Chapter 10 - Anthem

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Chapter ten. We are sitting ata table, and we were writing this
upon paper made thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we
cannot see the golden one, onlyone lock of gold on the pillow of
an ancient bed. This is ourhome. We came upon it to day

(00:22):
at sunrise. For many days wehave been crossing a chain of mountains.
The forest rose among cliffs, andwhenever we walked out upon a barren stretch
of rock, we saw great peaksbefore us in the west, and to
the north of us, and tothe south. As far as our eyes
could see. The peaks were redand brown, with the green streaks of

(00:48):
forest as veins upon them, withblue mists as vales over their heads.
We had never heard of these mountains, nor seen them marked on any map.
The uncharted forests has protected them fromthe cities and from the men of
the cities. We climbed paths wherethe wild goat dared not follow. Stones

(01:11):
rolled from under our feet, andwe heard them striking the rocks below farther
and farther down, and the mountainsrang with each stroke, and long after
the strokes had died. But wewent on, for we knew that no
men would ever follow our track norreach us here. Then to day,

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at sunrise, we saw a whiteflame among the trees, high on a
sheer peak before us. We thoughtthat it was a fire, and we
stopped. But the flame was unmoving, yet blinding as liquid metal. So
we climbed towards it through the rocks, and there before us, on a

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broad summit, with the mountains risingbehind it, stood a house such as
we had never seen, and thewhite fire came from the sun on the
glass of its windows. The househad two stories and a strange roof,
flat as a floor. There wasmore window than wall upon its walls,
and the windows went on straight aroundthe corners. Though how this house kept

(02:16):
standing we could not guess. Thewalls were hard and smooth of that stone,
unlike stone which we had seen inour tunnel. We both knew it
without words. This house was leftfrom the unmentionable times. The trees had
protected it from time and weather andfrom men who have less pity than time

(02:38):
and weather. We turned to thegolden one and we asked, are you
afraid? But they shook their head. So we walked to the door,
and we threw it open, andwe stepped together into the house of the
unmentionable times. We shall need thedays and the years ahead to look,
to learn, and to understand thethings of this house. Today we could

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only look and try to believe thesight of our eyes. We pulled the
heavy curtains from the windows, andwe saw that the rooms were small,
and we thought that not more thantwelve men could have lived here. We
thought it strange that men had beenpermitted to build a house for only twelve.

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Never had we seen rooms so fullof light. The sun rays danced
upon the colors, colors in morecolors than we thought possible, we who
had seen no houses save the whiteones, the brown ones, and the
gray. There were great pieces ofglass on the walls, but it was
not glass, for when we lookedupon it, we saw our own bodies

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and all the things behind us,as on the face of a lake.
There were strange things which we hadnever seen, and the use of which
we do not know. And therewere globes of glass everywhere in each room,
the globes with the metal cob websinside, such as we had seen
in our tunnel. We found thesleeping hall, and we stood in awe

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upon its threshold, for it wasa small room and there were only two
beds in it. We found noother beds in the house, and then
we knew that only two had livedhere. And this passes understanding. What
kind of world did they have?The men of the unmentionable times? We

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found garments, and the golden onegasped at the sight of them, for
they were not white tunics nor whitetogas. They were of all color,
no two of them alike. Somecrumbled to dust as we touched them,
but others were of heavier cloths,and they felt soft and new in our
fingers. We found a room withwalls made of shelves, which held rows

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of manuscripts from the floor to theceiling. Never had we seen such a
number of them, nor of suchstrange shape. They were not soft and
rolled, they had hard shells ofcloth and leather. And the letters on
their pages were small, and soeven that we wondered at the men who

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had such handwriting. We glanced throughthe pages, and we saw that they
were written in our language. Butwe found many words which we could not
understand. Tomorrow we shall begin toread these scripts. When we had seen
all the rooms of the house.We looked at the Golden One, and
we knew the thought in our minds. We shall never leave this house,

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we said, nor let it betaken from us. This is our home
and the end of our journey.This is your house, Golden One,
and ours, and it belongs tono other men whatever. As far as
the earth may stretch, we shallnot share it with others. And we
share not our joy with them,nor our love, nor our hunger.

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So be it to the end ofour days, Your will be done,
they said. Then we went outto gather wood for the great hearth of
our home. We brought water fromthe stream which runs among the trees under
our windows. We killed a mountaingoat, and we brought its flesh to

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be cooked in a strange copper potwe found in a place of wonders,
which must have been the cooking roomof the house. We did this work
alone, for no words of ourscould take the Golden One away from the
big glass, which is not glass. They stood before it, and they
looked and looked upon their own body. When the sun sank beyond the mountains,

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the Golden One fell asleep on thefloor amidst jewels and bottles of crystal
and flowers of silk. We liftedthe golden one in our arms, and
we carried them to a bed,their head falling softly upon our shoulder.
Then we lit a candle, andwe brought paper from the room of the
manuscripts, and we sat by thewindow, for we knew that we could

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not sleep tonight. And now welook upon the earth and the sky.
The spread of naked rock and peaksin moonlight is like a world ready to
be borne. It seems to usit asks a sign from us, a
spark, a first commandment. Wecannot know what word we are to give,
nor what great deed this earth expectsto witness. We know it waits.

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It seems to say it has greatgifts to lay before us. We
are to speak, We are togive its goal, its highest meaning,
to all this glowing space of rockand sky. We look ahead. We
beg our heart for guidance in answeringthis call. No voice has spoken,
yet we have heard. We lookupon on our hands. We see the

(08:01):
dusts of centuries, the dusts whichhid great secrets and perhaps great evils.
And yet it stirs no fear withinour heart, but only silent reverence and
pity, May knowledge come to us? What is this secret our heart has

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understood, and yet will not revealto us, although it seems to beat
as if it were endeavoring to tellit. End Chapter ten,