Part 26 (2/2)
I shook my head again. He stared for a minute at me.
”I believe you,” he said at last. ”It's a pity. Think what we could have done--just a few of us!” He sat for some time drumming his fingers on his knees and frowning slightly. Then he stood up.
”Never mind,” he exclaimed. ”I'm convinced it will cure me. That is the main thing. I'll have plenty of time to realize my dream now, Harden, thanks to you. You don't know what that means--ah, you don't know!”
”By the way,” I said, ”I see you are suggesting that food may become a problem in the future. I think we'll be all right.”
”Why?”
”Well, you see, if there's no desire, there's no appet.i.te.”
”I don't understand,” he said. ”It seems clear that if disease is mastered by the germ, then the death-rate will drop, and there will be more mouths to fill. If everyone lives for their threescore and ten, the food question will be serious.”
”Oh, they'll live longer than that. They'll live for ever, Mr. Jason.”
He laughed tolerantly.
”In any case there will be a food problem,” he said in a quiet friendly voice. ”There will be more births, and more children--for none will die--and more old people.”
”There won't be more births,” I said.
He swung round on his heel.
”Why not?” he asked sharply.
”Because there will be no desire, Mr. Jason. You can't have births without desires, don't you see?”
At that moment Sarakoff entered the room. I introduced him to the great newspaper proprietor. Jason made some complimentary remarks, which Sarakoff received with cool gravity.
I could see that Jason was very puzzled. He had seated himself again, and was watching the Russian closely.
”The effects of last night have vanished,” said Sarakoff to me. ”My head is clear again and I have no intention of ever repeating the experiment.”
”You got back, to some extent.”
”Yes, partly. It was tremendously painful. I felt like a man in a nightmare.”
I turned to Jason and explained what had happened at the restaurant. He listened intently.
”You see,” I concluded, ”the germ kills desire. Sarakoff and I live on a level of consciousness that is undisturbed by any craving. We live in a wonderful state of peace, which is only broken by the appearance of physical danger--against which, of course, the germ is not proof.”
Jason was silent.
”Do you mean to tell me,” he said at length, in a very deliberate voice, ”that the effect of the germ is to destroy ambition?”
”Worldly ambition, certainly,” I replied. ”But I believe that, in time, ambitions of a subtler nature will reveal themselves in us, as Immortals.”
Jason smiled very broadly.
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