“So these cities remain for those who like cities?”
“Such people are few. There are less towns than before—almost only those which on the best harbors are needed as centres of communication, and the interchange of commodities with other centres of exchange. But these cities are larger and more beautiful than the former; people go there sometimes for recreation; the greater part of the inhabitants are all the time changing, and they remain there for work but a short time.”
“But who wants to live there constantly?”
“They live just as you do in your Petersburgs, Parises, Londons. Whose affair is that? Who is to interfere? Let everybody live as he pleases; but the greatest majority, ninety-nine out of every hundred, live just as I and my sister have showed you, because it is more pleasant, and more profitable to them. But go into the palace; it is quite late; it is time to see them.”
“But no, first I want to know how this happened.”
“What?”
“That a fruitless desert became a most fruitful land, where almost all of us spend two-thirds of our year.”
“How this happened? Is there anything miraculous in it? This happened not in the course of one year, not in ten; they have been bringing it about gradually. They brought clay from northeast, from the shores of the great river; from the northwest, from the shores of the great sea. They possess a great number of such powerful machines: the clay solidified the sand; they constructed canals; they arranged for irrigation; verdure made its appearance; the atmosphere became more moist; the work went forward step by step, for many versts, but sometimes only a verst a year, just as they are going towards the south; is there anything miraculous in this? They only became intelligent; they used for their own advancement a great many powers and expedients which had been expended before without utility or directly for their injury. It is not in vain that I am laboring and teaching. It was only hard for people to learn what was useful; they were in your time such savages, such ruffians, such barbarians, such idiots, but I kept on teaching them, teaching them; and as soon as they began to comprehend, then it was not hard to fulfil my teachings. I demand nothing difficult; you know it. You are doing some for my sake in my method, even now; is it difficult?”
“No.”
“Of course not. Remember your shop, your sewing union. Did you have great means? Did you have more than others?”
“No; what means did we have?”
“And yet your seamstresses have tenfold more conveniences, twenty-fold more happiness in life, and they experience a hundredfold less unpleasantness than others with such small means as you had. You yourself have proved that even in your time people can live very comfortably. It is only necessary to be reasonable, to make a good start, to know how to use your means to the best advantage.”
“Yes, yes, I know it.”
“Now go and see a little more carefully how these people are living some time after they began to understand what you understood long ago.”
X
They enter a house; again the same sort of enormous, magnificent parlors. A party is in progress, full of gayety and joy. It is three hours since sunset; it is the very tide of joy. How bright the parlor is lighted! With what? no candelabra are to be seen anywhere, nor gas-jets. Akh! it is from here—in the rotunda of the hall is a great pane through which the light falls; of course it must be such—just like sunlight, white, bright, and soft; this is the electric light.101 There are a thousand people in the hall, but there is room enough for thrice as many. “And there are thrice as many when they have company,” says the radiant one, “and sometimes even more.”
“What is it? Is it not a ball? Is it a mere everyday gathering?”
“Certainly.”
At the present day this would have been a court ball, so bright, so magnificent are the costumes of the women. Yes, it is other times, as you can see by the cut of the dresses. There are some ladies in the dress of our time; but it is evident that they wear them for variety’s sake, as a joke; yes, they are masquerading, making sport of this kind of dress. Others wear most varied costumes of different eastern and southern cuts, but all of them are more graceful than ours. But the predominating costume seems like the one worn by the Grecian women during the artistic age of Athens, very easy and comfortable; and the men also wear wide and flowing garments without waists—something like mantles or cloaks—evidently their everyday house-dress. But how tasteful and beautiful this dress! How soft and exquisitely it outlines the form! how it adds to the grace of the motions! And what an orchestra! There are more than a hundred musicians, both men and women; but above all what a choir!
“No, in all Europe in your day there were not ten such voices as you find here by the hundred, and in every other house it is the same. But the style of life is very different from that of old; it is very healthy, and at the same time very elegant, and therefore the chest becomes broader and the voice better,” says the radiant tsaritsa. But the people in the orchestra and in the choir are constantly changing; some leave, and others take their place. Some go to dance, and some from among the dancers release them.
This evening is an everyday, ordinary evening; they dance and enjoy themselves every evening in this way. But did I ever see such energetic joy? And how can their joy help having an energy unknown to ours? They work well in the morning. Whoever has not worked enough does not give his nervous system the zest, and so cannot feel the fullness of the enjoyment.
