Author: Ayn Rand
Publisher:
Published: 2018-02-18
Total Pages: 37
ISBN-13: 9781980331131
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This is an annotated version of the book1. contains an updated biography of the author at the end of the book for a better understanding of the text.2. This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errorsIt is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others thinkand to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base andevil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. Andwe know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or thinkalone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not writeunless 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 bediscovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of menand 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 alonehere under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say thatnone among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for this is the greattransgression 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 tosee only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the wall before us theshadow of our one head.The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads withoutsound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle from thelarder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be sentenced to tenyears in the Palace of Corrective Detention if it be discovered. Butthis matters not. It matters only that the light is precious and weshould not waste it to write when we need it for that work which is ourcrime. Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our preciouswork. Still, we must also write, for--may the Council have mercy uponus!--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 braceletwhich all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We aretwenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, forthere are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers andthe Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said:"There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grownbeyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones norour body.We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which areforbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may not wish. We knowthat 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 cutin 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 ofthe letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which come from moreyears than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they arewritten on the Palace of the World Council, and the World Council is thebody of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, andfarther back than that no memory can reach.But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else weare sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention. Itis only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Homeof the Useless. They whisper many strange things, of the towers whichrose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, an
