MAN’S WORLD (18)
By:
November 8, 2024
HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize Charlotte Haldane’s 1926 proto-sf novel Man’s World for HILOBROW’s readers. Written by an author married to one of the world’s most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale. When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free? Reissued in 2024 (with a new introduction by Philippa Levine) by the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE series.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: INTRO | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25.
CATALYSIS (cont.)
He treated her always with a mock respect which was so obvious that he himself felt obliged to apologize for it and explain it away.
‘You see,’ he said one day in the course of a general discussion, ‘it is impossible for a Jew to respect a woman, or even a man, of another race. We only respect intelligence, and therefore acknowledge no overlordship, whether of sex or personality. That would have been our supreme asset, if only we could have hidden it. But we can’t. So we were persecuted for centuries. Christianity had little to do with our tribulations, for we were equally hated by all Gentiles, and this was the cause of their antagonism. They did not suspect it, but we did, and enjoyed their vain cruelties for this reason. The same with women.What we could not give to our own, the most obedient, the most loyal, the most steadfast in the world, we could give to no others. Chivalry was not in us.’
‘But that was all of the past,’ answered Nicolette, somehow ashamed for him, though she knew not why. ‘Nowadays you are losing your sharply defined contours.’
‘Unfortunately, most of us are,’ he answered. ‘I know I am an exception, but then look what I have done.’
‘Do you really think that is the cause of it? Surely such pride is not essential for achievement?’
‘To me, absolutely. Has it ever struck you that I always express myself in comparatives? We invented them, or rather foisted them on the whole of western civilization. Better and worse, a little, more, all those expressions are characteristic. Abolish them as applied to achievement, and you lose a mean, a standard. You get mediocrities at once.’
‘Ambition!’ he went on after a momentary pause, ‘I don’t think anyone but a Jew truly knows the meaning of that word. In Yiddish, which is now almost as dead an idiom as Hebrew, there is another one, a good foil to it. “Nebbich.” How can I translate it? “Poor mutt” is about the nearest I can get to it. It need hardly be spoken among Jews; it flashes from the thoughts of one to the mind of another. Applied to one of our own race it had just a slight tinge of pity; towards all others it was a term of scorn, of derision, of contempt. Now there is nothing in the world a Jew would not rather be than a “nebbich.” Luckily for us no one else knew just what epithet would pierce our mulish indifference. Don’t you forget it!’
‘But why should I wish to remember it?’
‘The day might come when you would wish to insult me.’
Abruptly he turned and left her then.
It was when he said such things that Nicolette was most aware of his physical qualities and disliked him most intensely. She did not in the least object to his superlative egotism, which confined his conversation mostly to himself, his race, his art, and allied topics. Arcous’s self-esteem was not only fed and increased by nearly all his companions, fellow-workers and pupils, but it served him as a standard whereby he judged his own creations with far more severity than he applied to those of others. It was all in order that people like Vogt and his friends should be mediocrities; they felt neither shame nor anger at the prospect of moderate success; he burned to rank beside the leaders in his art, and this passionate desire had never, since his twelfth year, left him in peace. ‘Ambition and arrogance,’ he would say, ‘are twin brothers. One feeds the other. You cannot possibly attain your ambition unless you have an arrogant confidence in your own judgment. That is what is the matter with you, Christopher, as a man and an artist. You lack improper pride.’
Christopher had been drawn by Nicolette into the radius of Arcous’s catalytic influence. He at once responded even more intensely than she had; Arcous’s penetrating intelligence, his domineering will, quickened all the thought processes that were at work in Christopher’s brain. The young Jew seemed to feel as strong an anger and disgust as his own with many of the customs and institutions of their time. He spoke even more disparagingly about them; nor had he the least respect for persons, hitting them off with a light irony like the flick of a whip. But he did not propose to do anything about it.
‘To me nothing matters but my art, and I don’t care how great a mess my fellowmen make of the world so long as they leave me my colours and a wall or two to spread them on in my patterns. I have not the least quarrel with your father, who, surprisingly, is not a hypocrite, nor even with your brother, who quite obviously is. I don’t mind what they do, what becomes of us. Had I lived in former times, I should have been indifferent to war, to famine, pestilence, pogroms and torture.’
‘Would you have renounced your faith?’
‘Certainly, if at that price I could have kept my art. I should always have had my race, anyway. But’ — he flashed an almost accusing finger at Christopher — ‘if I were you,if I cared as you do, I should not remain inactive, I should propagandize for anarchy among all the intelligent people I knew, since that is the only mode of living for intelligent folk. The leaders of to-day are treating the people as if they were Versuchstierchen, and the earth one great laboratory. Why the world should be transformed into an experimental theatre in the name of Mensch just because it was turned into a circus arena in the name of Jesus, I can’t fathom.’
At other times he would round on Christopher, attacking his point of view from that of the established order, for he loved argument for its own sake, and argued with a gusto inspired by his fundamentally untouched cynicism.
‘What can you want as an improvement on what you have to-day?’ he would ask him. ‘Here you live in a community of people every one of whom would have been considered a superman two hundred years ago, and a saint a little earlier than that. Superstition has been broken on the rack of sense, the family has almost disappeared in favour of the community, work and play are synonymous. Art flourishes, science rules. War and epidemics have vanished, the attitude towards sickness transforms pain into pleasure; we can remain young as long as we like, and a generation lives and dies together; we have lost universal fear and found universal friendship. Above all, quite a lot of us are becoming intelligent.’
‘Do you think so? Do you think all that really amounts to so much?’ retorted Christopher. ‘What have we gained individually in richness and depth of personality? Do you really believe St. John exists, except as an embodiment of this state’s problems, and the mental machinery necessary to cope with them? It is the same, in a lesser degree, with all of us. We are becoming so utterly gregarious that most of us already have no kind of existence apart from the herd. Mental and manual workers, entertainers, mothers, it is the same everywhere. The individual has been gradually pushed out; his will counts as nothing against the general will; all of his interests that might conflict with those of the herd are from childhood trained, twisted, sublimated, so as to render them innocuous; and when it occasionally happens that he still endeavours to assert himself, science takes him into her loathsome workshops, where she repairs him according to the way he ought to go, not the way he wants to.’
‘Well, what substitute do you propose for the present state?’
‘In the old days one could appeal to the ideal state as against the bad or undeveloped state; you can only appeal to God against the ideal state.’
‘Such an appeal, concretely carried out, would mean anarchy. I shall be interested to see what you will do.’
‘Something must be done. I haven’t theslightest interest in the community. Let it take care of itself. But I will not have the individual sacrificed to it.’
‘Ah, so it will be the immortal soul versus the body corporate,’ said Arcous softly. ‘That should provide an interesting show.’
Though she went to Weil’s workshops every day, it was generally expected that Nicolette would within a short time decide to adopt the career of motherhood after all. The local Council of Employment had willingly agreed to the architect’s application for her assistance in his model designing, which was now graded as artistic work of fourth-class importance. This done, they referred his request to the Motherhood Council for final consideration.
The administration of all matters appertaining to careers was regulated by experts who were appointed on somewhat similar lines to the officials of ancient Freemasonry. Democratic government by votes for all was an institution of the past. Whatever profession a man or woman adopted, proficiency at it and competent knowledge of its various branches was the sole passport to advancement. Those who desired posts of regulation or control were obliged to qualify for them by examination. In order, however, to avoid the creation of an ‘official’ type of mind, the councils were composed of acting and honorary members, the latter being the most distinguished representatives of the profession in question. In all cases it was possible to call in as many advisers as the applicant whose case came up for consideration desired.
The Motherhood Councils were composed of women who had borne at least three children, and who, in addition, had proved themselves to possess a certain knowledge of the theory as well as the practice of their craft. They had to give evidence also of a real understanding of the less personal problems of the day, social, political and economic, and of more than a slight acquaintance with the biological sciences. Each council consisted of a nucleus of women qualified to deal with the special problems of the district, but this core was continually augmented by advisory experts, according to the nature of the case to be decided. Decisions were never based on rules of precedent. The council was required to bear in mind certain general considerations, such as, for instance, the number of children it would be necessary to produce in a certain area within a given period, the relative proportions of the sexes required, and the available female material from which to breed. Each problem to be decided was discussed from at least three angles: that of the commonwealth or the general, of the division of the community or the local, and that of the individual. Whether the matter under consideration referred to a large group or to one single person, the procedure adopted for its examination was invariably the same. In order to avoid endless debate and to facilitate a prompt decision, each of the regular members of the council was expected to have gone, into the problem under discussion previously and alone from these three points of view. They then listened in assembly to the views and arguments whatever additional expert advisers it had been of found necessary to call in.
The council summoned to give a decision on Nicolette’s application to be allowed to assist Weil was composed of four women only, for the matter was one of comparative unimportance, and did not require consideration by a full membership. One of these was Antonia; another, to Nicolette’s satisfaction, was Leila, whose small boy Toodles the third she had loved so dearly three years ago; was an exceptionally clever young person called Miomi Lander; and the fourth an elderly woman, Claire Tamston, the senior member, who was the only one likely to be definitely antagonistic.
Antonia considered that her personal interest in the matter precluded her from giving judgment on her daughter’s case, but this did not prevent her from expressing a view for the consideration of her colleagues. ‘
‘Of course I was surprised,’ she said in her usual soft tones, which seemed to insist ever so gently on her desire to be understanding and helpful, “when I found that Nicolette did not wish to mate with Raymond. It would have been suitable. At the same time she did convince me’ (with the subtle help of Christopher, but this Antonia did not mention) ‘that her reluctance was simply due to the feeling that she was not yet sufficiently prepared for her career. In the circumstances I should have liked her to continue her studies. More than that I cannot say just now.’
‘I thought,’ said Leila then, and her kind eyes dwelt with encouragement on the girl’s face, ‘that she had completed her course?’
Nicolette nodded in confirmation, but said nothing.
‘It would be a pity in my opinion,’ continued Leila, ‘if she postponed her decision long. We naturally wish to breed from the best available material, and it is essential for women of our position to set an example. I have not the least doubt, from my personal knowledge of her, that Nicolette is certain to make a brilliant success of motherhood, and at the same time to find in it the whole satisfaction of her personal ambitions. But it would surely be a mistake to begin her career while she still feels undecided or immature. A slight postponement would not, in my opinion, be detrimental to her future.’
Claire Tamston was a big woman with a deceptively small voice.
‘It is astonishing to me,’ she said, glancing at Antonia with just the slightest tinge of suspicion and dislike in her eyes, ‘that your daughter should have these curious hesitancies. I fail to see how a young girl of her personality and education should for one moment doubt that motherhood is the career for which she is fitted or that the earlier she can embark on it the better. She is the sort of young woman we need for the production of sons and daughters who will do honour to our state and carry on its glorious tradition. I am against a postponement. The motives for it seem to me trivial, and the work she wishes to do temporarily could be done by any boy or girl who has no such important ultimate destiny.’
‘I differ from you,’ — Miomi Lander smiled at the older woman. She was a subtle creature, was Miomi. Her manners were so perfect that they invariably left the onlooker in doubt as to her intentions. She had a sense of humour and could differentiate between the relative importance of the problems before the council, an ability that Claire Tamston unfortunately did not possess.
‘What we want to avoid above all things is getting unsuitable people into the profession. Naturally Antonia would like her own daughter to do as she did, and the rest of us are keen on example as well as babies. But as Nicolette cannot give us either until she has mated, it is clear that from her point of view the important thing is to find a young man for her. The race is the ideal, ultimately, and later on one can be satisfied to do one’s work as one is bidden, for its sake. But the first time there must inevitably be the appropriate stimulus. As we obviously cannot provide it, we must give her the chance to find some one who will. I propose to leave the matter entirely to her own judgment. Let her find the mate, and the children will follow as a matter of course. If they should not, it would be quite a different affair. As for Weil, his work is so important now that Reconstruction is having such admirable psychological effects, that I certainly think we should let him have the assistant he wants. He does seem to want Nicolette.’
‘A dangerous precedent,’ murmured Claire, who swelled with dissatisfaction as she saw the decision of her colleagues going against her. ‘
‘This phase of society is based on precedents, most of whose dangers have been proved to be chimerical.’
‘How long does she intend to remain with Weil?’
‘Let us give her six months,’ proposed Leila, ‘and then go into the matter again. In the meantime he will have an opportunity to find some one to replace her.’
‘On that understanding I will accept your decision,’ answered Claire. ‘I would emphatically not do so in every case, but this girl is clearly a little out of the ordinary. I suppose,’ she added, turning to Antonia and revealing her disapproval more openly in looks than in words, ‘that you will attend to the necessary precautions?’
‘By all means,’ replied Antonia, and Nicolette, watching, decided that the latent hostility between them should be turned to her own profit.
‘That is settled then, Nicolette,’ said Leila, smiling on her sweetly. ‘You shall be appointed to assist Weil for a period of six months, and we rely on you to uphold your prestige, which involves that of your whole caste. Is that satisfactory to you?’
The last question was invariably asked of every applicant who applied to a council, and also of those who came up on account of trangression of some rule. At the present moment Nicolette interpreted it in a purely formal manner. So far, so satisfactory.
She therefore answered, ‘Quite, thank you,’ endeavouring to return as well as she could the other woman’s benevolent smile.
‘And hurry up about that young man,’ added Miomi, as they all rose to go.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
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