The Machine Stops, Chapter 1, Adapted

 

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster

Adapted for intermediate level

Chapter I: The Air Ship

Imagine a small room. There is no window or lamp, yet it is filled with a soft light. There are no holes for air, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment the room is filled with beautiful music. A chair is in the center of the room and next to it is a desk—this is all the furniture. In the chair there sits a women of about average height with a very white face. This is her room.

A telephone rang.

The woman touched a button and the music was silent.

'I suppose I must see who it is', she thought, and moved her chair. The chair, like the music, was controlled by machine and it moved her to the other side of the room where the telephone still rang.

'Who is it?' she called. Her voice was angry, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people, in some ways human communication had advanced greatly.

But when she listened to the telephone, her white face began to smile, and she said: 'Very well. Let us talk. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes – for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must give my lecture on "Music during the Australian Period".'

'Be quick!' she said, her irritation returning. 'Be quick, Kuno; I have little time.'

But it was fully fifteen seconds before the tablet she held in her hands turned on. A video appeared on the screen, and she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her. 'Kuno, how slow you are.'

He smiled seriously.

'I really believe you enjoy wasting time.'

'I called you before, mother, but you were always busy. I have something important to say.'

'What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not send it by message?'

'Because I prefer saying such a thing. I want----'

'Well?'

'I want you to come and see me.'

Vashti watched his face on the screen.

'But I can see you!' she cried. 'What more do you want?'

'I don’t want to see you through the Machine,' said Kuno. 'I don’t want to speak to you through the boring Machine.'

'Oh, quiet!' said his mother, somewhat shocked. 'You mustn't say anything against the Machine.'

 

'Why not?'

'One mustn't.'

'You talk as if a god made the Machine,' cried her son.

'I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is great, but it is not everything. I see something like you on this screen, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come.  Come to visit me, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind.'

She replied that she hardly had the time for a visit.

'The air-ship takes less than two days to fly between me and you.'

'I dislike air-ships.'

'Why?'

'I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air-ship.'

'I do not get them anywhere else.” He said.

'What kind of ideas can the air give you?'

He thought for a moment.

'Do you know those four big stars that form a rectangle, the three stars close together in the middle of the rectangle, and the three little stars inside the middle stars?'

'No, I do not. I dislike the stars. But did they give you an idea? How interesting; tell me.'

'I had an idea that they were like a man.'

'I do not understand.'

'The four big stars are the man's shoulders and his legs.

The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three little stars are like a sword.'

'A sword?'

'Men carried swords about with them, to kill animals and other men.'

'It does not seem to me as a very good idea, but it is certainly original. When did it come to you first?'

'In the air-ship-----' He quickly stopped speaking, and she thought that he looked sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not teach people to focus on expressions of emotion, but only general thoughts.

 

'The truth is,' he continued, 'that I want to see these stars again. They are interesting stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth.' She was shocked again.

'Mother, you must come, if only to explain to me what is the harm of visiting the surface of the earth.'

'No harm,' she replied, controlling herself. 'But no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator to breathe, or the cold of the outside air would kill you. One dies immediately in the outside air.'

'I know; of course I shall take all precautions.'

'And besides----'

'Well?'

She thought, and chose her words with care. Her son had a strange character and she wished to stop him from the journey.

'It is against the spirit of our time,' she stated.

'Do you mean by that, against the Machine?'

'In a way, but----'

He ended the video call.

'Kuno!'

For a moment Vashti felt lonely.

Then she turned to the buttons everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that brought literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was connected to all that she cared for in the world.

Vashanti's next move was to turn on the public connection and the minutes came to her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking connections. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an appointment to visit the public nurseries at an early date?

To most of these questions she replied with irritation – a growing quality in that fast-paced age. She said that the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries because she was busy with other appointments. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one – that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it. Then she turned off her other connections, for it was time to give her lecture on Australian music. The old system of public gatherings in person had been ended a long time ago; Vashti and her audience listened to the lectures from their rooms. Seated in her chair she spoke, while they in their chairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a funny story of music in the pre-Mongolian age, and went on to describe the great explosion of song that followed. Distance and ancient as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she still felt that study of them might repay the musicians of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had used a respirator and visited it lately. Then she ate, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and called for her bed. She didn’t like the bed. It was too large, and she wanted a smaller bed.

Complaint was useless, for beds were of the same size all over the world, and to have had a different size would mean changes to the programming of the Machine. Vashti lay on her bed and reviewed all that had happened recently. Ideas? Hardly any. Events – was Kuno's invitation an event?

By her side, on the little desk, was item from past ages still used-one book. This was the Book of the Machine. In it were instructions against every possible event. If she was hot or cold or sick or didn’t know what to say, she went to the book, and it told her which button to press. The Central Committee published it.

Sitting up in the bed, she took it respectfully in her hands. She looked around the room as if someone might be watching her. Then, half ashamed, half joyful, she said quietly 'O Machine! O Machine!' and kissed the book three times with excitement. Her ritual performed, she turned to page 1367, which gave the times of the leaving of the air-ships from the island in the southern part of the planet, under whose ground she lived, to the island in the northern part of the planet, under which lived her son.

She thought, 'I don’t have the time.'

She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and lectures; she make the room dark and slept. Above her, under her, and around her, the Machine made a continuous low sound; she did not notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears. The earth, carrying her, ran through silence, turning her now to the invisible sun, now to the invisible stars. She awoke and made the room light.

'Kuno!'

'I will not talk to you.' he answered, 'until you come.'

'Have you been on the surface of the earth since we spoke last?'

His image on the screen disappeared.

Again she checked the book. She became very nervous and sat back in her chair. Presently she directed the chair to the wall, and pressed an unfamiliar button. A door in the wall opened. Through the opening she saw tunnel so long that its end was not visible. Should she go to see her son, here was the beginning of the journey.

Of course, she knew all about the communication-system. There was nothing mysterious in it. She would call a car and it would fly with her down the tunnel until it reached the lift to the air-ship station: the system had been in use for many, many years, long before the Machine. And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately come before her own – the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went outside for a change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms! And yet – she was frightened of the tunnel: she had not seen it since her last child was born. Vashti was fearful of a direct experience of life. She moved back into the room, and the wall closed again.

'Kuno,' she said, 'I cannot come to see you. I am not well.'

Immediately a huge device fell on to her out of the ceiling, a thermometer automatically laid upon her head. She lay powerless as the sensors checked her. Kuno had sent a message to her doctor.

Vashti drank the medicine given to her by the Machine, and the devices went back into the ceiling. The voice of Kuno was heard asking how she felt.

'Better.' Then with irritation: 'But why do you not come to me instead?'

'Because I cannot leave this place.'

'Why?'

'Because, any moment, something wonderful may happen.'

'Have you been on the surface of the earth yet?'

'Not yet.'

'Then what is it?'

'I will not tell you through the Machine.'

She began her regular routine again.

But she thought of Kuno as a baby, his birth, his removal to the public nurseries, her own visit to him there, his visits to her – visits which stopped when the Machine had given him a room on the other side of the earth. Duties of parents,' said the book of the Machine,' end at the moment of birth.' True, but there was something special about Kuno – indeed there had been something special about all her children – and, after all, she must be brave and go on this journey if he desired it. And 'something wonderful might happen'. What did that mean? The silliness of a young man, no doubt, but she must go. Again she pressed the unfamiliar button, again the door opened, and she saw the long tunnel. Holding the Book tightly, she rose, and walked weakly on to the platform, and called the car. Her room closed behind her: the journey to the northern part of the earth had begun.

Of course it was perfectly easy. The car came and in it she found seats exactly like her own. When she signalled, it stopped, and she walked unsteadily into the lift. One other passenger was in the lift, the first person she had seen face to face for months. Few people travelled these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid transportation, from which the previous civilization had hoped for so much, had ended by destroying itself. What was the good of going to China when it was just like Briton? Why return to Briton when it would all be like China? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.

 

The air-ships were an old service from the former age. It was kept up, because it was easier to keep it up than to stop it, but most of the population no longer wanted to use it. Ship after ship would rise from the entrances of Rye or of Christchurch (I use the old names), would fly into the crowded sky, and would land at the stations of the south – empty. So nicely adjusted was the system, so independent of the weather, that the sky, whether calm or cloudy, was filled with these ships. The ship on which Vashti flew started either at sunset or at dawn. Night and day, wind and storm, ocean waves and natural disasters stopped humanity no longer. We had mastered the power of Nature. All the old literature, with its praise of Nature, and its fear of Nature, was like the silly words of a child.

Yet as Vashti saw the huge side of the ship, her fear of direct experience returned. It was not quite like the air-ship in the films. For one thing, it had a smell – not strong or unpleasant, but it did smell, and with her eyes closed she should have known that a new thing was close to her. Then she had to walk to it from the lift, while other passengers could look at her. The man in front dropped his Book – no great matter, but it disturbed them all. In the rooms, if the Book was dropped, the floor raised it mechanically, but the way to the air-ship was not so prepared, and the sacred book lay on the ground. They stopped – not knowing what to do – and the man, instead of picking up the book, was confused, and his arms seems almost not to know how to pick up things by themselves. Then someone actually said, 'We shall be late' – and they moved on to the ship.

Inside, her nervousness increased. The arrangements were old-fashioned and rough. There was even a women flight attendant, to whom she would have to speak if she needed or wanted anything during the flight. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and her body filled with anger. The doors had closed she could not go back. She saw the lift in which she had come going quietly up and down, empty. Under those halls were rooms, level below level, going far into the earth, and in each room there sat a human eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. And buried deep on one of these levels was her own room. Vashti was afraid. 'O Machine!' she said quietly, and held her Book, and felt better.

Then the air-ship, coming from its tunnel, flew above the waters of a tropical ocean into the sky.

It was night. For a moment she saw the coast below, and then only the stars distracted her. They were not motionless, but moved slightly above her head, as if the universe and not the air-ship was moving. This made her feel uncomfortable. 'Are we to travel in the dark?' the passengers asked angrily, and the attendant, who had been careless, turned on the light, and pulled down the blinds. When the air-ships had been built, people still had the desire to look direct at things in the world. As a result, the extraordinary number of windows on the plane, and the discomfort to those who were civilized and cultured. Even in Vashti's cabin one star was still visible through a mistake in the blind, and after a few hours' uneasy sleep, she was disturbed by an unfamiliar glow, which was the sunrise.

As the ship quickly flew west, the earth had turned east quicker still, and had taken Vashti and her companions back towards the sun. Science could make the night longer, but only for a little, and those high hopes of stopping the earth's rotation had passed, together with hopes that were possibly higher. Airplanes had been built capable of extremely high speeds, and guided by the smartest people on the times. Around the globe they went, round and round, westward, westward, round and round, among humanity's praise. But they were not fast enough. Horrible accidents happened, and the Committee of the Machine, at the time becoming more important, stated that further attempts illegal, not best for the society, and punished by Homelessness.

 

About Homelessness more will be said later.

Without a doubt, the Committee was right. Yet the attempt to fly faster than the sun brought the last common interest that humanity experienced about the sun and planets, or indeed about anything. It was the last time that people thought of a power outside the world. The sun was still the winner, yet it was the end of his spiritual power. Sunrise, afternoon, sunset, the entire path of the sun touched neither humanity’s lives not their hearts, and science went away into the ground, to concentrate on problems that she was certain of solving.

So when Vashti found the light from morning entering her cabin, she was annoyed, and tried to put down the blind. But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the window small pink clouds, against a background of blue, and as the sun slowly went higher, its brightness entered direct, coming down the wall, like a golden sea. It rose and fell with the air-ship's motion, just as waves rise and fall, but it advanced steadily, as a wave advances. Unless she was careful, it would hit her face. She felt horror and she called for the attendant. The attendant too was horrified, but she could do nothing; she was not able to fix the blind. She could only suggest that the Vashti change her cabin, which she prepared to do.

People were almost exactly alike all over the world, but the attendant of the air-ship, perhaps because of her special duties, had become somewhat different. She often had to talk to passengers with direct speech, and this had given her a certain roughness and uniqueness of manner. When Vashti moved away from the sunlight with a cry, she behaved rudely– she put out her hand to stop Vashti from falling.

'How could you!' shouted Vashti. 'That's so rude!'

The woman was confused, and apologized for not letting her fall. People never touched each other. The custom had disappeared because of the Machine.

'Where are we now?' asked Vashti in an overly proud way.

'We are over Asia,' said the attendant, nervous to be polite.

'Asia?'

'You must excuse my common way of speaking. I have got into the habit of calling places over which I fly by their  before-machine names.'

'Oh, I remember Asia. The Mongols came from it.'

'Under us, in the open air, stood a city that was once called Simla.' 'Have you ever heard of the Mongols and of the Brisbane school?'

'No.'

'Brisbane also stood in the open air.'

'Those mountains to the right – let me show you them.' She pushed back the blind. The main part of the Himalayas was revealed. 'They were once called the Roof of the World, those mountains.'

 

'You must remember that, before the rise of civilization, they seemed to be an wall that touched the stars. It was supposed that no one but the gods could live above their tops. How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!'

'How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!' said Vashti.

'How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!' repeated the passenger who had dropped his Book the night before, and who was standing in the passage.

'Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas.'

The northern part of the Himalayas was in deep shadow: on the Indian side the sun had just started to be seen. The forests had been destroyed during the era literature for the purpose of making newspapers, but the snows could be seen in their morning glory. On the plain were seen the ruins of cities, with rivers going by their walls, and by the sides of these were sometimes the structures of the entrances to the tunnels under the earth, which lead to the cities of today. Over this area air-ships rushed, rising and flying  with ease above the earth and the roof of the world.

'We have indeed advanced, thanks to the Machine,' repeated the attendant, and hid the Himalayas behind the blind.

The day went  slowly forward. The passengers each sat in their own cabins, trying not to see each other with an almost physical dislike and hope to be once again under the surface of the earth. There were eight or ten of them, mostly young men, sent from the public nurseries to live in the rooms of those who died in different parts of the earth. The man who dropped his Book was on his journey home. He had been sent to Sumatra make a baby with a women there. Only Vashti was travelling by choice.

At noon she looked again at the earth. The air-ship was crossing another group of mountains, but she could see little, because of clouds. Big black rock were seen below her, and came together into grey. Their shapes were fantastic; one of them looked like  a man lying on the ground.

'No ideas here,' Vashti quietly said to herself, and covered the Caucasus mountains with the blind. In the evening she looked again. They were crossing a golden sea, in which lay many small islands and one peninsula. She repeated, 'No ideas here,' and covered Greece behind the blind.

 

Rang:  past tense of to ring; the sound a bell makes.

 Button: a switch press to controla piece of equipment:

To suppose: something that you should do.

Interrupted: to stop someone while they are talking or doing something, by saying or doing something yourself.

Advanced: having developed or progressed to a late stage.

appeared:  to start to be seen.

Pray: to speak to a god in order to show your feelings or to ask for something.

Air-ship: A type of airplane that the people in the story use for transportation.

Sword: a weapon with a long, metal blade and a handle, used especially in the past.

Ancestors: a relative who lived a long time ago.

Surface

advantage

remains

respirator

immediately

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster

Adapted for intermediate level

Chapter I: The Air Ship

Imagine a small room. There is no window or lamp, yet it is filled with a soft light. There are no holes for air, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment the room is filled with beautiful music. A chair is in the center of the room and next to it is a desk—this is all the furniture. In the chair there sits a women of about average height with a very white face. This is her room.

A telephone rang.

The woman touched a button and the music was silent.

'I suppose I must see who it is', she thought, and moved her chair. The chair, like the music, was controlled by machine and it moved her to the other side of the room where the telephone still rang.

'Who is it?' she called. Her voice was angry, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people, in some ways human communication had advanced greatly.

But when she listened to the telephone, her white face began to smile, and she said: 'Very well. Let us talk. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes – for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must give my lecture on "Music during the Australian Period".'

'Be quick!' she said, her irritation returning. 'Be quick, Kuno; I have little time.'

But it was fully fifteen seconds before the tablet she held in her hands turned on. A video appeared on the screen, and she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her. 'Kuno, how slow you are.'

He smiled seriously.

'I really believe you enjoy wasting time.'

'I called you before, mother, but you were always busy. I have something important to say.'

'What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not send it by message?'

'Because I prefer saying such a thing. I want----'

'Well?'

'I want you to come and see me.'

Vashti watched his face on the screen.

'But I can see you!' she cried. 'What more do you want?'

'I don’t want to see you through the Machine,' said Kuno. 'I don’t want to speak to you through the boring Machine.'

'Oh, quiet!' said his mother, somewhat shocked. 'You mustn't say anything against the Machine.'

 

'Why not?'

'One mustn't.'

'You talk as if a god made the Machine,' cried her son.

'I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is great, but it is not everything. I see something like you on this screen, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come.  Come to visit me, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind.'

She replied that she hardly had the time for a visit.

'The air-ship takes less than two days to fly between me and you.'

'I dislike air-ships.'

'Why?'

'I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air-ship.'

'I do not get them anywhere else.” He said.

'What kind of ideas can the air give you?'

He thought for a moment.

'Do you know those four big stars that form a rectangle, the three stars close together in the middle of the rectangle, and the three little stars inside the middle stars?'

'No, I do not. I dislike the stars. But did they give you an idea? How interesting; tell me.'

'I had an idea that they were like a man.'

'I do not understand.'

'The four big stars are the man's shoulders and his legs.

The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three little stars are like a sword.'

'A sword?'

'Men carried swords about with them, to kill animals and other men.'

'It does not seem to me as a very good idea, but it is certainly original. When did it come to you first?'

'In the air-ship-----' He quickly stopped speaking, and she thought that he looked sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not teach people to focus on expressions of emotion, but only general thoughts.

 

'The truth is,' he continued, 'that I want to see these stars again. They are interesting stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth.' She was shocked again.

'Mother, you must come, if only to explain to me what is the harm of visiting the surface of the earth.'

'No harm,' she replied, controlling herself. 'But no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no advantage. The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator to breathe, or the cold of the outside air would kill you. One dies immediately in the outside air.'

'I know; of course I shall take all precautions.'

'And besides----'

'Well?'

She thought, and chose her words with care. Her son had a strange character and she wished to stop him from the journey.

'It is against the spirit of our time,' she stated.

'Do you mean by that, against the Machine?'

'In a way, but----'

He ended the video call.

'Kuno!'

For a moment Vashti felt lonely.

Then she turned to the buttons everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that brought literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was connected to all that she cared for in the world.

Vashanti's next move was to turn on the public connection and the minutes came to her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking connections. What was the new food like? Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make an appointment to visit the public nurseries at an early date?

To most of these questions she replied with irritation – a growing quality in that fast-paced age. She said that the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries because she was busy with other appointments. That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one – that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it. Then she turned off her other connections, for it was time to give her lecture on Australian music. The old system of public gatherings in person had been ended a long time ago; Vashti and her audience listened to the lectures from their rooms. Seated in her chair she spoke, while they in their chairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a funny story of music in the pre-Mongolian age, and went on to describe the great explosion of song that followed. Distance and ancient as were the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she still felt that study of them might repay the musicians of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had used a respirator and visited it lately. Then she ate, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and called for her bed. She didn’t like the bed. It was too large, and she wanted a smaller bed.

Complaint was useless, for beds were of the same size all over the world, and to have had a different size would mean changes to the programming of the Machine. Vashti lay on her bed and reviewed all that had happened recently. Ideas? Hardly any. Events – was Kuno's invitation an event?

By her side, on the little desk, was item from past ages still used-one book. This was the Book of the Machine. In it were instructions against every possible event. If she was hot or cold or sick or didn’t know what to say, she went to the book, and it told her which button to press. The Central Committee published it.

Sitting up in the bed, she took it respectfully in her hands. She looked around the room as if someone might be watching her. Then, half ashamed, half joyful, she said quietly 'O Machine! O Machine!' and kissed the book three times with excitement. Her ritual performed, she turned to page 1367, which gave the times of the leaving of the air-ships from the island in the southern part of the planet, under whose ground she lived, to the island in the northern part of the planet, under which lived her son.

She thought, 'I don’t have the time.'

She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and lectures; she make the room dark and slept. Above her, under her, and around her, the Machine made a continuous low sound; she did not notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears. The earth, carrying her, ran through silence, turning her now to the invisible sun, now to the invisible stars. She awoke and made the room light.

'Kuno!'

'I will not talk to you.' he answered, 'until you come.'

'Have you been on the surface of the earth since we spoke last?'

His image on the screen disappeared.

Again she checked the book. She became very nervous and sat back in her chair. Presently she directed the chair to the wall, and pressed an unfamiliar button. A door in the wall opened. Through the opening she saw tunnel so long that its end was not visible. Should she go to see her son, here was the beginning of the journey.

Of course, she knew all about the communication-system. There was nothing mysterious in it. She would call a car and it would fly with her down the tunnel until it reached the lift to the air-ship station: the system had been in use for many, many years, long before the Machine. And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately come before her own – the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went outside for a change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms! And yet – she was frightened of the tunnel: she had not seen it since her last child was born. Vashti was fearful of a direct experience of life. She moved back into the room, and the wall closed again.

'Kuno,' she said, 'I cannot come to see you. I am not well.'

Immediately a huge device fell on to her out of the ceiling, a thermometer automatically laid upon her head. She lay powerless as the sensors checked her. Kuno had sent a message to her doctor.

Vashti drank the medicine given to her by the Machine, and the devices went back into the ceiling. The voice of Kuno was heard asking how she felt.

'Better.' Then with irritation: 'But why do you not come to me instead?'

'Because I cannot leave this place.'

'Why?'

'Because, any moment, something wonderful may happen.'

'Have you been on the surface of the earth yet?'

'Not yet.'

'Then what is it?'

'I will not tell you through the Machine.'

She began her regular routine again.

But she thought of Kuno as a baby, his birth, his removal to the public nurseries, her own visit to him there, his visits to her – visits which stopped when the Machine had given him a room on the other side of the earth. Duties of parents,' said the book of the Machine,' end at the moment of birth.' True, but there was something special about Kuno – indeed there had been something special about all her children – and, after all, she must be brave and go on this journey if he desired it. And 'something wonderful might happen'. What did that mean? The silliness of a young man, no doubt, but she must go. Again she pressed the unfamiliar button, again the door opened, and she saw the long tunnel. Holding the Book tightly, she rose, and walked weakly on to the platform, and called the car. Her room closed behind her: the journey to the northern part of the earth had begun.

Of course it was perfectly easy. The car came and in it she found seats exactly like her own. When she signalled, it stopped, and she walked unsteadily into the lift. One other passenger was in the lift, the first person she had seen face to face for months. Few people travelled these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid transportation, from which the previous civilization had hoped for so much, had ended by destroying itself. What was the good of going to China when it was just like Briton? Why return to Briton when it would all be like China? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.

 

The air-ships were an old service from the former age. It was kept up, because it was easier to keep it up than to stop it, but most of the population no longer wanted to use it. Ship after ship would rise from the entrances of Rye or of Christchurch (I use the old names), would fly into the crowded sky, and would land at the stations of the south – empty. So nicely adjusted was the system, so independent of the weather, that the sky, whether calm or cloudy, was filled with these ships. The ship on which Vashti flew started either at sunset or at dawn. Night and day, wind and storm, ocean waves and natural disasters stopped humanity no longer. We had mastered the power of Nature. All the old literature, with its praise of Nature, and its fear of Nature, was like the silly words of a child.

Yet as Vashti saw the huge side of the ship, her fear of direct experience returned. It was not quite like the air-ship in the films. For one thing, it had a smell – not strong or unpleasant, but it did smell, and with her eyes closed she should have known that a new thing was close to her. Then she had to walk to it from the lift, while other passengers could look at her. The man in front dropped his Book – no great matter, but it disturbed them all. In the rooms, if the Book was dropped, the floor raised it mechanically, but the way to the air-ship was not so prepared, and the sacred book lay on the ground. They stopped – not knowing what to do – and the man, instead of picking up the book, was confused, and his arms seems almost not to know how to pick up things by themselves. Then someone actually said, 'We shall be late' – and they moved on to the ship.

Inside, her nervousness increased. The arrangements were old-fashioned and rough. There was even a women flight attendant, to whom she would have to speak if she needed or wanted anything during the flight. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and her body filled with anger. The doors had closed she could not go back. She saw the lift in which she had come going quietly up and down, empty. Under those halls were rooms, level below level, going far into the earth, and in each room there sat a human eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. And buried deep on one of these levels was her own room. Vashti was afraid. 'O Machine!' she said quietly, and held her Book, and felt better.

Then the air-ship, coming from its tunnel, flew above the waters of a tropical ocean into the sky.

It was night. For a moment she saw the coast below, and then only the stars distracted her. They were not motionless, but moved slightly above her head, as if the universe and not the air-ship was moving. This made her feel uncomfortable. 'Are we to travel in the dark?' the passengers asked angrily, and the attendant, who had been careless, turned on the light, and pulled down the blinds. When the air-ships had been built, people still had the desire to look direct at things in the world. As a result, the extraordinary number of windows on the plane, and the discomfort to those who were civilized and cultured. Even in Vashti's cabin one star was still visible through a mistake in the blind, and after a few hours' uneasy sleep, she was disturbed by an unfamiliar glow, which was the sunrise.

As the ship quickly flew west, the earth had turned east quicker still, and had taken Vashti and her companions back towards the sun. Science could make the night longer, but only for a little, and those high hopes of stopping the earth's rotation had passed, together with hopes that were possibly higher. Airplanes had been built capable of extremely high speeds, and guided by the smartest people on the times. Around the globe they went, round and round, westward, westward, round and round, among humanity's praise. But they were not fast enough. Horrible accidents happened, and the Committee of the Machine, at the time becoming more important, stated that further attempts illegal, not best for the society, and punished by Homelessness.

 

About Homelessness more will be said later.

Without a doubt, the Committee was right. Yet the attempt to fly faster than the sun brought the last common interest that humanity experienced about the sun and planets, or indeed about anything. It was the last time that people thought of a power outside the world. The sun was still the winner, yet it was the end of his spiritual power. Sunrise, afternoon, sunset, the entire path of the sun touched neither humanity’s lives not their hearts, and science went away into the ground, to concentrate on problems that she was certain of solving.

So when Vashti found the light from morning entering her cabin, she was annoyed, and tried to put down the blind. But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the window small pink clouds, against a background of blue, and as the sun slowly went higher, its brightness entered direct, coming down the wall, like a golden sea. It rose and fell with the air-ship's motion, just as waves rise and fall, but it advanced steadily, as a wave advances. Unless she was careful, it would hit her face. She felt horror and she called for the attendant. The attendant too was horrified, but she could do nothing; she was not able to fix the blind. She could only suggest that the Vashti change her cabin, which she prepared to do.

People were almost exactly alike all over the world, but the attendant of the air-ship, perhaps because of her special duties, had become somewhat different. She often had to talk to passengers with direct speech, and this had given her a certain roughness and uniqueness of manner. When Vashti moved away from the sunlight with a cry, she behaved rudely– she put out her hand to stop Vashti from falling.

'How could you!' shouted Vashti. 'That's so rude!'

The woman was confused, and apologized for not letting her fall. People never touched each other. The custom had disappeared because of the Machine.

'Where are we now?' asked Vashti in an overly proud way.

'We are over Asia,' said the attendant, nervous to be polite.

'Asia?'

'You must excuse my common way of speaking. I have got into the habit of calling places over which I fly by their  before-machine names.'

'Oh, I remember Asia. The Mongols came from it.'

'Under us, in the open air, stood a city that was once called Simla.' 'Have you ever heard of the Mongols and of the Brisbane school?'

'No.'

'Brisbane also stood in the open air.'

'Those mountains to the right – let me show you them.' She pushed back the blind. The main part of the Himalayas was revealed. 'They were once called the Roof of the World, those mountains.'

 

'You must remember that, before the rise of civilization, they seemed to be an wall that touched the stars. It was supposed that no one but the gods could live above their tops. How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!'

'How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!' said Vashti.

'How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!' repeated the passenger who had dropped his Book the night before, and who was standing in the passage.

'Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas.'

The northern part of the Himalayas was in deep shadow: on the Indian side the sun had just started to be seen. The forests had been destroyed during the era literature for the purpose of making newspapers, but the snows could be seen in their morning glory. On the plain were seen the ruins of cities, with rivers going by their walls, and by the sides of these were sometimes the structures of the entrances to the tunnels under the earth, which lead to the cities of today. Over this area air-ships rushed, rising and flying  with ease above the earth and the roof of the world.

'We have indeed advanced, thanks to the Machine,' repeated the attendant, and hid the Himalayas behind the blind.

The day went  slowly forward. The passengers each sat in their own cabins, trying not to see each other with an almost physical dislike and hope to be once again under the surface of the earth. There were eight or ten of them, mostly young men, sent from the public nurseries to live in the rooms of those who died in different parts of the earth. The man who dropped his Book was on his journey home. He had been sent to Sumatra make a baby with a women there. Only Vashti was travelling by choice.

At noon she looked again at the earth. The air-ship was crossing another group of mountains, but she could see little, because of clouds. Big black rock were seen below her, and came together into grey. Their shapes were fantastic; one of them looked like  a man lying on the ground.

'No ideas here,' Vashti quietly said to herself, and covered the Caucasus mountains with the blind. In the evening she looked again. They were crossing a golden sea, in which lay many small islands and one peninsula. She repeated, 'No ideas here,' and covered Greece behind the blind.

 

Vocabulary 

Rang:  past tense of to ring; the sound a bell makes.

Button: a switch to press to control a piece of equipment.

To suppose: something that you should do.

Interrupted: to stop someone while they are talking or doing something, by saying or doing something yourself.

Advanced: having developed or progressed to a late stage.

Appeared:  to start to be seen.

Pray: to speak to a god in order to show your feelings or to ask for something.

Air-ship: A type of airplane that the people in the story use for transportation.

Sword: a weapon with a long, metal blade and a handle, used especially in the past.

Ancestors: a relative who lived a long time ago.

Surface: the outside or top layer of something.

Advantage: a quality of something that makes it better or more useful.

To remain:  to still be present after the other parts have been removed, used, etc.; to continue to exist.

Respirator: a piece of equipment that makes it possible for somebody to breathe over a long period when they are unable to do so naturally.

Immediately: at once; without delay; instantly.

Precautions: Actions taken to prevent something unpleasant or dangerous from happening.

Nurseries: Places where young plants, flowers, or trees are grown and cared for.

Fast-paced: Happening quickly or at a high speed.

In person: Meeting or communicating directly with someone face-to-face.

Ancient: Very old, often referring to things from a long time ago.

Complaint: A statement expressing dissatisfaction or unhappiness about something.

Ashamed: Feeling guilty or embarrassed about one's actions.

Direct experience: Personal involvement or participation in a situation without any intermediary.

Duties: Tasks or responsibilities that someone is required to do.

Unsteadily: In an unstable or shaky manner.

Praise: Expressing approval or admiration for someone's achievements or qualities.

 Disturbed: Feeling upset, troubled, or bothered.

Scared: Feeling afraid or frightened.

To pick up: To lift or take something from a surface.

Arrangements: Plans or preparations made for a particular purpose.

Old-fashioned: Outdated or not in style anymore.

Flight attendant: A person who works on an airplane, helping passengers and ensuring their safety.

Buried: Covered or hidden beneath something.

Blinds: Window coverings that can be adjusted to control the amount of light entering a room.

Homelessness: The state of being without a permanent home.

Indeed: Used to emphasize the truth of a statement or to agree with something said.

Background: The information, environment, or circumstances that precede an event or situation.

Alike: Similar or having resemblances.

Manner: The way in which something is done or happens.

Confused: Feeling uncertain or bewildered, lacking clarity.

Custom: A traditional way of behaving or doing something that is specific to a particular society or group.

Himalayas: A mountain range in Asia, known for its high peaks.

Glory: Great honor, praise, or distinction.

Plain: Simple or not elaborate, without decorations.

Ruins: The remains of something that has been destroyed or severely damaged.

 

Excerpts from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Adapted for Upper Intermediate Level

 

Excerpts from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

(1845)

Adapted for upper intermediate level

Frederick Douglass (c. February 1817– February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century. 

After escaping from slavery in 1838 at the age of 30, Douglass participated in the Abolitionist movement in the North, appearing regularly as a lecturer. He published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life, in 1845 (he was to publish two more), exposing himself to the risk of re-enslavement. He left in the same year for a trip to England, and with the help of supporters, he was able to collect enough money to buy his freedom and establish his own newspaper, The North Star, when he returned to the States.

In addition to his work in the Abolitionist movement and African American civil rights, he support other progressive movements for the time, such as advancing the rights of women. During the Civil War, he helped recruit African Americans for the Union army and he advised President Lincoln. After the war, he supported Reconstruction and Republican Presidents and served in several government positions including United States Marshal for the District of Columbia and ambassador to the Republic of Haiti.  

The following excerpts are from Douglass’s first autobiography, Narrative of a life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave. They chronicle his life from his birth as a slave on a plantation near Easton Maryland and in the household of the Auld family in Baltimore, to his escape from slavery. The book is considered to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period, and is one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.

-Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, since I have never seen any authentic record containing it. Most slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and to my knowledge, it is the wish of most masters to keep their slaves ignorant of this. I do not remember ever meeting a slave who knew his own birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest- time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A lack of information concerning my own birthday was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought not to have the same privilege. I was not allowed to ask my master any questions concerning it. He believed all such questions from a slave improper and disrespectful, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty- eight years old. I come to this, from hearing my master say, sometime during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.

My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather.

My father was a white man. Some people also whispered that my master was my father; but I do not know if this opinion is correct. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant -- before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to separate children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and sent to work on some farm fairly far away, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. Why this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to stop the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to dull and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.

I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short, and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission from his or her master -- a permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew anything about it. Since I was never able to enjoy, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the news of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.

She left me without the slightest idea of who my father was. The whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it matters little to my purpose while the fact remains, in all its clear hatefulness, that slaveholders have declared, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases become slaves like their mothers; and this is done too obviously to manage their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in not just a few cases, has the double relationship to his slaves of master and father.

I know of such cases; and it is worthy of remark that such slaves always suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with, than others. They are, in the first place, a constant offence to their mistress. She will always find fault with them; they can seldom do anything to please her; she is never better pleased than when she sees them whipped, especially when she suspects her husband of showing to his mixed race children favors which he withholds from his black slaves. The master is frequently forced to sell this class of his slaves, to make his white wife feel better; and, cruel as the deed may be, for a man to sell his own children to slave traders, it is often the rule of humanity for him to do so; for, unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, who has only a little darker complexion than himself, and use the bloody whip to his naked back; and if he whispers one word of disapproval, it is considered to be because of his favor as a parent, and only makes a bad matter worse, both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend.

I have had two masters. My first master's name was Anthony. I do not remember his first name…He was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer. The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunk and a savage monster. He always went armed with a whip and a heavy club. I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be greatly angered at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary brutality on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave- holding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most horrible screams of an aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up, and whip her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his bloody victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its horrible purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her quiet; and not until overcome by tiredness, would he stop to swing the bloody whip. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it while I remember anything. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could write down on paper the feelings I had when I saw it

This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one night, -- where or for what I do not know, -- and happened to be absent when my master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go out evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in company with a young man, who was paying attention to her. The young man's name was Ned Roberts, generally called Lloyd's Ned, since he belonged to Colonel Lloyd. Why master was so careful of her, it’s fairly easy to guess. She was a woman of noble form and beauty, having very few equals in appearance, among the colored or white women of our neighborhood.

Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had been found with Lloyd's Ned; and this,  I found from what he said while whipping her, was the chief crime. If he had been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and removed her clothes from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time a d -- -d b -- -h. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook. He made her get on the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. She now stood for his hellish purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of her toes. He then said to her, "Now, you d -- -d b -- -h, I'll teach you how to disobey my orders!" and he began to whip her, and soon the warm, red blood (among terrible screams from her, and horrible curses from him) fell to the floor. I was so terrified and struck with horror at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and did not dare to come out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen anything like it before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the edge of the plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred on the plantation. . . .

The home plantation of Colonel Lloyd looked like a country village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed here. The shoemaking, the blacksmith work, processing the grain and other work, were all performed by the slaves on the home plantation. The whole place had a business-like aspect very unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, gave it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the slaves the GREAT HOUSE FARM. Few privileges were considered higher, by the slaves of the other farms, than being selected to do errands at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the other farms would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of great confidence given to them by their overseers; and it was for this reason, as well as a constant desire to be out of the field from under the overseer’s whip, that they thought of it as a high privilege. He was called the smartest and most trusted fellow, who had this honor given to him most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as strongly to please their overseers, as the office-seekers in the political parties seek to please and deceive the people. 

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the old woods, for miles around, shake with their wild songs, showing at the same time the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along. They would sometimes sing the saddest emotion in the most joyful way, and the most joyful emotion in the saddest way. Into all of their songs they would manage to combine something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most energetically the following words: --

"I am going away to the Great House Farm!

O, yea! O, yea! O!"

I have sometimes thought that just hearing those songs would do more to show the horrible character of slavery, than reading whole books on this subject.

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently illogical songs. They told a tale of despair which was then totally beyond my weak understanding; they were sounds loud, long, and deep; they sung the prayer and complaint of souls boiling with the bitterest suffering. Every sound was proof against slavery, and a prayer to God for freedom. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with inexpressible sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. Hearing those songs, even now, upsets me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first small light of conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brothers in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation… 

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly began to teach me the A, B, Cs. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbid Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take a foot. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master -- to do as he is told to do. Learning would SPOIL the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would make him forever unfit to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay sleeping, and brought up entirely new thoughts. It was a new and special discovery, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled with unsuccessfully. I now understood what had been to me a most confusing difficulty --the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. While I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the smallest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost, to learn how to read. The very definite manner with which he spoke, and tried to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sure of the truths he was saying. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the greatest confidence on the results which, he said, would come from teaching me to read. What he most feared, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully avoided, was to me a great good, to be persistently sought; and the argument which he so warmly advised, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both. . . .

I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being A SLAVE FOR LIFE began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled "The Columbian Speaker." Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among many interesting matters, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave had run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument for slavery was given by the master, all of which was disproven by the slave. The slave said some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master -- things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the master deciding to free the slave. 

In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on freedom from slavery. These were excellent documents for me. I read them over and over again with great interest. They expressed interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently run through my mind, and died quickly because I could not speak them. The conclusion which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the sense of right and wrong of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold criticism of slavery, and a powerful justification of human rights. The reading of these documents enabled me to express my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to support slavery; but while they helped me with one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful one. The more I read, the more I was led to hate my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land brought us to slavery. I hated them as being the meanest as well as the wicked of men. As I read and thought deeply about the subject, that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and hurt my soul to unspeakable suffering. As I struggled under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my horrible condition, without the cure. It opened my eyes to the awful pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of pain, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity…Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that distressed me. There was no getting rid of it…The reward of freedom had woken my soul. Freedom now appeared, and would never disappear. It was heard in every sound, and seen in everything. It was always present to make me suffer with a sense of my poor condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.

I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and except for the hope of being free, I have no doubt that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed. While in this state of mind, I was eager to hear any one speak of slavery. I was a ready listener. Every little while, I could hear something about the abolitionists. It was some time before I found what the word meant. It was always used in such connections to make it an interesting word to me. If a slave ran away and succeeded in escaping, or if a slave killed his master, burned a building, or did anything very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of as the achievement of ABOLITION. Hearing the word in this connection very often, I set about learning what it meant... The understanding of it came slowly. I went one day down on the dock of Mr. Waters; and seeing two Irishmen unloading cargo, I went, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished, one of them came to me and asked me if I were a slave. I told him I was. He asked, "Are you a slave for life?" I told him that I was. The good Irishman seemed to be deeply affected by the statement. He said to the other that it was a pity so fine a little fellow as myself should be a slave for life. He said it was a shame to hold me. They both advised me to run away to the north; that I should find friends there, and that I should be free. I pretended not to be interested in what they said, and treated them as if I did not understand them; for I feared that it might be a trick. White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to get the reward, catch them and return them to their masters. I was afraid that these seemingly good men might try to do this to me; but I nevertheless remembered their advice, and from that time I decided to run away. I looked forward to a time when it would be safe for me to escape. I was too young to think of doing so immediately; besides, I wished to learn how to write, as I might have the need to write my own pass. I consoled myself with the hope that I should one day find a good chance to escape. Meanwhile, I would learn to write. . . .

*****

My object in working steadily was to remove any suspicion he [Douglass’s master] might have of my desire to run away; and in this I succeeded well. I suppose he thought I was never happier with my life than at the very time during which I was planning my escape. 

The thought of leaving my friends was definitely the most painful thought I had. The love of them was my tender point, and shook my decision more than all other things. Besides the pain of separation, the fear of failure was greater than what I had experienced at my first attempt [Douglass’s first attempt to escape failed]. The awful defeat I experienced then returned to pain me. I felt certain that, if I failed in this attempt, my case would be a hopeless one—it would make it certain that I would be a slave forever. I could not hope to receive anything less than the severest punishment, and being placed beyond the possibility of escape. It required no very great imagination to show the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass, if I failed. The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were always before me. It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any kind. How I did so,—what methods I used,—what direction I travelled, and by what way,—I must leave unexplained, for the reasons mentioned before [earlier Douglass explains that he cannot give the details of how he escaped because it would endanger those who helped him and give slaveholders useful information].

*****

I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt like those on a ship who escaped pirates. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival in New York, I said I felt like one who had escaped hungry lions. This state of mind, however, very soon lessened; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was still able to be found and taken back to all the horrors of slavery.

*****

 About four months after I went to New Bedford [New York], a young man came to me, and asked if I wished to subscribe to the "Liberator" [an abolitionist newspaper].  I told him I did; but since I had just escaped from slavery, I was unable to pay for it then. However, I finally became a subscriber to it. The paper came, and I read it from week to week with such feelings, which would be impossible to describe. The paper became my meat and my drink. My soul was set on fire. Its sympathy for my bothers still in slavery -- its harsh criticisms of slaveholders -- its faithful exposures of slavery -- and its powerful attacks upon the supporters of the institution -- sent a thrill of joy through my soul, such as I had never felt before!

*****

I had not long been a reader of the "Liberator," before I got a pretty correct idea of the principles, methods and spirit of the anti-slavery reform movement. I enthusiastically joined the cause. I could not do much; but what I could do, I did with a joyful heart, and never felt happier than when in an anti-slavery meeting. I seldom had much to say at the meetings, because what I wanted to say was said so much better by others. But, while attending an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket, on the 11th of August, 1841, I felt strongly moved to speak, and was at the same time much urged to do so by Mr. William C. Coffin, a gentleman who had heard me speak in the colored people's meeting at New Bedford. It was a difficult challenge, and I did it reluctantly. The truth was, I still felt like a slave, and the idea of speaking to white people weighed me down. I spoke but a few moments, when I felt a degree of freedom, and said what I desired with significant ease. From that time until now, I have been involved in struggling for the cause of my brothers, and with what success and with what devotion, I will let those acquainted with my efforts decide.