Speaker 1: Chapter twelve of Anthem. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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Speaker 1: Caden von Clegg. Anthem by Einrandt, Chapter twelve. It was
Speaker 1: when I read the first of the books I found
Speaker 1: in my house that I saw the word I. And
Speaker 1: when I understood this word, the book fell from my
Speaker 1: hands and I wept, I who had never known tears.
Speaker 1: I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.
Speaker 1: I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse.
Speaker 1: I understood why the best in me had been my
Speaker 1: sins and my transgressions, and why I had never felt
Speaker 1: guilt in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains
Speaker 1: and lashes will not kill the spirit of man, nor
Speaker 1: the sense of truth within him. I read many books
Speaker 1: for many days. Then I called the Golden One and
Speaker 1: I told her what I had read and what I
Speaker 1: had learned. She looked at me, and the first words
Speaker 1: she spoke were I love you. Then I said, my
Speaker 1: dearest one, it is not proper for men to be
Speaker 1: without names. There was a time when each man had
Speaker 1: a name of his own to distinguish him from all
Speaker 1: other men. So let us choose our names. I have
Speaker 1: read of a man who lived many thousands of years ago,
Speaker 1: and of all the names in these books, his is
Speaker 1: the one I wish to bear. He took the light
Speaker 1: of the gods, and he brought it to men, and
Speaker 1: he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for
Speaker 1: his deeds, as all bearers of light must suffer. His
Speaker 1: name was Prometheus. It shall be your name, said the
Speaker 1: Golden One. And I have read of a goddess, I said,
Speaker 1: who was the mother of the earth and of all
Speaker 1: the gods. Her name was Gia. Let this be your name,
Speaker 1: my Golden One, for you are to be the mother
Speaker 1: of a new kind of gods. Shall be my name,
Speaker 1: said the Golden One. Now I look ahead. My future
Speaker 1: is clear before me. The Saint of the Pyre had
Speaker 1: seen the future when he chose me as his heir,
Speaker 1: as the heir of all the saints and all the
Speaker 1: martyrs who came before him, and who died for the
Speaker 1: same cause, for the same word, no matter what name
Speaker 1: they gave to their cause and their truth. I shall
Speaker 1: live here in my own house. I shall take my
Speaker 1: food from the earth by the toil of my own hands.
Speaker 1: I shall learn many secrets from my books. Through the
Speaker 1: years ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the past
Speaker 1: and open the way to carry them further, the achievements
Speaker 1: which are open to me, but closed forever to my brothers,
Speaker 1: for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest
Speaker 1: ones among them. I have learned that my power of
Speaker 1: the sky was known to men long ago. They called
Speaker 1: it electricity. It was the power that moved their greatest inventions.
Speaker 1: It lit this house with light, which came from those
Speaker 1: globes of glass on the walls. I have found the
Speaker 1: end engine which produced this light. I shall learn how
Speaker 1: to repair it and how to make it work again.
Speaker 1: I shall learn how to use the wires which carry
Speaker 1: this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires
Speaker 1: around my home and across the path which lead to
Speaker 1: my home, A barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable
Speaker 1: than a wall of granite. A barrier my brothers will
Speaker 1: never be able to cross, for they have nothing to
Speaker 1: fight me with save the brute force of their numbers.
Speaker 1: I have my mind, then here on this mountain top,
Speaker 1: with the world below me and nothing above me but
Speaker 1: the Sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaia is
Speaker 1: pregnant with my child. Our Sun will be raised as
Speaker 1: a man. He will be taught to say I and
Speaker 1: to bear the pride of it. He will be taught
Speaker 1: to walk straight and on his own feet. He will
Speaker 1: be taught reverence for his own spirit. When I shall
Speaker 1: have read all the books and learned my new way,
Speaker 1: when my home will be ready and my earth tilled,
Speaker 1: I shall steal one day for the last time, into
Speaker 1: the cursed city of my birth. I shall call to me,
Speaker 1: my friend who has no name save International four dash
Speaker 1: eight eight one eight, and all those like him, Fraternity
Speaker 1: two dash five five zero three, who cries without reason,
Speaker 1: and solidarity nine as six three four seven, who calls
Speaker 1: for help in the night, and a few others. I
Speaker 1: shall call to me all the men and the women
Speaker 1: whose spirit has not been killed within them, and who
Speaker 1: suffer under the yoke of their brothers. They will follow me,
Speaker 1: and I shall lead them to my fortress. And here
Speaker 1: in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my chosen friends,
Speaker 1: my fellow builders, shall write the first chapter in the
Speaker 1: new history of man. These are the things before me.
Speaker 1: And as I stand here at the door of Glory,
Speaker 1: I look behind me for the last time. I look
Speaker 1: upon the history of men, which I have learned from
Speaker 1: the books, and I wonder. It was a long story,
Speaker 1: and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of
Speaker 1: man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There
Speaker 1: is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him,
Speaker 1: save other men. To be free, a man must be
Speaker 1: free of his brothers. That is freedom, that and nothing else.
Speaker 1: At first man was enslaved by the gods, but he
Speaker 1: broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings,
Speaker 1: but he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth,
Speaker 1: by his kin, by his race, but he broke their chains.
Speaker 1: He declared to all his brothers that a man has
Speaker 1: rights which neither God, nor king, nor other men can
Speaker 1: take away from him, no matter what their number, For
Speaker 1: his is the right of man. And there is no
Speaker 1: right on earth above this right. And he stood on
Speaker 1: the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of
Speaker 1: the centuries behind him had been spilled. But then he
Speaker 1: gave up all he had won, and fell lower than
Speaker 1: his savage Beginning what brought it to pass. What disaster
Speaker 1: took their reason away from men? What whit lashed them
Speaker 1: to their knees in shame and submission the worship of
Speaker 1: the Word We. When men accepted that worship, the structure
Speaker 1: of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam
Speaker 1: had come from the thought of some one man, each
Speaker 1: in his day, down the ages, from the depth of
Speaker 1: some one spirit, such spirit as existed. But for its
Speaker 1: own sake, those men who survived, those eager to obey,
Speaker 1: eager to live for one another. Since they had nothing
Speaker 1: else to vindicate them, those men could neither carry on
Speaker 1: nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought,
Speaker 1: all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men,
Speaker 1: men with nothing to offer save their great numbers, lose
Speaker 1: the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all
Speaker 1: the things they had not created and could never keep.
Speaker 1: Perhaps later some men had been born with the mind
Speaker 1: and the courage to recover these things which were lost.
Speaker 1: Perhaps these men came before the councils of scholars. They
Speaker 1: were answered as I have been answered, and for the
Speaker 1: same reason. But I still wonder how it was possible
Speaker 1: in those graceless years of transition long ago, that men
Speaker 1: did not see whither they were going, and went on
Speaker 1: in blindness and cowardice to their fate. I wonder, for
Speaker 1: it is hard for me to conceive how men who
Speaker 1: knew the word I could give it up and not
Speaker 1: know what they lost. But such has been the story.
Speaker 1: For I have lived in the city of the damned,
Speaker 1: and I know what horror men permitted to be brought
Speaker 1: upon them. Perhaps in those days there were a few
Speaker 1: among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul,
Speaker 1: who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have
Speaker 1: been theirs before that which they saw coming and could
Speaker 1: not stop. Perhaps they cried out in protest and warning,
Speaker 1: But men paid no heed to their warning, And they
Speaker 1: these few fought a hopeless battle, and they perished, with
Speaker 1: their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose
Speaker 1: to perish, for they knew to them. I send my
Speaker 1: salute across the centuries, and my pity theirs is the
Speaker 1: banner in my hand, And I wish I had the
Speaker 1: power to tell them that the despair of their hearts
Speaker 1: was not to be final, and their night was not
Speaker 1: without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost,
Speaker 1: for that which they died to save can never perish.
Speaker 1: Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which
Speaker 1: men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive
Speaker 1: on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken.
Speaker 1: It may wear chains, but it will break through, and
Speaker 1: man will go on man not men. Here on this mountain,
Speaker 1: I and my sons and my chosen friends shall build
Speaker 1: our new land and our fort, and it will become
Speaker 1: as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at first,
Speaker 1: but beating, beating louder each day, and word of it
Speaker 1: will reach every corner of the earth, and the roads
Speaker 1: of the world will become as veins which will carry
Speaker 1: the best of the world's blood to my threshold. And
Speaker 1: all my brother and the counsels of my brothers will
Speaker 1: hear of it, but they will be impotent against me.
Speaker 1: And the day will come when I shall break all
Speaker 1: the chains of the earth and raise the cities of
Speaker 1: the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of
Speaker 1: the world, where each man will be free to exist
Speaker 1: for his own sake. For the coming of that day
Speaker 1: shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen
Speaker 1: friends for the freedom of man, for his rights, for
Speaker 1: his life, for his honor. And here over the portals
Speaker 1: of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the
Speaker 1: word which is to be my beacon and my banner.
Speaker 1: The word which will not die should we all perish
Speaker 1: in battle. The word which can never die on this earth,
Speaker 1: for it is the heart of it, and the meaning
Speaker 1: and the glory, the sacred word ego. End of Chapter twelve,
Speaker 1: recording by Catin von Klegg The Lunar Island dot blogspot
Speaker 1: dot com. End of anthem by Ein Rand