The City (1938)

A Short Story from the August 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

He was very proud of his city. As one of its honoured citizens he had an “ open sesame " to most of its places of interest and he had invited me to spend a few days in examining its treasures. There it lay, bathed in sunshine, on a beautiful morning in early summer. Magnificent. Glorious. Wonderful was the view it presented on both banks of a famous river. Our first visit was to the Cathedral for, as he said, “ It was most fitting that we pay our respects to the House of God before we went further afield to the houses of man."

Presently we emerged from a long avenue of delightful trees which were already showing well in their new dress and, Oh! what a poem in stone confronted us with the sunshine lighting up its delicate traceries.

It would take a facile pen and a ready writer to describe its many charms and the marvel of its fashioning. Even its gargoyles were pleasant to look upon, whilst the entrance and its towers were extractors of cries of sheer delight. We entered, and as the light fell softly through the stained-glass windows on the eastern side one felt a delicious calm and restfulness in the joy of it.

Here was a masterpiece of Art which put to shame the crudities of Nature. A pile of splendour raised to an Idea. “ What say you of it?" cried he with rapture. “ Exquisite,” said I, “ but lead on."

From the House of God to the palace of the reigning monarch was but a few moments' journey, and my friend having secured permission to enter passed with me into the splendidly laid-out grounds, and later into various parts of the palace itself.

The whole ensemble of palace and its environs were gorgeous in the extreme. Acres upon acres of grassy and well-kept lawns.

Flowers rich in colour and delicate in perfume. Plants and vegetables fit to adorn a king’s table and apartments grew in profusion in their allotted beds. Thousands of rooms filled with works of art from the world over. The artistry and intelligence of thousands of human beings resulting in the production of articles to gladden the eye and staggering in their multiplicity and range. What stupendous efforts had been made to build and maintain this wonder palace. A king and queen lived there.

What an auspicious opening to a round of sight-seeing. There was just a promise that one might have a surfeit of good things from the city’s store before one had finished. The princely houses. The ducal mansions. The luxurious abodes of the financiers. The delightful villas of the merchants. The enormous and stately hotels. The towering stores and shopping centres, displaying costly dresses and brilliant gems, were there in enormous number. Of other institutions and buildings which claimed our attention there were many, all of which paid eloquent tribute to the people of the city in their desire to make it the greatest of its kind and a standing challenge to the world.

There were libraries, replete with books and manuscripts, which were a pleasure to its citizens and a source of deep learning to scholars from the rest of the world. Art galleries from which in serried rows spoke the masterpieces of the centuries. Museums which told on their shelves and in their cases the history of the earth and the gambols of the dinosaurs. Zoological gardens which were stocked with animals from every clime, showing their natural habits in conditions as near as possible to the country of their birth. Wooded parks and extensive open spaces in plenty, and sweet gardens were there without stint. Educational facilities were many and eagerly sought after.

Three whole days had been occupied in visiting these places of interest and charm, and what ecstacy one had felt in the doing of it. My friend beamed with pride as he saw my marked appreciation of it all. "What do you think of it ? Does it not exceed your wildest dreams?” he enquired elatedly. “ It does,” I replied, “ but have you shown me all of your city?” “Well! Yes! All that is really of importance,” he said rather hastily. “ Then suppose we spend a day or two in exploring the unimportant," I answered.

Accordingly, on the following morning we set out on a visit to No-matter-land, and this is what rolled before our eyes.

Slummy sites which made one feel sick at the mere passing. Mean streets, filthy hovels, awful abodes, smoke, stench, grime and grit. Miserable-looking brick boxes with a few small compartments, more or less weatherproof, which were called homes and which were fearfully overcrowded. Here and there buildings which aimed at a more respectable status, but which bore without and within them signs of a fierce struggle against poverty and penury. Cheap musical instruments and tawdry furniture. Rubbishy pictures and trashy books, common ornaments, tinsel and glass. Cheap cotton cloth, shoddy dresses. Silks which had never known a worm. Grubby food. Fly-blown meat. Dust and disease-germ-covered eatables of every description attracted your attention as they were exposed in the shops for sale.

Miles and miles of these streets in which underfed and ill-clad boys and girls, dirty arid muck-covered, disported themselves. Graceless women in evident despair, disgust or distress, their pale faces and attenuated forms showing dearly the long one-sided fight against illness, child-bearing and domestic economy.

Men whose heavy labours had sapped their last ounce of energy and intellectual appetite sought escape from the tedium of their lot in many diverse and unedifying ways.

Hospitals and charitable institutions working to limit endeavouring to give adequate amelioration and convenience to humans whose whole existence was united to the demon pain.

Prisons, workhouses, mental homes and semi-State-aided philanthropies all busy administering to the needs of a vast community living perpetually in economic distress. My friend was dumb as we passed through these places, and he was relieved when the journey was over.

I had not forgotten the fashioning of the House of God, nor the aesthetic splendours of the Palace, nor the hundred and one pleasing things which had been our first delight.

Turning to him, I said: “ Who are the people who spend their lives amid all this squalor and poverty?"

Lowering his head to hide his pain-stricken face he answered: “ These people, my friend, are they who have built the House for God, the Palace for the King, and filled The City with its treasures."

B. F. L.