Read Online The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess - Free Book Online
Authors: Anthony Burgess
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ashine with a bursting bomb which proved, on closer inspection, to be a breaking egg. Unarmed, less given to summary violence than the greyboys, smart, polite, they were mostly a credit to their commissioner. Tristram, joining the I-had-not-thought-death-had-undone-so-many workward crowd, uttered the word ‘brother’ aloud to the night-running Channel and its silver sky. The term had taken on purely pejorative connotations for him, which was not fair on poor inoffensive George, eldest of the three, hard at work on an agricultural station near Springfield, Ohio. George had recently sent one of his rare letters, dully factual about experiments with new fertilizers, puzzled about a strange wheat-blight seeping east through Iowa, lllinois and Indiana. Good solid old George.
Tristram entered the good solid old skyscraper which was the South London (Channel) Unitary School (Boys) Division Four. The Delta Shift was streaming out, and one of Joscelyne’s three deputies, an open-mouthed grey-coxcombed man named Cory, stood in the great vestibule, watching. The Alpha Shift darted and needled into lifts, up stairs, down corridors. Tristram’s first lesson was on the second floor – Elementary Historical Geography for the twentieth stream of the First Form. The artificial voice counted: ‘– Eighteen-seventeen –’ Was it only his imagination, or was that creation of the National Syntheglot Corporation sterner, more iron-like, than it used to be?’ ‘– Three–two–one.’ He was late. He shot up in a staff-lift and panted into the classroom. One had to be careful these days.
Fifty-odd boys of various colour-mixtures greeted himin a single polite ‘Good morning’. Morning, eh? Night sat firmly on outside; the moon, great and frightening female symbol, sat over the night. Tristram said:
‘Homework. Homework on your desks, please.’ The tinkle of metal fasteners as the boys undid their satchels, then the flap of exercise-books, the rustle as they turned to the page where they had drawn their map of the world. Tristram strolled round, hands clasped behind, cursorily examining. The great crowded globe on Mercator’s Projection, the two great empires – Enspun (English-Speaking Union) and Ruspun (Russian-Speaking Union) – crudely copied by lolling tonguetip-protruding boys. The Annexe Islands for population overflow, still building on the major oceans. A peaceful world that had forgotten the arts of self-destruction, peaceful and worried. ‘Careless,’ said Tristram, his forefinger on Cottam’s drawing. ‘You’ve put Australia too far south. You’ve forgotten to put in Ireland.’ ‘Sir,’ said Cottam. And here was a boy-Hynard-who had not done his homework, a scared-looking boy, dark moons under his eyes. ‘What,’ asked Tristram, ‘is the meaning of this?’
‘I wasn’t able to, sir,’ said Hynard, his lower lip shaking. ‘They moved me to the Hostel, sir. I hadn’t time, sir.’
‘Oh. The Hostel.’ This was something new, an institution for orphans, temporary and permanent. ‘What happened?’
‘They took them away, sir, my dad and mum. They said they’d done wrong.’
‘What had they done?’
The boy hung his head. An awareness of crime, nottaboo, kept him red and silent. Tristram said, kindly:
‘Your mother has just had a baby, is that it?’
‘Going to,’ mumbled the boy. ‘They took them away. They had to pack everything up. And then they took me to the Hostel.’
A great anger suffused Tristram. It was (and he realized this with shame) really a factitious anger, a pedantic anger. He saw himself in the Principal’s office, ranting: ‘The State regards the education of these children as important, which presumably means that they regard homework as important, and here the State comes sticking in its ugly hypocritical snout and stops one of my pupils from doing his homework. For Dogsake let’s know where we stand.’ The weak fretfulness of a man invoking principle. He knew, of
Tristram entered the good solid old skyscraper which was the South London (Channel) Unitary School (Boys) Division Four. The Delta Shift was streaming out, and one of Joscelyne’s three deputies, an open-mouthed grey-coxcombed man named Cory, stood in the great vestibule, watching. The Alpha Shift darted and needled into lifts, up stairs, down corridors. Tristram’s first lesson was on the second floor – Elementary Historical Geography for the twentieth stream of the First Form. The artificial voice counted: ‘– Eighteen-seventeen –’ Was it only his imagination, or was that creation of the National Syntheglot Corporation sterner, more iron-like, than it used to be?’ ‘– Three–two–one.’ He was late. He shot up in a staff-lift and panted into the classroom. One had to be careful these days.
Fifty-odd boys of various colour-mixtures greeted himin a single polite ‘Good morning’. Morning, eh? Night sat firmly on outside; the moon, great and frightening female symbol, sat over the night. Tristram said:
‘Homework. Homework on your desks, please.’ The tinkle of metal fasteners as the boys undid their satchels, then the flap of exercise-books, the rustle as they turned to the page where they had drawn their map of the world. Tristram strolled round, hands clasped behind, cursorily examining. The great crowded globe on Mercator’s Projection, the two great empires – Enspun (English-Speaking Union) and Ruspun (Russian-Speaking Union) – crudely copied by lolling tonguetip-protruding boys. The Annexe Islands for population overflow, still building on the major oceans. A peaceful world that had forgotten the arts of self-destruction, peaceful and worried. ‘Careless,’ said Tristram, his forefinger on Cottam’s drawing. ‘You’ve put Australia too far south. You’ve forgotten to put in Ireland.’ ‘Sir,’ said Cottam. And here was a boy-Hynard-who had not done his homework, a scared-looking boy, dark moons under his eyes. ‘What,’ asked Tristram, ‘is the meaning of this?’
‘I wasn’t able to, sir,’ said Hynard, his lower lip shaking. ‘They moved me to the Hostel, sir. I hadn’t time, sir.’
‘Oh. The Hostel.’ This was something new, an institution for orphans, temporary and permanent. ‘What happened?’
‘They took them away, sir, my dad and mum. They said they’d done wrong.’
‘What had they done?’
The boy hung his head. An awareness of crime, nottaboo, kept him red and silent. Tristram said, kindly:
‘Your mother has just had a baby, is that it?’
‘Going to,’ mumbled the boy. ‘They took them away. They had to pack everything up. And then they took me to the Hostel.’
A great anger suffused Tristram. It was (and he realized this with shame) really a factitious anger, a pedantic anger. He saw himself in the Principal’s office, ranting: ‘The State regards the education of these children as important, which presumably means that they regard homework as important, and here the State comes sticking in its ugly hypocritical snout and stops one of my pupils from doing his homework. For Dogsake let’s know where we stand.’ The weak fretfulness of a man invoking principle. He knew, of
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