“What do we know of the beauty they replace? They are a mere8 rash. Why should we men play the part of bacteria upon the face of our Mother?”
“All life is that!”
“No! not natural life, not the plants and the gentle creatures that live their wild shy lives in forest and jungle. That is a part of her. That is the natural bloom of her complexion9. But these houses and tramways and things, all made from ore and stuff torn from her veins10 ——! You can’t better my image of the rash. It’s a morbid11 breaking out! I’d give it all for one — what is it? — free and natural chamois.”
“You live at times in a house?” I asked.
He ignored my question. For him, untroubled Nature was the best, he said, and, with a glance at his feet, the most beautiful. He professed12 himself a Nazarite, and shook back his Teutonic poet’s shock of hair. So he came to himself, and for the rest of our walk he kept to himself as the thread of his discourse13, and went over himself from top to toe, and strung thereon all topics under the sun by way of illustrating14 his splendours. But especially his foil was the relative folly15, the unnaturalness16 and want of logic17 in his fellow men. He held strong views about the extreme simplicity18 of everything, only that men, in their muddle-headedness, had confounded it all. “Hence, for example, these trams! They are always running up and down as though they were looking for the lost simplicity of nature. ‘We dropped it here!’” He earned a living, we gathered, “some considerable way above the minimum wage,” which threw a chance light on the labour problem — by perforating records for automatic musical machines — no doubt of the Pianotist and Pianola kind — and he spent all the leisure he could gain in going to and fro in the earth lecturing on “The Need of a Return to Nature,” and on “Simple Foods and Simple Ways.” He did it for the love of it. It was very clear to us he had an inordinate19 impulse to lecture, and esteemed20 us fair game. He had been lecturing on these topics in Italy, and he was now going back through the mountains to lecture in Saxony, lecturing on the way, to perforate a lot more records, lecturing the while, and so start out lecturing again. He was undisguisedly glad to have us to lecture to by the way.
He called our attention to his costume at an early stage. It was the embodiment of his ideal of Nature-clothing, and it had been made especially for him at very great cost. “Simply because naturalness has fled the earth, and has to be sought now, and washed out from your crushed complexities21 like gold.”
“I should have thought,” said I, “that any clothing whatever was something of a slight upon the natural man.”
“Not at all,” said he, “not at all! You forget his natural vanity!”
He was particularly severe on our artificial hoofs22, as he called our boots, and our hats or hair destructors. “Man is the real King of Beasts and should wear a mane. The lion only wears it by consent and in captivity23.” He tossed his head.
Subsequently while we lunched and he waited for the specific natural dishes he ordered — they taxed the culinary resources of the inn to the utmost — he broached24 a comprehensive generalisation. “The animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom are easily distinguished25, and for the life of me I see no reason for confusing them. It is, I hold, a sin against Nature. I keep them distinct in my mind and I keep them distinct in my person. No animal substance inside, no vegetable without; — what could be simpler or more logical? Nothing upon me but leather and allwool garments, within, cereals, fruit, nuts, herbs, and the like. Classification — order — man’s function. He is here to observe and accentuate26 Nature’s simplicity. These people”— he swept an arm that tried not too personally to include us —“are filled and covered with confusion.”
He ate great quantities of grapes and finished with a cigarette. He demanded and drank a great horn of unfermented grape juice, and it seemed to suit him well.
We three sat about the board — it was in an agreeable little arbour on a hill hard by the place where Wassen stands on earth, and it looked down the valley to the Uri Rothstock, and ever and again we sought to turn his undeniable gift of exposition to the elucidation27 of our own difficulties.
But we seemed to get little, his style was so elusive28. Afterwards, indeed, we found much information and many persuasions29 had soaked into us, but at the time it seemed to us he told us nothing. He indicated things by dots and dashes, instead of by good hard assertive30 lines. He would not pause to see how little we knew. Sometimes his wit rose so high that he would lose sight of it himself, and then he would pause, purse his lips as if he whistled, and then till the bird came back to the lure31, fill his void mouth with grapes. He talked of the relations of the sexes, and love — a passion he held in great contempt as being in its essence complex and disingenuous32 — and afterwards we found we had learnt much of what the marriage laws of Utopia allow and forbid.
“A simple natural freedom,” he said, waving a grape in an illustrative manner, and so we gathered the Modern Utopia did not at any rate go to that. He spoke33, too, of the regulation of unions, of people who were not allowed to have children, of complicated rules and interventions34. “Man,” he said, “had ceased to be a natural product!”
We tried to check him with questions at this most illuminating35 point, but he drove on like a torrent36, and carried his topic out of sight. The world, he held, was overmanaged, and that was the root of all evil. He talked of the overmanagement of the world, and among other things of the laws that would not let a poor simple idiot, a “natural,” go at large. And so we had our first glimpse of what Utopia did with the feeble and insane. “We make all these distinctions between man and man, we exalt37 this and favour that, and degrade and seclude38 that; we make birth artificial, life artificial, death artificial.”
“You say We,” said I, with the first glimmering39 of a new idea, “but you don’t participate?”
“Not I! I’m not one of your samurai, your voluntary noblemen who have taken the world in hand. I might be, of course, but I’m not.”
“Samurai!” I repeated, “voluntary noblemen!” and for the moment could not frame a question.
He whirled on to an attack on science, that stirred the botanist40 to controversy41. He denounced with great bitterness all specialists whatever, and particularly doctors and engineers.
“Voluntary noblemen!” he said, “voluntary Gods I fancy they think themselves,” and I was left behind for a space in the perplexed42 examination of this parenthesis43, while he and the botanist — who is sedulous44 to keep his digestion45 up to date with all the newest devices — argued about the good of medicine men.
“The natural human constitution,” said the blond-haired man, “is perfectly46 simple, with one simple condition — you must leave it to Nature. But if you mix up things so distinctly and essentially47 separated as the animal and vegetable kingdoms for example, and ram6 that in for it to digest, what can you expect?
“Ill health! There isn’t such a thing — in the course of Nature. But you shelter from Nature in houses, you protect yourselves by clothes that are useful instead of being ornamental48, you wash — with such abstersive chemicals as soap for example — and above all you consult doctors.” He approved himself with a chuckle49. “Have you ever found anyone seriously ill without doctors and medicine about? Never! You say a lot of people would die without shelter and medical attendance! No doubt — but a natural death. A natural death is better than an artificial life, surely? That’s — to be frank with you — the very citadel50 of my position.”
That led him, and rather promptly51, before the botanist could rally to reply, to a great tirade52 against the laws that forbade “sleeping out.” He denounced them with great vigour53, and alleged54 that for his own part he broke that law whenever he could, found some corner of moss55, shaded from an excess of dew, and there sat up to sleep. He slept, he said, always in a sitting position, with his head on his wrists, and his wrists on his knees — the simple natural position for sleep in man. . . . He said it would be far better if all the world slept out, and all the houses were pulled down.
You will understand, perhaps, the subdued56 irritation57 I felt, as I sat and listened to the botanist entangling58 himself in the logical net of this wild nonsense. It impressed me as being irrelevant59. When one comes to a Utopia one expects a Cicerone, one expects a person as precise and insistent60 and instructive as an American advertisement — the advertisement of one of those land agents, for example, who print their own engaging photographs to instil61 confidence and begin, “You want to buy real estate.” One expects to find all Utopians absolutely convinced of the perfection of their Utopia, and incapable62 of receiving a hint against its order. And here was this purveyor63 of absurdities64!
And yet now that I come to think it over, is not this too one of the necessary differences between a Modern Utopia and those finite compact settlements of the older school of dreamers? It is not to be a unanimous world any more, it is to have all and more of the mental contrariety we find in the world of the real; it is no longer to be perfectly explicable, it is just our own vast mysterious welter, with some of the blackest shadows gone, with a clearer illumination, and a more conscious and intelligent will. Irrelevance65 is not irrelevant to such a scheme, and our blond-haired friend is exactly just where he ought to be here.
Still ——
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1
poseur
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| n.装模作样的人 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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unnaturalness
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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complexities
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| 复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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24
broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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elucidation
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| n.说明，阐明 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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persuasions
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| n.劝说，说服（力）( persuasion的名词复数 )；信仰 | |
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assertive
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| adj.果断的，自信的，有冲劲的 | |
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lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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disingenuous
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| adj.不诚恳的，虚伪的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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interventions
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| n.介入，干涉，干预( intervention的名词复数 ) | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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seclude
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| vi.使隔离，使孤立，使隐退 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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40
botanist
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| n.植物学家 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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parenthesis
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲，间歇，停歇 | |
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sedulous
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| adj.勤勉的，努力的 | |
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digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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48
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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49
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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50
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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51
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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52
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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53
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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54
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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57
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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58
entangling
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| v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的现在分词 ) | |
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irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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61
instil
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| v.逐渐灌输 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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purveyor
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| n.承办商，伙食承办商 | |
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64
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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65
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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