Part 1 - The Machine Stops - E.M. Forster

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The machine stops by E. M. Forster, Chapter one, The Airship.
Imagine if you can, a smallroom, hexagonal in shape, like
the cell of a bee. Itis lighted neither by window nor by lamp,
yet it is filled with a softradiance. There are no apertures for

(00:21):
ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments. And
yet at the moment that my meditationopens, this room is throbbing with melodious
sounds. An arm chair is inthe center. By its side a reading
desk. That is all the furniture. And in the arm chair there sits
a swaddled lump of flesh, awoman about five feet high, with a

(00:45):
face as white as a fungus.It is to her that the little room
belongs. An electric bell rang.The woman touched a switch, and the
music was silent. I suppose Imust see who it is, she thought,
and set her chair in motion.The chair, like the music,
was worked by machinery, and itrolled her to the other side of the

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room, where the bell still rang. Importunately, who is it? She
called? Her voice was irritable,for she had been interrupted often since the
music began. She knew several thousandpeople in certain directions. Human intercourse had
advanced enormously. But when she listenedinto the receiver, her white face wrinkled

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into smiles, and she said,very well, let us talk. I
will isolate myself. I do notexpect anything important will happen for the next
five minutes. For I can giveyou fully five minutes, Cuno. Then
I must deliver my lecture on musicduring the Australian period. She touched the

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isolation knob so that no one elsecould speak to her. Then she touched
the lighting apparatus, and the littleroom was plunged into darkness. Be quick,
she called her irritation in returning bequick, Cuno. Here I am
in the dark, wasting my time. But it was fully fifteen seconds before
the round plate that she held inher hands began to glow. A faint

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blue light shot across it, darkeningto purple, and presently she could see
the image of her son, wholived on the other side of the earth,
and he could see her. Kuno, how slow you are, he
smiled gravely. I really believe youenjoy dawdling. I have called you before,
mother, but you are always busyor isolated. I have something particular

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to say, what is it?Dearest boy? Be quick? Why could
you not send it by pneumatic post? Because I prefer saying such a thing.
I want well, I want youto come and see me. Vashti
watched his face in the blue plate. But I can see you, she

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exclaimed, What more do you want? I want to see you, not
through the machine, said Cuno.I want to speak to you, not
through the wearisome machine. Oh hush, said his mother, vaguely shocked.
You mustn't say anything against the machine? Why not? One? Mustn't you

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talk as if God had made themachine? Cried the other. I believe
that you pray to it when youare unhappy. Men made it. Do
not forget that. Great men,But men, the machine is much,
but it is not everything. Isee something like you in this plate,
but I do not see you.I hear something like you through this telephone,

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but I do not hear you.That is why I want you to
come. Pay me a visit,so that we can meet face to face
and talk about the hopes that arein my mind. She replied that she
could scarcely spare the time for avisit. The airship barely takes two days
to fly between me and you.I dislike airships. Why I dislike seeing

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the horrible brown earth and the seaand the stars when it is dark.
I get no ideas in an airship. I do not get them anywhere else.
What kind of ideas can the airgive you? He paused for an
instant. Do you not know fourbig stars that form an oblong, and
three stars close together in the middleof the oblong, and hanging from these

(04:23):
stars three other stars? No?I do not. I dislike the stars,
But did they give you an idea? How interesting? Tell me I
had an idea that they were likea man. I do not understand.
The four big stars are the man'sshoulders and his knees. The three stars

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in the middle are like the beltsthat men wore once, and the three
stars hanging are like a sword.A sword. Men carried swords about with
them to kill animals and other men. It does not strike me as a
very good idea, but it iscertainly original. When did it come to
you first? In the airship?He broke off, and she fancied that

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he looked sad. She could notbe sure, for the machine did not
transmit nuances of expression. It onlygave a general idea of people, an
idea that was good enough for allpractical purposes. Vashti thought the imponderable bloom
declared by a discredited philosophy to theactual essence of intercourse was rightly ignored by
the machine, just as the imponderablebloom of the grape was ignored by the

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manufacturers of artificial fruit. Something goodenough had long since been accepted by our
race. The truth is, hecontinued, that I want to see these
stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from
the airship, but from the surfaceof the earth, as our ancestors did

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thousands of years ago. I wantto visit the surface of the earth.
She was shocked again. Mother,you must come, if only to explain
to me what is the harm ofvisiting the surface of the earth. No
harm, she replied, controlling herself. But no advantage. The surface of
the earth is only dust and mud. No advantage. The surface of the

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earth is only dust and mud.No life remains on it, and you
would need a respirator, or thecold of the outer air would kill you.
One dies immediately in the outer air. I know, of course,
I shall take all precautions, andbesides well, she considered and chose her
words with care. Her son hada queer temper, and she wished to

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dissuade him from the expedition. Itis contrary to the spirit of the age,
she asserted, Do you mean bythat, contrary to the machine in
a sense? But his image inthe blue plate faded. Who No,
he had isolated himself for a moment, vashed. He felt lonely. Then

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she generated the light, and thesight of her room, flooded with radiance
and studded with electric buttons, revivedher. There were buttons and switches everywhere,
buttons to call for food, formusic, for clothing. There was
the hot bath button, by pressureof which a basin of imitation marble rose
out of the floor, filled tothe brim with a warm, deodorized liquid.

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There was the cold bath button.There was the button that produced literature.
And there were of course the buttonsby which she communicated with her friends.
The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that
she cared for in the world.Bastie's next move was to turn off the
isolation switch, and all the accumulationsof the last three minutes burst upon her.

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The room was filled with the noiseof bells and speaking tubes. What
was the new food like? Couldshe recommend it? Has she had any
ideas lately? Might one tell herone's own ideas? Would she make an
engagement to visit the public nurseries atan early date, say this day and
month. To most of these questions, she replied with irritation, a growing

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quality in that accelerated age. Shesaid that the new food was horrible,
that she could not visit the publicnurseries through pressive engagements, That she had
no ideas of her own, buthad just been told one that four stars
and three in the middle were likea man. She doubted there was much
in it. Then she switched offher correspondence, for it was time to

(08:26):
deliver her lecture on Australian music.The clumsy system of public gatherings had been
long since abandoned. Neither vastly norher audience stirred from their rooms. Seated
in her arm chair, she spokewhile they and their arm chairs heard her
fairly well and saw her fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of
music in the pre Mongolian epoch,and went on to describe the great outburst

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of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote and primeval, as were the
methods of a Saint so and theBrisbane school. She yet felt, She
said that study of them might repaythe musicians of to day. They had
freshness, They had above all ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes,
was well received, and at itsconclusion she and many of her audience

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listened to a lecture on the sea. There were ideas to be got from
the sea. The speaker had donneda respirator and visited it lately. Then
she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again,
and summoned her bed. The bedwas not to her liking. It was
too large, and she had afeeling for a small bed. Complaint was

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useless, for beds were of thesame dimension all over the world, and
to have had an alternative size wouldhave involved vast alterations in the machine.
Bashti isolated herself it was necessary forneither day nor night existed under the ground,
and reviewed all that had happened sinceshe had summoned the bed. Last
ideas scarcely any events, was Cuno'sinvitation and event by her side on the

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a little reading desk was a survivalfrom the ages of litter. One book,
this was the Book of the Machine. In it were instructions against every
possible contingency. If she was hotor cold, or dyspeptic, or at
a loss for a word, shewent to the book, and it told
her which button to press. TheCentral Committee published it in accordance with the

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growing habit. It was richly bound. Sitting up in the bed, she
took it reverently in her hands.She glanced around the glowing room, as
if some one might be watching her. Then, half ashamed, half joyful,
she murmured, oh machine, Ohmachine, and raised the volume to
her lips. Thrice. She kissedit thrice, inclined her head thrice.

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She felt the delirium of acquiescence,her ritual performed. She turned to page
thirteen sixty seven, which gave thetimes of the departure of the airships from
the island and the Southern Hemisphere,under whose soil she lived, to the
island in the Northern Hemisphere, whereor lived her son. She thought,
I have not the time. Shemade the room dark and slept. She

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awoke and made the room light.She ate and exchanged ideas with her friends,
and listened to music and attended lectures. She made the room dark and
slept above her, beneath her,and around her. The machine hummed eternally.
She did not notice the noise,for she had been born with it
in her ears. The earth carryingher hummed as it sped through silence,

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turning her now to the invisible sun, now to the invisible stars. She
awoke and made the room light.Kuno, I will not talk to you,
he answered, until you come.Have you been on the surface of
the earth since we spoke last?His image faded again. She consulted the
book. She became very nervous andlay back in her chair, palpitating.

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Think of her as without teeth orhair. Presently, she directed the chair
to the wall and pressed in unfamiliarbutton. The walls swung apart slowly.
Through the opening, she saw atunnel that curved slightly so that its goal
was not visible. Should she goto see her son? Here was the
beginning of the journey. Of course, she knew all about the communication system.

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There was nothing mysterious in it.She would summon a car and it
would fly with her down the tunneluntil it reached the lift that communicated with
the airships station. The system hadbeen in use for many, many years,
long before the universal establishment of themachine, And of course she had
studied the civilization that had immediately precededher own, the civilization that had mistaken

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the functions of the system and hadused it for bringing people to things instead
of for bringing things to people,those funny old days when men went for
change of air instead of changing theair in their rooms. And yet she
was frightened of the tunnel. Shehad not seen it since her last child
was born. It curved, butnot quite as she remembered. It was

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brilliant, but not quite as brilliantas a lecturer had suggested. Bashi was
seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room,
and the wall closed up again.Kuno, she said, I cannot come
to see you. I am notwell. Immediately, an enormous apparatus fell
on to her out of the ceiling. A thermometer was automatically laid upon her

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heart. She lay powerless. Coolpads soothed her forehead. Kuno had telegraphed
to her doctor. So the humanpassions still blundered up and down on the
machine. Bashti drank the medicine thatthe doctor projected into her mouth, and
the machinery retired into the ceiling.The voice of Kuno was heard asking how

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she felt better than with irritation.But why do you not come to me
instead? Because I cannot leave thisplace? Why because any moment something tremendous
may have been Have you been onthe surface of the earth yet not yet?
Then what is it? I willnot tell you Through the machine.

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She resumed her life, But shethought of Cuno as a baby, his
birth, his removal to the publicnurseries, her own visit to him,
there, his visits to her,visits, which stopped when the machine had
assigned him a room on the otherside of the earth. Parents come at
duties of said the book of theMachine, cease at the moment of birth,

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paragraph four two two three, twoseven four eight three. True,
but there was something special about Cuno. Indeed there had been something special about
all her children. And after all, she must brave the journey if he
desired it, and something tremendous mighthappen. What did that mean? The
nonsense of a youthful man, nodoubt, But she must go again.

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She pressed the unfamiliar button again.The wall swung back, and she saw
the tunnel that curves out of sight. Clasping the book, she rose,
tottered on to the platform and summonedthe car. Her room closed behind her.
The journey to the northern Hemisphere hadbegun. Of course, it was
perfectly easy. The car approached,and in it she found arm chairs exactly

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like her own. When she signaled, it stopped and she tottered into the
lift. One other passenger was inthe lift, the first fellow creature she
had seen face to face for months. Few traveled in these days, for
thanks to the advance of science,the Earth was exactly alike all over,
rapid intercourse from which the previous civilizationhad hoped so much, had ended by

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defeating itself. What was the goodof going to pe King when it was
just like Shrewsbury? Why returned toShrewsbury when it would all be like Peking?
Men seldom moved their bodies. Allunrest was concentrated in the soul.
The airship service was a relic fromthe former age. It was kept up
because it was easier to keep itup, to stop it, or to

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diminish it, but it now farexceeded the wants of the population. Vessel
after vessel would rise from the vomitoriesof Rye or of Christchurch Eius, the
antique names would sail into the crowdedsky and would draw up at the wharves
of the south empty. So nicelyadjusted was the system, so independent of
meteorology, that the sky, whethercalm or cloudy, resembled a vast kaleidoscope,

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where on the same patterns periodically recurred. The ship on which Fasti sailed
started now at sunset, now atdawn, but always as it passed above
rayas it would neighbor the ship thatserved between Helsingfors and the Brazils, And
every third time it surmounted the Alps, the fleet of Palermo would cross its
track behind night and day, windand storm tied, an earthquake impeded man

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no longer he had harnessed Leviathan.All the old literature, with its praise
of nature and its fear of nature, rang false as the prattle of a
chield. Yet as Vasty saw thevast flank of the ship stained with exposure
to the outer air, her horrorof direct experience returned. It was not

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quite like the airship in the cinemato foat. For one thing, it
smelt, not strongly or unpleasantly,but it did smell, and with her
eyes shut she should have known thata new thing was close to her.
Then she had to walk to itfrom the lift, had to submit to
glances from the other passengers. Theman in front dropped his book, no
great matter, but it disquieted themall and the rooms. If the book

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was dropped, the floor raised itmechanically, but the gangway to the airship
was not so prepared, and thesacred volume lay motionless. They stopped.
The thing was unforeseen, and theman, instead of picking up his property,
felt the muscles of his arm tosee how they had failed him.
Then someone actually said, with directutterance, we shall be late, and

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they trooped on board. Vashty treadingon the page as she did so.
Inside, her anxiety increased. Thearrangements were old fashioned and rough. There
was even a female attendant to whomshe would have to announce her wants during
the voyage. Of course, arevolving platform ran the length of the boat,
but she was expected to walk fromit to her cabin. Some cabins

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were better than others, and shedid not get the best. She thought
the attendant had been unfair, andspasms of rage shook her. The glass
valves had closed, she could notgo back. She saw at the end
of the vestibule the lift in whichshe had ascended, going quietly up and
down empty. Beneath those corridors ofshining tiles were rooms, tier below tier,

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reaching far into the earth. Andin each room there sat a human
being, eating or sleeping, orproducing ideas. And very deep in the
hive was her own room. Fashtiwas afraid old machine. She murmured and
caressed her book, and was comforted. Then the sides of the vestibule seemed

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to melt together, as to thepassages that we see in dreams. The
lift vanished, The book that hadbeen dropped slid to the left and vanished.
Polished tiles rushed by like a streamof water. There was a slight
jar, and the airship, issuingfrom its tunnel, soared above the waters
of a tropical ocean. It wasnight. For a moment she saw the

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coast of Sumatra, edged by thephosphorescence of waves, and crowned by lighthouses
still sending forth their disregarded beams.These also vanished, and only the stars
distracted her. They were not motionless, but swayed to and fro above her
head, thronging out of one skylightinto another, as if the universe and
not the airship, was careening.And as often happens on clear nights,

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they seemed now to be in perspective, now on a plain, now piled
tier beyond tier into the infinite heavensnow concealing infinity, a roof limiting forever
the visions of men. In eithercase, they seemed intolerable. Are we
to travel in the dark? Calledthe passengers angrily, and the attendant,
who had been careless, generated thelight and pulled down the blinds of pliable

(20:11):
metal. When the airships had beenbuilt, the desire to look direct at
things still lingered in the world,hence the extraordinary number of skylights and windows,
and the proportionate discomfort to those whowere civilized and refined. Even in
Vashti's cabin, one star peeped througha flaw in the blind, and after
a few hours uneasy slumber, shewas disturbed by an unfamiliar glow which was

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the dawn. Quick as the shiphad sped westwards, the Earth had rolled
eastwards quicker still, and had draggedback Vashti and her companions towards the Sun.
Science could prolong the night, butonly for a little, and those
high hopes of neutralizing the Earth's diurnalrevolution had passed, together with hopes that

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were possibly higher. To keep pacewith the Sun, or even to outstrip
it, had been the aim ofthe civilization preceding this. Racing aeroplanes had
been built for the purpose, capableof enormous speed, and steered by the
greatest intellects of the epoch, roundthe globe they went round and round,
westward, westward, round and round. Amidst humanity's applause in vain, the

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globe went eastward, quicker still.Horrible accidents occurred, and the Committee of
the Machine, at the time,rising into prominence, declared the pursuit illegal,
unmechanical, and punishable by homelessness.Of homelessness more will be said later.
Doubtless the committee was right. Yetthe attempt to defeat the Sun aroused

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the last common interest that our raceexperienced about the heavenly bodies, or indeed
about anything. It was the lasttime that men were compacted by thinking of
a power outside the world. TheSun had conquered, yet it was the
end of his spiritual dominion. Dawnmid day twilight, the zodiacal path touched
neither men's lives nor their hearts,and Science retreated into the ground to concentrate

(22:07):
herself upon problems that she was certainof solving. So when vashed, he
found her cabin invaded by a rosyfinger of light. She was annoyed and
tried to adjust the blind, butthe blind flew up altogether, and she
saw through the skylight small pink cloudsswaying against the background of blue. And
as the sun crept higher, itsradiance entered direct, brimming down the wall

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like a golden sea. It roseand fell with the airship's motion, just
as waves rise and fall. Butit advanced steadily as a tide advances.
Unless she was careful, it wouldstrike her face. A spasm of horror
shook her, and she rang forthe attendant. The attendant, too was
horrified, but she could do nothing. It was not her place to mend

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the blind. She could only suggestthat the lady should change her cabin,
which she accordingly prepared to do.People were almost zactly alike all over the
world. But the attendant of theairship, perhaps owing to her exceptional duties,
had grown a little out of thecommon. She had often to address
passengers with direct speech, and thishad given her a certain roughness and originality

(23:14):
of manner. When Vashty swerved awayfrom the sunbeams with the cry, she
behaved barbarically. She put out herhand to steady her. How dare you,
exclaimed the passenger. You forget yourself. The woman was confused and apologized
for not having let her fall.People never touched one another. The custom
had become obsolete owing to the machine. Where are we now, asked Vashti

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haughtily. We are over Asia,said the attendant, anxious to be polite.
Asia. You must excuse my commonway of speaking. I have got
into the habit of calling places overwhich I passed by their unmechanical names.
Oh, I remember Asia. TheMongols come from it. Beneath us,
in the open air stood a citythat was once called Simla. Have you

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ever heard of the Mongols? Andof the Brisbane School? No Brisbane also
stood in the open air. Thosemountains to the right let me show you
them. She pushed back a metalblind. The main chain of the himalays
was revealed. They were once calledthe roof of the world. Those mountains.
You must remember that before the dawnof civilization, they seemed to be

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an impenetrable wall that touched the stars. It was supposed that no one but
the gods could exist above their summits. How we have advanced thanks to the
machine. How we have advanced thanksto the machine, said Vashti. How
we have advanced thanks to the machine, echoed the passenger, who had dropped
his book the night before, andwho was standing in the passage. And

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that white stuff in the cracks,what is it? I have forgotten its
name? Cover the windows, please, the mountains give me no ideas.
The northern aspect of the Himalayas wasin deep shadow on the Indian slope.
The sun had just prevailed. Theforests had been destroyed during the literature epoch

(25:08):
for the purpose of making newspaper pulp. But the snows were awakening to their
morning glory, and clouds still hungon the breasts of Kinchinjunga. In the
plain were seen the ruins of citieswith diminished rivers, creeping by their walls
and by the sides of these weresometimes the signs of vomitories marking the cities
of today. Over the whole prospectairships rushed crossing the intercrossing with incredible applom

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and rising nonchalantly when they desired toescape the perturbations of the lower atmosphere and
to traverse the roof of the world. We have indeed advanced thanks to the
machine, repeated the attendant, andhid to Himalayas behind a metal blind.
The day dragged wearily forward. Thepassengers sat each in his cabin, avoiding
one another with an almost physical repulsion, and longing to be once more under

(25:57):
the surface of the earth. Therewere eight or ten of them, mostly
young males, sent out from thepublic nurseries to inhabit the rooms of those
who had died in various parts ofthe earth. The man who had dropped
his book was on the homeward journey. He had been sent to Sumatra for
the purpose of propagating the race.Vashti alone was traveling by her own private

(26:18):
will. At mid day she tooka second glance of the earth. The
airship was crossing another range of mountains, but she could see little. Owing
to clouds, masses of black rockhovered below her and merged indistinctly into gray.
Their shapes were fantastic. One ofthem resembled a prostrate man. No
ideas here, murmured Vashti, andhid the Caucasus behind a metal blind.

(26:44):
In the evening, she looked again. They were crossing a golden sea in
which lay many small islands and onepeninsula. She repeated, no ideas here,
and hid grease behind a metal blind. End of chapter one