Looking Backward: 2000-1887 Page 14

  CHAPTER XI.

  When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned, and Mrs. Leetewas not visible. "Are you fond of music, Mr. West?" Edith asked.

  I assured her that it was half of life, according to my notion.

  "I ought to apologize for inquiring," she said. "It is not a questionthat we ask one another nowadays; but I have read that in your day,even among the cultured class, there were some who did not care formusic."

  "You must remember, in excuse," I said, "that we had some ratherabsurd kinds of music."

  "Yes," she said, "I know that; I am afraid I should not have fanciedit all myself. Would you like to hear some of ours now, Mr. West?"

  "Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you," I said.

  "To me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you think I was going to playor sing to you?"

  "I hoped so, certainly," I replied.

  Seeing that I was a little abashed, she subdued her merriment andexplained. "Of course, we all sing nowadays as a matter of course inthe training of the voice, and some learn to play instruments fortheir private amusement; but the professional music is so much granderand more perfect than any performance of ours, and so easily commandedwhen we wish to hear it, that we don't think of calling our singing orplaying music at all. All the really fine singers and players are inthe musical service, and the rest of us hold our peace for the mainpart. But would you really like to hear some music?"

  I assured her once more that I would.

  "Come, then, into the music room," she said, and I followed her intoan apartment finished, without hangings, in wood, with a floor ofpolished wood. I was prepared for new devices in musical instruments,but I saw nothing in the room which by any stretch of imaginationcould be conceived as such. It was evident that my puzzled appearancewas affording intense amusement to Edith.

  "Please look at to-day's music," she said, handing me a card, "andtell me what you would prefer. It is now five o'clock, you willremember."

  The card bore the date "September 12, 2000," and contained the longestprogramme of music I had ever seen. It was as various as it was long,including a most extraordinary range of vocal and instrumental solos,duets, quartettes, and various orchestral combinations. I remainedbewildered by the prodigious list until Edith's pink finger-tipindicated a particular section of it, where several selections werebracketed, with the words "5 P.M." against them; then I observedthat this prodigious programme was an all-day one, divided intotwenty-four sections answering to the hours. There were but a fewpieces of music in the "5 P.M." section, and I indicated an organpiece as my preference.

  "I am so glad you like the organ," said she. "I think there isscarcely any music that suits my mood oftener."

  She made me sit down comfortably, and, crossing the room, so far as Icould see, merely touched one or two screws, and at once the room wasfilled with the music of a grand organ anthem; filled, not flooded,for, by some means, the volume of melody had been perfectly graduatedto the size of the apartment. I listened, scarcely breathing, to theclose. Such music, so perfectly rendered, I had never expected tohear.

  "Grand!" I cried, as the last great wave of sound broke and ebbed awayinto silence. "Bach must be at the keys of that organ; but where isthe organ?"

  "Wait a moment, please," said Edith; "I want to have you listen tothis waltz before you ask any questions. I think it is perfectlycharming;" and as she spoke the sound of violins filled the room withthe witchery of a summer night. When this had also ceased, she said:"There is nothing in the least mysterious about the music, as you seemto imagine. It is not made by fairies or genii, but by good, honest,and exceedingly clever human hands. We have simply carried the idea oflabor saving by cooperation into our musical service as intoeverything else. There are a number of music rooms in the city,perfectly adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music. Thesehalls are connected by telephone with all the houses of the city whosepeople care to pay the small fee, and there are none, you may be sure,who do not. The corps of musicians attached to each hall is so largethat, although no individual performer, or group of performers, hasmore than a brief part, each day's programme lasts through thetwenty-four hours. There are on that card for to-day, as you will seeif you observe closely, distinct programmes of four of these concerts,each of a different order of music from the others, being nowsimultaneously performed, and any one of the four pieces now going onthat you prefer, you can hear by merely pressing the button which willconnect your house-wire with the hall where it is being rendered. Theprogrammes are so coordinated that the pieces at any one timesimultaneously proceeding in the different halls usually offer achoice, not only between instrumental and vocal, and between differentsorts of instruments; but also between different motives from grave togay, so that all tastes and moods can be suited."

  "It appears to me, Miss Leete," I said, "that if we could have devisedan arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes,perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, andbeginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit ofhuman felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for furtherimprovements."

  "I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who depended atall on music managed to endure the old-fashioned system for providingit," replied Edith. "Music really worth hearing must have been, Isuppose, wholly out of the reach of the masses, and attainable by themost favored only occasionally, at great trouble, prodigious expense,and then for brief periods, arbitrarily fixed by somebody else, and inconnection with all sorts of undesirable circumstances. Your concerts,for instance, and operas! How perfectly exasperating it must havebeen, for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to haveto sit for hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at adinner one can skip the courses one does not care for. Who would everdine, however hungry, if required to eat everything brought on thetable? and I am sure one's hearing is quite as sensitive as one'staste. I suppose it was these difficulties in the way of commandingreally good music which made you endure so much playing and singing inyour homes by people who had only the rudiments of the art."

  "Yes," I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of us."

  "Ah, well," Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not sostrange that people in those days so often did not care for music. Idare say I should have detested it, too."

  "Did I understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musicalprogramme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on thiscard, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between saymidnight and morning?"

  "Oh, many," Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if themusic were provided from midnight to morning for no others, it stillwould be for the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. All ourbedchambers have a telephone attachment at the head of the bed bywhich any person who may be sleepless can command music at pleasure,of the sort suited to the mood."

  "Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?"

  "Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not to thinkto tell you of that last night! Father will show you about theadjustment before you go to bed to-night, however; and with thereceiver at your ear, I am quite sure you will be able to snap yourfingers at all sorts of uncanny feelings if they trouble you again."

  That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, and inthe course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenthcentury and the twentieth, which followed, something raised thequestion of inheritance. "I suppose," I said, "the inheritance ofproperty is not now allowed."

  "On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference withit. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to know us, thatthere is far less interference of any sort with personal libertynowadays than you were accustomed to. We require, indeed, by law thatevery man shall serve the nation for a fixed period, instead ofleaving him his choice, as you did, between working, stealing, orstarving. With the exception of this fundamental law, which is,indeed, mere
ly a codification of the law of nature--the edict ofEden--by which it is made equal in its pressure on men, our systemdepends in no particular upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary,the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rationalconditions. This question of inheritance illustrates just that point.The fact that the nation is the sole capitalist and land-owner ofcourse restricts the individual's possessions to his annual credit,and what personal and household belongings he may have procured withit. His credit, like an annuity in your day, ceases on his death, withthe allowance of a fixed sum for funeral expenses. His otherpossessions he leaves as he pleases."

  "What is to prevent, in course of time, such accumulations of valuablegoods and chattels in the hands of individuals as might seriouslyinterfere with equality in the circumstances of citizens?" I asked.

  "That matter arranges itself very simply," was the reply. "Under thepresent organization of society, accumulations of personal propertyare merely burdensome the moment they exceed what adds to the realcomfort. In your day, if a man had a house crammed full with gold andsilver plate, rare china, expensive furniture, and such things, he wasconsidered rich, for these things represented money, and could at anytime be turned into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies of a hundredrelatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar position,would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being salable,would be of no value to him except for their actual use or theenjoyment of their beauty. On the other hand, his income remaining thesame, he would have to deplete his credit to hire houses to store thegoods in, and still further to pay for the service of those who tookcare of them. You may be very sure that such a man would lose no timein scattering among his friends possessions which only made him thepoorer, and that none of those friends would accept more of them thanthey could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then,that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view toprevent great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for thenation. The individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is notoverburdened. So careful is he in this respect, that the relativesusually waive claim to most of the effects of deceased friends,reserving only particular objects. The nation takes charge of theresigned chattels, and turns such as are of value into the commonstock once more."

  "You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses," said I;"that suggests a question I have several times been on the point ofasking. How have you disposed of the problem of domestic service? Whoare willing to be domestic servants in a community where all aresocial equals? Our ladies found it hard enough to find such even whenthere was little pretense of social equality."

  "It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equalitynothing can compromise, and because service is honorable, in a societywhose fundamental principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest,that we could easily provide a corps of domestic servants such as younever dreamed of, if we needed them," replied Dr. Leete. "But we donot need them."

  "Who does your housework, then?" I asked.

  "There is none to do," said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had addressed thisquestion. "Our washing is all done at public laundries at excessivelycheap rates, and our cooking at public kitchens The making andrepairing of all we wear are done outside in public shops.Electricity, of course, takes the place of all fires and lighting. Wechoose houses no larger than we need, and furnish them so as toinvolve the minimum of trouble to keep them in order. We have no usefor domestic servants."

  "The fact," said Dr. Leete, "that you had in the poorer classes aboundless supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts ofpainful and disagreeable tasks, made you indifferent to devices toavoid the necessity for them. But now that we all have to do in turnwhatever work is done for society, every individual in the nation hasthe same interest, and a personal one, in devices for lightening theburden. This fact has given a prodigious impulse to labor-savinginventions in all sorts of industry, of which the combination of themaximum of comfort and minimum of trouble in household arrangementswas one of the earliest results.

  "In case of special emergencies in the household," pursued Dr. Leete,"such as extensive cleaning or renovation, or sickness in the family,we can always secure assistance from the industrial force."

  "But how do you recompense these assistants, since you have no money?"

  "We do not pay them, of course, but the nation for them. Theirservices can be obtained by application at the proper bureau, andtheir value is pricked off the credit card of the applicant."

  "What a paradise for womankind the world must be now!" I exclaimed."In my day, even wealth and unlimited servants did not enfranchisetheir possessors from household cares, while the women of the merelywell-to-do and poorer classes lived and died martyrs to them."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Leete, "I have read something of that; enough toconvince me that, badly off as the men, too, were in your day, theywere more fortunate than their mothers and wives."

  "The broad shoulders of the nation," said Dr. Leete, "bear now like afeather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day.Their misery came, with all your other miseries, from that incapacityfor cooperation which followed from the individualism on which yoursocial system was founded, from your inability to perceive that youcould make ten times more profit out of your fellow men by unitingwith them than by contending with them. The wonder is, not that youdid not live more comfortably, but that you were able to live togetherat all, who were all confessedly bent on making one another yourservants, and securing possession of one another's goods."

  "There, there, father, if you are so vehement, Mr. West will think youare scolding him," laughingly interposed Edith.

  "When you want a doctor," I asked, "do you simply apply to the properbureau and take any one that may be sent?"

  "That rule would not work well in the case of physicians," replied Dr.Leete. "The good a physician can do a patient depends largely on hisacquaintance with his constitutional tendencies and condition. Thepatient must be able, therefore, to call in a particular doctor, andhe does so just as patients did in your day. The only difference isthat, instead of collecting his fee for himself, the doctor collectsit for the nation by pricking off the amount, according to a regularscale for medical attendance, from the patient's credit card."

  "I can imagine," I said, "that if the fee is always the same, and adoctor may not turn away patients, as I suppose he may not, the gooddoctors are called constantly and the poor doctors left in idleness."

  "In the first place, if you will overlook the apparent conceit of theremark from a retired physician," replied Dr. Leete, with a smile, "wehave no poor doctors. Anybody who pleases to get a little smatteringof medical terms is not now at liberty to practice on the bodies ofcitizens, as in your day. None but students who have passed the severetests of the schools, and clearly proved their vocation, are permittedto practice. Then, too, you will observe that there is nowadays noattempt of doctors to build up their practice at the expense of otherdoctors. There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctorhas to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, andif he is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him."