ANTHEM

by Ayn Rand

Chapter 1

It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think
and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and
evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And
we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think
alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write
unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime,
and for this crime there is no name. What punishment awaits us if it be
discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men
and there are no laws to provide for it.

It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air.
Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are alone
here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say that
none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for this is the great
transgression and the root of all evil. But we have broken many laws.
And now there is nothing here save our one body, and it is strange to
see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the wall before us the
shadow of our one head.

The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without
sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle from the
larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be sentenced to ten
years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if it be discovered. But
this matters not. It matters only that the light is precious and we
should not waste it to write when we need it for that work which is our
crime. Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our precious
work. Still, we must also write, for--may the Council have mercy upon
us!--we wish to speak for once to no ears but our own.

Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet
which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are
twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for
there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and
the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said:

"There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown
beyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones nor
our body.

We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are
forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may not wish. We know
that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it.
This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist.

We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike.
Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there are words cut
in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves whenever we are tempted:


 "WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE.
 THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT _WE_,
 ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER."


We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not.

These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the grooves of
the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which come from more
years than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they are
written on the Palace of the World Council, and the World Council is the
body of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and
farther back than that no memory can reach.

But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we
are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention. It
is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Home
of the Useless. They whisper many strange things, of the towers which
rose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which
moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But
those times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the
Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is no
will save the will of all men together.

All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who
were born with a curse. For we are not like our brothers. And as we look
back upon our life, we see that it has ever been thus and that it has
brought us step by step to our last, supreme transgression, our crime of
crimes hidden here under the ground.

We remember the Home of the Infants where we lived till we were five
years old, together with all the children of the City who had been born
in the same year. The sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare
of all things save one hundred beds. We were just like all our brothers
then, save for the one transgression: we fought with our brothers. There
are few offenses blacker than to fight with our brothers, at any age and
for any cause whatsoever. The Council of the Home told us so, and of all
the children of that year, we were locked in the cellar most often.

When we were five years old, we were sent to the Home of the Students,
where there are ten wards, for our ten years of learning. Men must learn
till they reach their fifteenth year. Then they go to work. In the Home
of the Students we arose when the big bell rang in the tower and we went
to our beds when it rang again. Before we removed our garments, we stood
in the great sleeping hall, and we raised our right arms, and we said
all together with the three Teachers at the head:

"We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we
allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the
State. Amen."

Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all
things save one hundred beds.

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the
Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that
the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head
which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers,
but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they
frowned when they looked upon us.

So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we
always remembered. We tried not to understand what the Teachers taught,
but we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken. We looked
upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we
tried to say and do as they did, that we might be like them, like Union
5-3992, but somehow the Teachers knew that we were not. And we were
lashed more often than all the other children.

The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and
the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they are the voice of all
men. And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret
that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was
through our own guilt. We had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to
the words of our Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all:

"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you
leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the Council of
Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in
its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than
you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed
by your brother man, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with
your bodies."

We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse broke
our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were guilty of
the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some
lessons to the others. We did not listen well to the history of all the
Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of
Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which
make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers
forbade it.

We think that there are mysteries in the sky and under the water and in
the plants which grow. But the Council of Scholars has said that there
are no mysteries, and the Council of Scholars knows all things. And we
learned much from our Teachers. We learned that the earth is flat and
that the sun revolves around it, which causes the day and the night. We
learned the names of all the winds which blow over the seas and push the
sails of our great ships. We learned how to bleed men to cure them of
all ailments.

We loved the Science of Things. And in the darkness, in the secret hour,
when we awoke in the night and there were no brothers around us, but
only their shapes in the beds and their snores, we closed our eyes, and
we held our lips shut, and we stopped our breath, that no shudder might
let our brothers see or hear or guess, and we thought that we wished to
be sent to the Home of the Scholars when our time would come.

All the great modern inventions come from the Home of the Scholars, such
as the newest one, which was found only a hundred years ago, of how to
make candles from wax and string; also, how to make glass, which is put
in our windows to protect us from the rain. To find these things, the
Scholars must study the earth and learn from the rivers, from the
sands, from the winds and the rocks. And if we went to the Home of the
Scholars, we could learn from these also. We could ask questions of
these, for they do not forbid questions.

And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek
we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers
to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we
can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we
know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.

So we wished to be sent to the Home of the Scholars. We wished it so
much that our hands trembled under the blankets in the night, and we bit
our arm to stop that other pain which we could not endure. It was evil
and we dared not face our brothers in the morning. For men may wish
nothing for themselves. And we were punished when the Council of
Vocations came to give us our life Mandates which tell those who reach
their fifteenth year what their work is to be for the rest of their
days.

The Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and they sat
in the great hall. And we who were fifteen and all the Teachers came
into the great hall. And the Council of Vocations sat on a high dais,
and they had but two words to speak to each of the Students. They called
the Students' names, and when the Students stepped before them, one
after another, the Council said: "Carpenter" or "Doctor" or "Cook" or
"Leader." Then each Student raised their right arm and said: "The will
of our brothers be done."

Now if the Council has said "Carpenter" or "Cook," the Students so
assigned go to work and they do not study any further. But if the
Council has said "Leader," then those Students go into the Home of
the Leaders, which is the greatest house in the City, for it has three
stories. And there they study for many years, so that they may become
candidates and be elected to the City Council and the State Council and
the World Council--by a free and general vote of all men. But we wished
not to be a Leader, even though it is a great honor. We wished to be a
Scholar.

So we awaited our turn in the great hall and then we heard the Council
of Vocations call our name: "Equality 7-2521." We walked to the dais,
and our legs did not tremble, and we looked up at the Council. There
were five members of the Council, three of the male gender and two of
the female. Their hair was white and their faces were cracked as the
clay of a dry river bed. They were old. They seemed older than the
marble of the Temple of the World Council. They sat before us and they
did not move. And we saw no breath to stir the folds of their white
togas. But we knew that they were alive, for a finger of the hand of the
oldest rose, pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only
thing which moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said:
"Street Sweeper."

We felt the cords of our neck grow tight as our head rose higher to look
upon the faces of the Council, and we were happy. We knew we had been
guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it. We would accept our Life
Mandate, and we would work for our brothers, gladly and willingly, and
we would erase our sin against them, which they did not know, but we
knew. So we were happy, and proud of ourselves and of our victory over
ourselves. We raised our right arm and we spoke, and our voice was the
clearest, the steadiest voice in the hall that day, and we said:

"The will of our brothers be done."

And we looked straight into the eyes of the Council, but their eyes were
as cold blue glass buttons.

So we went into the Home of the Street Sweepers. It is a grey house on a
narrow street. There is a sundial in its courtyard, by which the Council
of the Home can tell the hours of the day and when to ring the bell.
When the bell rings, we all arise from our beds. The sky is green and
cold in our windows to the east. The shadow on the sundial marks off a
half-hour while we dress and eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where
there are five long tables with twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups
on each table. Then we go to work in the streets of the City, with our
brooms and our rakes. In five hours, when the sun is high, we return to
the Home and we eat our midday meal, for which one-half hour is allowed.
Then we go to work again. In five hours, the shadows are blue on the
pavements, and the sky is blue with a deep brightness which is not
bright. We come back to have our dinner, which lasts one hour. Then the
bell rings and we walk in a straight column to one of the City Halls,
for the Social Meeting. Other columns of men arrive from the Homes
of the different Trades. The candles are lit, and the Councils of the
different Homes stand in a pulpit, and they speak to us of our duties
and of our brother men. Then visiting Leaders mount the pulpit and they
read to us the speeches which were made in the City Council that day,
for the City Council represents all men and all men must know. Then we
sing hymns, the Hymn of Brotherhood, and the Hymn of Equality, and the
Hymn of the Collective Spirit. The sky is a soggy purple when we return
to the Home. Then the bell rings and we walk in a straight column to the
City Theatre for three hours of Social Recreation. There a play is shown
upon the stage, with two great choruses from the Home of the Actors,
which speak and answer all together, in two great voices. The plays
are about toil and how good it is. Then we walk back to the Home in a
straight column. The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops
that tremble, ready to burst through. The moths beat against the street
lanterns. We go to our beds and we sleep, till the bell rings again.
The sleeping halls are white and clean and bare of all things save one
hundred beds.

Thus have we lived each day of four years, until two springs ago when
our crime happened. Thus must all men live until they are forty. At
forty, they are worn out. At forty, they are sent to the Home of the
Useless, where the Old Ones live. The Old Ones do not work, for the
State takes care of them. They sit in the sun in summer and they sit by
the fire in winter. They do not speak often, for they are weary. The
Old Ones know that they are soon to die. When a miracle happens and some
live to be forty-five, they are the Ancient Ones, and the children stare
at them when passing by the Home of the Useless. Such is to be our life,
as that of all our brothers and of the brothers who came before us.

Such would have been our life, had we not committed our crime which
changed all things for us. And it was our curse which drove us to our
crime. We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all our brother Street
Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know. We looked too long at the
stars at night, and at the trees and the earth. And when we cleaned
the yard of the Home of the Scholars, we gathered the glass vials, the
pieces of metal, the dried bones which they had discarded. We wished to
keep these things and to study them, but we had no place to hide them.
So we carried them to the City Cesspool. And then we made the discovery.

It was on a day of the spring before last. We Street Sweepers work
in brigades of three, and we were with Union 5-3992, they of the
half-brain, and with International 4-8818. Now Union 5-3992 are a sickly
lad and sometimes they are stricken with convulsions, when their
mouth froths and their eyes turn white. But International 4-8818
are different. They are a tall, strong youth and their eyes are like
fireflies, for there is laughter in their eyes. We cannot look upon
International 4-8818 and not smile in answer. For this they were not
liked in the Home of the Students, as it is not proper to smile without
reason. And also they were not liked because they took pieces of coal
and they drew pictures upon the walls, and they were pictures which made
men laugh. But it is only our brothers in the Home of the Artists who
are permitted to draw pictures, so International 4-8818 were sent to the
Home of the Street Sweepers, like ourselves.

International 4-8818 and we are friends. This is an evil thing to say,
for it is a transgression, the great Transgression of Preference, to
love any among men better than the others, since we must love all men
and all men are our friends. So International 4-8818 and we have never
spoken of it. But we know. We know, when we look into each other's eyes.
And when we look thus without words, we both know other things also,
strange things for which there are no words, and these things frighten
us.

So on that day of the spring before last, Union 5-3992 were stricken
with convulsions on the edge of the City, near the City Theatre. We
left them to lie in the shade of the Theatre tent and we went with
International 4-8818 to finish our work. We came together to the great
ravine behind the Theatre. It is empty save for trees and weeds.
Beyond the ravine there is a plain, and beyond the plain there lies the
Uncharted Forest, about which men must not think.

We were gathering the papers and the rags which the wind had blown from
the Theatre, when we saw an iron bar among the weeds. It was old and
rusted by many rains. We pulled with all our strength, but we could not
move it. So we called International 4-8818, and together we scraped the
earth around the bar. Of a sudden the earth fell in before us, and we
saw an old iron grill over a black hole.

International 4-8818 stepped back. But we pulled at the grill and it
gave way. And then we saw iron rings as steps leading down a shaft into
a darkness without bottom.

"We shall go down," we said to International 4-8818.

"It is forbidden," they answered.

We said: "The Council does not know of this hole, so it cannot be
forbidden."

And they answered: "Since the Council does not know of this hole,
there can be no law permitting to enter it. And everything which is not
permitted by law is forbidden."

But we said: "We shall go, none the less."

They were frightened, but they stood by and watched us go.

We hung on the iron rings with our hands and our feet. We could see
nothing below us. And above us the hole open upon the sky grew smaller
and smaller, till it came to be the size of a button. But still we went
down. Then our foot touched the ground. We rubbed our eyes, for we could
not see. Then our eyes became used to the darkness, but we could not
believe what we saw.

No men known to us could have built this place, nor the men known to
our brothers who lived before us, and yet it was built by men. It was a
great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the touch; it felt like
stone, but it was not stone. On the ground there were long thin tracks
of iron, but it was not iron; it felt smooth and cold as glass. We
knelt, and we crawled forward, our hand groping along the iron line to
see where it would lead. But there was an unbroken night ahead. Only the
iron tracks glowed through it, straight and white, calling us to follow.
But we could not follow, for we were losing the puddle of light behind
us. So we turned and we crawled back, our hand on the iron line. And our
heart beat in our fingertips, without reason. And then we knew.

We knew suddenly that this place was left from the Unmentionable Times.
So it was true, and those Times had been, and all the wonders of those
Times. Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men knew secrets which we
have lost. And we thought: "This is a foul place. They are damned
who touch the things of the Unmentionable Times." But our hand which
followed the track, as we crawled, clung to the iron as if it would not
leave it, as if the skin of our hand were thirsty and begging of the
metal some secret fluid beating in its coldness.

We returned to the earth. International 4-8818 looked upon us and
stepped back.

"Equality 7-2521," they said, "your face is white."

But we could not speak and we stood looking upon them.

They backed away, as if they dared not touch us. Then they smiled, but
it was not a gay smile; it was lost and pleading. But still we could not
speak. Then they said:

"We shall report our find to the City Council and both of us will be
rewarded."

And then we spoke. Our voice was hard and there was no mercy in our
voice. We said:

"We shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not report
it to any men."

They raised their hands to their ears, for never had they heard such
words as these.

"International 4-8818," we asked, "will you report us to the Council and
see us lashed to death before your eyes?"

They stood straight all of a sudden and they answered: "Rather would we
die."

"Then," we said, "keep silent. This place is ours. This place belongs
to us, Equality 7-2521, and to no other men on earth. And if ever we
surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it also."

Then we saw that the eyes of International 4-8818 were full to the
lids with tears they dared not drop. They whispered, and their voice
trembled, so that their words lost all shape:

"The will of the Council is above all things, for it is the will of
our brothers, which is holy. But if you wish it so, we shall obey you.
Rather shall we be evil with you than good with all our brothers. May
the Council have mercy upon both our hearts!"

Then we walked away together and back to the Home of the Street
Sweepers. And we walked in silence.

Thus did it come to pass that each night, when the stars are high and
the Street Sweepers sit in the City Theatre, we, Equality 7-2521, steal
out and run through the darkness to our place. It is easy to leave the
Theatre; when the candles are blown out and the Actors come onto the
stage, no eyes can see us as we crawl under our seat and under the cloth
of the tent. Later, it is easy to steal through the shadows and fall in
line next to International 4-8818, as the column leaves the Theatre. It
is dark in the streets and there are no men about, for no men may walk
through the City when they have no mission to walk there. Each night, we
run to the ravine, and we remove the stones which we have piled upon the
iron grill to hide it from the men. Each night, for three hours, we are
under the earth, alone.

We have stolen candles from the Home of the Street Sweepers, we have
stolen flints and knives and paper, and we have brought them to this
place. We have stolen glass vials and powders and acids from the Home of
the Scholars. Now we sit in the tunnel for three hours each night and
we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix acids, and we cut open the
bodies of the animals which we find in the City Cesspool. We have built
an oven of the bricks we gathered in the streets. We burn the wood we
find in the ravine. The fire flickers in the oven and blue shadows dance
upon the walls, and there is no sound of men to disturb us.

We have stolen manuscripts. This is a great offense. Manuscripts are
precious, for our brothers in the Home of the Clerks spend one year to
copy one single script in their clear handwriting. Manuscripts are rare
and they are kept in the Home of the Scholars. So we sit under the earth
and we read the stolen scripts. Two years have passed since we found
this place. And in these two years we have learned more than we had
learned in the ten years of the Home of the Students.

We have learned things which are not in the scripts. We have solved
secrets of which the Scholars have no knowledge. We have come to see how
great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will not bring us to the end
of our quest. But we wish no end to our quest. We wish nothing, save to
be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each day our sight were
growing sharper than the hawk's and clearer than rock crystal.

Strange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our brothers.
We are defying the will of our Councils. We alone, of the thousands who
walk this earth, we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no
purpose save that we wish to do it. The evil of our crime is not for the
human mind to probe. The nature of our punishment, if it be discovered,
is not for the human heart to ponder. Never, not in the memory of the
Ancient Ones' Ancients, never have men done that which we are doing.

And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to ourselves that
we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no burden upon our spirit and
no fear in our heart. And it seems to us that our spirit is clear as
a lake troubled by no eyes save those of the sun. And in our
heart--strange are the ways of evil!--in our heart there is the first
peace we have known in twenty years.