The Actor and the King, a short scene by B Traven

 

 

 Dramatic reading

 

Link

 

 

The Actor and the King
(Ret Marut)

It seldom happens.

Fortunately.

Yet once it did occur that an actor chose a king to be his friend. Or perhaps it was the other way round. But in the end it makes no difference.

The two of them were honest and sincere friends. They quarrelled and were reconciled, as is generally the custom between true friends.

For two years their friendship held.

The actor made no more ado about this friendship than he would have done about a friendship with any other mortal.

One afternoon they went strolling together in the park.

The actor had played a king the evening before. But not a Shakespearean king. The royal patron of the theatre could not endure those. For Shakespeare's kings, notwithstanding their divine right, were quite ordinary men who loved and hated, murdered and reigned - just as it suited their intents and purposes.

The part of the king in the play of the previous evening, however, had been written by an author who was an anarchist at the age of eighteen, though later he was appointed a privy councillor.

It is understandable that this part should have delighted the king enormously and gave him occasion to converse with the actor on the problem of representing kings on the stage.

'What is the sensation you encounter, dear friend, when you appear in the role of a king?'

'I feel myself to be totally a king, with the result that I would be incapable of any gesture which does not suit the character of a king.'

'That I can understand very well. The crowd of extras, bowing before you as the stage directions instruct them to do, sustains your sense of majestic dignity and suggests to the audience that you are indeed a king.'

'Even without the supporting actors I remain a king in the eyes of my audience - even if it should happen that I must be quite alone on stage and deliver a monologue!'

This magnificently artistic conception of the actor's stimulated the king to draw a strictly circumscribed comparison between himself and the thespian king.

'But nonetheless, there remains an unbridgeable abyss between a real king and a theatrical king. However remarkable your performance as a king, you cease to be a king as soon as the curtain descends. Suggestibility and dramatic illusion put an end to your majesty as soon as they cease to operate. Whereas I, my dear fellow, I remain a king even when I lie in my bed!'

To this the actor rejoined, 'My dear friend, your comparison applies to both of us. No more than a short while ago we drove in a carriage to the gates of this park. Countless people lined the streets or ran behind us. They waved - you returned their greeting. They shouted as loud as they had breath, "Long live the King!" and "Hurrah!" - you smiled. Rather smugly. But if these people should ever cease to play their parts as unpaid extras, then you also - and not only in your bed, but also in the clear light of day - you also, my friend, will cease to be a real king!'

The king halted abruptly in his tracks.

He stared fixedly at the actor.

His lips grew pale and began to quiver.

Suddenly he turned on his heel.

Briskly he walked to the carriage and rode home.

Alone.

The friendship was at an end.

The friends never saw one another again.

And never again did the king attend the theater. He became a thinker.

Became obsessed by the notion that he was a quite ordinary mortal.

Consequently had to abdicate.

Died five years later.

His mind deranged.

It was said.

 La Aktoro kaj la Reĝo

Okazas malofte.

Bonŝance.

Sed unufoje tamen okazis, ke aktoro elektis reĝon kiel amikon.

Eble estis ankaŭ male.

Sed tio estas fine egala.

Ambaŭ estis sinceraj kaj bonaj amikoj. Ili kverelis kaj repaciĝis, tiel, kiel tio kutime okazas inter veraj amikoj.

Du jarojn daŭris la amikeco.

La aktoro pri tiu amikeco ne multe bruis, kvazaŭ temus pri la amikeco al kutima homo.

Iam, posttagmeze, ambaŭ promenis en la parko.

Je la vespero antaŭe la artisto rolis kiel reĝo. Ŝekspiran reĝon li ne ludis. Tiujn la reĝa amiko de la teatro ne ŝatis, ĉar la reĝoj de Ŝekspiro estis spite al siaj diaj benatecoj tute ĝustaj homoj, kiuj amas kaj malamas, murdas kaj regas — tute laŭ tio, kiel ĝuste plaĉis aŭ ne plaĉis al ili.

Sed la rolo de la prezentita reĝo el la pasinta vespero estis verkita de poeto, kiu kun dekok jaroj estis anarkiisto, sed pli poste li fariĝis kortega konsilanto. Memkompreneblas, ke tiu rolo tre plaĉis al la reĝo kaj, ke ĝi kaŭzis, ke li interparolis kun la aktoro pri la reĝa problemo de la teatro.

„Kion vi sentas, kara amiko, se vi prezentas reĝon ?“

„Mi sentas min tute kiel reĝo, tiel, ke mi ne povus fari geston, kiu ne laŭas al la karaktero de reĝo.“

„Tion mi komprenas tre bone.“

„La amaso de statistoj, kiuj, sekvante la reĝisoradon, devas kliniĝi antaŭ vi, vivtenas en vi la senton de reĝa indo kaj sugestas al la publiko, ke vi estas aŭtentika reĝo.“

„Por la publiko mi estas ankaŭ sen statistoj reĝo — eĉ tiam, kiam mi staras tute sola sur la scenejo kaj parolas monologon !.“

Tiu tute artista kompreno de la aktoro provokis la reĝon fari akre limigitan komparon inter si kaj la sceneja reĝo.

„Netranspontigebla abismo inter la vera kaj la teatra reĝoj tamen ekzistas. Vi estus povinta kiel ajn bone roli la reĝon, kun la momento, kiam la kurteno sinkas, vi ĉesas esti reĝo. La sento de sugestiteco kaj la statistoj finas vian sanktecon, tuj kiam ili malsukcesas. Sed mi, karulo mia, mi estas plu reĝo, eĉ se mi kuŝas en la lito !“

Al tio diris la aktoro : „Kara amiko mia, la komparo pravas por ni ambaŭ. Ni veturis antaŭe en la kaleŝo ĝis la pordego de la parko. Sur la stratoj staris kaj kuris nennombreble multaj homoj. Ili salutis — vi dankis. Ili kriis kun tuta forto : Vivu ! Ekscelenco ! — vi ridetis, iom vanta. Sed, se tiuj homoj iam ĉesos formi libervole statistojn, tiam vi, amiko mia, ĉesos ne nur en la lito, sed eĉ je la hela tago — esti reĝo !“

La reĝo haltis subite.

Li rigardis la aktoron firme.

Liaj lipoj fariĝis palaj kaj ektremis.

Subite li turniĝis.

Kun rapidaj paŝoj li iris al la kaleŝo kaj reveturis.

Sola.

La amikeco estis finita.

La amikoj neniam revidis sin reciproke.

Kaj neniam denove la reĝo iris en teatron.

Li fariĝis pensulo.

Li ekhavis la fiksan ideon esti tute normala homo.

Sekve de tio li devis eksiĝi.

Kvin jarojn poste li mortis.

Freneziĝinte.

Oni diris.

Tradukis Donjo, Frank & Cezar en klubvesperoj

Originale el http://www.satesperanto.org/Ret-Marut-La-aktoro-kaj-la-regxo.html

 DER SCHAUSPIELER UND DER KÖNIG

Eine unpolitische Groteske

Es kommt selten vor.

Glücklicherweise.

Aber einmal geschah es doch, daß sich ein Schauspieler einen König zum Freund erwählte.

Vielleicht war es auch umgekehrt. Das ist aber schließlich egal.

Beide waren aufrichtige und gute Freunde. Sie zankten sich und sie vertrugen sich, wie das unter richtigen Freunden üblich zu sein pflegt.

Zwei Jahre dauerte die Freundschaft.

Der Schauspieler machte von dieser Freundschaft nicht mehr Aufhebens, als handle es sich um die Freundschaft mit einem sonstigen Sterblichen. Eines Nachmittags gingen beide im Park spazieren.

Den Abend vorher hatte der Künstler einen König gespielt. Ein Shakespeare’scher König war es nicht. Die mochte der königliche Theaterfreund nicht leiden. Denn die Könige Shakespeares waren trotz ihres Gottesgnadentum ganz richtige Menschen, die lieben und hassen, morden und regieren –
je nachdem, wie es ihnen gerade in den Kram paßte. -

Die Rolle des am letzten Abend dargestellten Königs hatte jedoch ein Dichter geschrieben, der mit achtzehn Jahren Anarchist war, später aber Geheimer Hofrat wurde.

Begreiflich, daß diese Rolle dem König sehr gefiel und der Anlaß wurde, daß er sich mit dem Schauspieler über das Königsproblem der Bühne unterhielt.

„Was hast Du für ein Empfinden, lieber Freund, wenn Du einen König darstellst ?"

„Ich fühle mich ganz und gar als König, so daß ich keine Geste machen könnte, die dem Charakter des Königs nicht entsprechen würde."

„Das begreife ich sehr gut. Die Masse Statisten, die sich, den Regieanordnungen folgend, von Dir zu beugen haben, halten das Gefühl königlicher Würde in Dir wach und suggerieren dem Publikum, Du seiest ein echter König."

„Für das Publikum bleibe ich auch ohne Statisterie ein König – selbst dann noch, wenn ich ganz allein auf der Szene stehe und einen Monolog spreche !“

Diese rein künstlerische Auffassung des Schauspielers reizte den König, zwischen sich und dem Bühnenkönig einen scharf begrenzten Vergleich zu ziehen : „Eine unüberbrückbare Kluft zwischen dem wirklichen und dem Theaterkönig ist aber doch vorhanden. Du magst noch so vorzüglich den König gespielt haben : Mit dem Augenblick, wo sich der Vorhang senkt, hörst Du auf, König zu sein. Die Suggestion und die Statisterie machen Deiner Herrlichkeit ein Ende, sobald sie versagen. Ich aber, mein Lieber, bleibe ein König, selbst wenn ich im Bett liege !" ’

Darauf sagte der Schauspieler : „Mein lieber Freund, der Vergleich paßt auf uns beide. Wir fuhren vorhin im Wagen bis zum Tor des Parkes. Auf den Straßen standen und liefen unzählige Leute. Sie grüßten – Du danktest. Sie schrien aus Leibeskräften : Vivat ! und Hoch ! – Du lächeltest. Etwas blasiert. Aber wenn diese Leute einmal aufhören, freiwillig Statisterie zu bilden, dann hörst Du - nicht nur im Bett, sondern am hellen Tage - dann hörst auch Du, mein Freund, auf, ein wirklicher König zu sein !"

Der König blieb mit einem scharfen Ruck stehen.

Er sah den Schauspieler fest an.

Seine Lippen wurden blaß und zuckten.

Plötzlich drehte er sich um.

Mit raschen Schritten ging er zum Wagen und fuhr zurück.

Allein.

Die Freundschaft war aus.

Die Freunde sahen sich nie wieder.

Und nie wieder besuchte der König Theater.

Er wurde ein Denker.

Bekam die fixe Idee, ein ganz gewöhnlicher Sterblicher zu sein.

Mußte infolgedessen abdanken.

Starb fünf Jahre später.

lm Wahnsinn.

Sagte man.
 

 

Towards a Fresh Revolution - Audiobook

Audiobook version of the pamphlet Towards a Fresh Revolution, published by the Friends of Durruti group during the Spanish Civil War. Highly influential pamphlet of anarcho-syndicalist CNT militants during the Spanish Civil War who opposed the co-option of their organisation in the Republican government. The most famous text of the Friends of Durruti group a Spanish anarchist group founded in 1937 which opposed anarchist participation in the Republican government.



Link https://youtu.be/cJmo_S0Wo0k


Link https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-kjsmy-d04e45

The Idea is the Thing - Alexander Berkman

The full text:https://libcom.org/library/idea-thing-berkman

Tyranny must be opposed at the start. Autocracy, once secured in the saddle, is diffucult to dislodge. If you believe that America is entering the war "to make democracy safe," then be a man and volunteer.

But if you know anything at all, then you should know that the cry of democracy is a lie and a snare for the unthinking. You should know that a republic is not synonymous with democracy, and that America has never been a real democracy, but that it is the vilest plutocracy on the face of the globe.

If you can see, hear, feel, and think, you should know that King Dollar rules the United States, and that the workers are robbed and exploited in this country to the heart's content of the masters.

If you are not deaf, dumb, and blind, then you know that the American bourgeois democracy and capitalistic civilization are the worst enemies of labor and progress, and that instead of protecting them, you should help to fight to destroy them.

If you know this, you must also know that the workers of America have no enemy in the toilers of other countries. Indeed, the workers of Germany suffer as much from their exploiters and rulers as do the masses of America.

You should know that the interests of Labor are identical in all countries. Their cause is international.

Then why should they slaughter each other?

The workers of Germany have been misled by their rulers into donning the uniform and turning murders. So have the workers of France, of Italy, and England been misled. But why should *you*, men of America, allow yourselves to be misled into murder or into being murdered?

If your blood must be shed, let it be in defense of your own interests, in the war of the workers against their despoilers, in the cause of real liberty and independence.

Ecology and Revolutionary Thought Audiobook - Murray Bookchin

Audiobook of Murray Bookchin's Ecology and Revolutionary Thought.


Part 1: The Critical Nature of Ecology

 Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) was an anarchist and libertarian socialist political theorist, historian, and author. He is perhaps best remembered as a thinker who fused critical ecology with anarchist thought, but his conceptions of democratic confederalism have influenced numerous social and political movements, including the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (also know as Rojava). In part 1 of Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, Bookchin addresses the environmental catastrophes that have been produced by imperialistic capitalism and the widespread disconnect between humanity and the environment caused by hierarchical social relationships.

Youtube





Link https://youtu.be/mfEYye6TNlkPodcast


Link https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-26eag-b1b8af 

Part 2: The Reconstructive Nature of Ecology

In part 2, Bookchin discusses how the increased centralization of society has led to increased environmental damage through energy usage and pollution. The solution, he contends, is to decentralize society through anarchist revolution in order to create a society that is in harmony with nature. For humanity to reach any ecological goal, it must become decentralized and anarchistic, thereby allowing individuals to create diverse social and ecological relationships.

Youtube



Link https://youtu.be/pFzpqTBdHeM Podcast 

Link https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-5a7fg-b27541 

Part 3


In part 3, Bookchin discusses how classical libertarian principles can be combined with ecological thought in order to address the crises inherent to late-stage capitalism. Youtube
Link https://youtu.be/DQ7bpXuadVYPodcast
Link https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-9fgw4-b31816

Does Work Really Work? - L. Susan Brown

Full text

'One of the first questions people often ask when they are introduced to one another in our society is “what do you do?” This is more than just polite small talk — it is an indication of the immense importance work has for us.

Making of an Anarchist by Voltairine de Cleyre

Full text

Voltairine de Cleyre (November 17, 1866 – June 20, 1912) was an American anarchist, known for being a prolific writer and speaker, and opposing capitalism, the state, marriage, and the domination of religion over sexuality and women's lives. These latter beliefs have led many to cite her as a major early feminist.

Ur Fascism - Umberto Eco

Full Essay https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf

While Eco is firm in claiming “There was only one Nazism," he says, “the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change.” Eco reduces the qualities of what he calls “Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism” down to 14 “typical” features.

Are you an Anarchist? by David Graeber

Full text

Chances are you have already heard something about anarchists and what they are supposed to believe. Chances are almost everything you have heard is nonsense. Anarchists believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without being forced to. It is really a simple notion. But it’s one that the powerful have always found dangerous.

Green Anarchism by Corin Bruce

Bruce argues that green anarchism is the most coherent form of anarchist thought because it challenges hierarchy and exploitation in ways generally unacknowledged by social anarchism: animal liberation and social ecology.

Text https://freedomnews.org.uk/green-anarchism-towards-the-abolition-of-hierarchy/

A World Without Police

A pamphlet stressing the need to abolish police as an institution which provides some practical steps for communities to take in that process.

Imagine a world without police.

We live in a society where almost every social problem--from noisy neighbors to broken
taillights--has become a point of police intervention. The result is an epidemic of harassment
and violence. But what if we found other ways to solve our issues? What if we rolled back
police power, and abolished the institution entirely? Here you are invited to think and act
with other visionaries, and find ways to achieve a police-free world.

Published by the activist group For a World Without Police

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin

Full text here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/libra... On th 22nd of January 2018, Ursula K Le Guin passed away. This is a tribute made by people whose hearts have been touched by her writings. Below are included some other tributes written by our comrades. "To be clear, Ursula Le Guin didn’t, as I understand it, call herself an anarchist. I asked her about this. She told me that she didn’t call herself an anarchist because she didn’t feel that she deserved to—she didn’t do enough. I asked her if it was OK for us to call her one. She said she’d be honored. Ursula, I promise you, the honor is ours." - By Crimethinc, link:(https://crimethinc.com/2018/01/25/we-...) “Because revolutions don’t only spread like wildfire, they spread like forests and especially trees. An old tree puts out many seeds that become saplings that become trees of their own. And then those trees put out more seeds, more saplings, more trees, and next thing you know the world is a forest again.” A brief tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, from Rhyd Wildermuth, link:(https://godsandradicals.org/2018/01/2...)

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 

 

 

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows' crossing flights, over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green' Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.

Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?

They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children – though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however – that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc. -- they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains,. washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn't matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming in to Omelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the train station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers' Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas – at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not habit-forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world's summer; this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I really don't think many of them need to take drooz.

Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men, wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.

He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.

As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders stroke the horses' necks and soothe them, whispering, "Quiet, quiet, there my beauty, my hope. . . ." They begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl.It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits haunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes-the child has no understanding of time or interval – sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked, the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.

This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.

Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there snivelling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.

Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.