[-PART TWELVE-]
{+Chapter Twelve+}
It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house
that I saw the word "I." And when I understood this word, the
book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears.
I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.
I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I
understood why the best in me had been my sins and my
transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I
understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the
spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.
I read {+many+} books for many days. Then I called the Golden One,
and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. She looked
at me and the first words she spoke were:
"I love you."
Then I said:
"My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names.
There was a time when each man had a name of his own to
distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I
have read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago, and of
all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He
took the light of the gods and [-he-] brought it to men, and he taught
men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of
light must suffer. His name was Prometheus."
"It shall be your name," said the Golden One.
"And I have read of a goddess," I said, "who was the mother of
the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be
your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new
kind of gods."
"It shall be my name," said the Golden One.
Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the
pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his heir, as the
heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him
and who died for the same cause, for the same word, no matter
what name they gave to their cause and their truth.
I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the
earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets
from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the
achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them further,
the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my
brothers, for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest [-ones-]
among them.
I have learned that [-my-] {+the+} power of the sky was known to men long
ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that moved
their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light [-which-] {+that+} came
from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the engine
which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how
to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires which
carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my
home, and across the paths which lead to my home; a barrier light
as a cobweb, more impassable [-that-] {+than+} a wall of granite; a barrier my
brothers will never be able to cross. For they have nothing to
fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my
mind.
Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and
nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is
pregnant with my child. [-Our son
will be raised as a man.-] He will be taught to say "I" and to bear
the pride of it. He will be taught to walk straight [-and-] on his own
feet. He will be taught reverence for his own spirit.
When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when
my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day,
for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call
to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and
all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason,
and Solidarity [-9-6347-] {+8-6347+} who calls for help in the night, and a few
others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit
has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of
their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my
fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my
chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter
in the new history of man.
These are the {+last+} things before me. And as I stand here at the
door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon
the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I
wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was
the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from
what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him,
save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.
That is freedom. That and nothing else.
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their
chains. [-The-] {+Then+} he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their
chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race.
But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a
man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take
away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right
of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he
stood on the threshold of [-the-] freedom for which the blood of the
centuries behind him had been spilled.
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his
savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away
from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and
submission? The worship of the word "We."
When men accepted that worship, the structure {+of centuries
collapsed about them, the structure+} whose every beam had come
from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages,
from the depth of some one spirit, such [-spirit-] as {+spirit+} existed but for
its own sake. Those men who [-survived-] {+survived-+} those eager to obey, eager
to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate [-them--those-]
{+them- those+} men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they
had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom
perish on earth. Thus did [-men---] {+men-+} men with nothing to offer save
their great [-number--
lost-] {+numbers- lose+} the steel towers, the flying ships, the
power wires, all the things they had not created and could never
keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and
the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps
these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They [-were-] answered as
I have been [-answered---] {+answered-+} and for the same reasons.
But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years
of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were
going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I
wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word [-"I"-] {+"I,"+}
could give it up and not know what they {+had+} lost. But such has been
the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned,
and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.
Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of
clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word.
What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw
coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and
in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, [-these-]
{+those+} few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their
banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for
they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity.
[-Their-]
{+Theirs+} is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to
tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final,
and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost
can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never
perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which
men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this
earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but
it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men.
[-Here-]
{+Here,+} on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall
build our new land and our fort. And it will become as the heart
of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating
louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner of the
earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will
carry the best of the world's blood to my threshold. And all my
brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but
they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I
shall break [-all-] the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of the
enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where
each man will be free to exist for his own sake.
For the coming of that day [-shall-] I {+shall+} fight, I and my sons and my
chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his
life. For his honor.
And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone
the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which
will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can
never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the
meaning and the glory.
The sacred word:
EGO
