Theodore Savage · Chapter 18 (2/2)

At first the strange attitude puzzled him⁠—he could make nothing of the odd, suspicious glances whereby questioning was met, the attempt to parry it, the cautious, noncommittal replies; it was only by degrees that he grasped their significance and understood how complete was that renunciation of the past which these people had imposed upon themselves. Forgetfulness⁠—so Theodore learned in time⁠—was more than a precaution; it had been preached in the newborn world as a religion, accepted as an article of faith. The prophet who had expressed the common need and instinct in terms of religion had in due time made his appearance; a wild-eyed, eloquent scarecrow of a man, aflame with belief in his sacred mission and with loathing for the sins of the world. Coming from no one knew where, he carried his gospel through a land left desolate, proclaiming his creed of salvation through ignorance and crying woe on the yet unrepentant sinners who should seek to preserve the deadly knowledge that had brought God’s judgment on the world!

The seed of his doctrine fell on fruitful soil⁠—on brutalized minds in starved bodies; the shaggy, half-naked enthusiast was hailed as a lawgiver, saint and saviour, and the harvest of souls was abundant. On every side the faith was embraced with fervour; the bitter experience of the convert confirming the prophet’s inspiration. Tribe after tribe reconciled itself to a God who had turned in wrath from His creatures, offended by their upstart pretensions and encroachments on the power of Deity. Tribe after tribe made confession of its sin, grovelling at the feet of a jealous Omnipotence and renouncing the works of the devil and the deadly pride of the intellect; and in tribe after tribe there were hideous little massacres⁠—blood-offerings, sweet and acceptable sacrifice, that should purify mankind from its guilt. Those who were known to have pried into the hidden secrets of Omnipotence were cut off in their wickedness, lest they should corrupt others⁠—were dragged to the feet of the prophet and slaughtered, lest they should defile humanity anew through the pride of the intellect and the power of their devil-sent knowledge. Men known to be learned or suspected of learning; men possessed of no more than mechanical training and skill.⁠ ⁠… There was a story of one whom certain in the tribe would have spared⁠—a doctor of medicine who had comforted many in the past. But the prophet cried out that this uttermost sacrifice, too, was demanded of them till, frenzied with piety, they turned on their healer and beat out the brains that had served them.⁠ ⁠… And over the bodies had followed an orgy of repentance, of groaning and revivalistic prayer; the priest blessing the sacrifice with uplifted arms and calling down the vengeance of God Most High upon those who should be false to the vow they had sworn in the blood of sinners. He chanted the vow, they repeating it after him; taking oath to renounce the evil thing, to stamp it out wherever met with, in man, in woman, in child.

The prophet (so Theodore learned) had continued his wanderings, preaching the gospel as he went⁠—through village after village and settlement after settlement, till he passed beyond the confines of report. He had bidden his followers expect his return; but whether he came again or not, his doctrine was firmly established. He had left behind him the germs of a priesthood, a tradition and a Law for his converts⁠—a Law which included the penalty of death for those who should fail to keep the vow.⁠ ⁠…

Lest it should fade from their minds, there were days set apart for renewal of the vow, for public, ceremonial repetition of the creed and doctrine of ignorance; and, with the Ruin an ever-present memory to the remnant of humanity, the tendency was to interpret the Law with all strictness⁠—there were devotees and fanatics who watched with a mingling of animal fear and religious hate for signs of relapse and backsliding. Denunciation was of all things dreaded; and outspoken regret for a world that had passed had more than once been pretext for denunciation. To dwell in speech on the doings of that world might be interpreted⁠—had been interpreted⁠—as a hankering after the Thing Forbidden, a desire to revive the Accursed.⁠ ⁠… Hence the parrying of questions, the barrier of protective silence which the newcomer broke through with difficulty.

It took more than a day for Theodore to understand his new world and its meaning, to grasp its social system and civil and religious polity; but at the end of one day he knew roughly the conditions in which he was destined to live out the rest of his life.

Not that, in the beginning, he admitted that so he must live; it was long⁠—many years⁠—before he resigned himself to the knowledge that his limits, till death released him, were the narrow limits of his tribe. For years he held secretly⁠—but none the less fast⁠—to the hope of a civilization that must one day reveal itself, advance and overwhelm his barbarians. For years he strained his eyes for the coming of its pioneers, its saviours; it was long⁠—very long⁠—before he gave up his hopes and faced the certainty that, if the world he had known continued to exist, it existed too feebly and too far away to stretch out to himself and his surroundings.

There were times when the longing for it flared and burned in him, and he sought desperately for traces of the world he had known⁠—running hither and thither in search of it. Under pretext of a hunting expedition he would absent himself from the tribe, and trespass⁠—often at the imminent risk of death⁠—on the territory of alien communities; returning, after days, no nearer to his goal and no wiser for his stealthy prowlings. The life of alien communities, the prospect revealed from strange hills, was, to all intents and purposes, the life and outlook of his tribe.⁠ ⁠… He would question the occasional stranger from a distant village, in the hope of at least a word, a rumour⁠—a rumour that might give guidance for further and more hopeful search. But those who came from distant villages spoke only of villages more distant; of other hunting-grounds, of other tribal feuds, of other long stretches of ruin.⁠ ⁠… The world, so far as it came within his ken, was cut to one pattern, the pattern of a cowed and brutalized man, who bent his face to the stubborn ground and forgot the cunning of his fathers.