Then we sing hymns, the Hymn of Brotherhood,
and the Hymn of Equality, and the Hymn
of the Collective Spirit. The sky is
a soggy purple when we return to the Home.
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.
Thus have we lived each day of four
years, until two springs ago when our
crime happened. Thus must all men live
until they are forty. At forty, they are
worn out. At forty, they are sent to the
Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones
live.
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