human
What sort of people are these?
gpt
Workers--prosperous workers. What you would have called the middle class. Independent tradesmen with little separate businesses have vanished long ago, but there are store servers, managers, engineers of a hundred sorts. To-night is a holiday of course, and every dancing place in the city will be crowded, and every place of worship.
human
But--the women?
gpt
The same. There's a thousand forms of work for women now. But you had the beginning of the independent working-woman in your days. Most women are independent now. Most of these are married more or less--there are a number of methods of contract--and that gives them more money, and enables them to enjoy themselves.
human
I see, said Graham, looking at the flushed faces, the flash and swirl of movement, and still thinking of that nightmare of pink helpless limbs.
gpt
And these are--mothers.
human
Most of them.
gpt
The more I see of these things the more complex I find your problems. This, for instance, is a surprise. That news from Paris was a surprise.
human
These are mothers. Presently, I suppose, I shall get into the modern way of seeing things. I have old habits of mind clinging about me--habits based, I suppose, on needs that are over and done with. Of course, in our time, a woman was supposed not only to bear children, but to cherish them, to devote herself to them, to educate them--all the essentials of moral and mental education a child owed its mother. Or went without. Quite a number, I admit, went without. Nowadays, clearly, there is no more need for such care than if they were butterflies. I see that! Only there was an ideal--that figure of a grave, patient woman, silently and serenely mistress of a home, mother and maker of men--to love her was a sort of worship--
gpt
A sort of worship.
human
Ideals change, said the little man,
gpt
Of course I see the perfect reasonableness of this. Restraint, soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish act, they are necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now for all practical purposes--his political affairs are managed by Bosses with a black police--and life is joyous.
human
Joyous,
gpt
There are weary moments,
human
They all look young. Down there I should be visibly the oldest man. And in my own time I should have passed as middle-aged.
gpt
They are young. There are few old people in this class in the work cities.
human
How is that?
gpt
Old people's lives are not so pleasant as they used to be, unless they are rich to hire lovers and helpers. And we have an institution called Euthanasy.
human
Ah! that Euthanasy! said Graham.
gpt
The easy death?
human
The easy death. It is the last pleasure. The Euthanasy Company does it well. People will pay the sum--it is a costly thing--long beforehand, go off to some pleasure city and return impoverished and weary, very weary.
gpt
There is a lot left for me to understand, said Graham after a pause.
human
Yet I see the logic of it all. Our array of angry virtues and sour restraints was the consequence of danger and insecurity. The Stoic, the Puritan, even in my time, were vanishing types. In the old days man was armed against Pain, now he is eager for Pleasure. There lies the difference. Civilisation has driven pain and danger so far off--for well-to-do people. And only well-to-do people matter now. I have been asleep two hundred years.
gpt
Before God, said Graham, suddenly,
human
I would rather be a wounded sentinel freezing in the snow than one of these painted fools!
gpt
In the snow, said Asano,
human
I am uncivilised, said Graham, not heeding him.
gpt
That is the trouble. I am primitive--Paleolithic. _Their_ fountain of rage and fear and anger is sealed and closed, the habits of a lifetime make them cheerful and easy and delightful. You must bear with my nineteenth century shocks and disgusts. These people, you say, are skilled workers and so forth. And while these dance, men are fighting--men are dying in Paris to keep the world--that they may dance.
human
For that matter, men are dying in London,
gpt
Where do these sleep?
human
Above and below--an intricate warren.
gpt
And where do they work? This is--the domestic life.
human
You will see little work to-night. Half the workers are out or under arms. Half these people are keeping holiday. But we will go to the work places if you wish it.
gpt
I want to see the workers. I have seen enough of these,