'Often, Mistress,' she said.
'Often?' I said.
'There is no dearth of true masters here,' she said.
I wondered in what sort of place I might be that there might here be no dearth of true masters. In all my life, hitherto, I did not think I had ever met a man, or knowingly met a man, who was a true master. The nearest I had come, I felt, were the men I had encountered before being brought to this place, those who had treated me as though I might be nothing, and had incarcerated me in the straps and iron box. Sometimes they had made me so weak I had felt like begging them to rape or have me. I had the horrifying thought that perhaps I existed for such men.
'How degrading and debasing to be a slave!' I cried.
'Yes, Mistress,' said the girl, putting down her head. I thought she smiled. She had told me, I suspected, what I had wanted to hear, what I had expected to hear.
'Slavery is illegal!' I cried.
'Not here, Mistress,' she said.
I stepped back.
'Where Mistress comes from,' said the girl, 'it is not illegal to own animals, is it?'
'No,' I said. 'Of course not.'
'It is the same here,' she said. 'And the slave is an animal.'
'You are an animal-legally?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Horrifying!' I cried.
'Biologically, of course,' she said, 'we are all animals. Thus, in a sense, we might all be owned. It thus becomes a question as to which among these animals own and which are owned, which, so to speak, count as persons, or have standing, before the law, and which do not, which are, so to speak, the citizens or persons, and which are the animals.'
'It is wrong to own human beings,' I said.
'Is it wrong to own other animals?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
'Then why is it wrong to own human beings?' she asked.
'I do not know,' I said.
'It would seem inconsistent,' she said, 'to suggest that it is only certain sorts of animals which may be owned, and not others.'
'Human beings are different,' I said.
The girl shrugged. 'So, too, are tarsks and verr,' she said.
I did not know those sorts of animals.
'Human beings can talk and thinkl' I said.
'Why should that make a difference?' she asked. 'If anything, the possession of such properties would make a human being an even more valuable possession than a tarsk or verr.'
'Where I come from it is wrong to own human beings but it is all right for other animals to be owned.'
'If other animals made the laws where you come from,' she said, 'perhaps it would be wrong, there to own them and right to own human beings.'
'Perhapsl' I said, angrily.
'Forgive me, Mistress,' said the girl. 'I did not mean to displease you.' 'It is wrong to own human beings' I said.
'Can Mistress prove that?' she asked.
'Nol' I said, angrily.
'How does Mistress know it?' she asked.
'It is self-evident' I said. I knew, of course, that I was so sure of this only because I had been taught, uncritically, to believe it.
'If self-evidence is involved here,' she said, 'it is surely self-evident that it is not wrong to own human beings. In most cultures, traditions and civilizations with which I am familiar, the right to own human beings was never questioned. To them the rectitude of the institution of slavery was self-evident.'
'Slavery is wrong because it can involve pain and hardship,' I said. 'Work, too,' she said, 'can involve pain and hardship. Is work, thus, wrong?' 'No,' I said.
She shrugged.
'Slavery is wrong,' I said, 'because slaves may not like it.'
'Many people may not like many things,' she said, 'which does not make those things wrong. Too, it has never been regarded as a necessary condition for the rectitude of slavery that slaves approved of their condition.'
'That is true,' I said.
'See?' she asked.
'How could someone approve of slavery,' I asked, 'or regard it as right, if he himself did not wish to be a slave?'
'In a sense,' she said, 'one might approve of many things, and recognize their justifiability, without thereby wishing to become implicated personally in them. One might approve of medicine, say, without wishing to be a physician. One might approve of mathematics without desiring to become a mathematician, and so on.' 'Of course,' I said, irritably.
'It might be done in various ways,' she said. 'One might, for example, regard a society in which the institution of slavery, with its various advantages and consequences, was an ingredient as a better society than one in which it did not exist. This, then, would be its justification. In such a way, then, be might approve of slavery as an institution without wishing necessarily to become a slave himself. In moral consistency, of course, in approving of the institution, he would seem to accept at least the theoretical risk of his own enslavement. This risk he would presumably regard as being a portion of the price he is willing to pay for the benefits of living in this type of society, which he regards, usually by far, as being a society superior to its alternatives. Another form of justification occurs when one believes that slavery is right and fit for certain human beings but not for others. This position presupposes that not all human beings are alike. In this point of view, the individual approves of slavery for those who should be slaves and disapproves of it, or at least is likely regret it somewhat, in the case of those who should not be slave. He is perfectly consistent in this, for he believes that if he himself should be a natural slave, then it would be right, too, for him to be enslaved. This seems somewhat more sensible than the categorical denial, unsubstantiated, that slavery is not right for any human being. Much would seem to depend on the nature of the particular human being.'
'Slavery denies freedoml' I cried.
'Your assertion seems to presuppose the desirability of universal freedom,' she said. 'This may be part of what is at issue.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Is there more happiness in a society in which all are free,' she asked, 'than in one in which some are not free?'
'I do not know,' I said. The thought of miserable, competitive, crowded, frustrated, hostile populations crossed my mind.
'Mistress?' she asked.
'I do not know!' I said.
'Yes, Mistress,' said the girl.
'Slavery denies freedom!' I reiterated.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'It denies freedom I said.
'It denies some freedoms, and precious ones,' said the girl.
'But,,,too, it makes others possible, and they, too, are precious.
'People simply cannot be owned!' I said, angrily.
'I am owned,' she said.
