Equality Page 10

  CHAPTER X.

  A MIDNIGHT PLUNGE.

  It was after dark when we reached home, and several hours later before wehad made an end of telling our adventures. Indeed, my hosts seemed at alltimes unable to hear too much of my impressions of modern things,appearing to be as much interested in what I thought of them as I was inthe things themselves.

  "It is really, you see," Edith's mother had said, "the manifestation ofvanity on our part. You are a sort of looking-glass to us, in which wecan see how we appear from a different point of view from our own. If itwere not for you, we should never have realized what remarkable people weare, for to one another, I assure you, we seem very ordinary."

  To which I replied that in talking with them I got the same looking-glasseffect as to myself and my contemporaries, but that it was one which byno means ministered to my vanity.

  When, as we talked, the globe of the color clock turning white announcedthat it was midnight, some one spoke of bed, but the doctor had anotherscheme.

  "I propose," said he, "by way of preparing a good night's rest for usall, that we go over to the natatorium and take a plunge."

  "Are there any public baths open so late as this?" I said. "In my dayeverything was shut up long before now."

  Then and there the doctor gave me the information which, matter of courseas it is to twentieth-century readers, was surprising enough to me, thatno public service or convenience is ever suspended at the present day,whether by day or night, the year round; and that, although the serviceprovided varies in extent, according to the demand, it never varies inquality.

  "It seems to us," said the doctor, "that among the minor inconveniencesof life in your day none could have been more vexing than the recurrentinterruption of all, or of the larger part of all, public services everynight. Most of the people, of course, are asleep then, but always aportion of them have occasion to be awake and about, and all of ussometimes, and we should consider it a very lame public service that didnot provide for the night workers as good a service as for the dayworkers. Of course, you could not do it, lacking any unitary industrialorganization, but it is very easy with us. We have day and night shiftsfor all the public services--the latter, of course, much the smaller."

  "How about public holidays; have you abandoned them?"

  "Pretty generally. The occasional public holidays in your time wereprized by the people, as giving them much-needed breathing spaces.Nowadays, when the working day is so short and the working year sointerspersed with ample vacations, the old-fashioned holiday has ceasedto serve any purpose, and would be regarded as a nuisance. We prefer tochoose and use our leisure time as we please."

  It was to the Leander Natatorium that we had directed our steps. As Ineed not remind Bostonians, this is one of the older baths, andconsidered quite inferior to the modern structures. To me, however, itwas a vastly impressive spectacle. The lofty interior glowing with light,the immense swimming tank, the four great fountains filling the air withdiamond-dazzle and the noise of falling water, together with the throngof gayly dressed and laughing bathers, made an exhilarating andmagnificent scene, which was a very effective introduction to theathletic side of the modern life. The loveliest thing of all was thegreat expanse of water made translucent by the light reflected from thewhite tiled bottom, so that the swimmers, their whole bodies visible,seemed as if floating on a pale emerald cloud, with an effect of buoyancyand weightlessness that was as startling as charming. Edith was quick totell me, however, that this was as nothing to the beauty of some of thenew and larger baths, where, by varying the colors of the tiling at thebottom, the water is made to shade through all the tints of the rainbowwhile preserving the same translucent appearance.

  I had formed an impression that the water would be fresh, but the greenhue, of course, showed it to be from the sea.

  "We have a poor opinion of fresh water for swimming when we can getsalt," said the doctor. "This water came in on the last tide from theAtlantic."

  "But how do you get it up to this level?"

  "We make it carry itself up," laughed the doctor; "it would be a pity ifthe tidal force that raises the whole harbor fully seven feet, could notraise what little we want a bit higher. Don't look at it sosuspiciously," he added. "I know that Boston Harbor water was far frombeing clean enough for bathing in your day, but all that is changed. Yoursewerage systems, remember, are forgotten abominations, and nothing thatcan defile is allowed to reach sea or river nowadays. For that reason wecan and do use sea water, not only for all the public baths, but provideit as a distinct service for our home baths and also for all the publicfountains, which, thus inexhaustibly supplied, can be kept alwaysplaying. But let us go in."

  "Certainly, if you say so," said I, with a shiver, "but are you sure thatit is not a trifle cool? Ocean water was thought by us to be chilly forbathing in late September."

  "Did you think we were going to give you your death?" said the doctor."Of course, the water is warmed to a comfortable temperature; these bathsare open all winter."

  "But, dear me! how can you possibly warm such great bodies of water,which are so constantly renewed, especially in winter?"

  "Oh, we have no conscience at all about what we make the tides do forus," replied the doctor. "We not only make them lift the water up here,but heat it, too. Why, Julian, cold or hot are terms without realmeaning, mere coquettish airs which Nature puts on, indicating that shewants to be wooed a little. She would just as soon warm you as freezeyou, if you will approach her rightly. The blizzards which used to freezeyour generation might just as well have taken the place of your coalmines. You look incredulous, but let me tell you now, as a first steptoward the understanding of modern conditions, that power, with all itsapplications of light, heat, and energy, is to-day practicallyexhaustless and costless, and scarcely enters as an element intomechanical calculation. The uses of the tides, winds, and waterfalls areindeed but crude methods of drawing on Nature's resources of strengthcompared with others that are employed by which boundless power isdeveloped from natural inequalities of temperature."

  A few moments later I was enjoying the most delicious sea bath that everup to that time had fallen to my lot; the pleasure of the pelting underthe fountains was to me a new sensation in life.

  "You'll make a first-rate twentieth-century Bostonian," said the doctor,laughing at my delight. "It is said that a marked feature of our moderncivilization is that we are tending to revert to the amphibious type ofour remote ancestry; evidently you will not object to drifting with thetide."

  It was one o'clock when we reached home.

  "I suppose," said Edith, as I bade her good-night, "that in ten minutesyou will be back among your friends of the nineteenth century if youdream as you did last night. What would I not give to take the journeywith you and see for myself what the world was like!"

  "And I would give as much to be spared a repetition of the experience," Isaid, "unless it were in your company."

  "Do you mean that you really are afraid you will dream of the old timesagain?"

  "So much afraid," I replied, "that I have a good mind to sit up all nightto avoid the possibility of another such nightmare."

  "Dear me! you need not do that," she said. "If you wish me to, I will seethat you are troubled no more in that way."

  "Are you, then, a magician?"

  "If I tell you not to dream of any particular matter, you will not," shesaid.

  "You are easily the mistress of my waking thoughts," I said; "but can yourule my sleeping mind as well?"

  "You shall see," she said, and, fixing her eyes upon mine, she saidquietly, "Remember, you are not to dream of anything to-night whichbelonged to your old life!" and, as she spoke, I knew in my mind that itwould be as she said.