating in animated conversation, [Pg 208]smoking pipes, playing chess or pitching quoits with all the appearance, I must confess, of complete satisfaction.

“Quite impossible,” said Acquilla formally. “I should not dream of intruding myself. As for you—you would bring nothing but disorder in their well regulated existence.”

“So am I, in a sense,” said Acquilla. “Are you going back to the sentimentalities of the Declaration of Independence? Freedom? Nonsense! We have bred them scientifically to accomplish intricate and necessary things and skillfully atrophied the unnecessary glands, so that they find their happiness in their work. To receive the work you are best fitted for and to find your happiness in your work—if that is not Paradise, what is, Bogardus?”

“And I with you, Bogardus dear, if it makes you cross,” she said, changing her tone immediately. “Now we must return, if we are to be in time for the Promenade of the Young Males.”

“I perceive the devilish ingenuity of the contrast you are planning to offer me.”

I took my seat in our aeromat with a feeling of complete mental exhaustion. One cannot experience such marvels as I had witnessed, without a limp revulsion. We rose and streaked toward the south, I too weary to resist, as Acquilla boldly put her arm about my waist and drawing my head toward her, pillowed it on her firm shoulder.

The Promenade of the Young Males was again a spectacle for which I was totally unprepared.

The spot itself was of a sylvan beauty that recalled the Elysian fields with its shaded groves and soft greensward. Under the trees were hundreds of marble seats grouped according to the castes where the women as spectators had taken their posts of observation. I sought feverishly for my lovely Dianne but in vain. Following Acquilla, I took my place among the Minervenes and eagerly looked out at last upon my fellow men.

For a moment, I could not believe my eyes. Groups of young men in twos and threes were sauntering through the sylvan avenues, with a rhythmical Andalusian swaying of their hips, glancing with timid provocation over their long plumed fans, at the Amazons who gazed down upon them with an estimating curiosity. I heard around me a buzz of comments, which I must confess, reminded me [Pg 211]strangely of certain memories of club windows fronting on Fifth Avenue.

“You can have him! Too athletic, but the boy over there is like a Greek god.”

A Greek god! The expression in a flash made comprehensible to me the metamorphosis. I remembered that every young girl, somewhere in her life, had a Greek god as her ideal and now when the secrets of eugenics were in their hands, what more natural, than that they should breed to that ideal?

Just as among the Amazons, I had noted three variations, the blond Greek, the dark Latin and the heavy intellectual Prussian, so I found the males were bred for two distinct varieties. There was a graceful Olympian type resembling the decadent period of Greek sculpture; lithe and delicately turned, rounded and dimpled, the hair curled above the forehead and piled high as in the famous Apollo Belvedere. In strong contrast the second type had brown dusky skins and glossy black hair brushed straight back. Slender and languorous in their movements, they had the slanted seductive eyes which recalled to me a certain predominant type of moving picture hero popular in my day. These [Pg 212]last carried small lutes of an agreeable tinkling sound with which they accompanied their soft crooning voices. Their flowing tunics, Attic in feeling, but with a touch of the licentiousness of the later Directoire, were in multi-colored gossamer materials of an astonishing richness that revealed the flowing lines of the graceful young bodies beneath.

Several of the blonds, in fact exceeded the bounds of good taste in the arrogant display of their soft shoulders and backs, with a curious fluttering divided skirt which too boldly revealed the length of their shapely legs. I noted with a growing repulsion, that not only were these young debutants manifestly painted and powdered, but that generally they had adopted ridiculously high heels to increase their stature which I estimated at no more than five feet six.

“I am waiting for your comments, Bogardus,” said Acquilla gently. “Your face is flushed and you are positively scowling. What angers you now?”

My face must have betrayed my extreme dejection! In truth, my courage all but failed me then and there. What possible hope was there that I alone against all the forces of a determined and relentless matriarchy, could regenerate such a degenerate and decadent sex? But I did not wish Acquilla to suspect my true thoughts.

“As if you did not know very well,” I answered. “What other feeling except scorn and repulsion could I have, in seeing my fellow men reduced to this artificial slavery and parading like prospective concubines in the humiliation of a slave mart!”

“I object to everything, their unmanly mincings and veiled provocations. Good God! To think that my sex has descended to the arts of decadent courtesans, to paint and perfume, to insidious advertising of their physical charms, to giggling and smirking. If you did not affirm it, I should refuse to believe these theatrical voluptuous figures were men.”

“You see, Bogardus, you make the mistake that men made for centuries, in believing that woman’s nature was different from man’s. All that you have observed in this curious display is only acquired characteristics and the acquired characteristics of the sex whose primary function is to attract the stronger. Once it was woman, now it is man.”

“And to be fair, if it were possible to revive the [Pg 214]process, wouldn’t I be just as indignant, if you were taking me to one of your assembly balls?”

“I should like to drive them out with whips and scorpions,” I said, evading an answer.

“On the contrary, they are really quite charming—for a week or so. Nor is it fair to believe that what annoys you now is the result of our suppression. The young fops of decadent Greece and Rome, I imagine, would have excited your puritanical scorn just as much. It may be painful to you, Bogardus—but it is better to face the truth. Is it from such that you would attempt a movement for social equality?”

“Which would you prefer, Acquilla?” I said looking her boldly in the eyes. “One of these decadent Roman demigods you have created or a man like myself?”

“As a woman, any time!” I said insistently and the desire to avenge myself on the humiliation of my sex was so strong, that I threw into my voice, my look and the touch of my hand, all the animal magnetism that my male instinct could summon.

Acquilla’s glance unlike Dianne’s, never fell. On [Pg 215]the contrary, a quick feline light gleamed in her eyes as she looked at me.

“You, of course,” she said tensely, to my dismay. “Being what I am, you on your own terms, you all my life! And just as frankly, dear man, if it were a question of a hundred men like you to be let loose among our society, I should cast my vote at once for extermination.”

A shudder passed over me. To be loved by Acquilla, was like being loved by a coldly reasoning tigress. I regretted instantly the dangerous provocation I had given and uneasily changed the subject.

“Now that I am reconciled to realities,” I said, with a touch of sarcasm, “I am anxious to understand more fully your customs. What is the object of this parade?”

“What was the object of the introduction of your daughters to society?” replied Acquilla. “Daughters to marry—men to mate! The principle is the same, only I think we are franker, because we have done away with inhibitions. Those you see with the white plumed fans are the debutants of the first year. They do not mate immediately with the maidens of their age, but are apprenticed to the Histriones for their sentimental education. Those with the scarlet fans are of the second year.”

“Yes, they have a look of men of the world,” I said with a sarcasm that was of course, lost on Acquilla.

At this moment, there was a perceptible stir of curiosity among the languidly circulating males, a sudden chime of bells in the air and the irruption of hundreds of young maidens, which I can only describe as the scrambling rush of the stags at a ball. These young Dianas, dressed in short tunics that stopped short of the knee, advanced eagerly and posting themselves at points of vantage, stared appraisingly at the fluttering males, with a boldness that Don Juan himself might have envied.

The debutants of the first year, I observed, pretended an indifference which their furtive glances belied, as they endeavored by careless and seemingly haphazard meetings to attract their attention. But the superior Dianas (I had almost written “the young bucks,” so completely did their impertinent inspection suggest the manners of the highborn oglers of other days) indifferent to these timorous advances, had eyes only for their more experienced brothers. The white fans, as though conscious of their inferiority, gradually drifted away to the grove of the Histriones.

I beheld then, the curious sight of hundreds of couples moving languidly with the woman’s arms [Pg 217]around the man, her head bent in solicitous courtship.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Acquilla. “We permit no intercourse until a woman has borne her female child. These first unions are serious and endure for six months, during which time the male resides in the seclusion of the woman’s home.”

“Naturally. What you see is only the first of the promenades. They continue every week for several months during the period of courtship, before the final engagements are concluded.”

“That often happens, but the priority is determined by the eugenics board according to their qualifications.”

“One question,” I persisted, “I comprehend that in this age of reason, you have done away with sentiment. But have you so completely dominated the [Pg 218]emotions that these mating comradeships do not sometimes develop into what we called the passion of love? And what then?”

“In the young, it is quite true that violent attractions take place,” said Acquilla. “But as we know that such infatuations are immoral, we limit the duration of the attachment to six months.”

“Immoral?” I said, looking at her fixedly. “How am I to understand that?”

“Six months!” I exclaimed indignantly. “A plaything for six months! So that is all you have had in mind. Now I know your real intentions.”

“A particular case has nothing to do with a general law,” said Acquilla with her genius for easy evasion. “Besides, such a case as yours has yet to be determined. Trust me, my dear one. I shall know how to protect us.”

“Morality is order, and immorality disorder. Anything that takes away from a woman the control over her faculties is of the quality of disorder and therefore immoral. The moment the relationship [Pg 219]exceeds the bounds of her self-control, a woman passes into a state of emotional servitude and ceases to think honestly. Of course, in your day, you used marriage as a moral umbrella, forgetting that in the majority of cases, marriage either became a physical slavery or worse, and where hatred had risen, contrary to the natural selective principles of nature and therefore doubly immoral.”

“All this is marvelously if incredibly reasoned, Acquilla,” I said, “but since you admit that the passions do flame out, how do you treat them?”

“With the exception of the Histriones, where for the purposes of art we encourage a certain emotional latitude to produce that contact with suffering which the artist we know must experience; the cases you refer to, are rare. The remedy is of course, simple. All emotions have a physical or glandular origin so that a short period of treatment in the hospital corrects the malady.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to recommend to her an immediate treatment, but I conquered my sense of humor. Our relations had now reached so critical a point that I realized they would bear no further provocation. So I said smiling: “But if the woman doesn’t want to be cured?”

“You forget,” said Acquilla, with a gesture to the assembly, “that men such as you see there, can have [Pg 220]only a physical appeal. In the rare case where an accidental intelligence may complicate the emotional problem, and this has only happened to the Histriones, there is a choice. We cannot, in the name of morality, permit the continuance of a relationship which has degenerated into a disorganization of the senses, but we do permit the unfortunate couple the right to be translated together through the Frigidrome into another existence.”

“Wait.” I stopped and took her hand genuinely moved. “Do I understand, my dear Acquilla, that you are prepared to take this voyage into time with me?”

“But if I could show you another way?” I said, pressing her arm in my eagerness.

“Help me to restore men to their former dignity and rights. Make them your mates and not simply breeders.”

“Never!” she cried, drawing her hand instantly away from me. “Betray my beliefs—never! I shall sacrifice myself but never my civilization! Understand that once and for all, Bogardus!”

“Incorruptible one!” I murmured in involuntary admiration. “Incorruptible as Robespierre,” I added to myself, “and just as implacable.”

“You will find as a matter of fact,” Acquilla added after a moment’s reflection, “that we are always guided by the strictest sense of justice. Our acquired scientific wisdom has laid down certain inviolable rules of conduct. If an individual refuses to conform we don’t avenge ourselves by any cruel or unusual method of punishment, we simply remove him to another civilization.”

“Nothing could be more just, oh, Solomon,” I admitted enthusiastically, “and you put to shame our archaic penal system where a man was not even permitted the right to take his own life.”

“Bear always in mind, dear,” said Acquilla with an approving nod, “that man’s logic always reasoned from traditions, whereas we women reason from the immediate necessity. Your brain was a deductive one, ours is always inductive. It is that power of divination, of sensing first what ought to be, that has produced the great feminine discoveries in science.”

During the conversation, I had become increasingly aware of the disturbance that my presence was creating. Groups of maidens passed and repassed, gazing at me with undisguised curiosity and admiration, [Pg 222]until becoming bolder they remained in a whispering group gazing up at me. Whether a certain license was permitted at these affairs or whether Acquilla was moved by a sense of pride in a coveted possession, she made no effort to dispel these inquisitive groupings. I sustained this persistent admiration with as indifferent a countenance as possible until I noticed that the attraction I exerted was arousing the evident displeasure of the young males, who from their furious glances and mutterings seemed to regard my presence as an unwarranted intrusion. This attitude became so noticeable that I said hastily to Acquilla:

“My dear Acquilla, though a man of a certain vanity, I am unfortunately afflicted with a little modesty and as, after all, I am not on parade, couldn’t we leave the field to its rightful possessors?”

Acquilla rose and offering her arm drew me through the crowd which in response to a peremptory gesture, immediately dissolved and left us free. We passed thus, through this curiously inverted throng of lovers and arrived at the grove of the Histriones, where unfortunately my presence created an even greater disturbance. Dulcina and Carrilla came hurriedly forward and embraced me with a warmth that was noticeably displeasing to Acquilla.

I searched feverishly for my lovely Dianne and discovered her at length, in a farther group, devouring me with her ardent gaze. She laid her fingers on her lips, to signal to me to be patient, and I understood that, fearful of betraying her passion before Acquilla, she preferred to remain in the background.

The young males of the first year, were at this moment performing a ballet with the evident intention of attracting the attention of the most famous of the Histriones, and truth compels me to admit that in the grace of their flying movement, they surpassed any ballet that I had previously witnessed. The attention of the charming Histriones, which had been fixed on the premiers danseurs, was quite naturally diverted to me. The result was disastrous. The entire chorus, aware of the sudden relaxation in the attention of the audience, stopped, began to whisper and abruptly abandoned the scene. Before I could make my apologies for this regrettable interruption, a messenger approached Acquilla and summoned her to what I learned afterwards, was a suddenly convoked meeting of the Supreme Council. To leave me with the Histriones was extremely distasteful, but the summons being of a peremptory nature, she was forced to make the best of it.

Hardly had she disappeared, when Dianne seized [Pg 224]my hand, and drawing me out of the crowd, led me into a shady grotto.

“I have only a moment to warn you,” she said hastily, “but the Council has been convoked on your account.”

“You see, your position here is an irregular one. You are of course, a man and subject to all the regulations, but you are enjoying the freedom that we permit only to our own sex. The young males are furious, naturally.”

“Don’t worry, my beloved,” said Dianne, putting her arm around my neck and looking at me with glowing eyes, “and forgive me if I’m a good deal in what is about to happen to you. For I can stand anything, rather than the thought of your being alone day and night with Acquilla. You will have to enter the Club for a short while, but by entering it, you will acquire a freedom of action that you never could have had as Acquilla’s prisoner.”

“You will take me out yourself, oh, Dianne!” I exclaimed, divining the whole stratagem in her amorous glances.

“You have always the right to refuse,” said the bewitching creature, drawing near me.

My answer was to fold her into my arms and gather her to me with a passion that obliterated all consciousness. All at once I felt a shudder pass through her soft body, and with a cry of alarm she sprang from me. I looked up. Acquilla, with blazing eyes, was staring at us.

“I might have guessed your stratagem, treacherous Histrione,” she cried bitterly. “Very well, the responsibility is on your head! Good-bye, Bogardus!”

Before we could stammer an excuse, she turned abruptly on her heel and went off with a final menacing gesture. The next moment the officials appeared and signified to me the decision of the Supreme Council.

“Courage, my beloved,” said Dianne, clasping me to her a last time. “Acquilla is a terrible enemy, but I too, have great influence. Only do be careful at the Club. Be patient until your friends can organize in your support. I’ll get you out as soon as I can.”

In the company of my two Amazon guides, I passed through the buzzing crowd to a sort of official Black Maria which in this case was nothing more or less than an aerial taxi. On our journey I attempted to extract some information of my destination and probable length of stay. Despite the usual bureaucratic lack of information, I did gather that the Club to which I was being taken was a junior organization where the young males on their first introduction into society were segregated and carefully instructed in the arts and graces of conduct. My first uneasiness gave place to a growing curiosity. Knowing that crimes of violence were outlawed I ceased to fear my reception among my own sex, confident that in a short contact I could dissipate the first unfavorable impression. I had not, in fact, any carefully matured plan but I was determined now that the opportunity had presented itself, to awake in my decadent and helpless brothers a sentiment of the glory that had been stripped from [Pg 227]them. I set it down to my credit that, strong as was the fascination that Dianne exercised over me, the feeling of sex solidarity in me was so imperious that I was determined to stop before neither threats nor reprisals.

We alighted before a massive iron gate, fully forty feet in height, that broke the grim monotony of the towering walls. Evidently apprised of my intended arrival, a venerable proctor (in appearance sixty years of age though undoubtedly much older) was waiting to greet me. Once beyond the walls we entered a little two-seated scooter which traversed the grounds with astonishing lightness and speed and arrived at the home of my Nestorian companion, who evidently was a sort of super head master.

“It is better for you to pass the first night under my roof,” he said when we had alighted, “until the feeling against you shall have abated somewhat.”

“Really? I should think that the only sentiment would be curiosity. How have I offended?”

“This year’s debutants are a vain and silly lot and they have been made unruly by this talk of social equality that is in the air.”

“Then I gather you do not believe in male suffrage,” I said, gazing at him in surprise.

“This is a woman’s world,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “Man’s place is in the Club.”

I broke out laughing with the same result. Men too in this advanced age were totally deprived of humor. Suddenly I stopped struck by an inspiration. To begin the revolt of the males, I must teach them to laugh!

The young debutants began to return in a state of great excitement. Within half an hour, there were fully two hundred gathered in a clamoring group outside. What they wanted was, of course, a view of me. Nestor, with a caution to remain within, stepped outside the door and was addressing the ring leaders in a peremptory tone, when, moved by an impulse of disdain for these effeminate slender striplings, I sprang out boldly, and raising my hand aloft in the best oratorical manner cried:

This salutation delivered with perfect good humor and confidence caught that animal curiosity which is instinct in the crowd. The first ranks stopped and stared. Profiting by the moment, I put Nestor behind me with a commanding gesture and advancing boldly among them, said:

“You are not a bit more curious to know what men were in my day than I am to know you and your ways. Gentlemen, I am delighted to be with you. And if anyone here thinks that it was with any pleasure that I have suffered myself to be dragged [Pg 229]about and exhibited like a tamed animal, let him undeceive himself. Or if you think I am sent here by any complaints of yours, you are wrong again. I am here because the female powers that be, regard me as a menace to the society they have imposed on you. As I shall probably be deported within forty-eight hours to another century, make the most of this opportunity to find out how and why men ruled the world when men were giants!”

This speech which I personally thought rather bombastic, had a triumphant result. My appeal to the curiosity of the male (which women have always insisted on) turned the irritation of the crowd into one of the friendliest eagerness. By nightfall I can truly say that I was the most popular man in the Club. I wisely postponed any attempt to stir my fellow men to revolt until I had taken time to acquaint myself with their point of view, their habits and their inhibitions.

At first I admit to a certain discouragement as I realized the full strength of the inertia that ease and idleness had developed in them.

The young males had been rendered so pampered and indolent that at first I found it impossible to arouse them to any shame of the life of luxury and indulgence in which they were steeped. Outside of the gladiators (who were like a sex apart) the [Pg 230]young male of the twenty-second century was a vain and slothful creature of the harem. Due, no doubt, to the multiplication of automatic machinery and the use of the aeroplane, I doubt if any of them could have walked a brisk five miles without needing resuscitation. On the other hand, all their physical education was directed towards the terpsichorean arts, in which they excelled for grace of movement and lightness of poise.

Their mental education I discovered went scarcely between the three R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic and their reading consisted in as feverish an application to detective literature as would have distinguished a statesman in my time. They rose late in the morning and spent a greater part of the day in the bath with solicitous applications for the softening of their skins, which were of an extraordinary velvety texture. The oiling, perfuming and curling of their hair occupied another two hours, after which they trained themselves in the intricate choreographic steps which they would later display to delight the eyes of the stronger sex. The habit of gambling was a mania with them and even in their baths which were of a Roman splendor, they were continually throwing dice in a dozen different and extremely intricate games. At night they remained until the small hours engrossed in their cards in a [Pg 231]game which was a strange development of poker and contract bridge.

When I attempted to arouse them from their torpor of indulgence by recitals of the exploits of the male heroes of other days, citing the explorers who with adventurous courage had braved the Arctic colds, dared the terrors of the deep, or first laid their perilous courses across the uncharted sky, I found that the very idea of such dangers appalled their imaginations. The invariable response was that it was a woman’s world and some frankly proclaimed that the revolt I was urging, meant nothing but exchanging a pleasant life of sheltered ease for tasks of effort and responsibility.

I was, I admit, in despair of any success, when fortunately I discovered a small group whose racial characteristics marked them as descendants of the Irish Isles. Knowing the strong instinct of that rebellious race to any and all existing forms of government, I worked upon this strain and found to my delight a responsive enthusiasm.

It was then that my first inspiration returned to my memory. I determined to begin at the beginning of all revolts, by teaching these supernaturally sober-faced descendants the art of laughing. Applying the same physical methods I had used in the home of Acquilla, I succeeded in a few days in completely [Pg 232]changing the character of the community. No sooner had they been instructed into the manly art of laughter than they began to seek by all manner of practical jokes a means for giving vent to these new emotions. From morning to night the Club was filled with boisterous outbursts and I became at last an acknowledged leader.

I now developed their newly discovered sense of humor by holding up to ridicule their feminine despots until, when the time was ripe, I brought forward triumphantly my scheme for a successful rebellion. I recited to them the story of Lysistrata and the woman’s revolt and having carefully demonstrated to them that they were set apart for one particular purpose alone, I pictured the consternation that would ensue if they steadfastly refused to venture from their walls, assuring them that in a short time they would be able to dictate their own terms.

This idea appealed so strongly to their rapidly developing sense of the ridiculous that the proposition was greeted with cheers and shouts of laughter and by unanimous acclaim I was appointed general in chief, with power to issue the ultimatum and enforce all needed discipline over the weaker minded elements.

For three days not a male stirred from the walls that by inviolable tradition protected their seclusion. [Pg 233]On the fourth, the entire body of the Histriones gathered outside the gates led by Dianne, and demanded a conference.

Restraining my forces, with some difficulty I admit, I advanced outside the gates. While the young males in a fever of curiosity lined the walls, the lovely Dianne approaching me with dimmed eyes and outstretched arms enfolded me in her trembling embrace.

It was the first time I had heard that peculiar feminine complaint since my arrival and its evidence that the primitive instincts could be counted upon, heartened me greatly.

“On the contrary,” I replied with unfeigned emotion. “It is because I am more in love with you than ever, that I have done what I have done to free us from Acquilla’s tyranny.”

“But what is happening? We hear the strangest noises as though the debutants had gone mad. And what is this new strange costume I see you in,” she added drawing back in surprise and staring at the shorts and polo shirt I had introduced.

“We have adopted the costume that was already being debated at the time of my departure. Do you like them?”

“What beautiful legs you have, Jack dear, so straight and strong and wooly!”

“As for the disturbances you have heard, reassure your fellow women. The men are in revolt, but we shall not proceed to acts of violence. Ours is what was called the rebellion of non-resistance.”

“Have you read ‘Lysistrata’? Since the sexes are reversed, we have determined to revert to woman’s weapons!”

“Bogardus, how cruel!” Dianne exclaimed suddenly enlightened. “But then—no, you do not love me as I love you! You are thinking only of your pride of sex and I think of nothing but my longing for you!”

“But explain. Yes, I remember ‘Lysistrata’ dimly. What is your plan and how long are you going to hold to it?”

“Do not reproach me, adorable Dianne, but set your wits to help me and I assure you, in a short, a very short time we shall be triumphantly united! [Pg 235]Take back our ultimatum to the Minervenes and Manfreda and the Supreme Council;—complete equality for men, political, social and educational or we refuse to leave our walls!”

“It is ingenious if cruel,” said Dianne meditating. “Yet I’m afraid, terribly afraid for you! For what can mere man do against this woman’s civilization?”

“What can we do? We can do what any horse can do if a horse knew his strength. Lie down and refuse to get up. The decision is up to you. If you need us in your lives, you must restore our dignity and our rights. This is our last word!”

Dianne shook her head mournfully, oppressed by, alas, too well founded premonitions.

“I shall do my best—if it were in the power of the Histriones, you would win, dear. We are already, as you know, your advocates. But Manfreda and the Minervenes—I am afraid, my beloved, afraid!”

She kissed me sadly and returned to her companions who thronged about her with questioning lips while I entered the gates to report.

The audacity of my defiance seemed to appall my adherents. Whereas, before, they had been imbued with the gaiety of a child’s rebellion, I found now a general feeling of depression, shaking heads and ominous glances. Their forebodings were only too [Pg 236]well justified. For two days we were cut off from all knowledge of what was transpiring in the outer world, radiophone and television abruptly interrupted. Then suddenly over our heads a squadron of aerial cruisers, armed with the devastating electronoid rays appeared. The answer of Manfreda was short and uncompromising. I was to be delivered up for judgment immediately. At the end of one hour a failure to comply would mean the instant blotting out of the whole community!

At the end of half an hour I stepped through the gates to meet my destiny. I had not waited for the decision of my fellow men. It was only too apparent what it would be. By my voluntary submission I did in fact regain at least a sentimental if tragic prestige. The walls were thronged and as I left the Club, the entire body burst forth in three resounding cheers, which considering the time I had had to instruct them in the art, were quite impressive.

A great throng was gathered to witness my surrender, and my heart leaped with a sudden hope as I perceived banners flying above the crowd with these devices:

My beloved Dianne was the first to greet me and sadly insisted on accompanying me in the official [Pg 238]aeroplane which was to conduct me to the Supreme Council. Despite the cheers and flutter of hands that greeted my progress, I perceived that her eyes were oppressed with forebodings.

As we rose a thousand little aeroplanes rose like the scurry of birds and followed behind us.

“Don’t nourish any false hopes, my dear one,” Dianne said, shaking her lovely head. “The people are with you, and the younger students. But what does that amount to? Manfreda dominates the Supreme Council and no emotion has ever swayed her.”

“But surely—the voice of the people, vox populi, vox dei,” I insisted. “To defy the sovereign will might mean a revolution.”

For answer Dianne pointed to the skies where the grim armada hovered over us with the menace of a thunder cloud.

“It is for you I fear,” she replied, slipping her adorable hand into mine. “You have shown yourself too strong. Oh, Jack dear, if you had only listened to my advice.”

The phrase pleased me and threw me into a heroic mood. I resolved come what might, to face my destiny with a stoic dignity.

We came to ground before the great dome of the hall of justice where the Supreme Council was assembled. The square was packed with a sympathetic and curious crowd, while the flight of the accompanying aeroplanes flung shifting shadows like the moving silhouettes of leaves. Two guards stood at the top of the steps holding in their hands what seemed to be electric torches, but which were in fact deadly electronoid batteries that plainly overawed the crowd.

I passed with Dianne at my side, my blood tingling with the murmured sympathy of thousands, and ascending the steps was shortly conducted to the great hall of judgment. The dramatic sense which flames up in all martyrs upheld me. I had sought for some word that might pass down into history, worthy to be linked with the last of my sex, but to tell the truth the inspiration deserted me and all I could find to say, as I confronted the judges, was:

However I put into the words a certain defiance, smiled proudly and stood at rest.

My judges, as before at our first meeting, were [Pg 240]seated in a hemicycle with the austere Manfreda in the centre. I looked for Acquilla and perceived her sitting with downcast eyes. She raised her glance, perceived Dianne, and a flush of anger transformed her.

“Be seated, Bogardus,” said Manfreda, indicating a seat in the centre. Her tone as always was emotionless, calm as authority itself. “You are accused of rebellion against the state, of exciting the Clubs to defy our customs, and of an intention to overthrow the existing order. Prisoner before us, are you guilty?”

Dianne had warned me of the recording apparatus, of which indeed Acquilla had already exposed to me the secret. I was prepared and even as the question was put, I rose and standing, replied:

“Manfreda, in your woman’s age of pure logic, is the accused still permitted to defend himself, or am I brought here simply to hear a sentence passed upon me?”

She was visibly surprised at this challenge, but recovering herself, she replied coldly:

“Then may I inquire what is the penalty which may be imposed upon me if I am considered guilty in your eyes of the charges you have brought against me?”

“The crime is always against the sanctity of the law. We impose no laws unless we intend to have them observed.”

“Then if guilty, I shall be returned to the Frigidrome and translated to another century,” I exclaimed eagerly.

“Ladies,” I cried joyfully, “you see before you the happiest prisoner in history. I am certain that you will find me guilty. You must if you hold as strictly to justice as you claim, and I demand now as my right the immediate infliction of the penalty.”

I heard a low groan from Dianne behind me, and at the same time I noticed that the anger seemed to depart from Acquilla’s furrowed brow.

“Perhaps,” I took up instantly, “but is that not precisely the whole of my offending? I come from that uncivilized age, that strangely emotional age, that age of curious sentimentalities and when I am introduced to this woman-ruled society I remain un-impressed. [Pg 242]And because, my dear ladies, you are afraid to answer my arguments you are going to send me to another age, perhaps another world. I answer as we used to answer. How like a woman!”

The taunt which I had flung out intentionally, to procure a hearing, stirred the assembly to violent protests. Doctrina and some of the council were on their feet demanding to reply. Manfreda, however, without any further show of emotion, calmed the council and waved them back to their seats. From that moment I felt secure of being heard, for I knew that if there was one weakness in the coldly logically composition of Manfreda it was the age-old primitive instinct of women. Manfreda intended to have the last word.

“You are in error, Bogardus,” she said in chiselled accents. “There will be no obstacle placed in the way of anything you wish to say. Now may I ask you to return to the point. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?”

“I might retort, Manfreda,” I replied, “that I should like to be informed on what evidence I am accused?”

“It is hardly necessary to remind you, Bogardus,” she replied with a spidery satisfaction, “that every word and every movement you have made since you were in the Club has been heard and noted by every [Pg 243]woman in the state. But to proceed to overt acts. Do you deny that you were the author of the ultimatum delivered by the young males to the Histriones?”

“Because,” I replied, taking a long chance, “I am certain as the incident cannot have happened before, that no law can be on the statute books dealing with the case. I appeal to the Council and wait for a reply.”

My surmise was correct, as a hurried consultation and furtive whispering showed me.

“The question is, of course, one of a technical defence,” said Manfreda. “If you were appealing to a jury of men, accustomed daily to see justice miscarry, by appeals to legal mystification, you could evade the issue in the name of Justice. But—”

“No buts, Manfreda,” I said, smiling at the immediate relief visible in the council at this extraordinary reply. “Your answer does credit to your sex, but in my day I have heard just as ingenuous answers from your prehistoric sisters. I pass to the next point. I am accused of rebellion against the State. A very serious charge. But on what grounds? Because I have urged my fellow men to [Pg 244]demand social and political equality and to become total abstainers until their rights shall have been granted? Am I right?”

I waited, but already a certain defiance of my legal acumen had become evident. There was a pause but no precipitation to reply. Finally Manfreda, forced to meet the issue, said:

“Ah, Manfreda, you are subtle but you are evading the issue, and you know it. Is this or is this not your complaint against me?”

For the first time I observed that adamantine temperament, show a touch of human resentment.

“Good. Observe, you yourself, you the great Manfreda, have said it. It is treason for me to stir up my fellow men to insist upon equality. That is right, is it not, oh, Manfreda?”

I think she perceived the trap, for she twisted in her seat and made as though to answer, but it was too late.

“Your silence is consent, but it would have been franker to have said it,” I continued, for in humiliating Manfreda before the assembly I knew was my one chance of escape. “Now I appeal to every woman present. Was I the first to launch the cry [Pg 245]of ‘Votes for Men’? Before I came was there not a party already formed who sought to rehabilitate my sex? Hasn’t the discussion been open and has there been any concealment that here even in this council its proponents have urged their views? Again I ask, am I right and pause for an answer? No one protests. I continue. If it was not treason to the State to urge male equality before I came, I submit that it cannot be treason for me to do so now. Again I appeal to the council that the second charge as the first charge has no bearing in fact, and ask that both be dismissed.”

There was a burst of applause from the great crowd outside, to whom every word evidently was being transmitted, mingled with shouts of:

Within, the consternation was so evident that even Acquilla, carried away by her passion, dared to exclaim:

“Ah, Acquilla,” I exclaimed, moved by the daring of her act, “by that word you have doomed me. Your sex has always forgiven us when we were in the wrong, but never for being right!”

“Bogardus has at least the intelligence to perceive the issue,” said Manfreda, raising her hand for [Pg 246]silence. “It is not a question of right or wrong. True justice is a matter of necessity. And we shall decide this question not on legal quibbles or adroit justification but on one simple issue. Is it necessary to remove Bogardus from the State?”

There was a visible brightening among the Minervenes. I bowed ironically and replied:

“For a moment I was afraid that I might convince you. Thank heaven that a sense of humor no longer exists, for I shudder to think that if it did, you would compel me to go on living in this dreadful state!”

Encouraged by the stupor these defections produced, I stood with my arm about Dianne and taunted them:

“If you only knew how gladly I welcome my fate! Your vaunted civilization is nothing but a dreadful monotony. Your freedom of the individual is only a terrifying loneliness. You are not [Pg 247]human beings; you are as mechanical as your machinots. You are so afraid of suffering that you have cut away every emotion that makes life worth living. You can’t laugh with a friend, romp with a child or cling to a man! This magnificent scientific era is, my dear ladies, to me a man who has lived in the glorious twentieth century—just a flat, drab, dreary existence! If God had intended humanity to end thus, He would have taken color and beauty out of His universe as you have done out of life. Stay here? Thanks, ladies! I should be bored to death!”

“Before we pass to a vote,” said Manfreda flushing, as she stilled the outburst of angry protests, “it is well to take up the challenge that this barbaric man has flung out. We are accused of oppressing the male sex. I shall answer, and my answer is directed to all those mistaken emotional minds who have allowed themselves to be tricked into an advocacy of male equality. But first how have we oppressed the male sex? What have men been deprived of? We have abolished poverty, so that no man need longer work. We have abolished sickness, so that every man may indulge his appetites and luxuries without fear of consequence. We have taken from him the conduct of public affairs where even Bogardus has admitted he has been a tragic [Pg 248]failure. We have ended crime and war so that no false sentiment demands the sacrifice of his life. We have freed him from monogamy so that his natural instincts need no longer be repressed. Is this oppression or what once was man’s idea of a heavenly paradise?”

A sense of humor has always misled me. From this moment I felt the assembly turn against me.

“Now to pass to the major consideration,” continued Manfreda. “To restore male equality means just one thing—to destroy authority. One thing is certain—history has always been the record of the war of the sexes. One or the other must dominate. Authority cannot be shared. Read history. The world was at its worst when a divided authority broke down the standards of morality. The age this man represents was an age of compromise and anarchy. Restore the male—you will bring back the hypocrisy of marriage with its lies and its treachery, its mutual tyranny. You will restore the family and permit the weak to prey upon the strong, the unfit to ride upon the backs of the fit. You will return to the jealousy and irreverence of the younger generation, impatient to crowd out the [Pg 249]older. For the family is nothing but the battleground of the sexes and the clash of opposing generations. You are now free and self sufficing individualities. Do you wish to return to a society of sacrifice and mutual tyranny?”

“It is for me to recall you to the point, Manfreda. You have made an ex-parte statement, with the evident intention of prejudicing my judges by an appeal to their emotions, and this from a woman who feigns to hold up to ridicule our system of justice. Enough. Let me state the issue and save you the waste of your adroit pleadings. I am guilty of being too intelligent for you, and that is my crime. Have the courage to admit it. Remove me because you cannot, you dare not allow me to remain here any longer. But for heaven’s sake, ladies, please don’t try to be logical. Let us ignore the charges. You have decided to condemn me, please, please don’t try to justify your actions!”

I sat down well pleased at the adroitness of my answer, feeling that woman-like they could not let my taunt stand on the record, and that to remove me would be to approve me. But I misjudged the infinite subtlety of the feminine mind. The room was in an uproar and the hubbub in the square was [Pg 250]deafening. In the midst of the clamor Doctrina, having obtained silence, rose and pointing her finger at me cried angrily:

“Well, I will bring a charge that cannot be denied. I demand this man’s removal for having corrupted the morals of youth by the introduction of a shameful and detestable costume, and I call on all to witness,” she added, tempestuously pointing to the shorts and polo shirt in which I was clothed, “that he himself stands before us in this nude and unmanly exposure.”

“Rubbish!” I shouted at the top of my voice, losing my temper at the last. “Ridiculous! Condemn me honestly or not at all. Listen, all! I demand to be heard!”

“And I move now that all discussion end,” continued Doctrina, “and that a vote be taken.”

Everyone was standing up gesticulating wildly. Dianne clung to my side, but I pushed past her.

“I will be heard!” I shouted furiously, sprang forward, tripped and went down with a crash.

When I came to consciousness, Manfreda was standing before me, and Doctrina shaking my arm.

“Wake up, John, wake up,” said the voice of my wife. “You are having a dreadful nightmare.”

I sat up, staring wildly. The face of Doctrina [Pg 251]was the face of Emelia, and the terrible calm of Manfreda was on the face of my mother-in-law.

“Don’t touch me,” I cried. “Traitors, spies! Never again will I listen to you! Between us it is war—open war to the end!”

[Note by Theodosia Sitwell. Assistant physician in the Clarendon County Hospital for the Insane.]

John Bogardus was confined in this hospital for over eight months during which time he wrote the preceding curious manuscript. Despite some hesitation we have decided on its publication in the interest of medical science, revealing as it does how strange and casual suggestions may lead to the most exaggerated hallucinations. During the whole of his confinement, John Bogardus, with the exception of a fixed feminaphobia and an obsession that his duty lay in warning his sex of the danger of feminine progress, was an exemplary and tractable patient. His tragic death could not have been foreseen. A week after the completion of his manuscript, he disappeared and after forty-eight hours’ search, his frozen body was recovered in the large refrigerator of the asylum, where he had taken refuge under the evident delusion that it was a Frigidrome.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.

Typos corrected: “sariette” to “sarriette” (page 30); “Of” corrected to “Or” in “Or simply an invitation” (page 71); “brittanic” to “britannic” (page 85); “Astrodome” to “Astrodrome” (page 94); “tremulo” to “tremolo” (page 97); “superor” to “superior” (page 114); “comtemplated” to “contemplated” (page 121); “psychoanalists” to “psycho-analysts” (page 162); “chorographic” to “choreographic” (page 230); “is” corrected to “it” in “revealing as it does” (page 251).

Missing comma added after “Besides” in “Besides, men educated by” (page 63) and “Besides, such a case as yours” (page 218)

Missing/misprinted single/double quotes corrected.

Differing spellings of “ascendancy” (page 57) and “ascendency” (page 144) retained.

Author’s spelling of “dumfounded” retained.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The coming of the Amazons

THE COMING OF THE AMAZONS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE