“I have seen them, spoken to them, loved them. They are hiding in the mist and the ferns until our civilization stops. To-day they are the Homeless — to-morrow—” “Oh, to-morrow — some fool will start the Machine again, to-morrow.” “Never,” said Kuno, “never. Humanity has learnt its lesson.”

She crawled over the bodies of the dead. His blood spurted over her hands. “Quicker,” he gasped, “I am dying — but we touch, we talk, not through the Machine.” He kissed her.

“Where are you?” she sobbed. His voice in the darkness said, “Here.” “Is there any hope, Kuno?” “None for us.”

Only the whispers remained, and the little whimpering groans. They were dying by hundreds out in the dark. She burst into tears. Tears answered her. They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves

“To the rescue! Avenge the Machine! Avenge the Machine!” “War! Kill the man!”

“The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs.” She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they spoke no more.

They described the strange feeling of peace that came over them when they handled the Book of the Machine

a generation ‘seraphically free From taint of personality,

Beware of first-hand ideas!” exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. “First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation

So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the terrestrial motors, and except for a few lecturers, who complained that they were debarred access to their subject-matter, the development was accepted quietly

“Because I have seen her in the twilight — because she came to my help when I called — because she, too, was entangled by the worms, and, luckier than I, was killed by one of them piercing her throat.”

if I must die, die running towards the cloud that had been the colour of a pearl.

**‘Help!’ I cried. (Why cannot we suffer in silence?) **

“Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops — but not on our lines.

She knew that he was fated. If he did not die to-day he would die to-morrow. There was not room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the Machine can have no mercy

We have lost a part of ourselves. [...] Man is the measure

“I have been threatened with Homelessness, and I could not tell you such a thing through the Machine.”

But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the skylight small pink clouds, swaying against a background of blue, and as the sun crept higher, its radiance entered direct, brimming down the wall, like a golden sea. A spasm of horror shook her and she rang for the attendant. The attendant too was horrified, but she could do nothing; it was not her place to mend the blind.

“O Machine! O Machine!” and raised the volume to her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence

“I want to see you not through the Machine,” said Kuno. “I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine.”