Now the mud-colored background of the people’s clothing faded before Durant’s eyes, and he saw the little flares of color merging together like a visible paean of defiance and strength. He thought of the glittering vivacity of color which had marked the Renaissance when it had emerged from the Dark Ages. He thought of the rainbowed brightness of the people of England, after Cromwell had died. All profound, noble and heroic emotions of a nation were expressed in sudden surges of color, just as oppressive, cruel and evil governments were invariably expressed in drabness.
This, then, is what the distinguished visitors from Washington had seen, Durant thought. But he was also certain that they had seen something else, besides, not known to him, something which had made them exchange that glance of exultation.
“Yes,” said Mr. Regis, “a very orderly gathering. Masses are usually disorderly and undisciplined.”
A soldier arrived to say that the seats of the privileged classes were now full, and that the President would speak in less than five minutes. Durant led his guests and the others into the vast auditorium where thousands awaited. They arrived on the stage, and the banks of people on the right and the left clapped feverishly. The sound of their clapping was like the sound of little children playing paddy-cake in a vacuum, so brittle was it, so feeble. The people below, in the center, and in the balconies, did not clap. They sat there in their great mass, in utter silence, and Durant saw again the little flares of color at neck, on heads and on thick and ugly coats.
Durant indicated the fine high-backed chairs for his guests and for his speakers. The privileged groups were standing, still clapping and feverishly grinning, but the people did not rise, and neither did they smile. The soldiers ranged along the walls and in the rear saluted. The band struck up a martial song complimentary to the Armed Forces. Yet, for all that every seat was occupied the music had a hollow echo, as if played in a deserted building. Drums thundered, cymbals clashed, trumpets blared, flutes shrilled. They exhorted to emptiness, to absence of spirit, to grim silence. The massed flags of The Democracy rippled as if in tune, as if stirred in a gale, and no eye glanced fervently at them.
Durant and his company sat down, and the orchestra beat on in a desperately accelerated rhythm. The leader looked up in panic from his pit; his bald head gleamed with sweat and his baton swung frantically. The musicians did their best, and the best resembled a demented funeral dirge.
In the meantime, Durant was studying the faces of the privileged groups to his right and left. Well dressed, fat, suave and ruddy-faced though most of them were—with the exception of the newspaper men—their smiles and their expressions indicated vengeful contentment. They looked at Durant and he saw their hatred. They might clap for him, but the clapping had been derisive. They, too, had their secret exultations, these farmers, these bureaucrats, these members of the MASTS.
There was an immense screen at the back of the stage, and suddenly it began to light up. The band stopped abruptly. From the public address system another band screamed out in the President’s favorite anthem: “O Day of Liberty!” Now a life-size picture was forming on the screen, and all could see an enormous panorama of giant barges and floats bearing multitudes of people who had gathered around Bedloe’s Island, where stood the Statue of Liberty. The barges and floats moved slowly up and down; between them flashed leaden glimpses of cold winter water. A stage had been erected on the island, and it was crowded with military officers and prominent officials against a background of flags. In the center stood the President of The Democracy, Mr. Slocum, a detachment of Picked Guards, and Arthur Carlson, Chief Magistrate.
The picture narrowed and centered itself exclusively on the stage, but not before Durant had seen that the multitude on the barges and boats was as still and somber as the multitude outside and inside the Stadium. The picture brightened, sharpened still more, until only the President and the Chief Magistrate could be viewed.
Mr. Carlson came forward, and his aristocratic face was grave and clear. He stood there, on the screen, in his uniform as Commander-in-Chief of the Picked Guard, and he was like an arrow in his straightness. He looked out at a listening nation, and began to speak. He praised the devotion of the nation in all matters, the loving obedience of the nation, and the accomplishments of the nation during the past year. He dedicated this Democracy Day of December twenty-fifth to “the workers of our country.” His voice, full and yet quiet, filled the auditorium and his eyes seemed to be directed at every individual.
He moved back, and the privileged groups applauded. But the people did not applaud. Durant glanced at Mr. Burgess and Mr. Regis, and they were smiling slightly as they examined the congregation in the Stadium who sat there like a waiting and awful danger.
Then the President, the little rat-faced man with his tight grin and his dancing eyes, came foward importantly to the podium. He was waiting for applause. It came from those about him at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. He was listening; his raddled grin remained fixed. No applause came from the masses. He knew it, for the dancing eyes froze, visibly, and he paused, his speech in his hand. He turned his head from side to side, and though his grin stretched his mouth there was a look on his features of sudden outrage, bewilderment and fear. Behind him stood Arthur Carlson, remote and detached and courteously waiting.
The President stood there in a nationwide silence and emptiness, and he could not speak. He must have felt that silence and emptiness which flowed toward him from millions and tens of millions of people. He must have known. Now his grin faded, and the face turned back to the screen was a face cleaned of everything but stark terror. Millions must have seen it, must have seen him swallowing dryly, must have seen the trembling of his small hands.
Durant’s heart began to beat furiously; he leaned forward in his seat the better to see. His pulses bounded in his temples and in his wrists and in his chest. It was almost here! It might be here at this very moment. His own throat and mouth dried, and he felt dizzy. He turned to look at Burgess and Regis. They sat there quietly, with only the calmest interest on their faces. He glanced at the people in the auditorium. They were watching the President impassively. He looked at the privileged groups. They were fascinated, and they were smiling, and it was an evil and triumphant smiling. Smile, thought Durant, malignantly, for you won’t be smiling tomorrow!
He started violently, for the band before the President, as if aware that something most terrible was happening, struck up again in a thunderous frenzy, replaying once more the President’s favorite anthem. Carlson was approaching the President; he was bending his head and murmuring something inaudible, as if with concern and encouragement. The President was looking up at him with abject fondness and agitation, clutching his papers. Carlson nodded, retreated. The band faded away, and now the screen concentrated on the President’s strained face. He had begun to grin again. There was a shimmer on his forehead.
He spoke, his thin sharp voice emerging from the screen, breathless and without emphasis. He kept glancing down at the speech which Arthur Carlson had written for him. This was a momentous day, he read rapidly. All Democracy Days were momentous, but this was exceptionally so, for this was the Day dedicated in particular to the people. They had proved their devotion. Never before had they been so enthusiastic, so sacrificing. The nation could be glad that in their past they had lost no wars, though the enemy had sent his hordes against them time after time, year after year. The nation could be glad, today, that the new war was “moving into its final stages, and peace is about to dawn in all its splendor on this united people. Our enemy is staggering; his cities are in ruins. Our Armed Forces can congratulate themselves on brilliant achievements, in the air, on the land, and on the sea. The might of the people of The Democracy has been leagued behind them, with one purpose and one hope. Peace. Peace in all the world. Lasting Peace. Everlasting peace.”
The discoveries of science should not be ignored on this occasion, because it was science which had invented those fantastic new
weapons which had been directed against the enemy. And now that a true and democratic peace was almost at the threshold of the world, science would turn its great gifts to the uses of the people. No one could exaggerate the wonders that would come in the fields of health, prosperity, abundance and happiness. Science would bring all this about, and the people could praise themselves that their “Unity, Duty and Sacrifice,” under the most pressing conditions of work and self-denial and austerity and devotion to the common good, had made all this possible for the future. The Democracy would vigorously engage in the restoration of order and peace all over the world. Its leadership had been ordained. Peoples everywhere were looking to The Democracy as to man’s last hope on earth. The Democracy would not fail mankind. It would rise to its challenges against the forces of corruption, war and evil. It would bring forth the morning of a happy and glorious world. It would—
“Our people,” said the President, in his high and rapid voice, “need to gird themselves for only one last effort. We know that reduced rations and new taxes and new directives and new disciplines are sometimes disheartening. I cannot promise immediate alleviation of these things. There must be renewed and firmer dedications to the principles of freedom and peace, before the day of fulfillment can arrive. I have faith in the people. They will not betray their children and their children’s children. The world is looking to The Democracy as to the sunrise after a long night.”
The President drew a deep breath. His eyes wandered from side to side, as if looking at the thousands congregated at the foot of the Statue. They were hunted eyes.
He shrilled, suddenly, lifting his head high: “Unity! Duty! Sacrifice!”
He stood there, that haunted and shaking little man, looking blankly before him, and his band clashed out into the strains of the national anthem. His face faded, and the gigantic flag of The Democracy, in color, streamed upon the screen. This was the signal for the rising of the people in the auditorium. They did not rise. Durant, bemused and stunned, got to his feet, and his company with him, and the banks of the privileged groups. But the people did not rise. They sat there, in their foreboding silence, and they stared implacably at the men on the stage.
However, Durant was not thinking of them now. For a code had been transmitted unknowingly by President Slocum to all Minute Men everywhere. All commanding officers of all Sections should remove themselves at once to a place of safety, and wait. They were needed, and must guard themselves, for upon their immediate survival depended the future of the country. Minute Men, other than commanding officers, should gather together quietly for final instructions which would be given them at six o’clock the next morning. Their duties would be defined individually, and they would obey without the slightest hesitation, and with as much speed as possible. Those Minute Men in the Armed Forces, who might be prevented from gathering as instructed, must await signals given to them by others, signals which must be acted upon immediately even at the risk of death. No man, anywhere must move hastily or at his own decision and prompting. No man must move on his own. The instructions would be clear and unmistakable. The hour for striking had arrived.
From the shrill voice of the President came Arthur Carlson’s last message to his friends and fellow-workers: “If I, your leader, see none of you again I shall be with you to the end. If I die, as perhaps many of you will die in the next few days, I die for my country, and I shall die anonymously. Do not mourn for me. Keep my secret. May God be with you.”
Durant stood among his company and his eyes filled with tears. He was not exultant now; he was not filled with high courage and excitement. He was only sorrowful with a sorrow he had never known before. When he looked at the faces of his friends he saw that they, too, were pale and tense, and that they were as grief-stricken as he for a brave and heroic man whom they would probably never see again.
It was doubtful that any of the speakers, with the exception of Dr. Healy, cared or really knew what they were saying. Their voices droned lifelessly in their own ears, their faces were sad and withdrawn. To Durant, everything had lost meaning in this auditorium after the heroism of Carlson’s message. He stared with stony indifference at the banked seats to the right and the left, and at the crouching multitude with their frightful eyes and their splatters of defiant color.
However, his sensibilities were heightened almost beyond bearing. In spite of his sorrow he found himself concentrating on the section which contained the Press. Half of the men were middle-aged or older, journalists, paid propagandists of of tyranny, and authors, and the other half were young men. He had often given out releases to these time-servers of evil and State slavery, and he knew many of them quite well.
Now a bitter and raging anger began to fill him. This group of men, perhaps more than any other single group, was responsible for the muddy horror which had choked the people for decades. The free and independent Press! The members of that profession had either supinely allowed themselves to be seduced into the betrayal of a nation, or had been voluntarily silenced out of cowardice or expediency. Many of them had been engaged for years in active and deliberate treachery, using the powerful means of communication to further the designs of wicked men. This latter half of the Press had deceived the people with lies and cunning and falsehood and synthetic rages against “the special interests” of the forties and fifties. They had denounced any man of spirit and courage who had dared speak against the foul servants of Communism and Socialism, whether that man were Senator or fellow-scribe, private citizen, ambassador, statesman or writer. Scores of them had hysterically upheld any politician who had attacked or evaded the Constitution of the United States of America; they had been the idolators of Communist Russia and had labored fervently, for hire or through the evil imaginings of their perverted minds, to thrust Marxism upon their nation. Nothing had been too debased for them, nothing too degraded. They had wielded their pens like poisoned darts to be hurled at the hearts of a free people. When the Washington bureaucrats had invaded private industry, had openly and ruthlessly seized private property in the fifties, “for reasons of defense,” hundreds of newspaper men had applauded. The President’s monstrous directives against the sovereignty of the people had inspired ecstasies in these creatures. They had greeted the terrible rising strength of the Military with inky enthusiasm. When traitors had conspired against the Republic, they had defended them at a signal from the President.
They had violently attacked other “reactionary” newsmen in the name of “progressive democracy” so that in the minds of the people the sacred name of democracy had become synonymous with oppression and slavery. Their squeezed, fanatic faces and their foul tongues had raised themselves everywhere like the heads of cobras in a jungle. For decades they had written so passionately of “Labor” and “The Masses” that these words, in the minds of the people, had become nouns of debasement. What had once possessed dignity and pride had become obscenities.
Perhaps some good will come out of their evil, thought Durant. If the people refused, forever, to be relegated to any class, to be designated as any “group” apart from the main body of the nation, it would be good. For the people would have learned that they were not mere plodding and mindless dwellers in the narrow confines of any class; they would know that they were men, individuals, proud and immortal souls, accountable only to fellow men for justice, accountable only to God for their lives and their rights.
Durant’s eyes roved slowly over the faces of the betrayers of America. Then his interest quickened, and his bitterness. The young men’s faces might be wizened and intense with their fanaticism, but the old men’s faces were gray with hopelessness, exhausted and ghostly. Had they realized, now, what they had done to America when they, too, had been young, in the nineteen fifties and sixties, when they, out of greed or insanity or envy, had twisted the minds of a trusting and emotional public? Were they remembering the artificial frenzies of misguided “patriotism” which they had whipped up to serve tyrants and liars and thieves and murde
rers? Did they recall how they had shouted to the people that they were “exploited” and that only radicalism or Socialism or Communism would lead them to a brave new world? Did they remember how they had substituted “security” for self-respect and industry, planned economy for free enterprise, the power of the State for the power of the people? Did they remember their cries of Unity! Duty! Sacrifice! when any brave man had questioned the directives and commands of tyrants?
They were remembering. Of that, Durant was certain. Their eyes were too sunken, their lips too livid, their faces too somber, for anything else but remembrance of the treason they had committed against their fellowmen. They knew now, and they knew their guilt. The stench of slavery was in their nostrils; their victims sat before them in their awful silence and their condemnation.
It’s too late for you, thought Durant. Whatever happens now, it will always be too late for you. You have too many memories. Once you had your opportunity, and you did not take it. You cannot come rejoicing in these latter days, when the people will be free. Never will you dare look on the banner of the Republic with joy in your hearts, for you will not have restored it.
Durant looked at them, and said to them silently: “‘Hang yourself, brave Crillon. We fought at Arques, and you were not there.”
Mr. Burgess was extolling “the sleepless work of labor in this hour of our emergency.” His voice, sonorous and full, echoed in the auditorium. The people only sat, staring at him with silent hatred. They did not move. The power of their silence permeated the air so that those in the banked and comfortable seats gazed at them with frozen uneasiness, their heads turned from the stage.