Anthem by Ayn Rand

Author's Foreword
|F.1 |This story was written in 1937. |
|F.2 |I have edited it for this publication, but have confined the editing to its style; I have reworded some passages and cut |
| |out some excessive language. No idea or incident was added or omitted; the theme, content and structure are untouched. The|
| |story remains as it was. I have lifted its face, but not its spine or spirit; these did not need lifting. |
|F.3 |Some of those who read the story when it was first written, told me that I was unfair to the ideals of collectivism; this |
| |was not, they said, what collectivism preaches or intends; collectivists do not mean or advocate such things; nobody |
| |advocates them. |
|F.4 |I shall merely point out that the slogan "Production for use and not for profit" is now accepted by most men as |
| |commonplace, and a commonplace stating a proper, desirable goal. If any intelligible meaning can be discerned in that |
| |slogan at all, what is it, if not the idea that the motive of a man's work must be the needs of others, not his own need, |
| |desire or gain? |
|F.5 |Compulsory labor conscription is now practiced or advocated in every country on earth. What is it based on, if not the |
| |idea that the state is best qualified to decide where a man can be useful to others, such usefulness being the only |
| |consideration, and that his own aims, desires, or happiness should be ignored as of no importance? |
|F.6 |We have Councils of Vocations, Councils of Eugenics, every possible kind of Council, including a World Council -- and if |
| |these do not as yet hold total power over us, is it from lack of intention? |
|F.7 |"Social gains," "social aims," "social objectives" have become the daily bromides of our language. The necessity of a |
| |social justification for all activities and all existence is now taken for granted. There is no proposal outrageous enough|
| |but what its author can get a respectful hearing and approbation if he claims that in some undefined way it is for "the |
| |common good." |
|F.8 |Some might think -- though I don't -- that nine years ago there was some excuse for men not to see the direction in which |
| |the world was going. Today, the evidence is so blatant that no excuse can be claimed by anyone any longer. Those who |
| |refuse to see it now are neither blind nor innocent. |
|F.9 |The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default; the people who seek protection from |
| |the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting; the |
| |people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are |
| |lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word; the people who believe that the content of ideas need |
| |not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one's eyes shut. They |
| |expect, when they find themselves in a world of bloody ruins and concentration camps, to escape moral responsibility by |
| |wailing: "But I didn't mean this!" |
|F.10 |Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which |
| |they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its logical implications, of the |
| |principles upon which it is based, and of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead. |
|F.11 |They must face it, then decide whether this is what they want or not. |
| |--Ayn Rand. |
| |April, 1946 |

[pic]
I.
|1.1[*] |It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are |
| |to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is |
| |no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless|
| |the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven! |
|1.2 |But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name. What |
| |punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no |
| |laws to provide for it. |
|1.3 |It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air. Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the |
| |paper. We are alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say that none among men may be alone, |
| |ever and at any time, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we have broken many laws. And |
| |now there is nothing here save our one body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the|
| |wall before us the shadow of our one head. |
|1.4 |The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole |
| |the candle from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be sentenced to ten years in the Palace of |
| |Corrective Detention if it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the light is precious and we |
| |should not waste it to write when we need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save the work, our |
| |secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must also write, for -- may the Council have mercy upon us! -- we wish |
| |to speak for once to no ears but our own. |
|1.5[*] |Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their |
| |names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who |
| |are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your |
| |bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones nor|
| |our body. |
|1.6 |We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which|
| |men may not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it. This is our wonder |
| |and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist. |
|1.7[*] |We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World |
| |Council, there are words cut in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves whenever we are tempted: |
|1.8 |"We are one in all and all in one. |
| |There are no men but only the great WE, |
| |One, indivisible and forever." |
|1.9 |We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not. |
|1.10 |These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, |
| |which come from more years than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they are written on the Palace of |
| |the World Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and |
| |farther back than that no memory can reach. |
|1.11 |But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of |
| |Corrective Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They |
| |whisper many strange things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which|
| |moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those times were evil. And those times passed |
| |away, when men saw the Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all |
| |men together. |
|1.12 |All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our|
| |brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step |
| |to our last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden here under the ground. |
|1.13 |We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were five years old, together with all the children of the |
| |City who had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare of all things save one |
| |hundred beds. We were just like all our brothers then, save for the one transgression: we fought with our brothers. |
| |There are few offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and for any cause whatsoever. The Council of|
| |the Home told us so, and of all the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar most often. |
|1.14 |When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the Students, where there are ten wards, for our ten years of |
| |learning. Men must learn till they reach their fifteenth year. Then they go to work. In the Home of the Students we |
| |arose when the big bell rang in the tower and we went to our beds when it rang again. Before we removed our garments, |
| |we stood in the great sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said all together with the three Teachers at |
| |the head: |
|1.15 |"We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for |
| |our brothers who are the State. Amen." |
|1.16 |Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. |
|1.17 |We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too |
| |hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It |
| |is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they|
| |frowned when they looked upon us. |
|1.18 |So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we always remembered. We tried not to understand |
| |what the Teachers taught, but we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken. We looked upon Union 5-3992, who |
| |were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we tried to say and do as they did, that we might be like them, like Union |
| |5-3992, but somehow the Teachers knew that we were not. And we were lashed more often than all the other children. |
|1.19 |The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and the Councils are the voice of all justice, for|
| |they are the voice of all men. And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on|
| |our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt. We had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to the|
| |words of our Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all: |
|1.20 |"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that|
| |which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where |
| |you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not |
| |needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies." |
|1.21 |We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: |
| |we were guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some lessons to the others. We did |
| |not listen well to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things.|
| |We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions |
| |that the Teachers forbade it. |
|1.22 |We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water and in the plants which grow. But the Council of |
| |Scholars has said that there are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all things. And we learned much from |
| |our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around it, which causes the day and the |
| |night. We learned the names of all the winds which blow over the seas and push the sails of our great ships. We learned|
| |how to bleed men to cure them of all ailments. |
|1.23 |We loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the secret hour, when we awoke in the night and there were no |
| |brothers around us, but only their shapes in the beds and their snores, we closed our eyes, and we held our lips shut, |
| |and we stopped our breath, that no shudder might let our brothers see or hear or guess, and we thought that we wished |
| |to be sent to the Home of the Scholars when our time would come. |
|1.24 |All the great modern inventions come from the Home of the Scholars, such as the newest one, which was found only a |
| |hundred years ago, of how to make candles from wax and string; also, how to make glass, which is put in our windows to |
| |protect us from the rain. To find these things, the Scholars must study the earth and learn from the rivers, from the |
| |sands, from the winds and the rocks. And if we went to the Home of the Scholars, we could learn from these also. We |
| |could ask questions of these, for they do not forbid questions. |
|1.25[*] |And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot |
| |resist it. It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, |
| |and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know. |
|1.26 |So we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished it so much that our hands trembled under the blankets in|
| |the night, and we bit our arm to stop that other pain which we could not endure. It was evil and we dared not face our |
| |brothers in the morning. For men may wish nothing for themselves. And we were punished when the Council of Vocations |
| |came to give us our life Mandates which tell those who reach their fifteenth year what their work is to be for the rest|
| |of their days. |
|1.27 |The Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and they sat in the great hall. And we who were fifteen and |
| |all the Teachers came into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations sat on a high dais, and they had but two words |
| |to speak to each of the Students. They called the Students' names, and when the Students stepped before them, one after|
| |another, the Council said: "Carpenter" or "Doctor" or "Cook" or "Leader." Then each Student raised their right arm and |
| |said: "The will of our brothers be done." |
|1.28 |Now if the Council has said "Carpenter" or "Cook," the Students so assigned go to work and they do not study any |
| |further. But if the Council has said "Leader," then those Students go into the Home of the Leaders, which is the |
| |greatest house in the City, for it has three stories. And there they study for many years, so that they may become |
| |candidates and be elected to the City Council and the State Council and the World Council -- by a free and general vote|
| |of all men. But we wished not to be a Leader, even though it is a great honor. We wished to be a Scholar. |
|1.29[*] |So we awaited our turn in the great hall and then we heard the Council of Vocations call our name: "Equality 7-2521." |
| |We walked to the dais, and our legs did not tremble, and we looked up at the Council. There were five members of the |
| |Council, three of the male gender and two of the female. Their hair was white and their faces were cracked as the clay |
| |of a dry river bed. They were old. They seemed older than the marble of the Temple of the World Council. They sat |
| |before us and they did not move. And we saw no breath to stir the folds of their white togas. But we knew that they |
| |were alive, for a finger of the hand of the oldest rose, pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing |
| |which moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said: "Street Sweeper." |
|1.30 |We felt the cords of our neck grow tight as our head rose higher to look upon the faces of the Council, and we were |
| |happy. We knew we had been guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it. We would accept our Life Mandate, and we would|
| |work for our brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin against them, which they did not know, but we |
| |knew. So we were happy, and proud of ourselves and of our victory over ourselves. We raised our right arm and we spoke,|
| |and our voice was the clearest, the steadiest voice in the hall that day, and we said: |
|1.31 |"The will of our brothers be done." |
|1.32 |And we looked straight into the eyes of the Council, but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons. |
|1.33 |So we went into the Home of the Street Sweepers. It is a grey house on a narrow street. There is a sundial in its |
| |courtyard, by which the Council of the Home can tell the hours of the day and when to ring the bell. When the bell |
| |rings, we all arise from our beds. The sky is green and cold in our windows to the east. The shadow on the sundial |
| |marks off a half-hour while we dress and eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where there are five long tables with |
| |twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups on each table. Then we go to work in the streets of the City, with our brooms |
| |and our rakes. In five hours, when the sun is high, we return to the Home and we eat our midday meal, for which |
| |one-half hour is allowed. Then we go to work again. In five hours, the shadows are blue on the pavements, and the sky |
| |is blue with a deep brightness which is not bright. We come back to have our dinner, which lasts one hour. Then the |
| |bell rings and we walk in a straight column to one of the City Halls, for the Social Meeting. Other columns of men |
| |arrive from the Homes of the different Trades. The candles are lit, and the Councils of the different Homes stand in a |
| |pulpit, and they speak to us of our duties and of our brother men. Then visiting Leaders mount the pulpit and they read|
| |to us the speeches which were made in the City Council that day, for the City Council represents all men and all men |
| |must know. Then we sing hymns, the Hymn of Brotherhood, and the Hymn of Equality, and the Hymn of the Collective |
| |Spirit. The sky is a soggy purple when we return to the Home. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to |
| |the City Theatre for three hours of Social Recreation. There a play is shown upon the stage, with two great choruses |
| |from the Home of the Actors, which speak and answer all together, in two great voices. The plays are about toil and how|
| |good it is. Then we walk back to the Home in a straight column. The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops |
| |that tremble, ready to burst through. The moths beat against the street lanterns. We go to our beds and we sleep, till |
| |the bell rings again. The sleeping halls are white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds. |
|1.34 |Thus have we lived each day of four years, until two springs ago when our crime happened. Thus must all men live until |
| |they are forty. At forty, they are worn out. At forty, they are sent to the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones |
| |live. The Old Ones do not work, for the State takes care of them. They sit in the sun in summer and they sit by the |
| |fire in winter. They do not speak often, for they are weary. The Old Ones know that they are soon to die. When a |
| |miracle happens and some live to be forty-five, they are the Ancient Ones, and children stare at them when passing by |
| |the Home of the Useless. Such is to be our life, as that of all our brothers and of the brothers who came before us. |
|1.35 |Such would have been our life, had we not committed our crime which changed all things for us. And it was our curse |
| |which drove us to our crime. We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all our brother Street Sweepers, save for our |
| |cursed wish to know. We looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the earth. And when we cleaned the |
| |yard of the Home of the Scholars, we gathered the glass vials, the pieces of metal, the dried bones which they had |
| |discarded. We wished to keep these things and to study them, but we had no place to hide them. So we carried them to |
| |the City Cesspool. And then we made the discovery. |
|1.36 |It was on a day of the spring before last. We Street Sweepers work in brigades of three, and we were with Union 5-3992,|
| |they of the half-brain, and with International 4-8818. Now Union 5-3992 are a sickly lad and sometimes they are |
| |stricken with convulsions, when their mouth froths and their eyes turn white. But International 4-8818 are different. |
| |They are a tall, strong youth and their eyes are like fireflies, for there is laughter in their eyes. We cannot look |
| |upon International 4-8818 and not smile in answer. For this they were not liked in the Home of the Students, as it is |
| |not proper to smile without reason. And also they were not liked because they took pieces of coal and they drew |
| |pictures upon the walls, and they were pictures which made men laugh. But it is only our brothers in the Home of the |
| |Artists who are permitted to draw pictures, so International 4-8818 were sent to the Home of the Street Sweepers, like |
| |ourselves. |
|1.37 |International 4-8818 and we are friends. This is an evil thing to say, for it is a transgression, the great |
| |Transgression of Preference, to love any among men better than the others, since we must love all men and all men are |
| |our friends. So International 4-8818 and we have never spoken of it. But we know. We know, when we look into each |
| |other's eyes. And when we look thus without words, we both know other things also, strange things for which there are |
| |no words, and these things frighten us. |
|1.38 |So on that day of the spring before last, Union 5-3992 were stricken with convulsions on the edge of the City, near the|
| |City Theatre. We left them to lie in the shade of the Theatre tent and we went with International 4-8818 to finish our |
| |work. We came together to the great ravine behind the Theatre. It is empty save for trees and weeds. Beyond the ravine |
| |there is a plain, and beyond the plain there lies the Uncharted Forest, about which men must not think. |
|1.39[*] |We were gathering the papers and the rags which the wind had blown from the Theatre, when we saw an iron bar among the |
| |weeds. It was old and rusted by many rains. We pulled with all our strength, but we could not move it. So we called |
| |International 4-8818, and together we scraped the earth around the bar. Of a sudden the earth fell in before us, and we|
| |saw an old iron grill over a black hole. |
|1.40 |International 4-8818 stepped back. But we pulled at the grill and it gave way. And then we saw iron rings as steps |
| |leading down a shaft into a darkness without bottom. |
|1.41 |"We shall go down," we said to International 4-8818. |
|1.42 |"It is forbidden," they answered. |
|1.43 |We said: "The Council does not know of this hole, so it cannot be forbidden." |
|1.44 |And they answered: "Since the Council does not know of this hole, there can be no law permitting to enter it. And |
| |everything which is not permitted by law is forbidden." |
|1.45 |But we said: "We shall go, none the less." |
|1.46 |They were frightened, but they stood by and watched us go. |
|1.47 |We hung on the iron rings with our hands and our feet. We could see nothing below us. And above us the hole open upon |
| |the sky grew smaller and smaller, till it came to be the size of a button. But still we went down. Then our foot |
| |touched the ground. We rubbed our eyes, for we could not see. Then our eyes became used to the darkness, but we could |
| |not believe what we saw. |
|1.48 |No men known to us could have built this place, nor the men known to our brothers who lived before us, and yet it was |
| |built by men. It was a great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the touch; it felt like stone, but it was not |
| |stone. On the ground there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron; it felt smooth and cold as glass. We |
| |knelt, and we crawled forward, our hand groping along the iron line to see where it would lead. But there was an |
| |unbroken night ahead. Only the iron tracks glowed through it, straight and white, calling us to follow. But we could |
| |not follow, for we were losing the puddle of light behind us. So we turned and we crawled back, our hand on the iron |
| |line. And our heart beat in our fingertips, without reason. And then we knew. |
|1.49 |We knew suddenly that this place was left from the Unmentionable Times. So it was true, and those Times had been, and |
| |all the wonders of those Times. Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men knew secrets which we have lost. And we |
| |thought: "This is a foul place. They are damned who touch the things of the Unmentionable Times." But our hand which |
| |followed the track, as we crawled, clung to the iron as if it would not leave it, as if the skin of our hand were |
| |thirsty and begging of the metal some secret fluid beating in its coldness. |
|1.50 |We returned to the earth. International 4-8818 looked upon us and stepped back. |
|1.51 |"Equality 7-2521," they said, "your face is white." |
|1.52 |But we could not speak and we stood looking upon them. |
|1.53 |They backed away, as if they dared not touch us. Then they smiled, but it was not a gay smile; it was lost and |
| |pleading. But still we could not speak. Then they said: |
|1.54 |"We shall report our find to the City Council and both of us will be rewarded." |
|1.55 |And then we spoke. Our voice was hard and there was no mercy in our voice. We said: |
|1.56 |"We shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not report it to any men." |
|1.57 |They raised their hands to their ears, for never had they heard such words as these. |
|1.58 |"International 4-8818," we asked, "will you report us to the Council and see us lashed to death before your eyes?" |
|1.59 |They stood straight of a sudden and they answered: |
|1.60 |"Rather would we die." |
|1.61 |"Then," we said, "keep silent. This place is ours. This place belongs to us, Equality 7-2521, and to no other men on |
| |earth. And if ever we surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it also." |
|1.62 |Then we saw that the eyes of International 4-8818 were full to the lids with tears they dared not drop. They whispered,|
| |and their voice trembled, so that their words lost all shape: |
|1.63 |"The will of the Council is above all things, for it is the will of our brothers, which is holy. But if you wish it so,|
| |we shall obey you. Rather shall we be evil with you than good with all our brothers. May the Council have mercy upon |
| |both our hearts!" |
|1.64 |Then we walked away together and back to the Home of the Street Sweepers. And we walked in silence. |
|1.65 |Thus did it come to pass that each night, when the stars are high and the Street Sweepers sit in the City Theatre, we, |
| |Equality 7-2521, steal out and run through the darkness to our place. It is easy to leave the Theatre; when the candles|
| |are blown and the Actors come onto the stage, no eyes can see us as we crawl under our seat and under the cloth of the |
| |tent. Later, it is easy to steal through the shadows and fall in line next to International 4-8818, as the column |
| |leaves the Theatre. It is dark in the streets and there are no men about, for no men may walk through the City when |
| |they have no mission to walk there. Each night, we run to the ravine, and we remove the stones which we have piled upon|
| |the iron grill to hide it from men. Each night, for three hours, we are under the earth, alone. |
|1.66 |We have stolen candles from the Home of the Street Sweepers, we have stolen flints and knives and paper, and we have |
| |brought them to this place. We have stolen glass vials and powders and acids from the Home of the Scholars. Now we sit |
| |in the tunnel for three hours each night and we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix acids, and we cut open the |
| |bodies of the animals which we find in the City Cesspool. We have built an oven of the bricks we gathered in the |
| |streets. We burn the wood we find in the ravine. The fire flickers in the oven and blue shadows dance upon the walls, |
| |and there is no sound of men to disturb us. |
|1.67 |We have stolen manuscripts. This is a great offense. Manuscripts are precious, for our brothers in the Home of the |
| |Clerks spend one year to copy one single script in their clear handwriting. Manuscripts are rare and they are kept in |
| |the Home of the Scholars. So we sit under the earth and we read the stolen scripts. Two years have passed since we |
| |found this place. And in these two years we have learned more than we had learned in the ten years of the Home of the |
| |Students. |
|1.68[*] |We have learned things which are not in the scripts. We have solved secrets of which the Scholars have no knowledge. We|
| |have come to see how great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will not bring us to the end of our quest. But we wish|
| |no end to our quest. We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each day our sight were |
| |growing sharper than the hawk's and clearer than rock crystal. |
|1.69 |Strange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our brothers. We are defying the will of our Councils. We |
| |alone, of the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no purpose save that we |
| |wish to do it. The evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe. The nature of our punishment, if it be |
| |discovered, is not for the human heart to ponder. Never, not in the memory of the Ancient Ones' Ancients, never have |
| |men done that which we are doing. |
|1.70 |And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to ourselves that we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no |
| |burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no |
| |eyes save those of the sun. And in our heart -- strange are the ways of evil! -- in our heart there is the first peace |
| |we have known in twenty years. |

Notes on Chapter One
|1.1n |Just with the opening paragraph one can see differences between the style of Anthem and Rand's other novels. Differences |
| |include: |
| |The use of a first-person narrative. All of Rand's other novels are written in the third person, generally from an |
| |"omniscient" point of view. |
| |Unusual (although grammatically acceptable) phrase constructions and word orders. For example, "bid them so," in the next|
| |to last sentence of this paragraph. |
| |Vocabulary that is not typical of Rand, such as the use of words like "transgression" and "base." |
| |The seemingly inappropriate use of plural pronouns, which is critical to the setting and plot of the story. |
| |In addition, this opening paragraph is different in that it is easily the longest opening paragraph for any Rand novel. |
| |All of her other novels have one-sentence opening paragraphs: "Who is John Galt?" (Atlas Shrugged); "Howard Roark |
| |laughed." (The Fountainhead); and "Petrograd smelt of carbolic acid." (We the Living). |
| | |
| |Finally, it is probably worth noting the similarity between the opening of Anthem and the opening of one of Rand's first |
| |writing efforts in English: "The Husband I Bought." That early short story (unpublished until after her death, when |
| |Leonard Peikoff included it in The Early Ayn Rand) is also written in the first person and begins with the sentence, "I |
| |should not have written this story."[Return to Text] |
|1.5n |The unusual "names" are a striking feature of Anthem. Rand intentionally gave the characters numerical designations |
| |rather than regular names to represent the collectivism of the society she projected: "Since the people had no concept of|
| |individuality, they could not have individual names -- only numbers. I patterned the numbering after telephone numbers, |
| |with prefixes consisting of statist slogans, some good, but hypocritical for that society (such as "Liberty") -- others, |
| |ironic on my part (such as "Equality" for the hero, who is obviously a genius and not the intellectual "equal" of average|
| |men)." (Ayn Rand, "Questions and Answers on Anthem," The Objectivist Calendar (June 1979), reprinted in The Ayn Rand |
| |Column, p. 122) [Return to Text] |
|1.7n |Some texts use the wording "which we are required to repeat to ourselves" instead of "which we repeat to ourselves." The |
| |extra phrase changes the meaning of the sentence, making this is a relatively significant discrepancy. The additional |
| |phrase has been excluded from this edition on the following grounds: 1) it is not found in the majority of second edition|
| |texts, and 2) it is not shown in the facsimile first edition text (included in the 50th Anniversary Edition), and there |
| |are no editing marks on the facsimile to suggest that it was added by Rand for the second edition. [Return to Text] |
|1.25n |Some texts lack the phrase "that we can know them if we try," which is a significant omission given the philosophical |
| |implications of that clause. It has been included in this edition on the following grounds: 1) It appears in a majority |
| |of second edition texts, 2) it is included in the facsimile first edition text without any editing marks to suggest that |
| |Rand wanted it removed, and 3) the idea implied by the phrase is consistent with Rand's philosophy as stated in her later|
| |fiction and non-fiction writings. [Return to Text] |
|1.29n |Equality 7-2521's assignment as a Street Sweeper shows the disdain that the Council has for his ability and his desire |
| |for learning. He is assigned to the most menial of positions, work with a minimum of intellectual stimulation, precisely |
| |because he has shown ability and interest. It is punishment for his individualism. An echo of the Council's attitude can |
| |be found in the character of Ellsworth Toohey in Rand's later novel The Fountainhead. In an early job as a vocational |
| |adviser, Toohey encourages students to avoid careers they love in favor of work that does not interest them. |
| | |
| |The street sweeping assignment also serves other purposes within Rand's story. See the footnote for paragraph 1.39 for |
| |more discussion of this subject. [Return to Text] |
|1.39n |Although it first appears as an instance of how a collectivist society mistreats the individual, the assignment to work |
| |as a Street Sweeper actually drives several important events in the story. It is his work that takes Equality 7-2521 to |
| |the place where he makes his discoveries. Later, his work will also take him to the place of his first meetings with |
| |Liberty 5-3000. This is a classic example of Rand's use of the same element of a story to serve multiple purposes. |
| |[Return to Text] |
|1.68n |Some texts omit the sentence, "But we wish no end to our quest." It has been included in this edition on the following |
| |grounds: 1) It appears in a majority of second edition texts, and 2) it is included in the facsimile first edition text |
| |without any editing marks to suggest that Rand wanted it removed. [Return to Text] |

[pic]
II.
|2.1 |Liberty 5-3000 . . . Liberty five-three thousand . . . Liberty 5-3000 . . . . |
|2.2 |We wish to write this name. We wish to speak it, but we dare not speak it above a whisper. For men are forbidden to |
| |take notice of women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men. But we think of one among women, they whose name |
| |is Liberty 5-3000, and we think of no others. |
|2.3 |The women who have been assigned to work the soil live in the Homes of the Peasants beyond the City. Where the City |
| |ends there is a great road winding off to the north, and we Street Sweepers must keep this road clean to the first |
| |milepost. There is a hedge along the road, and beyond the hedge lie the fields. The fields are black and ploughed, and |
| |they lie like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that|
| |hand, opening wide apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with thin, green spangles. Women work |
| |in the fields, and their white tunics in the wind are like the wings of sea-gulls beating over the black soil. |
|2.4 |And there it was that we saw Liberty 5-3000 walking along the furrows. Their body was straight and thin as a blade of |
| |iron. Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden |
| |as the sun; their hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to restrain it. They threw seeds from |
| |their hand as if they deigned to fling a scornful gift, and the earth was a beggar under their feet. |
|2.5 |We stood still; for the first time did we know fear, and then pain. And we stood still that we might not spill this |
| |pain more precious than pleasure. |
|2.6 |Then we heard a voice from the others call their name: "Liberty 5-3000," and they turned and walked back. Thus we |
| |learned their name, and we stood watching them go, till their white tunic was lost in the blue mist. |
|2.7 |And the following day, as we came to the northern road, we kept our eyes upon Liberty 5-3000 in the field. And each day|
| |thereafter we knew the illness of waiting for our hour on the northern road. And there we looked at Liberty 5-3000 each|
| |day. We know not whether they looked at us also, but we think they did. |
|2.8 |Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they turned to us. They turned in a whirl and the movement of |
| |their body stopped, as if slashed off, as suddenly as it had started. They stood still as a stone, and they looked |
| |straight upon us, straight into our eyes. There was no smile on their face, and no welcome. But their face was taut, |
| |and their eyes were dark. Then they turned as swiftly, and they walked away from us. |
|2.9 |But the following day, when we came to the road, they smiled. They smiled to us and for us. And we smiled in answer. |
| |Their head fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin white neck were stricken suddenly with a |
| |great lassitude. They were not looking upon us, but upon the sky. Then they glanced at us over their shoulder, and we |
| |felt as if a hand had touched our body, slipping softly from our lips to our feet. |
|2.10 |Every morning thereafter, we greeted each other with our eyes. We dared not speak. It is a transgression to speak to |
| |men of other Trades, save in groups at the Social Meetings. But once, standing at the hedge, we raised our hand to our |
| |forehead and then moved it slowly, palm down, toward Liberty 5-3000. Had the others seen it, they could have guessed |
| |nothing, for it looked only as if we were shading our eyes from the sun. But Liberty 5-3000 saw it and understood. They|
| |raised their hand to their forehead and moved it as we had. Thus, each day, we greet Liberty 5-3000, and they answer, |
| |and no men can suspect. |
|2.11[*] |We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second Transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our |
| |brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty 5-3000. We do not know why we think of them. We do not|
| |know why, when we think of them, we feel of a sudden that the earth is good and that it is not a burden to live. |
|2.12 |We do not think of them as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have given them a name in our thoughts. We call them the |
| |Golden One. But it is a sin to give men names which distinguish them from other men. Yet we call them the Golden One, |
| |for they are not like the others. The Golden One are not like the others. |
|2.13[*] |And we take no heed of the law which says that men may not think of women, save at the Time of Mating. This is the time|
| |each spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older than eighteen are sent for one night to the City|
| |Palace of Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are |
| |born each winter, but women never see their children and children never know their parents. Twice have we been sent to |
| |the Palace of Mating, but it is an ugly and shameful matter, of which we do not like to think. |
|2.14 |We had broken so many laws, and today we have broken one more. Today, we spoke to the Golden One. |
|2.15 |The other women were far off in the field, when we stopped at the hedge by the side of the road. The Golden One were |
| |kneeling alone at the moat which runs through the field. And the drops of water falling from their hands, as they |
| |raised the water to their lips, were like sparks of fire in the sun. Then the Golden One saw us, and they did not move,|
| |kneeling there, looking at us, and circles of light played upon their white tunic, from the sun on the water of the |
| |moat, and one sparkling drop fell from a finger of their hand held as frozen in the air. |
|2.16 |Then the Golden One rose and walked to the hedge, as if they had heard a command in our eyes. The two other Street |
| |Sweepers of our brigade were a hundred paces away down the road. And we thought that International 4-8818 would not |
| |betray us, and Union 5-3992 would not understand. So we looked straight upon the Golden One, and we saw the shadows of |
| |their lashes on their white cheeks and the sparks of sun on their lips. And we said: |
|2.17 |"You are beautiful, Liberty 5-3000." |
|2.18 |Their face did not move and they did not avert their eyes. Only their eyes grew wider, and there was triumph in their |
| |eyes, and it was not triumph over us, but over things we could not guess. |
|2.19 |Then they asked: |
|2.20 |"What is your name?" |
|2.21 |"Equality 7-2521," we answered. |
|2.22 |"You are not one of our brothers, Equality 7-2521, for we do not wish you to be." |
|2.23 |We cannot say what they meant, for there are no words for their meaning, but we know it without words and we knew it |
| |then. |
|2.24 |"No," we answered, "nor are you one of our sisters." |
|2.25 |"If you see us among scores of women, will you look upon us?" |
|2.26 |"We shall look upon you, Liberty 5-3000, if we see you among all the women of the earth." |
|2.27 |Then they asked: |
|2.28 |"Are Street Sweepers sent to different parts of the City or do they always work in the same places?" |
|2.29 |"They always work in the same places," we answered, "and no one will take this road away from us." |
|2.30 |"Your eyes," they said, "are not like the eyes of any among men." |
|2.31 |And suddenly, without cause for the thought which came to us, we felt cold, cold to our stomach. |
|2.32 |"How old are you?" we asked. |
|2.33 |They understood our thought, for they lowered their eyes for the first time. |
|2.34 |"Seventeen," they whispered. |
|2.35 |And we sighed, as if a burden had been taken from us, for we had been thinking without reason of the Palace of Mating. |
| |And we thought that we would not let the Golden One be sent to the Palace. How to prevent it, how to bar the will of |
| |the Councils, we knew not, but we knew suddenly that we would. Only we do not know why such thought came to us, for |
| |these ugly matters bear no relation to us and the Golden One. What relation can they bear? |
|2.36 |Still, without reason, as we stood there by the hedge, we felt our lips drawn tight with hatred, a sudden hatred for |
| |all our brother men. And the Golden One saw it and smiled slowly, and there was in their smile the first sadness we had|
| |seen in them. We think that in the wisdom of women the Golden One had understood more than we can understand. |
|2.37 |Then three of the sisters in the field appeared, coming toward the road, so the Golden One walked away from us. They |
| |took the bag of seeds, and they threw the seeds into the furrows of earth as they walked away. But the seeds flew |
| |wildly, for the hand of the Golden One was trembling. |
|2.38 |Yet as we walked back to the Home of the Street Sweepers, we felt that we wanted to sing, without reason. So we were |
| |reprimanded tonight, in the dining hall, for without knowing it we had begun to sing aloud some tune we had never |
| |heard. But it is not proper to sing without reason, save at the Social Meetings. |
|2.39 |"We are singing because we are happy," we answered the one of the Home Council who reprimanded us. |
|2.40 |"Indeed you are happy," they answered. "How else can men be when they live for their brothers?" |
|2.41 |And now, sitting here in our tunnel, we wonder about these words. It is forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been|
| |explained to us, men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things on earth belong to all men; and the will of|
| |all men together is good for all; and so all men must be happy. |
|2.42 |Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder. |
| |The heads of our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our brothers are dull, and never do they look one another in the eyes.|
| |The shoulders of our brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were shrinking and wished to|
| |shrink out of sight. And a word steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear. |
|2.43 |There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets. Fear walks through the City, |
| |fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak. |
|2.44 |We feel it also, when we are in the Home of the Street Sweepers. But here, in our tunnel, we feel it no longer. The air|
| |is pure under the ground. There is no odor of men. And these three hours give us strength for our hours above the |
| |ground. |
|2.45 |Our body is betraying us, for the Council of the Home looks with suspicion upon us. It is not good to feel too much joy|
| |nor to be glad that our body lives. For we matter not and it must not matter to us whether we live or die, which is to |
| |be as our brothers will it. But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue. |
|2.46 |Yet our brothers are not like us. All is not well with our brothers. There are Fraternity 2-5503, a quiet boy with |
| |wise, kind eyes, who cry suddenly, without reason, in the midst of day or night, and their body shakes with sobs they |
| |cannot explain. There are Solidarity 9-6347, who are a bright youth, without fear in the day; but they scream in their |
| |sleep, and they scream: "Help us! Help us! Help us!" into the night, in a voice which chills our bones, but the Doctors|
| |cannot cure Solidarity 9-6347. |
|2.47 |And as we all undress at night, in the dim light of the candles, our brothers are silent, for they dare not speak the |
| |thoughts of their minds. For all must agree with all, and they cannot know if their thoughts are the thoughts of all, |
| |and so they fear to speak. And they are glad when the candles are blown for the night. But we, Equality 7-2521, look |
| |through the window upon the sky, and there is peace in the sky, and cleanliness, and dignity. And beyond the City there|
| |lies the plain, and beyond the plain, black upon the black sky, there lies the Uncharted Forest. |
|2.48 |We do not wish to look upon the Uncharted Forest. We do not wish to think of it. But ever do our eyes return to that |
| |black patch upon the sky. Men never enter the Uncharted Forest, for there is no power to explore it and no path to lead|
| |among its ancient trees which stand as guards of fearful secrets. It is whispered that once or twice in a hundred |
| |years, one among the men of the City escape alone and run to the Uncharted Forest, without call or reason. These men do|
| |not return. They perish from hunger and from the claws of the wild beasts which roam the Forest. But our Councils say |
| |that this is only a legend. We have heard that there are many Uncharted Forests over the land, among the Cities. And it|
| |is whispered that they have grown over the ruins of many cities of the Unmentionable Times. The trees have swallowed |
| |the ruins, and the bones under the ruins, and all the things which perished. |
|2.49[*] |And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times. And we |
| |wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the world. We have heard the legends of the great fighting, |
| |in which many men fought on one side and only a few on the other. These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered.|
| |Then great fires raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is called the |
| |Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all |
| |the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the squares of the Cities for three months. Then came the|
| |Great Rebirth. |
|2.50 |The words of the Evil Ones . . . The words of the Unmentionable Times . . . What are the words which we have lost? |
|2.51 |May the Council have mercy upon us! We had no wish to write such a question, and we knew not what we were doing till we|
| |had written it. We shall not ask this question and we shall not think it. We shall not call death upon our head. |
|2.52 |And yet . . . And yet . . . |
|2.53 |There is some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which had been. And this is the |
| |Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men |
| |find that word. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or cut into the fragments of ancient stones. But when they |
| |speak it they are put to death. There is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the |
| |Unspeakable Word. |
|2.54[*] |We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the City. And it was a sight which has stayed with us |
| |through the years, and it haunts us, and follows us, and it gives us no rest. We were a child then, ten years old. And |
| |we stood in the great square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to behold the burning. They |
| |brought the Transgressor out into the square and they led them to the pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the |
| |Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer. The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes |
| |blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all |
| |the faces which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, theirs was the calmest and the happiest face. |
|2.55 |As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and a flame set to the pyre, the Transgressor looked upon the |
| |City. There was a thin thread of blood running from the corner of their mouth, but their lips were smiling. And a |
| |monstrous thought came to us then, which has never left us. We had heard of Saints. There are the Saints of Labor, and |
| |the Saints of the Councils, and the Saints of the Great Rebirth. But we had never seen a Saint nor what the likeness of|
| |a Saint should be. And we thought then, standing in the square, that the likeness of a Saint was the face we saw before|
| |us in the flames, the face of the Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word. |
|2.56 |As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours, else we would not be living today. Perhaps it had only|
| |seemed to us. But it seemed to us that the eyes of the Transgressor had chosen us from the crowd and were looking |
| |straight upon us. There was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their body. There was only joy in |
| |them, and pride, a pride holier than it is fit for human pride to be. And it seemed as if these eyes were trying to |
| |tell us something through the flames, to send into our eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes |
| |were begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and from the earth. But the flames rose and we could |
| |not guess the word. . . . |
|2.57 |What -- even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the pyre -- what is the Unspeakable Word? |

Notes on Chapter Two
|2.11n |Equality 7-2521 states that this is his second "Transgression of Preference." However, according to his previous |
| |narrative, it is his third. He says he committed this transgression when he "preferred some work and some lessons to the|
| |others" (1.21) and when he preferred International 4-8818 as a friend over other men (1.37). [Return to Text] |
|2.13n |It is not clear from this brief description whether the "Council of Eugenics" has retained any concept of eugenics in |
| |the usual sense of selective breeding. They may simply be arranging anonymous matings in order to remove any elements of|
| |personal relationships or individual feelings from the sex act. If they are engaging in selective breeding, one wonders |
| |whether a non-conformist like Equality 7-2521 would be allowed to have any children at all. [Return to Text] |
|2.49n |Some texts omit a large portion of the sentence that begins, "And the fire which is called ...," so that they contain no|
| |direct reference to the burning of the scripts. The missing scripts are significant to the plot later in the novel. The |
| |full sentence is present in most texts (first and second edition) and is therefore included in this edition. [Return to |
| |Text] |
|2.54n |In the sentence that includes the phrase, "they led them to the pyre," some texts (notably including the printed 50th |
| |Anniversary Edition) use 'him' instead of 'them.' This word has been rendered as "them" in this edition on the following|
| |grounds: 1) this word appears as 'them' in a majority of second edition texts, 2) it is rendered as 'them' in the |
| |facsimile first edition text without any editing marks to suggest that Rand wanted it changed, and 3) the use of 'him' |
| |makes no sense in the context of the novel, as Equality 7-2521 is not familiar with singular pronouns. (At least one |
| |commentator has speculated as to the import of Rand's use of 'him,' apparently not realizing that this is a copyediting |
| |error.) [Return to Text] |

[pic]
III.
|3.1 |We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered a new power of nature. And we have discovered it alone, and we are alone to know |
| |it. |
|3.2 |It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which |
| |exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But we think that the Council of Scholars is |
| |blind. The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for we have|
| |found a secret unknown to all our brothers. |
|3.3 |We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know its nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We |
| |saw it first two years ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was |
| |dead, yet it moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not understand it. Then, after many tests, we|
| |found the answer. The frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent a|
| |strange power to the copper through the brine of the frog's body. We put a piece of copper and a piece of zinc into a |
| |jar of brine, we touched a wire to them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never occurred before, a |
| |new miracle and a new power. |
|3.4 |This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all our studies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways|
| |than we can describe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling before us. We came to know that we had found the |
| |greatest power on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the needle move and turn on the compass which|
| |we stole from the Home of the Scholars; but we had been taught, when still a child, that the loadstone points to the |
| |north and that this is a law which nothing can change; yet our new power defies all laws. We found that it causes |
| |lightning, and never have men known what causes lightning. In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of iron by the side of|
| |our hole, and we watched it from below. We have seen the lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metal|
| |draws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it forth. |
|3.5[*] |We have built strange things with this discovery of ours. We used for it the copper wires which we found here under the |
| |ground. We have walked the length of our tunnel, with a candle lighting the way. We could go no farther than half a |
| |mile, for earth and rock had fallen at both ends. But we gathered all the things we found and we brought them to our |
| |work place. We found strange boxes with bars of metal inside, with many cords and strands and coils of metal. We found |
| |wires that led to strange little globes of glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than a spider's |
| |web. |
|3.6 |These things help us in our work. We do not understand them, but we think that the men of the Unmentionable Times had |
| |known our power of the sky, and these things had some relation to it. We do not know, but we shall learn. We cannot stop|
| |now, even though it frightens us that we are alone in our knowledge. |
|3.7 |No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can.|
| |We do. We have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not care. We forget all men, all laws and all things |
| |save our metals and our wires. So much is still to be learned! So long a road lies before us, and what care we if we |
| |must travel it alone! |

Notes on Chapter Three
|3.5n |The description of the tunnel (here and at 1.48) suggests a subway or other enclosed railway. Rand confirmed that she |
| |intended it as a subway in a Q&A about Anthem published in the June 1979 issue of The Objectivist Calendar. If it is a |
| |subway, then this suggests that city where Equality 7-2521 lives exists on or near the ruins of an earlier city -- one |
| |large enough to have a subway. The ruins must have been cleared away or thoroughly decayed, because it is not acceptable |
| |for people to have contact with things from the Unmentionable Times (1.49). Exactly what happened to the old city is not |
| |explained in any detail. Perhaps the war of the Great Rebirth (2.49) demolished it. Perhaps the victorious collectivists |
| |intentionally dismantled it as a rejection of the previous society. Perhaps it was simply abandoned and fell to dust. |
| |Equality 7-2521 does not know. He can only report rumors that ruins of old cities have been overgrown by the Uncharted |
| |Forests (2.48). [Return to Text] |

[pic]
IV.
|4.1 |Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again. But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the|
| |sun had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay still without breath, and the dust of the road was white|
| |in the glow. So the women of the field were weary, and they tarried over their work, and they were far from the road when |
| |we came. But the Golden One stood alone at the hedge, waiting. We stopped and we saw that their eyes, so hard and scornful|
| |to the world, were looking at us as if they would obey any word we might speak. |
|4.2 |And we said: |
|4.3 |"We have given you a name in our thoughts, Liberty 5-3000." |
|4.4 |"What is our name?" they asked. |
|4.5 |"The Golden One." |
|4.6 |"Nor do we call you Equality 7-2521 when we think of you." |
|4.7 |"What name have you given us?" |
|4.8 |They looked straight into our eyes and they held their head high and they answered: |
|4.9 |"The Unconquered." |
|4.10 |For a long time we could not speak. Then we said: |
|4.11 |"Such thoughts as these are forbidden, Golden One." |
|4.12 |"But you think such thoughts as these and you wish us to think them." |
|4.13 |We looked into their eyes and we could not lie. |
|4.14 |"Yes," we whispered, and they smiled, and then we said: "Our dearest one, do not obey us." |
|4.15 |They stepped back, and their eyes were wide and still. |
|4.16 |"Speak these words again," they whispered. |
|4.17 |"Which words?" we asked. But they did not answer, and we knew it. |
|4.18 |"Our dearest one," we whispered. |
|4.19 |Never have men said this to women. |
|4.20 |The head of the Golden One bowed slowly, and they stood still before us, their arms at their sides, the palms of their |
| |hands turned to us, as if their body were delivered in submission to our eyes. And we could not speak. |
|4.21 |Then they raised their head, and they spoke simply and gently, as if they wished us to forget some anxiety of their own. |
|4.22 |"The day is hot," they said, "and you have worked for many hours and you must be weary." |
|4.23 |"No," we answered. |
|4.24 |"It is cooler in the fields," they said, "and there is water to drink. Are you thirsty?" |
|4.25 |"Yes," we answered, "but we cannot cross the hedge." |
|4.26 |"We shall bring the water to you," they said. |
|4.27 |Then they knelt by the moat, they gathered water in their two hands, they rose and they held the water out to our lips. |
|4.28 |We do not know if we drank that water. We only knew suddenly that their hands were empty, but we were still holding our |
| |lips to their hands, and that they knew it, but did not move. |
|4.29 |We raised our head and stepped back. For we did not understand what had made us do this, and we were afraid to understand |
| |it. |
|4.30 |And the Golden One stepped back, and stood looking upon their hands in wonder. Then the Golden One moved away, even though|
| |no others were coming, and they moved stepping back, as if they could not turn from us, their arms bent before them, as if|
| |they could not lower their hands. |

[pic]
V.
|5.1 |We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and |
| |only. |
|5.2 |We know not what we are saying. Our head is reeling. We look upon the light which we have made. We shall be forgiven for |
| |anything we say tonight. . . . |
|5.3 |Tonight, after more days and trials than we can count, we finished building a strange thing, from the remains of the |
| |Unmentionable Times, a box of glass, devised to give forth the power of the sky of greater strength than we had ever |
| |achieved before. And when we put our wires to this box, when we closed the current -- the wire glowed! It came to life, it |
| |turned red, and a circle of light lay on the stone before us. |
|5.4 |We stood, and we held our head in our hands. We could not conceive of that which we had created. We had touched no flint, |
| |made no fire. Yet here was light, light that came from nowhere, light from the heart of metal. |
|5.5 |We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing left around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of |
| |flame in it, as a crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to the wire, and we saw our fingers in the red |
| |glow. We could not see our body nor feel it, and in that moment nothing existed save our two hands over a wire glowing in a|
| |black abyss. |
|5.6 |Then we thought of the meaning of that which lay before us. We can light our tunnel, and the City, and all the Cities of |
| |the world with nothing save metal and wires. We can give our brothers a new light, cleaner and brighter than any they have |
| |ever known. The power of the sky can be made to do men's bidding. There are no limits to its secrets and its might, and it |
| |can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask. |
|5.7 |Then we knew what we must do. Our discovery is too great for us to waste our time in sweeping the streets. We must not keep|
| |our secret to ourselves, nor buried under the ground. We must bring it into the sight of all men. We need all our time, we |
| |need the work rooms of the Home of the Scholars, we want the help of our brother Scholars and their wisdom joined to ours. |
| |There is so much work ahead for all of us, for all the Scholars of the world. |
|5.8 |In a month, the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City. It is a great Council, to which the wisest of all lands |
| |are elected, and it meets once a year in the different Cities of the earth. We shall go to this Council and we shall lay |
| |before them, as our gift, the glass box with the power of the sky. We shall confess everything to them. They will see, |
| |understand and forgive. For our gift is greater than our transgression. They will explain it to the Council of Vocations, |
| |and we shall be assigned to the Home of the Scholars. This has never been done before, but neither has a gift such as ours |
| |ever been offered to men. |
|5.9 |We must wait. We must guard our tunnel as we had never guarded it before. For should any men save the Scholars learn of our|
| |secret, they would not understand it, nor would they believe us. They would see nothing, save our crime of working alone, |
| |and they would destroy us and our light. We care not about our body, but our light is . . . |
|5.10 |Yes, we do care. For the first time do we care about our body. For this wire is a part of our body, as a vein torn from us,|
| |glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide |
| |these two? |
|5.11 |We stretch out our arms. For the first time do we know how strong our arms are. And a strange thought comes to us: we |
| |wonder, for the first time in our life, what we look like. Men never see their own faces and never ask their brothers about|
| |it, for it is evil to have concern for their own faces or bodies. But tonight, for a reason we cannot fathom, we wish it |
| |were possible to us to know the likeness of our own person. |

[pic]
VI.
|6.1 |We have not written for thirty days. For thirty days we have not been here, in our tunnel. We had been caught. |
|6.2 |It happened on that night when we wrote last. We forgot, that night, to watch the sand in the glass which tells us when |
| |three hours have passed and it is time to return to the City Theatre. When we remembered it, the sand had run out. |
|6.3 |We hastened to the Theatre. But the big tent stood grey and silent against the sky. The streets of the City lay before |
| |us, dark and empty. If we went back to hide in our tunnel, we would be found and our light found with us. So we walked |
| |to the Home of the Street Sweepers. |
|6.4 |When the Council of the Home questioned us, we looked upon the faces of the Council, but there was no curiosity in those|
| |faces, and no anger, and no mercy. So when the oldest of them asked us: "Where have you been?" we thought of our glass |
| |box and of our light, and we forgot all else. And we answered: |
|6.5[*] |"We will not tell you." |
|6.6 |The oldest did not question us further. They turned to the two youngest, and said, and their voice was bored: |
|6.7 |"Take our brother Equality 7-2521 to the Palace of Corrective Detention. Lash them until they tell." |
|6.8 |So we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of Corrective Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty |
| |save for an iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather aprons and leather hoods over their faces. Those|
| |who had brought us departed, leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner of the room. The Judges were small, thin|
| |men, grey and bent. They gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones. |
|6.9 |They tore our clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our knees and they tied our hands to the iron post. |
|6.10 |The first blow of the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The second blow stopped the first, and for a second|
| |we felt nothing, then the pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs without air. But we did not cry out. |
|6.11 |The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were |
| |falling upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and |
| |we thought of nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and then we knew that we were looking at the |
| |squares of the iron grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on the walls, and the squares which the |
| |lash was cutting upon our back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh. |
|6.12 |Then we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw the red froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and|
| |the Judge asked: |
|6.13 |"Where have you been?" |
|6.14 |But we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands, and bit our lips. |
|6.15 |The lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning coal dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red |
| |twinkling on the stones around us. |
|6.16 |Then we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one after the other, even though we knew they were speaking |
| |many minutes apart: |
|6.17 |"Where have you been where have you been where have you been where have you been? . . ." |
|6.18 |And our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat, and the sound was only: |
|6.19 |"The light . . . The light . . . The light. . . ." |
|6.20 |Then we knew nothing. |
|6.21 |We opened our eyes, lying on our stomach on the brick floor of a cell. We looked upon two hands lying far before us on |
| |the bricks, and we moved them, and we knew that they were our hands. But we could not move our body. Then we smiled, for|
| |we thought of the light and that we had not betrayed it. |
|6.22 |We lay in our cell for many days. The door opened twice each day, once for the men who brought us bread and water, and |
| |once for the Judges. Many Judges came to our cell, first the humblest and then the most honored Judges of the City. They|
| |stood before us in their white togas, and they asked: |
|6.23 |"Are you ready to speak?" |
|6.24 |But we shook our head, lying before them on the floor. And they departed. |
|6.25 |We counted each day and each night as it passed. Then, tonight, we knew that we must escape. For tomorrow the World |
| |Council of Scholars is to meet in our City. |
|6.26 |It was easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards |
| |about. There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the Councils so far as to escape from whatever place|
| |they were ordered to be. Our body is healthy and strength returns to it speedily. We lunged against the door and it gave|
| |way. We stole through the dark passages, and through the dark streets, and down into our tunnel. |
|6.27 |We lit the candle and we saw that our place had not been found and nothing had been touched. And our glass box stood |
| |before us on the cold oven, as we had left it. What matter they now, the scars upon our back! |
|6.28 |Tomorrow, in the full light of day, we shall take our box, and leave our tunnel open, and walk through the streets to |
| |the Home of the Scholars. We shall put before them the greatest gift ever offered to men. We shall tell them the truth. |
| |We shall hand to them, as our confession, these pages we have written. We shall join our hands to theirs, and we shall |
| |work together, with the power of the sky, for the glory of mankind. Our blessing upon you, our brothers! Tomorrow, you |
| |will take us back into your fold and we shall be an outcast no longer. Tomorrow we shall be one of you again. Tomorrow .|
| |. . |

Notes on Chapter Six
|6.5n |Although he conceals where he has been, Equality 7-2521 apparently does not consider actually lying to either the Council |
| |of the Home or the Judges (such as by making up a story about being somewhere other than the tunnel). This attitude on his|
| |part presumably reflects both the culture of authoritarianism, in which lying to the authorities would be still another |
| |transgression, and Rand's own views on the general ineffectiveness of lying. [Return to Text] |

[pic]
VII.
|7.1 |It is dark here in the forest. The leaves rustle over our head, black against the last gold of the sky. The moss is |
| |soft and warm. We shall sleep on this moss for many nights, till the beasts of the forest come to tear our body. We |
| |have no bed now, save the moss, and no future, save the beasts. |
|7.2 |We are old now, yet we were young this morning, when we carried our glass box through the streets of the City to the |
| |Home of the Scholars. No men stopped us, for there were none about from the Palace of Corrective Detention, and the |
| |others knew nothing. No men stopped us at the gate. We walked through empty passages and into the great hall where the |
| |World Council of Scholars sat in solemn meeting. |
|7.3[*] |We saw nothing as we entered, save the sky in the great windows, blue and glowing. Then we saw the Scholars who sat |
| |around a long table; they were as shapeless clouds huddled at the rise of the great sky. There were men whose famous |
| |names we knew, and others from distant lands whose names we had not heard. We saw a great painting on the wall over |
| |their heads, of the twenty illustrious men who had invented the candle. |
|7.4 |All the heads of the Council turned to us as we entered. These great and wise of the earth did not know what to think |
| |of us, and they looked upon us with wonder and curiosity, as if we were a miracle. It is true that our tunic was torn |
| |and stained with brown stains which had been blood. We raised our right arm and we said: |
|7.5 |"Our greeting to you, our honored brothers of the World Council of Scholars!" |
|7.6 |Then Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the Council, spoke and asked: |
|7.7 |"Who are you, our brother? For you do not look like a Scholar." |
|7.8 |"Our name is Equality 7-2521," we answered, "and we are a Street Sweeper of this City." |
|7.9 |Then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and |
| |frightened. |
|7.10 |"A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Council of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is |
| |against all the rules and all the laws!" |
|7.11 |But we knew how to stop them. |
|7.12 |"Our brothers!" we said. "We matter not, nor our transgression. It is only our brother men who matter. Give no thought |
| |to us, for we are nothing, but listen to our words, for we bring you a gift such as has never been brought to men. |
| |Listen to us, for we hold the future of mankind in our hands." |
|7.13 |Then they listened. |
|7.14 |We placed our glass box upon the table before them. We spoke of it, and of our long quest, and of our tunnel, and of |
| |our escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. Not a hand moved in that hall, as we spoke, nor an eye. Then we put|
| |the wires to the box, and they all bent forward and sat still, watching. And we stood still, our eyes upon the wire. |
| |And slowly, slowly as a flush of blood, a red flame trembled in the wire. Then the wire glowed. |
|7.15 |But terror struck the men of the Council. They leapt to their feet, they ran from the table, and they stood pressed |
| |against the wall, huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another's bodies to give them courage. |
|7.16 |We looked upon them and we laughed and said: |
|7.17 |"Fear nothing, our brothers. There is a great power in these wires, but this power is tamed. It is yours. We give it to|
| |you." |
|7.18 |Still they would not move. |
|7.19 |"We give you the power of the sky!" we cried. "We give you the key to the earth! Take it, and let us be one of you, the|
| |humblest among you. Let us all work together, and harness this power, and make it ease the toil of men. Let us throw |
| |away our candles and our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let us bring a new light to men!" |
|7.20 |But they looked upon us, and suddenly we were afraid. For their eyes were still, and small, and evil. |
|7.21 |"Our brothers!" we cried. "Have you nothing to say to us?" |
|7.22 |Then Collective 0-0009 moved forward. They moved to the table and the others followed. |
|7.23 |"Yes," spoke Collective 0-0009, "we have much to say to you." |
|7.24 |The sound of their voice brought silence to the hall and to the beat of our heart. |
|7.25 |"Yes," said Collective 0-0009, "we have much to say to a wretch who have broken all the laws and who boast of their |
| |infamy! How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers? And if the Councils had|
| |decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than in |
| |sweeping the streets?" |
|7.26 |"How dared you, gutter cleaner," spoke Fraternity 9-3452, "to hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of the |
| |one and not of the many?" |
|7.27 |"You shall be burned at the stake," said Democracy 4-6998. |
|7.28[*] |"No, they shall be lashed," said Unanimity 7-3304, "till there is nothing left under the lashes." |
|7.29 |"No," said Collective 0-0009, "we cannot decide upon this, our brothers. No such crime has ever been committed, and it |
| |is not for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this creature to the World Council itself and let |
| |their will be done." |
|7.30 |We looked upon them and we pleaded: |
|7.31 |"Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What |
| |will you do with the light?" |
|7.32 |Collective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled. |
|7.33 |"So you think that you have found a new power," said Collective 0-0009. "Do all your brothers think that?" |
|7.34 |"No," we answered. |
|7.35 |"What is not thought by all men cannot be true," said Collective 0-0009. |
|7.36 |"You have worked on this alone?" asked International 1-5537. |
|7.37 |"Yes," we answered. |
|7.38 |"What is not done collectively cannot be good," said International 1-5537. |
|7.39 |"Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past," said Solidarity 8-1164, "but when the |
| |majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must." |
|7.40 |"This box is useless," said Alliance 6-7349. |
|7.41 |"Should it be what they claim of it," said Harmony 9-2642, "then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The |
| |Candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one." |
|7.42 |"This would wreck the Plans of the World Council," said Unanimity 2-9913, "and without the Plans of the World Council |
| |the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon |
| |the number needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and |
| |thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon." |
|7.43 |"And if this should lighten the toil of men," said Similarity 5-0306, "then it is a great evil, for men have no cause |
| |to exist save in toiling for other men." |
|7.44 |Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box. |
|7.45 |"This thing," they said, "must be destroyed." |
|7.46 |And all the others cried as one: |
|7.47 |"It must be destroyed!" |
|7.48 |Then we leapt to the table. |
|7.49 |We seized our box, we shoved them aside, and we ran to the window. We turned and we looked at them for the last time, |
| |and a rage, such as it is not fit for humans to know, choked our voice in our throat. |
|7.50 |"You fools!" we cried. "You fools! You thrice-damned fools!" |
|7.51 |We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass. |
|7.52 |We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us|
| |in a torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and |
| |we waited for the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew not where we were going. We knew only |
| |that we must run, run to the end of the world, to the end of our days. |
|7.53 |Then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that we had stopped. Trees taller than we had ever seen |
| |before stood over us in a great silence. Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted Forest. We had not thought of coming |
| |here, but our legs had carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted Forest against our will. |
|7.54 |Our glass box lay beside us. We crawled to it, we fell upon it, our face in our arms, and we lay still. |
|7.55 |We lay thus for a long time. Then we rose, we took our box, had walked on into the forest. |
|7.56 |It mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow us, for they never enter the Uncharted Forest. We had |
| |nothing to fear from them. The forest disposes of its own victims. This gave us no fear either. Only we wished to be |
| |away, away from the City and from the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we walked on, our box in our arms, |
| |our heart empty. |
|7.57 |We are doomed. Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them alone. And we have heard of the corruption to be found|
| |in solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men, and there is no road back for us, and no |
| |redemption. |
|7.58 |We know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on earth. We are tired. |
|7.59[*] |Only the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives us strength. We have lied to ourselves. We have not |
| |built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its |
| |truth above their truth. Why wonder about this? We have not many days to live. We are walking to the fangs awaiting us |
| |somewhere among the great, silent trees. There is not a thing behind us to regret. |
|7.60 |Then a blow of pain struck us, our first and our only. We thought of the Golden One. We thought of the Golden One whom |
| |we shall never see again. Then the pain passed. It is best. We are one of the Damned. It is best if the Golden One |
| |forget our name and the body which bore that name. |

Notes on Chapter Seven
|7.3n |It is ironic that such a thoroughly collectivist society would allow anyone, especially a scholar, to develop a "famous |
| |name." [Return to Text] |
|7.28n |The punishments suggested by Democracy 4-6998 and Unanimity 7-3304 seem particularly bloodthirsty given that their |
| |society has only one capital crime, and that is one rarely encountered (see 2.53). However, as Collective 0-0009 notes, |
| |the crime committed by Equality 7-2521 is unprecedented. [Return to Text] |
|7.59n |Some texts omit the sentence, "We have not many days to live." This omission blunts the meaning of Equality 7-2521's |
| |narrative, since he is making it clear that even though he expects to die now that he is on his own, that would be |
| |better than the collectivist life he left behind. The sentence has been included in this edition on the following |
| |grounds: 1) it appears in a majority of second edition texts, and 2) it is included in the facsimile first edition text |
| |without any editing marks to suggest that Rand wanted it removed. [Return to Text] |

[pic]
VIII.
|8.1 |It has been a day of wonder, this, our first day in the forest. |
|8.2 |We awoke when a ray of sunlight fell across our face. We wanted to leap to our feet, as we have had to leap every morning of|
| |our life, but we remembered suddenly that no bell had rung and that there was no bell to ring anywhere. We lay on our back, |
| |we threw our arms out, and we looked up at the sky. The leaves had edges of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of|
| |green and fire flowing high above us. |
|8.3 |We did not wish to move. We thought suddenly that we could lie thus as long as we wished, and we laughed aloud at the |
| |thought. We could also rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again. We were thinking that these were thoughts without sense, |
| |but before we knew it our body had risen in one leap. Our arms stretched out of their own will, and our body whirled and |
| |whirled, till it raised a wind to rustle through the leaves of the bushes. Then our hands seized a branch and swung us high |
| |into a tree, with no aim save the wonder of learning the strength of our body. The branch snapped under us and we fell upon |
| |the moss that was soft as a cushion. Then our body, losing all sense, rolled over and over on the moss, dry leaves in our |
| |tunic, in our hair, in our face. And we heard suddenly that we were laughing, laughing aloud, laughing as if there were no |
| |power left in us save laughter. |
|8.4 |Then we took our glass box, and we went on into the forest. We went on, cutting through the branches, and it was as if we |
| |were swimming through a sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising and falling and rising around us, and flinging their |
| |green sprays high to the treetops. The trees parted before us, calling us forward. The forest seemed to welcome us. We went |
| |on, without thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our body. |
|8.5 |We stopped when we felt hunger. We saw birds in the tree branches, and flying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone |
| |and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made a fire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had |
| |ever tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need |
| |and obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungry again and soon, that we might know again this strange new pride in |
| |eating. |
|8.6 |Then we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no |
| |water but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the |
| |stream and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the |
| |first time. |
|8.7 |We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our |
| |brothers, for we felt no pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like the bodies of our brothers, for our limbs were |
| |straight and thin and hard and strong. And we thought that we could trust this being who looked upon us from the stream, and|
| |that we had nothing to fear with this being.[*] |
|8.8 |We walked on till the sun had set. When the shadows gathered among the trees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, |
| |where we shall sleep tonight. And suddenly, for the first time this day, we remembered that we are the Damned. We remembered|
| |it, and we laughed. |
|8.9 |We are writing this on the paper we had hidden in our tunic together with the written pages we had brought for the World |
| |Council of Scholars, but never given to them. We have much to speak of to ourselves, and we hope we shall find the words for|
| |it in the days to come. Now, we cannot speak, for we cannot understand. |

Notes on Chapter Eight
|8.7n |The narrator's self-description is very non-specific. When asked later what race the character was, Rand replied, "Any |
| |race -- since he represents the best possible to all races of men." ("Questions and Answers on Anthem," The Objectivist |
| |Calendar (June 1979), reprinted in The Ayn Rand Column, p. 122) [Return to Text] |

[pic]
IX.
|9.1 |We have not written for many days. We did not wish to speak. For we needed no words to remember that which has happened to|
| |us. |
|9.2 |It was on our second day in the forest that we heard steps behind us. We hid in the bushes, and we waited. The steps came |
| |closer. And then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees, and a gleam of gold. |
|9.3 |We leapt forward, we ran to them, and we stood looking upon the Golden One. |
|9.4 |They saw us, and their hands closed into fists, and the fists pulled their arms down, as if they wished their arms to hold|
| |them, while their body swayed. And they could not speak. |
|9.5 |We dared not come too close to them. We asked, and our voice trembled: |
|9.6 |"How come you to be here, Golden One?" |
|9.7 |But they whispered only: |
|9.8 |"We have found you. . . ." |
|9.9 |"How come you to be in the forest?" we asked. |
|9.10 |They raised their head, and there was a great pride in their voice; they answered: |
|9.11 |"We have followed you." |
|9.12 |Then we could not speak, and they said: |
|9.13 |"We heard that you had gone to the Uncharted Forest, for the whole City is speaking of it. So on the night of the day when|
| |we heard it, we ran away from the Home of the Peasants. We found the marks of your feet across the plain where no men |
| |walk. So we followed them, and we went into the forest, and we followed the path where the branches were broken by your |
| |body." |
|9.14 |Their white tunic was torn, and the branches had cut the skin of their arms, but they spoke as if they had never taken |
| |notice of it, nor of weariness, nor of fear. |
|9.15 |"We have followed you," they said, "and we shall follow you wherever you go. If danger threatens you, we shall face it |
| |also. If it be death, we shall die with you. You are damned, and we wish to share your damnation." |
|9.16 |They looked upon us, and their voice was low, but there was bitterness and triumph in their voice: |
|9.17 |"Your eyes are as a flame, but our brothers have neither hope nor fire. Your mouth is cut of granite, but our brothers are|
| |soft and humble. Your head is high, but our brothers cringe. You walk, but our brothers crawl. We wish to be damned with |
| |you, rather than blessed with all our brothers. Do as you please with us, but do not send us away from you." |
|9.18 |Then they knelt, and bowed their golden head before us. |
|9.19 |We had never thought of that which we did. We bent to raise the Golden One to their feet, but when we touched them, it was|
| |as if madness had stricken us. We seized their body and we pressed our lips to theirs. The Golden One breathed once, and |
| |their breath was a moan, and then their arms closed around us. |
|9.20 |We stood together for a long time. And we were frightened that we had lived for twenty-one years and had never known what |
| |joy is possible to men. |
|9.21 |Then we said: |
|9.22 |"Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us |
| |forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between|
| |us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, unknown world, but our own." |
|9.23 |Then we walked on into the forest, their hand in ours. |
|9.24 |And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms is neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy |
| |granted to the race of men. |
|9.25 |We have walked for many days. The forest has no end, and we seek no end. But each day added to the chain of days between |
| |us and the City is like an added blessing. |
|9.26 |We have made a bow and many arrows. We can kill more birds than we need for our food; we find water and fruit in the |
| |forest. At night, we choose a clearing, and we build a ring of fires around it. We sleep in the midst of that ring, and |
| |the beasts dare not attack us. We can see their eyes, green and yellow as coals, watching us from the tree branches |
| |beyond. The fires smolder as a crown of jewels around us, and smoke stands still in the air, in columns made blue by the |
| |moonlight. We sleep together in the midst of the ring, the arms of the Golden One around us, their head upon our breast. |
|9.27 |Some day, we shall stop and build a house, when we shall have gone far enough. But we do not have to hasten. The days |
| |before us are without end, like the forest. |
|9.28 |We cannot understand this new life which we have found, yet it seems so clear and so simple. When questions come to puzzle|
| |us, we walk faster, then turn and forget all things as we watch the Golden One following. The shadows of leaves fall upon |
| |their arms, as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue |
| |mist, but their shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from above, but rose from under their skin. We |
| |watch the leaf which has fallen upon their shoulder, and it lies at the curve of their neck, and a drop of dew glistens |
| |upon it like a jewel. They approach us, and they stop, laughing, knowing what we think, and they wait obediently, without |
| |questions, till it pleases us to turn and go on. |
|9.29 |We go on and we bless the earth under our feet. But questions come to us again, as we walk in silence. If that which we |
| |have found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for save corruption? If this is the great evil of being |
| |alone, then what is good and what is evil? |
|9.30 |Everything which comes from the many is good. Everything which comes from one is evil. Thus have we been taught with our |
| |first breath. We have broken the law, but we have never doubted it. Yet now, as we walk through the forest, we are |
| |learning to doubt. |
|9.31 |There is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of all their brothers. But we lived not, when we toiled for our|
| |brothers, we were only weary. There is no joy for men, save the joy shared with all their brothers. But the only things |
| |which taught us joy were the power we created in our wires, and the Golden One. And both these joys belong to us alone, |
| |they come from us alone, they bear no relation to our brothers, and they do not concern our brothers in any way. Thus do |
| |we wonder. |
|9.32 |There is some error, one frightful error, in the thinking of men. What is that error? We do not know, but the knowledge |
| |struggles within us, struggles to be born. |
|9.33 |Today, the Golden One stopped suddenly and said: |
|9.34 |"We love you." |
|9.35 |But then they frowned and shook their head and looked at us helplessly. |
|9.36 |"No," they whispered, "that is not what we wished to say." |
|9.37 |They were silent, then they spoke slowly, and their words were halting, like the words of a child learning to speak for |
| |the first time: |
|9.38 |"We are one . . . alone . . . and only . . . and we love you who are one . . . alone . . . and only." |
|9.39 |We looked into each other's eyes and we knew that the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping |
| |vainly. |
|9.40 |And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find. |

[pic]
X.
|10.1 |We are sitting at a table and we are writing this upon paper made thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we |
| |cannot see the Golden One, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient bed. This is our home. |
|10.2[*] |We came upon it today, at sunrise. For many days we had been crossing a chain of mountains. The forest rose among |
| |cliffs, and whenever we walked out upon a barren stretch of rock we saw great peaks before us in the west, and to the|
| |north of us, and to the south, as far as our eyes could see. The peaks were red and brown, with the green streaks of |
| |forests as veins upon them, with blue mists as veils over their heads. We had never heard of these mountains, nor |
| |seen them marked on any map. The Uncharted Forest has protected them from the Cities and from the men of the Cities. |
|10.3 |We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones rolled from under our feet, and we heard them striking |
| |the rocks below, farther and farther down, and the mountains rang with each stroke, and long after the strokes had |
| |died. But we went on, for we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach us here. |
|10.4 |Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees, high on a sheer peak before us. We thought that it was |
| |a fire and we stopped. But the flame was unmoving, yet blinding as liquid metal. So we climbed toward it through the |
| |rocks. And there, before us, on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind it, stood a house such as we had |
| |never seen, and the white fire came from the sun on the glass of its windows. |
|10.5 |The house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor. There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the|
| |windows went on straight around the corners, though how this kept the house standing we could not guess. The walls |
| |were hard and smooth, of that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our tunnel. |
|10.6 |We both knew it without words: this house was left from the Unmentionable Times. The trees had protected it from time|
| |and weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather. We turned to the Golden One and we asked: |
|10.7 |"Are you afraid?" |
|10.8 |But they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we threw it open, and we stepped together into the house of |
| |the Unmentionable Times. |
|10.9 |We shall need the days and the years ahead, to look, to learn and to understand the things of this house. Today, we |
| |could only look and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the heavy curtains from the windows and we saw |
| |that the rooms were small, and we thought that not more than twelve men could have lived here. We thought it strange |
| |that men had been permitted to build a house for only twelve. |
|10.10 |Never had we seen rooms so full of light. The sunrays danced upon colors, colors, more colors than we thought |
| |possible, we who had seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones and the grey. There were great pieces of |
| |glass on the walls, but it was not glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and all the things behind |
| |us, as on the face of a lake. There were strange things which we had never seen and the use of which we do not know. |
| |And there were globes of glass everywhere, in each room, the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had |
| |seen in our tunnel. |
|10.11 |We found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its threshold. For it was a small room and there were only two |
| |beds in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we knew that only two had lived here, and this passes |
| |understanding. What kind of world did they have, the men of the Unmentionable Times? |
|10.12 |We found garments, and the Golden One gasped at the sight of them. For they were not white tunics, nor white togas; |
| |they were of all colors, no two of them alike. Some crumbled to dust as we touched them. But others were of heavier |
| |cloth, and they felt soft and new in our fingers. |
|10.13 |We found a room with walls made of shelves, which held rows of manuscripts, from the floor to the ceiling. Never had |
| |we seen such a number of them, nor of such strange shape. They were not soft and rolled, they had hard shells of |
| |cloth and leather; and the letters on their pages were so small and so even that we wondered at the men who had such |
| |handwriting. We glanced through the pages, and we saw that they were written in our language, but we found many words|
| |which we could not understand. Tomorrow, we shall begin to read these scripts. |
|10.14 |When we had seen all the rooms of the house, we looked at the Golden One and we both knew the thought in our minds. |
|10.15 |"We shall never leave this house," we said, "nor let it be taken from us. This is our home and the end of our |
| |journey. This is your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men whatever as far as the earth may |
| |stretch. We shall not share it with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor our hunger. So be it|
| |to the end of our days." |
|10.16 |"Your will be done," they said. |
|10.17 |Then we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of our home. We brought water from the stream which runs among |
| |the trees under our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh to be cooked in a strange copper pot|
| |we found in a place of wonders, which must have been the cooking room of the house. |
|10.18[*] |We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. |
| |They stood before it and they looked and looked upon their own body. |
|10.19 |When the sun sank beyond the mountains, the Golden One fell asleep on the floor, amidst jewels, and bottles of |
| |crystal, and flowers of silk. We lifted the Golden One in our arms and we carried them to a bed, their head falling |
| |softly upon our shoulder. Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the room of the manuscripts, and we sat by |
| |the window, for we knew that we could not sleep tonight. |
|10.20[*] |And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be|
| |born, a world that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what |
| |word we are to give, nor what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits. It seems to say it has |
| |great gifts to lay before us, but it wishes a greater gift from us. We are to speak. We are to give its goal, its |
| |highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and sky. |
|10.21 |We look ahead, we beg our heart for guidance in answering this call no voice has spoken, yet we have heard. We look |
| |upon our hands. We see the dust of centuries, the dust which hid great secrets and perhaps great evils. And yet it |
| |stirs no fear within our heart, but only silent reverence and pity. |
|10.22 |May knowledge come to us! What is the secret our heart has understood and yet will not reveal to us, although it |
| |seems to beat as if it were endeavoring to tell it? |

Notes on Chapter Ten
|10.2n |Equality 7-2521's description of the mountains leads to the question of what is the real scope of the government led by|
| |his "World Council." Given the society's low level of technology, it is doubtful that they would have a truly worldwide|
| |government. Their belief that the world is flat (see 1.22) also tends to confirm this. Their lack of knowledge about |
| |the mountains suggests that its name notwithstanding, the World Council may control just a limited region. Perhaps they|
| |are separated from other societies by geographical barriers, lack of curiosity to explore past those barriers, and a |
| |general depopulation of the planet during the Great Rebirth. However, one thing that should be recognized when |
| |undertaking any such speculation is that Rand was not attempting to provide a realistic setting in Anthem. She probably|
| |did conceive the World Council as a global body, however unlikely that might be in a real-life society this primitive. |
| |In either case, the characters' (and our) ignorance on such issues does not affect the story in any significant way. |
| |[Return to Text] |
|10.18n |It is typical of Rand that her main female character would be defiant of social conventions (see 4.8-4.12) and |
| |physically brave (9.13-9.15), yet at the same time would be submissive to her beloved (10.16) and would manifest a |
| |stereotypical feminine trait like vanity. [Return to Text] |
|10.20n |In the sentence that begins, "It seems to say ...," some texts omit the clause, "but it wishes a greater gift from us."|
| |This omission removes Rand's implication that human creative activity is more important than the simple availability of|
| |natural raw materials. The additional clause has been included in this edition on the following grounds: 1) it appears |
| |in a majority of second edition texts, 2) it is included in the facsimile first edition text without any editing marks |
| |to suggest that Rand wanted it removed, and 3) the idea implied by the phrase is consistent with Rand's philosophy as |
| |stated in her later fiction and non-fiction writings. [Return to Text] |

[pic]
XI.
|11.1 |I am. I think. I will. |
|11.2 |My hands . . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . My forest . . . This earth of mine. . . . |
|11.3 |What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer. |
|11.4 |I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the |
| |end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need |
| |no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. |
|11.5 |It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing |
| |of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight |
| |that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect. |
|11.6 |Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: "I will it!" |
|11.7 |Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point |
| |in but one direction. They point to me. |
|11.8 |I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I|
| |know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to |
| |vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. |
|11.9 |Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of |
| |their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. |
|11.10 |I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before! |
|11.11 |I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and|
| |flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the |
| |greatest of these is freedom. |
|11.12 |I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I|
| |covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet. |
|11.13 |I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my |
| |brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may |
| |wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned. |
|11.14 |I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I |
| |shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so |
| |desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then |
| |let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold. |
|11.15 |For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed |
| |first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men,|
| |and of an unspeakable lie. |
|11.16 |The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is |
| |white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue |
| |of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. |
|11.17 |What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me?|
| |What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow,|
| |to agree and to obey? |
|11.18 |But I am done with this creed of corruption. |
|11.19 |I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. |
|11.20 |And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into |
| |being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. |
|11.21 |This god, this one word: |
|11.22 |"I." |

[pic]
XII.
|12.1 |It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word "I." And when I understood this |
| |word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all |
| |mankind. |
|12.2 |I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I understood why the best in me had been my sins and my |
| |transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not |
| |kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him. |
|12.3 |I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, and I told her what I had read and what I had learned. |
| |She looked at me and the first words she spoke were: |
|12.4 |"I love you." |
|12.5 |Then I said: |
|12.6 |"My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had a name of his own to|
| |distinguish him from all other men. So let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years|
| |ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear. He took the light of the gods and he brought |
| |it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name |
| |was Prometheus." |
|12.7 |"It shall be your name," said the Golden One. |
|12.8 |"And I have read of a goddess," I said, "who was the mother of the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let |
| |this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods." |
|12.9 |"It shall be my name," said the Golden One. |
|12.10 |Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his |
| |heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause, for the |
| |same word, no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth. |
|12.11 |I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn |
| |many secrets from my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the past, and open the way to|
| |carry them further, the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my brothers, for their minds are |
| |shackled to the weakest and dullest ones among them. |
|12.12 |I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long ago; they called it Electricity. It was the power that |
| |moved their greatest inventions. It lit this house with light which came from those globes of glass on the walls. I |
| |have found the engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how to make it work again. I shall|
| |learn how to use the wires which carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my home, and across |
| |the paths which lead to my home; a barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite; a barrier my |
| |brothers will never be able to cross. For they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I|
| |have my mind. |
|12.13[*] |Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and nothing above me but the sun, I shall live my own truth. |
| |Gaea is pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man. He will be taught to say "I" and to bear the pride of|
| |it. He will be taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught reverence for his own spirit. |
|12.14 |When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall |
| |steal one day, for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call to me my friend who has no name save |
| |International 4-8818, and all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, and Solidarity 9-6347 who |
| |calls for help in the night, and a few others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit has not been |
| |killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my |
| |fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the |
| |first chapter in the new history of man. |
|12.15 |These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look |
| |upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which |
| |moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's |
| |freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and |
| |nothing else. |
|12.16 |At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke |
| |their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his|
| |brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their |
| |number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of|
| |the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled. |
|12.17[*] |But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning. |
|12.18 |What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame |
| |and submission? The worship of the word "We." |
|12.19 |When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had |
| |come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit |
| |as existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived -- those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since |
| |they had nothing else to vindicate them -- those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus|
| |did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men -- men with nothing to offer save their great |
| |numbers -- lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could |
| |never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were |
| |lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I have been answered -- and for |
| |the same reasons. |
|12.20 |But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither|
| |they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive |
| |how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have |
| |lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. |
|12.21 |Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that|
| |word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in|
| |protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they|
| |perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my |
| |salute across the centuries, and my pity. |
|12.22 |Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to |
| |be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died |
| |to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man |
| |will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And |
| |man will go on. Man, not men. |
|12.23 |Here, on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land and our fort. And it will become |
| |as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at first, but beating, beating louder each day. And word of it will reach |
| |every corner of the earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will carry the best of the world's |
| |blood to my threshold. And all my brothers, and the Councils of my brothers, will hear of it, but they will be |
| |impotent against me. And the day will come when I shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of the |
| |enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free to exist for his own sake. |
|12.24 |For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights.|
| |For his life. For his honor. |
|12.25 |And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The |
| |word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the |
| |heart of it and the meaning and the glory. |
|12.26 |The sacred word: |
| |EGO |

Notes on Chapter Twelve
|12.13n |Some texts omit the sentence, "Our son will be raised as a man." It has been included in this edition on the following |
| |grounds: 1) it appears in a majority of second edition texts, and 2) it is included in the facsimile first edition text |
| |without any editing marks to suggest that Rand wanted it removed. [Return to Text] |
|12.17n |In the facsimile of the first edition (included in the 50th Anniversary Edition), this one-sentence paragraph is shown |
| |as, "And then came the twilight," with no editing marks to suggest that Rand wanted it changed. However, all second |
| |edition texts agree on the replacement sentence shown in this present edition. It can only be assumed that Rand made a |
| |change to this sentence after doing the other edits, and it was never marked on the copy used for the facsimile. [Return|
| |to Text] |