The Chamber Of Life Part 5

"No--" she said in a low voice, "no...."

"But Selda!" I stammered, "I love you--I want to marry you." She shook her head.

"No," she said again, "didn't you understand? I am scheduled to marry Edvar."

At first I didn't know what she meant.

"Scheduled?" I repeated dully. "I don't understand."

"It has been arranged for years. Don't you remember what Edvar told you about our marriages here, the very first day you came? I was destined to marry Edvar long before any of us were born, before our parents, even, were born. It's the way they order our lives."

"But I love you," I cried in amazement. "And you love me, too. I know you love me."

"That means nothing here," she said. "It happens sometimes. One has to accept it. Nothing can be done. We live according to the machinery of the world. Everything is known and predetermined."

Suddenly, in the midst of what she was saying, close behind me there sounded even above the roaring of the waterfall a raucous noise like the hooting of a taxi horn. It was followed by a shrieking of brakes, and a hoa.r.s.e voice near by shouted something angry and profane. A rush of air swept by me, and I heard faintly the sound of a motor moving away, with a grinding of gears. I looked at Selda.

"Did you hear that?"

She nodded, with wide, frightened eyes. "Yes. It's not the first time."

Suddenly she rose, frowning, as if with pain. "Come," she added, "now we must go back."

There was nothing else to do. We went back silently to the airship, and turned its nose toward the city.

But when I left her at her apartment, promising to see her later, I had one last hope in my mind. I went to the Bureau.

The Bureau was a vast system of halls and offices, occupying two floors of the great building. I was sent from one automatic device to another--there were no human clerks--in search of the representative who had spoken to me before. Finally I found him in his apartment, down the corridor only a hundred feet or so from my own. He was pouring over a metal sheet on his table, where innumerable shifting figures were thrown by some hidden machine, and he was calculating with a set of hundreds of b.u.t.tons along its edges. He spoke to me without pausing or looking up, and throughout my interview he continued with his figuring as if it had been entirely automatic--as perhaps it was.

"What is it, Baret?" he said I felt like a small child before the princ.i.p.al of the school.

"I have come to ask you whether it is necessary for me to go," I answered. He nodded slightly, never looking up.

"It is necessary," he said. "Your visit was pre-arranged and definite."

I made a gesture of remonstrance.

"But I don't want to go," I insisted. "I like this place, and I am willing to fall into its life if I can remain under any conditions."

"It is impossible," he objected angrily.

"I have never been told why or how I came here. You said you would tell me that."

"I have never been told myself. It is a matter known to the men who handled it."

"If I went to them, surely they could find some way to let me stay?"

"No," he said coldly, "the thing was as definite as every event that takes place here. We do not let things happen haphazardly. We do not alter what has been arranged. And even if it were possible to let you stay--which I am inclined to doubt--they would not permit it."

"Why not?" I asked dully.

"Because there is no place for you. Our social system has been planned for hundreds of years ahead. Every individual of today and every individual of the next six generations has his definite place, his program, his work to do. There is no place for you. It is impossible to fit you in, for you have no work, no training, no need that you can fill. You have no woman, and there are no women for your children or your children's children. You are unnecessary. To fit you in, one would have to disrupt the whole system for generations ahead. It is impossible."

I thought a moment, hopelessly.

"If I made a place?" I suggested. "Suppose I took someone else's place?"

He smiled, a faint, cold smile.

"Murder? It is impossible. You are always under the control of the Bureau in some way, whether you are aware of it or not."

I turned away, a little dazed. The whole thing was inevitable and clear as he put it. I knew there was nothing to be done.

I left his apartment, and went down the corridor to the landing stage.

No one interfered with my movements, and my commands were not questioned. I ordered a plane, and gave my name to the girl in charge.

"Your destination?" she asked.

I said, "I am only going for pleasure."

"Your return?"

"Expect me in an hour."

I had watched Selda pilot the planes for so many weeks that I was familiar with the controls. I rose swiftly, circled the building, and headed north toward the mountains. I hadn't the courage to see Selda again. It was only a little while before I came to the place by the river where we had spent the morning. I slowed down, and flew over it, just above the waterfall.

There was a landing-spot by the river just beyond the top of the fall. I came to rest there, and left the machine.

I stood looking at the river for a moment. I don't remember that any thoughts or emotions came to my mind. I simply stood there, a little dazed, and very quiet, with a vague picture of Selda before my eyes. It was a dream-like moment.

Then I slipped over the river's bank, into the water, and the swift current, catching me up and whirling me around dizzily, carried me toward the edge of the waterfall.

And So to Work

I glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was five minutes to eight: time to leave, if I was to get a decent breakfast before I went to the office. I found an old hat in the closet and put it on. It would do until I had time to buy another.

Last night--and this morning. Last night, after supper, I had dropped by the Club for a drink. And met Melbourne. This morning I woke in the water of the lake, and came home, and dressed. And went to work. Twelve hours--and in that time I had lived two months. I had fallen in love, and died. Now I must go to work.

As I left the apartment, and turned west away from the Drive, toward the street cars, I was whistling over and over a brief s.n.a.t.c.h of music. Was it Grieg? Or some composer never heard on earth?

There were people on the street now. They went by with frowning, intent faces--on their way to work. And cars rolling by, pausing at the cross streets with little squealings of brakes.