ANTHEM Literature 1938. Written by by Ayn Rand. | |||
|
# | |||||||||||
BOGUS BUSINESS BUREAU | |||||||||||
1 | The City Palace of Mating | BBB | Services | Sex Services | |||||||
The City Palace of Mating 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 | The Council of Vocations | BBB | Services | Job Services | |||||||
The Council of Vocations 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! | |||||||||||
3 | Home of the Students | BBB | Education | Boarding Schools | |||||||
Home of the Students 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: "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." | |||||||||||
4 | The Temple of the World Council | BBB | Religion | Temples | |||||||
The Temple of the World Council 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." | |||||||||||
MAKE BELIEVE MAP | |||||||||||
5 | City Theatre | Map | Structures | Event Venues | |||||||
City Theatre 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. | |||||||||||
6 | The Home of Infants | Map | Residential Communities | Orphanages | |||||||
The Home of Infants 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. | |||||||||||
7 | Home of the Clerks | Map | Residential Communities | Apartment and Condos | |||||||
Home of the Clerks 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. | |||||||||||
8 | Home of the Leaders | Map | Residential Communities | Apartment and Condos | |||||||
Home of the Leaders The greatest house in the city, or it has three stories. | |||||||||||
9 | Home of the Peasants | Map | Residential Communities | Apartment and Condos | |||||||
Home of the Peasants 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. | |||||||||||
10 | Home of the Scholars | Map | Residential Communities | Apartment and Condos | |||||||
Home of the Scholars 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. | |||||||||||
11 | Home of the Street Sweepers | Map | Residential Communities | Apartment and Condos | |||||||
Home of the Street Sweepers 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. | |||||||||||
12 | Home of the Useless | Map | Residential Communities | Retirement Communities | |||||||
Home of the Useless Retirement home. | |||||||||||
13 | The Northern Road | Map | Transit Routes | Roads | |||||||
The Northern Road 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. 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. | |||||||||||
14 | Palace of Corrective Detention | Map | Detention Centers | Correctional Facilities | |||||||
Palace of Corrective Detention 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. | |||||||||||
15 | Palace of the World Council | Map | Structures | Mansions | |||||||
Palace of the World Council 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. | |||||||||||
16 | The Uncharted Forest | Map | Nature | Forests | |||||||
The Uncharted Forest 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. | |||||||||||
OTHER | |||||||||||
17 | Untitled | Other | Themes | Wolf | |||||||
|