Part 5 (1/2)
”The man arose and left the room. In a few moments he returned followed by a boy and a young woman bearing a basket. They spread a yellow cloth upon a small ivory table and set down two plates of the bright blue metal; upon one they placed a pile of small round cakes and on the other a number of red and yellow gourd shaped fruits. At a signal from my companion I arose and sat at the table.
”He remained at the window and continued: 'While you break your long fast, let me tell you what I know about this new world which will now be your home for a long time. You will learn all, but I am not watching to-night. In seeing you and hearing the familiar English speech I am moved myself by currents of retrospection; my earth home comes back to me. I will satisfy your curiosity, and, you in turn, must tell me what has happened in the old home.'
”He paused; from the streets of the city rose a sacred song. It came like a slowly increasing torrent of sound, soft and low, rising with impetuous fervor until it seemed to engulf us in its melodic tide.
Individual tones were heard in it, but its solidity and ma.s.s were most impressive. I shook and trembled beneath the impact of its vibrations; in its surging glory of sound I became fully reincarnated. I awoke naked and ashamed. The man saw my confusion. He hurried to a niche in the wall and handed me the tunic of the Martians with its girdle of blue cord and its cap and shoes of the blue metal exquisitely wrought and light. I put them upon me and lifting the cakes and the mellow-soaked pears to my lips, listened.
”'The Martians,' he continued, 'are both a natural and supernatural race. The natural race are largely prehistoric, though many yet exist; the supernatural race are made up of beings from other worlds and a great majority come up from the earth. How reincarnation first began on Mars is unknown, though the natural people, the Dendas, have traditions about it, vague and contradictory. It must have been slow. The supernatural people thus brought to Mars have created its civilization, discovered the phosphori, and established Music, which is so much of their life, and accelerated in the way you have learned the process of materialization.
”'They built this City of Light from phosph.o.r.escent stone quarried from the Mountains of Tiniti. Formerly the spirits came helter skelter to Mars all over its surface and went wandering about, helped to reincarnation by the various villagers or citizens. The great new improvement in the last half century has been the creation of the receiving station at the Hill of the Phosphori, the building of the Chorus Halls, and the establishment of the City of Light. Light draws the spirits, and though spirits reach other points of Mars, the centralization of Light here, draws most of them to this side. The Martians are not immortal. They vanish in time.
”'As reincarnated all spirit becomes young but nourishment has undergone a change. The physiological process is singular. I need not dwell upon it. Evaporation replaces defecation. Love enters the Martian world, but it has lost much of the earthly pa.s.sion. The physiological effects are also different. There are no children here.
”'We live in the tropical regions mostly of Mars, and the polar and north temperate zones are empty. The natural Martian races are found more plentifully there. They are strong and small and work under the supervision of the supernaturals. They are like the earthlings and eat meat. Our food is bread and fruit. Our language does not lend itself to composition; it only sings. Literature, as we knew it on earth, does not exist here. The natural Martians have tales and stories and plays and some books. These things no longer interest the supernaturals. Our life is quite simple, almost expressionless, except for the power of our music. The souls from different parts of the earth recognize each other and converse in human language, but, unless practiced, it is forgotten and our euphonies take its place. I have used my earth language with a friend and still speak English well.
”'We have art here, but it is almost wholly sculpture and architecture and design. Color, except in gla.s.s, does not greatly please the Martians and there are few painters. They survive from other worlds, but cannot secure pigments, and draw only in black and white for the most part.
They are cartoonists, as we would say, on the earth. But we grow fruits and flowers, the former in varieties and richness unknown upon the earth and the latter in delicate tints with blues and yellows, the only primary strong tints the Martians admire.
”'Mechanical invention is discouraged, except as it a.s.sists astronomy.
Astronomy is the great profession. Cars, railroads and conveyances, as you say on earth, do not exist. We walk or sail and float upon our ca.n.a.ls. Our industry is agriculture and building. Architecture is studied and advanced beyond all you have ever known on the earth. Mars is filled with beautiful cities. Its whole government consists in a council at the City of Scandor, from which representatives issue to its various departments. One is here in the City of Light. His motives are always just. There are no parties, for there are no policies. Life is so simple. Beauty and knowledge only rule us. Character, as you, as I, knew it on the earth, does not exist. There are no temptations, and we live as children of Light, in a sort of childhood of feeling, with great gifts of mind. But even living is n.o.ble. There is indeed rivalry. Yes, envy is with us. We wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in great temples in services of song.
Sermons are never heard.
”'In this city the great designers live, also the men who work at the deep problems of life and thought and matter; and the sculptors. It is the next largest city to Scandor. Scandor is far away. I never saw it.
Gla.s.s work is done here and throughout Mars. Making the blue metal which you see, quarrying stone and ore and coal for the smelters and gla.s.s factories, the fabrication of dress material and fabrics for houses, making our boats and ca.n.a.l s.h.i.+ps, cutting down the forests in the Martian highlands, cultivating fruits and flowers and the great wheat fields are the chief industries, and there are lesser lines of work, as the potteries and the instrument makers.
”'There are no industries in the City of Light. It is employed as I told you. Its population is constantly changing, for spirits like you are reincarnated here, and these new mult.i.tudes come and go. To-morrow, the s.h.i.+ps on the ca.n.a.ls will carry many away. The spirits, as you did, when they enter the city, wander as they will; they enter the houses, the workshops, the laboratories, everything in obedience to their instinctive choice. The people of the City of Light are therefore largely engaged in caring for them as they fall into bodily forms, clothing, feeding, housing them.
”'Each householder and all citizens report to the Registeries what spirits have come to them, and whence they came, and the great diversion and entertainment of our people is to listen to the stories of other worlds, which these new arrivals bring. Memory does not survive long and they soon forget their past history. It is best so, except in fugitive and dreamlike fragments, unless they are great.
”'According to their desire or apt.i.tudes, the spirits are sent away when Martianized to the different parts of Mars, and many stay here with us in the workshops and laboratories.
”'Besides Music, the people of Mars delight in recitation, and in the City of Scandor I hear there are great theatres or public places where recitations and concerts and even n.o.ble operas are held. Many of these are brought to us by great spirits from other worlds, their own works in poetry or prose or music. In Scandor there are great orchestras with all the instruments we had upon the earth, and the paper, Dia, is published there, which is read everywhere in Mars. There are few books, no schools in the common sense. The thinkers have a.s.semblies and there are announcements and explanations of discoveries.
”'Our life in many ways is like the life on earth, but less active, more contemplative, and sin and money-making are almost absent. The wicked of all sorts have one fate; they are fired off the planet. We can overcome the attraction of gravitation by our Toto powder. These executions are strange to earth eyes. You will see them. The Toto powder is also a motive power.
”'We have a medium of exchange, silver, and there are rich and poor with us, but no poverty. There can be no armies nor navies. The government carries on extensive works of improvement and keeps the ca.n.a.ls and pays its laborers. The government supports this City of Light and the people here are paid for the number of spirits they care for and a.s.sist.
Happiness reigns on Mars, but it is a pensive happiness. We never, because of the singular physiology of our bodies, can know the boisterous and pa.s.sionate joys of earth, neither do we know many of the ills of the flesh. We have sickness and there are accidents. We have a death, but it is like evaporation. We decline again after a long life to the spirit stage and vanish. So there are partings here, and the old sadness of the end as on earth; but the gaiety of children, the ambition of youth, the devotion of parents is unknown.'
”His voice sank, he bent his head upon his hands, and a sort of tremor ran through him, and when again he looked upon me his eyes shone with moisture, and the hot tears ran down his cheeks. Memory might be fleeting on Mars, but the loved ones of the earth were yet remembered, and the abysses of the eternal void of s.p.a.ce could never be crossed by the wave of speech or recognition. This was the pathos of the Martian life.
”I was shown by him, as the slowly arising sweetness of fatigue showed itself within me, to a bedchamber of charming simplicity. The graceful bedstead of the blue metal was covered with snowy covers, curtains hung at the windows also white. The furniture of the room was of a sort of pale, red wood obtained in the great Martian forests where the trees known as the Ribi grow, whose leaves and flowers have a pink tint, which in seasons of fruitage is more intense, and present enormous areas of extraordinary beauty.
”This room was at the top of one of the many branching wings of this composite astronomical laboratory. To reach my room we walked through hallways all illuminated with the phosph.o.r.escent glowing b.a.l.l.s while the radiant patterns in the walls shone also with a pale beauty. These b.a.l.l.s possess a wonderful lighting power and besides their self-illumination can be stimulated into the most intense brilliancy by electric currents with which the Martians are profoundly acquainted. The electrical displays on Mars surpa.s.s description and the waves of magnetism I am now utilizing to send to you these messages are ten miles in amplitude.
”I fell asleep, quickly lulled into an almost death-like slumber by the cadence of innumerable fountains. Near the _Patenta_ is the Garden of Fountains, which I shall tell you about in another message. It was the plash and rivulous current of these water courts that brought on sleep.
”I awoke when the Martian dawn was coming on. Slumber had given me the last rea.s.surance of ident.i.ty of body, and I awoke with a delightful sense of health and youth. I stood at the wide window near my bed and gazed out upon the yet luminous City of Occupation. The picture was of surprising strangeness and beauty. Far off, until melting into the encroaching edges of an outer blackness, the City extended its folds and surfaces of light. The streets were empty, the music of the Chorus Halls stilled. Here and there, a spirit was moving slowly through the streets, a half-made Martian; a breeze soft and salubrious stirred the thickly leaved trees and the firmament shone with the larger stars, beginning to pale before the rising sun. As the sun rose higher, the effulgence of the City died away, the light of the same great orb which brings the dawn to you, covered with its rays the white and glorious City, the music seemed again revived, and from the doorways of the houses I could see forms issuing, while far off the Hill of the Phosphori raised its gla.s.s domes in the air, where the h.o.m.ogeneous tide of spirit was undergoing differentiation, as we might say, into separate cognizable, discreet beings. An unspeakable delight filled me. I felt the power of mind and with it the radiant energy of manhood.”
No more words came. The message ended. Not a motion or sound succeeded this wonderful trans-abysmal dispatch.