The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton (free ereaders txt) 📗

my
utterance. A softer voice said, "My brother's friend must be
dear to me." And looking up I saw a young Gy, who might be
sixteen years old, standing beside the magistrate and gazing at
me with a very benignant countenance. She had not come to her
full growth, and was scarcely taller than myself (viz., about 5
feet 10 inches), and, thanks to that comparatively diminutive
stature, I thought her the loveliest Gy I had hitherto seen. I
suppose something in my eyes revealed that impression, for her
countenance grew yet more benignant.
"Taee tells me," she said, "that you have not yet learned to
accustom yourself to wings. That grieves me, for I should have
liked to fly with you."

"Alas!" I replied, "I can never hope to enjoy that happiness.
I am assured by Zee that the safe use of wings is a hereditary
gift, and it would take generations before one of my race could
poise himself in the air like a bird."

132"Let not that thought vex you too much," replied this amiable
Princess, "for, after all, there must come a day when Zee and
myself must resign our wings forever. Perhaps when that day
comes we might be glad if the An we chose was also without
wings."

The Tur had left us, and was lost amongst the crowd. I began
to feel at ease with Taee's charming sister, and rather
startled her by the boldness of my compliment in replying,
"that no An she could choose would ever use his wings to fly
away from her." It is so against custom for an An to say such
civil things to a Gy till she has declared her passion for him,
and been accepted as his betrothed, that the young maiden stood
quite dumbfounded for a few moments. Nevertheless she did not
seem displeased. At last recovering herself, she invited me to
accompany her into one of the less crowded rooms and listen to
the songs of the birds. I followed her steps as she glided
before me, and she led me into a chamber almost deserted. A
fountain of naphtha was playing in the centre of the room;
round it were ranged soft divans, and the walls of the room
were open on one side to an aviary in which the birds were
chanting their artful chorus. The Gy seated herself on one of
the divans, and I placed myself at her side. "Taee tells me,"
she said, "that Aph-Lin has made it the law* of his house that
you are not to be questioned as to the country you come from or
the reason why you visit us. Is it so?"

* Literally "has said, In this house be it requested." Words
synonymous with law, as implying forcible obligation, are
avoided by this singular people. Even had it been decreed by
the Tur that his College of Sages should dissect me, the decree
would have ran blandly thus,- "Be it requested that, for the
good of the community, the carnivorous Tish be requested to
submit himself to dissection."

"It is."

"May I, at least, without sinning against that law, ask at
least if the Gy-ei in your country are of the same pale colour
as yourself, and no taller?"

"I do not think, O beautiful Gy, that I infringe the law of
Aph-Lin, which is more binding on myself than any one, if I
133answer questions so innocent. The Gy-ei in my country are much
fairer of hue than I am, and their average height is at least a
head shorter than mine."

"They cannot then be so strong as the Ana amongst you? But I
suppose their superior vril force makes up for such extraordinary
disadvantage of size?"

"They do not profess the vril force as you know it. But still
they are very powerful in my country, and an An has small
chance of a happy life if he be not more or less governed by
his Gy."

"You speak feelingly," said Taee's sister, in a tone of voice
half sad, half petulant. "You are married, of course."

"No- certainly not."

"Nor betrothed?"

"Nor betrothed."

"Is it possible that no Gy has proposed to you?"

"In my country the Gy does not propose; the An speaks first."

"What a strange reversal of the laws of nature!" said the maiden,
"and what want of modesty in your sex! But have you never proposed,
never loved one Gy more than another?"

I felt embarrassed by these ingenious questionings, and said,
"Pardon me, but I think we are beginning to infringe upon
Aph-Lin's injunction. This much only will I answer, and then,
I implore you, ask no more. I did once feel the preference you
speak of; I did propose, and the Gy would willingly have
accepted me, but her parents refused their consent."

"Parents! Do you mean seriously to tell me that parents can
interfere with the choice of their daughters?"

"Indeed they can, and do very often."

"I should not like to live in that country, said the Gy simply;
"but I hope you will never go back to it."

I bowed my head in silence. The Gy gently raised my face with
her right hand, and looked into it tenderly. "Stay with us,"
she said; "stay with us, and be loved."
134
What I might have answered, what dangers of becoming a cinder I
might have encountered, I still trouble to think, when the
light of the naphtha fountain was obscured by the shadow of
wings; and Zee, flying though the open roof, alighted beside
us. She said not a word, but, taking my arm with her mighty
hand, she drew me away, as a mother draws a naughty child, and
led me through the apartments to one of the corridors, on
which, by the mechanism they generally prefer to stairs, we
ascended to my own room. This gained, Zee breathed on my
forehead, touched my breast with her staff, and I was instantly
plunged into a profound sleep.

When I awoke some hours later, and heard the songs of the birds
in the adjoining aviary, the remembrance of Taee's sister, her
gentle looks and caressing words, vividly returned to me; and
so impossible is it for one born and reared in our upper
world's state of society to divest himself of ideas dictated by
vanity and ambition, that I found myself instinctively building
proud castles in the air.

"Tish though I be," thus ran my meditations- "Tish though I be,
it is then clear that Zee is not the only Gy whom my appearance
can captivate. Evidently I am loved by A PRINCESS, the first
maiden of this land, the daughter of the absolute Monarch whose
autocracy they so idly seek to disguise by the republican title
of chief magistrate. But for the sudden swoop of that horrible
Zee, this Royal Lady would have formally proposed to me; and
though it may be very well for Aph-Lin, who is only a
subordinate minister, a mere Commissioner of Light, to threaten
me with destruction if I accept his daughter's hand, yet a
Sovereign, whose word is law, could compel the community to
abrogate any custom that forbids intermarriage with one of a
strange race, and which in itself is a contradiction to their
boasted equality of ranks.

"It is not to be supposed that his daughter, who spoke with
such incredulous scorn of the interference of parents, would
135not have sufficient influence with her Royal Father to save me
from the combustion to which Aph-Lin would condemn my form.
And if I were exalted by such an alliance, who knows but what
the Monarch might elect me as his successor? Why not? Few among
this indolent race of philosophers like the burden of such
greatness. All might be pleased to see the supreme power
lodged in the hands of an accomplished stranger who has
experience of other and livelier forms of existence; and once
chosen, what reforms I would institute! What additions to the
really pleasant but too monotonous life of this realm my
familiarity with the civilised nations above ground would
effect! I am fond of the sports of the field. Next to war, is
not the chase a king's pastime? In what varieties of strange
game does this nether world abound? How interesting to strike
down creatures that were known above ground before the Deluge!
But how? By that terrible vril, in which, from want of
hereditary transmission, I could never be a proficient? No, but
by a civilised handy breech-loader, which these ingenious
mechanicians could not only make, but no doubt improve; nay,
surely I saw one in the Museum. Indeed, as absolute king, I
should discountenance vril altogether, except in cases of war.
Apropos of war, it is perfectly absurd to stint a people so
intelligent, so rich, so well armed, to a petty limit of
territory sufficing for 10,000 or 12,000 families. Is not this
restriction a mere philosophical crotchet, at variance with the
aspiring element in human nature, such as has been partially,
and with complete failure, tried in the upper world by the late
Mr. Robert Owen? Of course one would not go to war with the
neighbouring nations as well armed as one's own subjects; but
then, what of those regions inhabited by races unacquainted
with vril, and apparently resembling, in their democratic
institutions, my American countrymen? One might invade them
without offence to the vril nations, our allies, appropriate
their territories, extending, perhaps, to the most distant
136regions of the nether earth, and thus rule over an empire in
which the sun never sets. (I forgot, in my enthusiasm, that
over those regions there was no sun to set). As for the
fantastical notion against conceding fame or renown to an
eminent individual, because, forsooth, bestowal of honours
insures contest in the pursuit of them, stimulates angry
passions, and mars the felicity of peace- it is opposed to the
very elements, not only of the human, but of the brute
creation, which are all, if tamable, participators in the
sentiment of praise and emulation. What renown would be given
to a king who thus extended his empire! I should be deemed a
demigod." Thinking of that, the other fanatical notion of
regulating this life by reference to one which, no doubt, we
Christians firmly believe in, but never take into
consideration, I resolved that enlightened philosophy compelled
me to abolish a heathen religion so superstitiously at variance
with modern thought and practical action. Musing over these
various projects, I felt how much I should have liked at that
moment to brighten my wits by a good glass of whiskey-and-water.
Not that I am habitually a spirit-drinker, but certainly there
are times when a little stimulant of alcoholic nature, taken
with a cigar, enlivens the imagination. Yes; certainly among
these herbs and fruits there would be a liquid from which one
could extract a pleasant vinous alcohol; and with a steak cut
off one of those elks (ah! what offence to science to reject
the animal food which our first medical men agree in
recommending to the gastric juices of mankind!) one would
certainly pass a more exhilirating hour of repast. Then, too,
instead of those antiquated dramas performed by childish
amateurs, certainly, when I am king, I will introduce our
modern opera and a 'corps de ballet,' for which one might find,
among the nations I shall conquer, young females of less
formidable height and thews than the Gy-ei- not armed with
vril, and not insisting upon one's marrying them.

I was so completely rapt in these and similar reforms,
137political, social, and moral, calculated to bestow on the
people of the nether world the blessings of a civilisation
known to the races of the upper,