H. Wells - The World Set Free

world religion, the first complete repudiation of tribalism and

war and disputation. That it fell presently into the ways of more

ancient rituals cannot alter that. The common sense of mankind

has toiled through two thousand years of chastening experienceto

find at last how sound a meaning attaches to the familiar phrases

of the Christian faith. The scientific thinkeras he widens out

to the moral problems of the collective life, comes inevitably

upon the words of Christ, and as inevitably does the Christian,

as his thought growsclearer, arrive at the world republic. As

for the claims of the sects, as for the use of a name and

successions, we live in a time that has shaken itself free from

such claims and consistencies.

Section 1

The second operation upon Marcus Karenin was performed at the new

station for surgical work at Paran, high in the Himalayas above

the Sutlej Gorge, where it comes down out of Thibet.

It is a place of such wildness and beauty as no other scenery in

the world affords. The granite terrace which runs round the four

sides of the low block of laboratories looks out in every

direction upon mountains. Far below in the hidden depths of a

shadowy blue cleft, the river pours down in its tumultuous

passage to the swarming plains of India. No sound of its roaring

haste comes up to those serenities. Beyond that blue gulf, in

which whole forests of giant deodars seem no more than small

patches of moss, rise vast precipices of many-coloured rock,

fretted above, lined by snowfalls, and jagged into pinnacles.

These are the northward wall of a towering wilderness of ice and

snow which clambers southward higher and wilder and vaster to the

culminating summits of our globe, to Dhaulagiri and Everest.

Here are cliffs of which no other land can show the like, and

deep chasms in which Mt. Blanc might be plunged and hidden. Here

are icefields as big as inland seas on which the tumbled boulders

lie so thickly that strange little flowers can bloom among them

under the untempered sunshine. To the northward, and blocking

out any vision of the uplands of Thibet, rises that citadel of

porcelain, that gothic pile, the Lio Porgyul, walls, towers, and

peaks, a clear twelve thousand feet of veined and splintered rock

above the river. And beyond it and eastward and westward rise

peaks behind peaks, against the dark blue Himalayan sky. Far

away below to the south the clouds of the Indian rains pile up

abruptly and are stayed by an invisible hand.

Hither it was that with a dreamlike swiftness Karenin flew high

over the irrigations of Rajputana and the towers and cupolas of

the ultimateDelhi; and the little group of buildings, albeit the

southward wall dropped nearly five hundred feet, seemed to him as

he soared down to it like a toy lost among these mountain

wildernesses. No road came up to this place; it was reached only

by flight.

His pilot descended to the great courtyard, and Karenin assisted

by his secretary clambered down through the wing fabric and made

his way to the officials who came out to receive him.

In this place, beyond infections and noise and any distractions,

surgery had made for itself a house of research and a healing

fastness. The building itself would have seemed very wonderful to

eyes accustomed to the flimsy architecture of an age when power

was precious. It was made of granite, already a little roughened

on the outside by frost, but polished within and of a tremendous

solidity. And in a honeycomb of subtly lit apartments, were the

spotless research benches, the operating tables, the instruments

of brass, and fine glass and platinum and gold. Men and women

came from all parts of the world for study or experimental

research. They wore a common uniform of white and ate at long

tables together, but the patients lived in an upper part of the

buildings, and were cared for by nurses and skilled

attendants…

The first man to greet Karenin was Ciana, the scientific director

of the institution. Beside him was Rachel Borken, the chief

organiser. 'You are tired?' she asked, and old Karenin shook his

head.

'Cramped,' he said. 'I have wanted to visit such a place as

this.'

He spoke as if he had no other business with them.

There was a little pause.

'How many scientific people have you got here now?' he asked.

'Just three hundred and ninety-two,' said Rachel Borken.

'And the patients and attendants and so on?'

'Two thousand and thirty.'

'I shall be a patient,' said Karenin. 'I shall have to be a

patient. But I should like to seethings first. Presently I will

be a patient.'

'You will come to my rooms?' suggested Ciana.

'And then I must talk to this doctor of yours,' said Karenin.

'But I would like to seea bit of this place and talk to some of

your people before it comes to that.'

He winced and moved forward.

'I have left most of my work in order,' he said.

'You have been working hard up to now?' asked Rachel Borken.

'Yes. And now I have nothing more to do-and it seems strange…

And it's a bother, this illness and having to come down to

oneself. This doorway and the row of windows is well done; the

gray granite and just the line of gold, and then those mountains

beyond through that arch. It's very well done…'

Section 2

Karenin lay on the bed with a soft white rug about him, and

Fowler, who was to be his surgeon sat on the edge of the bed and

talked to him. An assistant was seated quietlyin the shadow

behind the bed. The examination had been made, and Karenin knew

what was before him. He was tired but serene.

'So I shall die,' he said, 'unless you operate?'

Fowler assented. 'And then,' said Karenin, smiling, 'probably I

shall die.'

'Not certainly.'

'Even if I do not die; shall I be able to work?'

'There is just a chance…'

'So firstly I shall probably die, and if I do not, then perhaps I

shall be a useless invalid?'

'I thinkif you live, you may be able to go on-as you do now.'

'Well, then, I suppose I must take the risk of it. Yet couldn't

you, Fowler, couldn't you drug me and patch me instead of all

this-vivisection? A few days of drugged and active life-and

then the end?'

Fowler thought. 'We are not sure enough yet to do things like

that,' he said.

'But a day is coming when you will be certain.'

Fowler nodded.

'You make me feelas though I was the last of

deformity-Deformity is uncertainty-inaccuracy. My body works

doubtfully, it is not even sure that it will die or live. I

suppose the time is not far off when such bodies as mine will no

longer be born into the world.'

'You see,' said Fowler, after a little pause, 'it is necessary

that spiritssuch as yours should be born into the world.'

'I suppose,' said Karenin, 'that my spirithas had its use. But

if you thinkthat is because my body is as it is I thinkyou are

mistaken. There is no peculiar virtuein defect. I have always

chafed against-all this. If I could have moved more freely and

lived a larger life in health I could have done more. But some

day perhaps you will be able to put a body that is wrong

altogether right again. Your science is only beginning. It's a

subtler thing than physics and chemistry, and it takes longer to

produce its miracles. And meanwhile a few more of us must die in